Plastic Bags and Taxi Cabs

Wow. I haven’t posted in almost a week?! Hope you’re sitting down because this is likely to be a loooooong one!

Sarah arrived safe and sound from the states last Monday night and we have been moving like crazy ever since. Literally…moving. Sarah was living in an apartment in a part of Cairo called Misr Gedida, or “New Cairo” on a huge busy street, which I wrote about previously. But this week we moved to an area called Maadi, which in my mind can only mean “heaven”. Aside from the fact that I still cannot find my apartment on my own, I LOVE Maadi. There are trees! Everywhere! Even ones with flowers!And I can hear BIRDS! The first morning I heard them I thought something was wrong with my A/C but nooo…actually birdies! And it doesn’t smell like exhaust and…get this…there are signs telling cars they cannot honk! You see, Cairo has it’s own system for navigating trafficlawless and laneless streets and it is done by honking and flashing one’s lights – making Cairo possibly the loudest city in the world. But no no, not in Maadi! I now live in an actual neighborhood. There are no big streets except circling it, the drive to downtown Cairo is along the River Nile and there are small shops and cafes everywhere. I may never leave this place after all! I mentioned McDonald's delivery right?...

A bit on moving “Egypt style”. There is no UHAUL, but most apartments that are rented come furnished. Hamdulillah. (Thank God) This is not to say however that moving is an easy task. No no no. We began by loading everything into plastic shopping bags. That’s right…plastic bags. We had to go 7 flights down in an Egyptian elevator (think 1960. tiny (TINY) box with no doors that open close…so you see inside of the elevator shaft on the way up and down.) Then make the 30-40 min drive to Maadi then carry everything up 4 flights. No elevator here. Luckily Hassan’s family has a driver so he was able to drive us back and forth a few times. Other than that we have been loading up cabs and hauling stuff over. Buildings here have a “doorguy” called a Boheb. They don’t open and close doors or anything like that, but if you have a good one (and we do, hamdulillah) they will carry your stuff upstairs for you. Funny story. The first day we got here we brought a huge load of things over with the intention of making a least one more trip. So we get everything in the apt then go back outside to drive back to Misr Gedida. I close the door all excited that it locks automatically when we realize…shit…the keys are still inside! So we call the landlord and he says he will meet us back there at 6pm. So we come back with another load and what do you know…no landlord! So we sat awkwardly in his brother’s apartment until about 7:30, kitty between us in his carrier on a couch drinking water and Pepsi that he brought us on a tray. Finally the guy arrived and let us in. Anywho moving has been an interesting and long process. Hopefully we will get the internet in about 2 wks. The government controls it so it takes awhile.

Sarah has an amazing group of friends here that I have been lucky enough to be able to hang out with since getting here. A few nights ago we went to a party thrown by one of Theo’s co-workers who is American. There were a few Americans and a whole lot of Frenchies. It was definitely a good time. Afterwards Scott shamed me in Bananagrams (Google it) until way too late (early?). Last night we went to Sarah’s friends Ali and Janan’s who just got married. They live 2 buildings down form us in the most beautiful apartment I have seen since getting to Egypt. We ate pizza (Pizza Hut! But waaay better than US Pizza Hut)and brownies and watched Cloverfield then RussellPeter’s Red, White and Brown which if you have not seen must see. (Unless you are my parents. Please don’t watch it. You will hate it). Then Ali busted out Boggle and I was getting all excited about turning around my bananagrams word game shame. Silly me. I got schooled once again (5 times actually) but this time not only by Scott but Ali as well. Who doesn’t even speak English as his native language! WHAT THE DEUCE?! I’ve realized that what it comes down to is that Egyptians are just way smarter than Americans. ;-) Seriously though…I need to learn some English.

Ramadan begins on Monday so I am trying to prepare myself mentally hahaha. I have already decided that I am going to cheat and drink water during the day, which is a no no. But I do not care. Iftar (the meal that breaks the fast at night) is a big, very social affair so I am excited to see what it is like. Egypt is already a late night kind of place, it is not uncommon to eat dinner after 8, so Iftar being after sundown is not too huge of a switch. But after not eating since 5am-ish it will be a stretch. Ugh. People are beginning to decorate with hanging lights and Ramadan flags. It is so colorful, I love it! I will definitely put up pics of Ramadan once it begins. We went to Drinky’s (the beer and wine store) yesterday and learned that they close for alllll of Ramadan. what? WHAT?!

This post is going to be all over the place, sorry. Sarah, Hassan and I went out to dinner at an amazing Italian place the other night. Once we were finished eating, Hassan’s mom showed up to switch cars with him and sat with us for awhile. She is a doctor but now does mostly policy related work. She is also super politically involved and has been a part of the Kefaya! (“enough”) movement here in Egypt for a long long while. A good friend of hers is the Health Minister in Egypt and as you likely know, there are many more radical Egyptians who are not keen on any Ministers in place now. So she has spent a good deal of time in Tahrir Square and facilitating meetings between the protestors and this friend. She and Hassan are both very passionately involved in what is going on politically here in Egypt and watching them talk about it is fascinating.

What you may not be aware of is that as of now close to 1000 people have died as a result of the violence that was carried out mostly by the police in January and esp. on Jan. 28^th. People are still dying from injuries incurred during those days. Sarah and Hassan have more than one friend with rubber bullets lodged in them. The families of these martyrs have been staging a sit in in Tahrir Square for months nowand are vowing to stay there through Ramadan (which is HUGE) along with Cairo residents who lost their homes to mud slides awhile back and were promised re-homing by the gov’t but still have not received it. (Total run on sentence. deal with it.) Problem is they have no leadership and no demands. So they have the sit in part down but are missing the “we will sit here until ______________ happens” aspect. Which is a fairly important part of a sit in. There are many in Cairo who believe that these “radicals,” as they are often referred to, are actually hurting the political situation here. Sitting in Tahrir with no demands and no leadership as opposed to pushing for legal action in the justice system is not a pragmatic way to push for real change. Which is clearly needed. There is conflict in Tahrir as well, Hassan’s mom told us a story about a huge fight that broke out when someone was smoking in front of another man’s tent which led to a chair being thrown at him and a fight after. Yesterday a few thousand Salafis protested in the square. The Salafis arethe ultra conservative, traditional, religious right. Until recently they have been largely uninvolved in the revolution because politics is something they stay out of for religious reasons. But lately there has been talk of them aligning themselves with the Muslim Brotherhood, which is no good for the movement. It is also entirely hypocritical of them since for religious reasons they are not supposed to even involve themselves. Anyways, a few thousand showed up to Tahrir yesterday calling for Egypt to return to a religious state. 28 political parties and coalitions walked out of Tahrir in protest, which was pretty cool.

I have been trying my darndest to pick up this Arabic thing. I can now count decently well and recognize most numbers. Very helpful when trying to pay cabs, etc. I can also write and read the letters that correspond to the“D” “B” and “Th” sounds as well as the hamza and ‘alif. What what! hahaha. I am also starting to recognize more and more words as people are speaking and can say a fair number of words as well. Not quite to the point of whole sentences though. At thee end of the day my tongue literally hurts from repeating sounds (mostly hamza and ‘alif) Feeling pretty good about my progress thus far!

Alrighty…that’s enough for now. Hopefully we will getthe internet back soon so I can be more regular about this and write shorter posts! So for now…

Love from Cairo,

Martha

P.S. - Did I mention that you buy eggs and milk unrefrigerated???