The other day I had my first “I hate Egypt moment”. It didn’t last and don’t you worry…. I certainly do not hate Egypt; but for about an hour I did. In the process of condensing my life down into 2 suitcases and a carry on before I left Chicago I realized I was going to have to send some things here to Cairo. Totally necessary things like my Wii and my comforter. OK, maybe not soo necessary but things I definitely wanted. So my parents were nice enough to lug some crap to the post office and ship it halfway around the world. About a week ago we got a notice on our door from the post office. I obviously had no clue what it said and Sarah couldn’t figure it out either. But we assumed it said we had to go to the post office to get said boxes. So we hop in a cab on Thursday (keep in mind that the weekend here is Friday and Saturday) and ask around until we find the post office only to get there and find out it is closed. Argh. Sunday morning I make the trip back to the post office with Hashem (Hassan’s families driver) while Sarah goes to return her keys to her old landlord. Hashem speaks no English and I speak no Arabic. Furthermore, my phone is out of minutes. We get to what we thought was the post office and no…of course it’s not, it’s down the street. Once we get there I have to maneuver my way through a herd of men to find an open window. I give the guy the piece of paper and all I understand of what he says is “mish” which pretty much means “nope. not here.” Thankfully Hashem talks to the guy and figures out what is going on and in a sort of game of frustrating charades Hashem tells me I need to call a number that is on the paper. Which is fairly inconvenient, as I have no minutes on my phone. So I go into the little market next door and buy minutes. You buy these cards here that give you pre paid minutes, they look like this:
You type the “secret code” into your phone and Viola! You should have minutes. But lo and behold for some reason my phone isn’t recognizing the code. So still no minutes. At this point Hashem, bless his little sausage fingered heart, buys minutes for his phone. He calls the number andsays “OK” so like the blind leading the blind we head off. I have no freaking clue what is going on. I think I am going home and the boxes are being delivered but no. We stop in front of another post office and there are goats outside of this one. Goats. We go in and I am not exaggerating here, it was probably 150 degrees and smelled like dead people. And it was PACKED. See, it was the day before Ramadan so everyone was trying to get everything they needed done. This woman brings us back behind the glass, which was so clutch because I likely would have vomited had I had to stay out there. In fact I may vomit now just thinking about it. So she takes my paper and starts speaking to me in Arabic so fast that I can’t decipher anything and as she realizes I don’t understand she just keeps speaking louder and louder and louder. So I stare at her like a complete tard until she starts saying “passport”. Passport? Passport? Why would I need my passport? I don’t carry my passport around with me. So she shoves this paper in my face and says write your name and passport number. So I write my name and tell her I don’t know the number. Well really what I say is “La, mish passport.” And frankly, why does this woman need my passport number?! I know my parents haven’t written it on the boxes. And the worst part is…I can see one of them! I see one of my boxes in the corner! So this woman tells me I can’t get the boxes without the passport. But she is such a bitch about it! I mean, I can’t even understand what the woman is saying and I know that. At this point I have had it. I am sweating like a horse, my bottom lip is quivering, I have never been more frustrated about not being able to communicate in Arabic, and I just say (in English) “You have got to be f*&%$#@ kidding me.” I turn around to leave and I can’t open the door to her “office” so some guy has to let me out. I get into the car, put on my sunglasses and just start crying. Ha. And poor Hashem just keeps saying in English (wait! you can speak English?!) “Its OK, tomorrow.” I cry the whole way home all the up the stairs and cry myself to sleep. WTF?! So bad. But I went back yesterday and got the boxes. Had to pay almost $100 US for them but I got them.
We got back home so excited to play Jeopardy so I put the thing together, grab an adapter and plug it into the wall only to be met by a “POP!” and electrocute my hand. Looks like I needed a converter. Whoops. Luckily I hadn’t plugged the power cord into the actual Wii so we are all good there. But I’m pretty sure the power thing is shot and I blew the fuse for the TV and cable. It was brilliant. Upside is we now have about 30 TV channels we didn’t get before which are a mix of Arab and Italian porn. We also get Al Jazeera English, BBC World and a channel called “Strike Force” which is 2 Asian guys recapping intense video game battles with commentary and all. It’s pretty amazing. I just need to find a new power cord. Looks like I’m headed back to City Stars…
I also fell out of my shower yesterday. Its ok...you can laugh. See the showers here look like this for the most part:
Ours is super slippery and suddenly, out of nowhere, I was flying backwards out of the tub and landed ass first on the floor. What?! Didn’t hurt, didn’t pull off the shower curtain. So I lay there stunned for a second then hopped back in and finished my shower. It was nuts. I’m thinking we need to go buy a shower mat.
I am wondering if it is a coincidence that all of these mishaps coincided with the first day of Ramadan? Which was not as bad as I thought it would be by the way. Granted I spent most of the afternoon in a starving Ramadan coma nap. Sarah and I made pasta for dinner once the sun was down (about 7) then went out to Pub 55 for shisha (no drinks anywhere during Ramadan!) and finished the pasta when we got home. It is now 12:30 pm the next day and I could really go for a sandwich. But alas. I will not.
My cat is eating feathers so I guess it’s about time I go.
Love from Cairo,
Martha
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