I’m not going to lie. I’m far too tired right now to be writing this, but I’ve finished my homework for the night, I still have 4.75 hours before I have to be awake in the morning, and I don’t want to fall even further behind in my blogging than I already have because I know I’m starting to forget things. And important things at that. So I will make myself spare half an hour to fill you in on a few more days.
Last Wednesday was my second day back from the wedding. The day itself was fairly uneventful. I discovered that one of the stores I pass daily on my way to the University sells fresh juice, which was exciting.
In the afternoon we had our weekly Flagship meeting in which Robyn discussed some of the problems in the dorms. Apparently some of girls have bed bugs, which freaks me out. I still have a lot of mosquito bites from the country, and every time I lay down in my bed I start imagining there are more than are actually present, and that they’re itchier than they would otherwise be. On the topic of bugs, there are also a few cockroaches and a lot of ants. I’ve been trying my best to keep the room clean, and I haven’t found more than a few scavenger ants searching for a food source, but there’s a new dead cockroach on the stairs every morning and it’s all I can do to not let it get to me.
Wednesday evening was the World Cup Match between America and Algeria. It was a big deal in here because Algeria was the last Arab team in the Cup, and also the team that knocked Egypt out of the competition. I’d been wanting to see a World Cup Match, and Moutaz, one of the Flagship employees at the Dar, had reserved a giant room at a café for anyone who wanted to watch together. As such I went, even though I was exhausted. I don’t like to turn down opportunities here, I never know when I’ll get another one.
Going was definitely worth it. On my way out the door, Hadir decided she wanted to come with me, so we cheered and drank juice, and in case you haven’t heard yet America won in overtime. Going with Hadir gave me some extra insight into Arabic culture because before she could leave the dorm, she had to call her fiancé and get permission. That wouldn’t be such a bad thing except he didn’t want her to go because there would be men there. She wasn’t going to be talking with them, she wasn’t even going to be sitting particularly near them, and she was going to be fully veiled, but her fiancé didn’t want her out. Eventually she appeased him by assuring him that other Egyptian women would be there too, but it was a close call.
After the match, before heading back to the dorm, Hadir and I want to visit her fiancé’s sister, Sifaa’, who lives near the café. She’s a very sweet woman with three children; Ahmed, Judy, and Asser. We had chocolate cake left over from Sifaa’s birthday and talked about how I liked Egypt and what her children had been up to in school. It was all very homey and I felt quite welcome. The view from her apartment balcony was gorgeous as well, overlooking the entire neighborhood of Sporting.
Once we’d left Sifaa’s, Hadir didn’t really want to go back to the dorms, so we walked along the beach, taking advantage of the fact that she has a later curfew as long as she’s out with an American. Unfortunately, this later curfew also meant that we forgot about dinner, so on the way back to the dorms we stopped at the McDonalds that’s just a block away.
Now I know what you’re thinking. McDonalds? For Lauren? The same Lauren who would rather starve to death than eat McDonald’s in the states? But honestly, horrible or not, it’s heartening to have something as American as a McChicken Sandwich and fries. The same sandwich that would have made me gag in America was my favorite meal this week. It’s also worth pointing out that said sandwich was incredibly expensive.
If you translate it into dollars, the McDonalds here is about the same price as in America. They even have a five pound menu, to match the dollar menu. But that means that you’re paying twenty-five or thirty pounds for a meal, and when you consider that to an Egyptian one pound is like one dollar you’re bordering on the absurd. It is, after-all, only fast food. Still, thanks to this discrepancy the McDonald’s is what I’d call classy. It’s clean, well lit, the music is great, and the décor is what I’d expect to find in a trendy café. They even have free wi-fi. If you didn’t have to buy something to sit there, I’d probably be doing my homework there most days.
I know I’m going into great detail about this McDonalds, but I feel like it’s important with regards to what happened later that night. When Hadir and I got back to the dorms, Grace and Zeinab, roommates on our floor, were in the salon whispering heatedly. We stopped to say hi and Zeinab immediately ran over and started whispering in Hadir’s ear, after a few moments of which Hadir exclaimed out of nowhere, “But I can’t! I’m engaged!”
As you can imagine, I was quite confused. But we all sat down and Grace, after a little prodding, told me a somewhat disturbing story. Apparently, three years ago, she met this Egyptian man online through a language learning site. She was trying to improve her Arabic, he was trying to improve his English. They’ve been talking for the last three years, and you could tell from the look on her face that it wasn’t entirely platonic.
Now, I have mixed feelings about online friendships. As most of you know, I met one of my closest friends online, so I owe something to the invention. At the same time though, I recognize that my experience was rare, and that there are a lot of creepers out there; especially considering that Egyptian men who talk to American women without necessity tend to be creepers anyway. But I haven’t gotten to the disturbing part.
This man friend of hers lives in Cairo, and while she’d tried to meet up with him while we were visiting, there hadn’t been anytime. Now, at ten o’clock at night, he was on his way up to Alexandria to meet Grace at some café he knew of on the other side of Alexandria. I’m not even going to go in to how flabbergasted I was when I realized that was the situation.
She was set on meeting him though, and we couldn’t talk her out of it. Why he was insisting on the middle of the night I still don’t know, but we convinced her to switch the meeting place from his café to the McDonald’s on the corner. In Egypt, places like McDonald’s are frequented all night long, so it was the best choice for a well lit public place with lots of people. Then came the problem of her going alone. Zeinab was having stomach issues, so she couldn’t go. Hadir’s overprotective fiancé would dump her if he even suspected she’d entertained such an idea. An that left me.
I know, I know, it’s about as stupid an idea as ideas come, but I wasn’t going to let a girl just walk into a sketchy meeting like this alone, so I went with her. Besides, I had an exam to study for the next day, so I might as well study at McDonald’s, right? She was glad for the company, but she made it very clear that she didn’t want me sitting with them, so I bought a five pound coffee and camped out in a corner table. For the next three hours.
Yes, they had a three hour date. At the end of which she kissed him, in public, which while entirely acceptable in America is about as offensive as you can get in Egypt. I’m still peeved as her disregard for the culture. But anyway, she was on cloud nine for the rest of the night, and I was just glad she didn’t get kidnapped. Having had a few short minutes conversation with the guy I get the distinct feeling that he may just be making a play for his green card (he works in tourism), but she says she’s going to be careful about that. And frankly, it’s none of my business.
Anyway, back the dorms I was exhausted. It was late, and I had that exam the next day. So I studied a last little bit and went to sleep. For far too long. Thursday morning I woke up at 10:30 AM, my first official day of oversleeping. Thank goodness my exam was in my 11:00 class and not the 9:00 one. Ustaaz Immad was very understanding about my missing class. He gave me my homework, summarized the day’s activities, and informed me that the class would be meeting at the cinema Saturday night to see “3asl Aswaad,” the same movie the girls from the dorm took me too before classes started. I was a bit peeved about the movie because not only had a seen it, but it meant rescheduling an outing with Habiba, but I went along with it anyway.
The exam was harder than I expected it to be. I was as adequately prepared as it was possible to be, but the organization of the test itself and the phrasing of the questions was incredibly difficult. I didn’t leave the exam room confidently. Still, I did leave, and that meant I could go home and take a nap. Which I did.
Later that evening I woke to a knock on the door. Sometime in the last week (though I can no longer pin point when) I’ve become pretty good friends with two girls from the University of Chicago, Tamar and Meghan. Tamar was at my door inviting me out to Silsila, a popular Alexandrian café on the Mediterranean. I’d never been before, but I’d heard the other students raving about it, so I dressed quickly and went out.
I’m pretty sure Silsila is now one of my favorite places in the world. When they say it’s on the Mediterranean, they mean on the Mediterranean, as in the entrance is a set of steps descending to the ocean and stopping only a few feet away. It’s a little more expensive than some other places, but not outlandishly so. I had Arabic coffee and banana juice again and we say around chatting.
After the Silsila, we all went back to the dorms and decided to watch Prince of Persia. Meghan and Tamar got tired halfway through, so I ended up finishing it on my own, but it was a good movie. I’d still like to see it in better quality, my boot legged copy was a little hard to make out at parts, but I love anything with Jake Gyllenhaal in it.
At some point on either Wednesday or Thursday, I did manage to squeeze in a load of laundry, and a very unlucky load of laundry at that. As it turns out my new, blue, zip-up NY&Co. shirt bleeds. Badly. I now have several pairs of blue underwear, two blue bras, a blue pair of socks, a pair of blue-tinted, beige pants, and a blue blouse with blue flowered embroidery. It’s not as bad as it could have been. All of the dyed clothes are still wearable, I just have to wear them with different things now.
All of that brings us to the weekend, which is by far the easiest part to summarize. Hadir’s mother has gotten sick. I don’t understand exactly because I don’t understand a lot of medical terms in Arabic, but I think she has an inoperable problem with her eyes. Either way, Hadir bought a plane ticket to go visit her where she’s living in Oman last week, but because of a problem with her passport number the visa was denied. Not wanting to wait around the dorms to work it all out, Hadir went back to the country to spend time with her family, so I had the room to myself for the weekend.
I slept, of course. A lot. And as much as I love her, there was no Hadir here to wake me up. It was bliss. I slept so much on Friday that on Saturday I even attempted to wake up for breakfast. I didn’t succeed, but I did make it up for lunch, which is still impressive for me. My waking hours over the weekend were spent socializing and doing homework, often at the same time.
Saturday night I went to see “3asl Aswaad,” as per the plan. I did understand more the second time through, and I stayed awake through all of it this time, but I would have rather spent my fifteen pounds on juice or a book or something. While I had aimed to have all of my homework done before the movie, that of course didn’t happen, and I stayed up most of the night afterwards completing it.
And now we’ve reached Sunday morning, and I’m even more exhausted, and I have to be up in 3.5 hours. So I’m going to go to sleep and I will start my next post from the beginning of this school week. It’s been interesting so far, I hope you enjoy reading about it half as much as I enjoyed experiencing it.
Ma3 Salaama.
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