C is for Cairo

It's hard to say, exactly, when my six month stint in Cairo really began. Was it on the London-Cairo flight where half of the airplane wore higabs and the flight attendants repeated all of the announcements in Arabic--but where I could also sneak in one last bloody mary for the road? Did it begin this morning when the call to prayer woke us up at 4am with the soothing cacophany of voices?

For all intents and purposes, let's say it began at the airport in Cairo, at the precise moment when my roommate K. and I found ourselves jammed into a room full of Saudis and Egyptians, all jostling and calling to each other, as K. and I tried to find our way to the line of bank tellers and currency exchanges who would sell us a temporary tourist visa before passport control. That feels like an appropriate moment to mark as the first milestone.

In my infinite foresight, I had not actually thought to bring American dollars with me (or any currency, for that matter). There will be ATMs if I need it, right? 

So my first act within Egypt was to bum the $15 off of my roommate to pay for a slip of paper that lets me stay in the country for 30 days, until I can get a more permanent visa. We waited in line behind 3 Saudi women dressed from head to toe in white. The line wasn't moving. Trying to channel my father's intuitive genius for effeciency, I suggest to K. that we switch over to the next line. At that exact moment, when we had clearly forsaken all claims to our spot in line #1, that line spurted forward. We watched as all our former line buddies show their Saudi passports and merrily make their way to the baggage claim. Lesson one in trying to do anything efficiently in Egypt--the Egyptians have all learned by now to adopt a certain fatalism. "In shah Allah," they say. "God willing, we will do such-and-such." That's the attitude you need to have to stay flexible here, in a city of 17 million squeezed into an infrastructure built for 3. 

Happily, we found all of our bags quickly, and maneuvered through throngs of Egyptian families waiting to meet newly-arrived loved ones. And by "throngs," I mean that they have to use Egyptian policemen to act as crowd control. 

Right as we made it outside, we saw a chubby man in a striped polo shirt holding a sign reading "Desert Safari Hostel." This was our man. He looks relieved to have finally spotted his customer out of the streaming sea of people surging by. He grabs some of our bags and starts walking us to his car.

And by car, I mean one of the jankiest taxis I have ever seen in my years of traveling the developing world. The rear tires are much bigger than the front ones, making the rear end of the car look like an old-fashioned bustle under women's dresses,  popped up in a sassy sort of way. K. and I couldn't manage to open the side doors, since the latches were broken, but our driver (to whom I'll introduce you in a moment) was able to get us in. No seatbelts, of course, in a country with the highest traffic accident fatality rate in the world. The luggage was piled in a sagging tower next to me, and ended up sliding over into my lap during the ride. 

Our driver's name was Farek. He seemed tense at first, so K. and I stayed timidly quiet. Finally he opened his mouth (using proficient English), and began venting about the pushy crowds by the airport. "For one person!" he cries. "For one person, a whole family needs to come! 5, 10, 11 people to the airport, just to pick up one! Then they push me, I worry I will not see customer..."

We commiserate. Venting seemed to relax him, though, and after a few minutes, he began to banter with us.

"You are very good at English!" Farek tells us.

"um... well, we are Americans," I say.

"No, no, listen what I am saying. Say 'water'." (with Farek's accent, it comes out like "whatairr")

"water."

"See! Perfect American accent!" Farek seems genuinely enthusiastic and encouraging.

"Thanks?"

"You are expert at American English."

"I was more worried about my Arabic then my English, actually..."

We never could figure that one out. 

My roommate K. then asked him about his name.

"Doesn't Farek mean 'chicken'? She asks.

"haha, no, no, 'farekh' means chicken."

"Ah, ok," says K.

"But this is good thing! If my name were Farekh, you might try to eat me! You look hungry!"

He then goes on to compare the benefits of American tourists to British (speak too properly), French (can't understand them), and then spouts off the bits of Swedish, Japanese, and Spanish that he's picked up from his customers. We like Farek. He's a jovial guy. And hey, it's 2:30 in the morning, and he's giving us a ride from the airport.

He then asks us if we need an apartment, since my roommate is planning to stay for at least 9 months, and I'm committed to 6 at this point. We do need an apartment. He takes a detour, pulls into an alleyway near the downtown square. He gets out of the car and climbs up into a window frame to knock on it--trying to avoid waking up the security guard who sits by the main entrance. Finally an 80 year old woman in her nightgown opens the door. She doesn't look particularly happy to find Farek in her window at 2:30 in the morning.

He comes back to the car. "She has guests right now, she will show you the apartment later." He shrugs, stops to buy fruit, and then takes us to our hostel.

The hostel is really a large flat on the 7th story of an apartment building with a small "Desert Safari" sign outside. We manage to fit our luggage and my roommate in the elevator--which is one of those scary ones that is completely open on one side and you need to close the gate behind you. For those of you who remember from my last stint in Egypt, this is the kind of elevator that made me cry out of fear one more than one occasion, ruining my tough cred forever. And almost killing Mandy when I put her in a death grip hug the first time I thought I would meet my maker by plunging to my death in a shoddy elevator shaft.

But I digress.

Cooly getting into the elevator like I wasn't afraid to death of them, we make it to the 7th floor. There we meet our second friend, another one of the hostel staff. He makes us tea and teases us for a half hour before we go into our room. We have three single beds and a bizarre bathroom set up...a cold shower, toilet, and sink all in a space the size of a port-a-potty. It works, though. AND...there's air conditioning. No complaints! It took us a few minutes of settling in before we realized there's also a small balcony (people air dry their clothes here, so it's pretty much a requirement to have some space outside where you can hang things) that has a nice view of the central bureaucracy building. You can almost see the building where I'll be working from here.

No news on my job with the A. yet. I tried to call my  boss today on my swanky Egyptian cellphone, but wasn't actually able to reach him. I'll try again first thing in the morning. 

So there are the highlights for now! Cairo feels surprisingly (but happily) normal. Both my roommate and I have remarked on how nonchalant we've been in Egypt...not batting an eyelash at crossing traffic like a game of Frogger, at the policemen who stop to do prostrations when they hear the call the prayer, at the barrage of "Excuse me! Welcome to Egypt! Hello! How are you?", at walking across the Nile as the sun begins to set. Mmm, I take that back. Walking over the Nile still amazes me every time.

The downside with Egypt feeling normal is that it's clear that it could be possible to get bored here. My roommate and I were just contemplating what we were going to do tonight. Since we spent most of the afternoon walking around, we think we'll probably get Kosheri (national dish...a delicious pile of carbs topped with marinara sauce and fried onions) and watch a movie. Ordinary. Then again, once we start our jobs and begin making Egyptian friends, everything will change again.

In any case, I just took a shower to clean up after our afternoon walk (it's not so much the sweat as the dust that coats your face and feet. yum!), and am now sitting in our air conditioned room with a can of Fairuz (pineapple flavored non-alcoholic malt beverage), a bottle of water, and the balcony open to hear the bustle of downtown below. The evening sun is beginning to turn all the buildings golden. I feel clean and content. It's good to be here.

We're in the hostel for one week, until my other roommate arrives. Then we'll go to a host family 40 minutes south of downtown. THEN we'll have some stories to tell!