First Post

As I readied myself to leave for Egypt there was a persistent clamor from certain quarters that I keep a detailed account of my various exploits via blog. Despite being  by nature a rather private person I have decided to oblige.

In this post I’ll try to briefly describe what I’ve been doing for the last few weeks, where I live, and what daily life as an American in Cairo is like. This may go on longer than intended because I am using it as a procrastinatory device.

Downtown

Upon arriving in Cairo, I moved into a cheap but obliging downtown hotel for three nights. My goals here were to get my bearings and find an apartment. Downtown Cairo is difficult to describe. There are broad streets jammed with people and cars, bordered by these beautiful, vaguely European buildings that could use a good scrubbing. I arrived during Ramadan, and from the hours of 9PM to 3AM the streets were lit up with decorative lights and packed with crowds of families out shopping. My hotel was on the 5^th floor of a building whose other floors were in various states of construction and occupancy. There was a sign for a Swedish Center for Grace and Well-Being next to the hotel, but the premise looked like it had been occupied by a pack of incredibly strong and destructive three year olds.  This rather amused the Swedish couple living next to me.

The hotel itself was quite adequate, with air conditioning and showers, and an extremely affable staff. I was immediately served tea and given a talk about street touts and taxis, and general intelligent conduct as a visitor to Cairo. This makes the Hotel Berlin rare among Cairo hotels – rather than trying to get you to visit his uncle’s papyrus shop, the proprietor, Hisham, warns you against such activities. Hisham turned out to be recovering from surgery and bed-ridden, but he diligently called every day to ensure that I was happy and well attended to. 

Mohandeseen and Cairo Life

After looking at a few apartments, I finally settled on one in the outskirts of the neighborhood of Mohandeseen. Mohandeseen consists of much of the west bank of Nile and is generally considered a lively and urban area. Where I live is pretty far from the Nile, out on the intersection of 26 July St. and Sudan St. off of a square called Midan Libnan (Lebanon Square). The apartment is large, has a lovely balcony area and is on the 15^th floor with exceptional views. Theoretically we should be able to see the pyramids, but I doubt the smog will ever permit it. We are situated between a rather Westernized area and a typical Egyptian lower-middle class neighborhood, with narrow streets, pervasive fool/tamiya (street food) stands, and lots of goats and donkeys. My roommates are two American exchange students and as far as we know we are the only non-Egyptians in the neighborhood. My only complaint with the apartment is that it is a bit far from transportation.

To get to the metro, which, it should be noted is extremely clean and efficient (in contrast to much of the rest of Cairo), I generally take a 10-20 minute bus ride down Sudan Street. To find the bus you want you listen for a guy yelling the direction you want to go in (in my case GizaGizaGizaGiza or Imbabababababa [referring to the Imbaba district]) and hop on. The guy yelling hangs out the door yelling and trying to drum up business. My impression is that the drivers get paid by how many riders they get so they enlist the support of these guys to yell and collect money. Often a bus won’t go anywhere until it’s full. I’m not sure whether these are official city buses as they are unnumbered and there appear to be actual numbered buses that follow routes. I like taking the bus because no trip is ever quite the same, and occasionally passengers get into vicious sounding arguments with the drivers. I have no clue what these arguments could be over as the bus is going where it is going and the driver will stop wherever you want. My best guess is that the passengers are criticizing the driver’s maneuvers for a lack of aggression and pluck. Either way, things settle down quickly.

Speaking of aggression and pluck, the first thing you learn to do in Cairo is cross the street. At first this is a harrowing experience, but it soon becomes second nature. There are no real rules to driving in Cairo and the general attitude is that everyone has a right to be wherever they can go.  This means that there is less anger than on the streets of Boston, despite significantly more aggressive driving. If somebody takes your spot, they won it fair and square and you don’t hold it against them. Horns are used constantly to communicate everything that turn signals and headlights communicate in the States. Basically, when you’re driving  you honk. I’ve wondered if there is a slightly existential quality to this: I honk, therefore I am. Each taxi driver has his own honking style which can be quite entertaining to observe.  To cross the street you operate on the same rules as the drivers. If you see a space you take it and the drivers will stop. You cross one “lane” (in quotations because there aren’t lanes) at a time and you learn to stare the drivers down. It’s actually kind of fun and not all that dangerous given the low speeds in the city.

As an obvious foreigner wandering the city I am subjected to consistent calls of “Hello!” “Welcome to Egypt!” “What’s your name?” in quick succession. Often these are just bored people trying out their English, and one quickly becomes immune to them and ignores them. I sometimes feel bad about this because I would like to engage some of them in conversation, but the sheer amount has jaded me and you never know if they want to sell you something. Occasionally a guy will look me right in the eye and say with a broad smile “Welcome to Egypt!” and it’s clear that all he wants to do is welcome me to Egypt, so I’ll usually respond with a smile and a quick response. Sometimes people will yell in quick succession “I love America” and “Fuck you!” but my impression is that they are reaching the limits of their English and do not intend hostility.

 The “worst thing” that’s happened to me is that some guy passing on a motorbike sprayed me with some sort of silly string like substance, which resulted in a guy at a café getting up and apologizing profusely.  Not too bad in the grand scheme of things. It should be noted that this happened during Eid, the three day holiday at the end of Ramadan, during which the youth tend to get a little rowdy and children all over the city were chasing each other with this stuff. I am a little disturbed by the wide prevalence of tasers around, but mostly I see people wandering around with one in each hand rhythmically sparking them. I suppose the devices do have a certain festive nature, which I had not previously considered.

Generally I am finding this country to be stimulating and charming and am happy to be here. In future posts, whenever they happen, I’ll describe the food, AUC, the Egyptian museum, Islamic Cairo, and the Cities of the Dead.