Monday, April 18, 2005
Cairo-Landing-July 2002
First off I want to apologize for not posting sooner. To be perfectly blunt, the culture shock is keener than I expected and I felt I needed some perspective before I sent out a missive damning the whole country. Today was a good day. Today I have some perspective.
Many, probably most of you, asked me over and over was I scared to come here. I’m sure I answered a most assuredly ‘no.’ And I wasn’t scared at the time. My brother was perhaps the only witness to my first real fright. He took me to the airport in Atlanta where we had to jump through some hoops in order to make sure my bags were properly packed and tagged, etc., that Harley had her proper pet paperwork and such. After this ordeal was over, Brian walked me to the gate and suddenly it hit. I was scared. Not of Egypt. Not of anti-Americanism. Not of the water. Not of getting robbed. Just scared. Not knowing what I was getting myself into. Not knowing what I’d find on the other end of the next 16 hours.
Upon landing, getting my bags, and going through customs, I finally pushed my enormous luggage through the gates in search of my husband. I barely recognized him. His face looked almost gaunt. He was about 15 pounds or more thinner than he was a month prior. He negotiated with a cabbie, put my luggage on the roof and we were off. The long cab ride through city toward Maadi, some 45 minutes south of the airport, was grisly. Taxis are not air-conditioned of course and the method of driving in Cairo is thus: Rules be damned. Lanes don’t exist, you just drive on any part of the street and honk your horn about every two minutes. I saw my first donkey-pulled carriage on this ride. These are very common in Cairo. It is not at all an unlikely scene to watch a young, rich Egyptian chat on his hands-free cell phone while a galabeya-robed farmer passes by leading his donkeys or goats.
The heat hits you first Ð particularly after living two years the cold, foggy clime of SF. It rushes through your nose, your ears, your eyes, heating you from the inside. After this sensation, the next thing that hits you is your utter foreign-ness. Your eye color, skin color, your odor - all so different and strange.
After reaching the apartment, which is quite large and nice with a/c and all the proper amenities - even a clothes washer - we crashed out.
The next morning while Davin was in class I did my first exploring. This is where I got my first taste of the female harassment that you hear so much about. It is pretty bad, but I had prepared myself for worse, so I shouldn’t complain. It just gets old, very fast. And all it is really is staring. Staring without end. All around you, every man’s eyes watching your face, your neck, your arms, your legs if they are showing, even your feet in sandals.
They have no shame. Nothing makes them quit. Not even when 145-pound Davin glares at them. And particularly when you’ve had a rough day at work and you are forced to sit in a hot subway car for the 25-minute ride, the LAST thing you need is men’s eyes boring holes into your body. It puts a permanent frown on your face. It makes you sweat more. It makes your eyes water. This will be an ongoing challenge. I’m sure it will eventually subside. (The most unfortunate side effect of this is that I don’t leave the apartment much. Granted, that is due to the heat as well.)
Speaking of work, it is pretty insane. I came in mid-cycle, so things are hectic. I’ve had to work at home every night since I started last week. I also worked all day on my weekend day, Friday. (Work week here is Sunday-Thursday). Thank god for my laptop. Particularly because there’s a power outage pretty much every day. On Thursday, we lost power FOUR times. When this happens people pretty much just go buy a soda or hang out in the dark trying to not suffer too much from the heat. I already wrote my first 750-word story and edited my first 5,000-word piece. Invaluable experience!
I also work with many Egyptians, most of who are Moslems. And as you probably know, Moslems pray about five times a day, so two of these prayer times come during work. So when I see the girl who sits behind me pull out her rug to pray on the floor, I try not to speak loudly, say any curse words or walk in front of her. The men are required to leave the room. And I am required to leave the room altogether if men are praying.
(Another sidebar about work, in addition to the power outages in the city, which interrupts work constantly, things such as bulletin boards, mouse pads, tape dispensers, are hard to come by. My request for post-it notes is still in the process of being OK’d.)
Davin is enjoying his language course. His Arabic is coming along fast. He has met some extremely smart people. I met some of these folks on our trip to Aswan and Luxor. The four-day trip was fantastic. Since those cities are so far south of Cairo -- close to Sudan -- the heat was intense. The tour schedule was such that we did our sightseeing very early in the morning or late at night. During the day, we hung out on the cruise ship swimming, talking or eating. We visited some of world’s oldest and most famous temples, toured museums, a Nubian village and tombs of pharaohs and kings.
I am signing off now. Pray that we receive our boxes soon, they have yet to arrive. They were supposed to be here weeks ago, and we just found out it will cost us almost $500 to get them out of customs where they have probably stolen everything anyway).
I will leave you with a couple of lists.
Elizabeth’s list of what people said that have proven totally untrue:
1. Tourists get shot in Cairo.
The amount of tourist police armed with machine guns is overwhelming and 110% reassuring that no harm, ever, will come to you. In addition to the tourist police who are on every street corner, on our cruise down the Nile we had real police escorts every time we stepped off the ship.
2. You can live like kings here.
Things are cheap, but that’s the problem. They are cheap, crappy products (no motive, no true competition). You can buy imported products from the US or Europe but they are almost three to four times more expensive than the Egyptian products. In some cases, they are even more expensive than you’d pay in SF. Nivea hand or body lotion for example costs almost $10. All alcohol is also more expensive than in the US (which means we pretty much stopped drinking.)
3. Women in Cairo are totally modern and don’t veil themselves.
The vast majority of the women (probably 80%) wear at least hijab (headscarf) and many of them wear niqab (veil over their face and gloves).
4. Everyone speaks English.
Getting around without knowing some Arabic is almost impossible. Only about 10% of the street signs are in English and the language is just so totally different that you can’t even fake it like you can in countries like France. Not to mention, the country is only half-literate. So your average Joe on the street is unlikely to be able to help you find your way around.
5. Live in Maadi, there’s so many ex-pats that you won’t get harassed.
The neighborhood we chose is amazingly clean compared to the rest of Cairo. It is also home to most of the richest Egyptians and other Westerners. However, on my first day walking around alone I was trailed by at least three men asking various questions. (I’m almost glad I can’t understand what they are saying.)
6. All Arabs hate Americans.
It’s a moot statement because most people have no clue we are even American. We’re simply foreigners (khawaaga). They could care less where we are from. America is not even their first, or second, guess. They definitely have strong feelings against Israel but to be honest, they are most interested in living their own lives and worrying about their own families. The Israeli occupation is not a topic that comes up very often.
Elizabeth’s list of things I was told that have proven true:
1. It is hot. Very hot.
2. You will get sick. Very sick. (But it goes away eventually and it’s a decent weight loss system.)
3. There are hundreds of stray cats and dogs. An insidious, sad problem in a country that even has a verb for scratching a cat (kharbish)
4. Cairo’s pollution is horrible. Luckily, the air in our neighborhood is slightly better.
5. The driving is insane. Two of Davin’s classmates are walking around on crutches due to run-ins with cars.
Many, probably most of you, asked me over and over was I scared to come here. I’m sure I answered a most assuredly ‘no.’ And I wasn’t scared at the time. My brother was perhaps the only witness to my first real fright. He took me to the airport in Atlanta where we had to jump through some hoops in order to make sure my bags were properly packed and tagged, etc., that Harley had her proper pet paperwork and such. After this ordeal was over, Brian walked me to the gate and suddenly it hit. I was scared. Not of Egypt. Not of anti-Americanism. Not of the water. Not of getting robbed. Just scared. Not knowing what I was getting myself into. Not knowing what I’d find on the other end of the next 16 hours.
Upon landing, getting my bags, and going through customs, I finally pushed my enormous luggage through the gates in search of my husband. I barely recognized him. His face looked almost gaunt. He was about 15 pounds or more thinner than he was a month prior. He negotiated with a cabbie, put my luggage on the roof and we were off. The long cab ride through city toward Maadi, some 45 minutes south of the airport, was grisly. Taxis are not air-conditioned of course and the method of driving in Cairo is thus: Rules be damned. Lanes don’t exist, you just drive on any part of the street and honk your horn about every two minutes. I saw my first donkey-pulled carriage on this ride. These are very common in Cairo. It is not at all an unlikely scene to watch a young, rich Egyptian chat on his hands-free cell phone while a galabeya-robed farmer passes by leading his donkeys or goats.
The heat hits you first Ð particularly after living two years the cold, foggy clime of SF. It rushes through your nose, your ears, your eyes, heating you from the inside. After this sensation, the next thing that hits you is your utter foreign-ness. Your eye color, skin color, your odor - all so different and strange.
After reaching the apartment, which is quite large and nice with a/c and all the proper amenities - even a clothes washer - we crashed out.
The next morning while Davin was in class I did my first exploring. This is where I got my first taste of the female harassment that you hear so much about. It is pretty bad, but I had prepared myself for worse, so I shouldn’t complain. It just gets old, very fast. And all it is really is staring. Staring without end. All around you, every man’s eyes watching your face, your neck, your arms, your legs if they are showing, even your feet in sandals.
They have no shame. Nothing makes them quit. Not even when 145-pound Davin glares at them. And particularly when you’ve had a rough day at work and you are forced to sit in a hot subway car for the 25-minute ride, the LAST thing you need is men’s eyes boring holes into your body. It puts a permanent frown on your face. It makes you sweat more. It makes your eyes water. This will be an ongoing challenge. I’m sure it will eventually subside. (The most unfortunate side effect of this is that I don’t leave the apartment much. Granted, that is due to the heat as well.)
Speaking of work, it is pretty insane. I came in mid-cycle, so things are hectic. I’ve had to work at home every night since I started last week. I also worked all day on my weekend day, Friday. (Work week here is Sunday-Thursday). Thank god for my laptop. Particularly because there’s a power outage pretty much every day. On Thursday, we lost power FOUR times. When this happens people pretty much just go buy a soda or hang out in the dark trying to not suffer too much from the heat. I already wrote my first 750-word story and edited my first 5,000-word piece. Invaluable experience!
I also work with many Egyptians, most of who are Moslems. And as you probably know, Moslems pray about five times a day, so two of these prayer times come during work. So when I see the girl who sits behind me pull out her rug to pray on the floor, I try not to speak loudly, say any curse words or walk in front of her. The men are required to leave the room. And I am required to leave the room altogether if men are praying.
(Another sidebar about work, in addition to the power outages in the city, which interrupts work constantly, things such as bulletin boards, mouse pads, tape dispensers, are hard to come by. My request for post-it notes is still in the process of being OK’d.)
Davin is enjoying his language course. His Arabic is coming along fast. He has met some extremely smart people. I met some of these folks on our trip to Aswan and Luxor. The four-day trip was fantastic. Since those cities are so far south of Cairo -- close to Sudan -- the heat was intense. The tour schedule was such that we did our sightseeing very early in the morning or late at night. During the day, we hung out on the cruise ship swimming, talking or eating. We visited some of world’s oldest and most famous temples, toured museums, a Nubian village and tombs of pharaohs and kings.
I am signing off now. Pray that we receive our boxes soon, they have yet to arrive. They were supposed to be here weeks ago, and we just found out it will cost us almost $500 to get them out of customs where they have probably stolen everything anyway).
I will leave you with a couple of lists.
Elizabeth’s list of what people said that have proven totally untrue:
1. Tourists get shot in Cairo.
The amount of tourist police armed with machine guns is overwhelming and 110% reassuring that no harm, ever, will come to you. In addition to the tourist police who are on every street corner, on our cruise down the Nile we had real police escorts every time we stepped off the ship.
2. You can live like kings here.
Things are cheap, but that’s the problem. They are cheap, crappy products (no motive, no true competition). You can buy imported products from the US or Europe but they are almost three to four times more expensive than the Egyptian products. In some cases, they are even more expensive than you’d pay in SF. Nivea hand or body lotion for example costs almost $10. All alcohol is also more expensive than in the US (which means we pretty much stopped drinking.)
3. Women in Cairo are totally modern and don’t veil themselves.
The vast majority of the women (probably 80%) wear at least hijab (headscarf) and many of them wear niqab (veil over their face and gloves).
4. Everyone speaks English.
Getting around without knowing some Arabic is almost impossible. Only about 10% of the street signs are in English and the language is just so totally different that you can’t even fake it like you can in countries like France. Not to mention, the country is only half-literate. So your average Joe on the street is unlikely to be able to help you find your way around.
5. Live in Maadi, there’s so many ex-pats that you won’t get harassed.
The neighborhood we chose is amazingly clean compared to the rest of Cairo. It is also home to most of the richest Egyptians and other Westerners. However, on my first day walking around alone I was trailed by at least three men asking various questions. (I’m almost glad I can’t understand what they are saying.)
6. All Arabs hate Americans.
It’s a moot statement because most people have no clue we are even American. We’re simply foreigners (khawaaga). They could care less where we are from. America is not even their first, or second, guess. They definitely have strong feelings against Israel but to be honest, they are most interested in living their own lives and worrying about their own families. The Israeli occupation is not a topic that comes up very often.
Elizabeth’s list of things I was told that have proven true:
1. It is hot. Very hot.
2. You will get sick. Very sick. (But it goes away eventually and it’s a decent weight loss system.)
3. There are hundreds of stray cats and dogs. An insidious, sad problem in a country that even has a verb for scratching a cat (kharbish)
4. Cairo’s pollution is horrible. Luckily, the air in our neighborhood is slightly better.
5. The driving is insane. Two of Davin’s classmates are walking around on crutches due to run-ins with cars.
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