Disenchantment

   It's gone. Over with. Khalas. The initial awe and wonder and enthrallment that comes with being in a new place has worn off. Now it's just life. Life that I have to get up, face, push through, deal with, and come back home to every day.
   Cairo. What happened between you and me?
   I know I should be inspired by all of the magic of the city around me, but instead I just want to hide in my bed and ignore my alarm going off at 6:30. Again. No no no! La' la' la' that is so rude, alarm. I'm not ready to face the city.
   Walking.
   When I first came to Egypt, everything was new. Everything was fascinating. Every mundane, ordinary life instance I came across was met with awe and every annoying, frustrating thing was given a free pass because it's a new culture and it's exciting.
   Now the cockroach I almost stepped on is just like, ugh, please don't; and the dead cat in the ditch that's been there for three days just stinks. Can somebody move the dead cat?
   Walking.
   Walking through the market that is on the street between mine and the metro. Tables with sunglasses, batteries, pens, and plastic bracelets. Fresh fish laying on ice. Brightly colored leggings and bras. Clothes hanging from lines overhead. Piles of bananas. Piles of cabbages. Piles of tomatoes. Spices packaged in twisted clear plastic bags. Tables of pots and pans. Salesmen in dirty galabayas. Veiled women shifting through more veils and scarves for sale on a table, bright colors, pretty patterns. Newspapers spread out on cardboard on the ground, red headlines in Arabic shouting about terrorism in the Sinai. Two teenage girls sit at a table in the sun, giggling together, one is flipping an empty plastic bottle around in her hand. An old woman sells bags of cut vegetables.
   It's a traveler's paradise. Every item for sale; every expression on the faces of the locals; every interaction; every piece of garbage on the ground and every beam of sunshine is a Kodak moment, just waiting to be taken, Facebooked, instagrammed, framed and put on display in someone's living room in Massachusetts. But these are just my neighbors. And they are just in the way between me and the stairs to the metro. Push, shove, push, hustle. Get out of the way. Magic gone. So over the smell of fish.
   Walking.
   Out of the market, into the other street. Keep my bag on the shoulder away from the street so cyclists can't snatch it. Don't make eye contact with anyone I don't need to, it's easier to avoid unwanted interactions. Ignore taxis. Look like I know where I'm going. I know everything I need to know here and yet know nothing at the same time.
   In the streets there are cars double parked. Triple parked. I don't know how this country functions. What happens when the person who parked first has to leave? It stresses me out. Everything stresses me out. I feel like the person who parked first, trapped and helpless.
   This is normal. I've been here for four months, gone from home for seven. This is a normal stage of cultural adjustment. The push back. The uncomfortable mix of being familiar and overwhelmed, success mixed with failure, and by knowing how things work more you realize you know less of how things will work in the future and how uncertain they are.
   But just because it's normal doesn't mean it isn't hard. I get stressed over the stupidest things. Like concepts of meal times. This should not be the cultural difference that gets to me, it's harmless. Who cares if Egyptians like to eat breakfast at ten, lunch at four, and dinner at ten. They can eat when they want, that's fine. But when somebody asks me at five pm if I have had lunch yet, I get stressed just thinking about how awful my day would be if I hadn't eaten lunch yet. How do people function like that?
   Walking.
   In the traffic, there's two men pushing a red car that stalled out. There's a little school girl in the passenger front seat, glasses, backpack, with a look on her face, "what is my life right now?" Seriously girl, what are our lives right now?
   It's hard to accept that no matter how long I live here, how many times I walk these streets, catch the buses, ride the metro, and buy oranges, I will never stop hearing "welcome in Egypt." I can't fit in. And it gets old.
   But no matter how tempting it is to dream of home, and imagine going back to where I came from, I know it wouldn't make it better. If I could teleport myself there right this second, I wouldn't fit in all over again, but in a different way. I would try to tell people mish mushkila, wa7eshteenee, saba7 el fol, and no one would understand. What would I do when I craved hawawshi and needed to chill with the gang at our favorite cafe, drinking tea and shisha. Shai koshari and ma3sal to be specific.
   So I'm here, and I need to push through this tough phase of cultural adjustment. It's hard now, and there will always be a level of difficulty, simply because I chose to live in Cairo. But I want to be here, I know deep down I want to be here.
   Walking.
   I turn a corner. The sun is shining on the pavement, and the sidewalk glares light and casts shadows around the skinny trees planted in a line. I smell that smell of parking lot, exactly like walking out of Kalkaska's Northland in the summertime with a bag of groceries, on the way home from the lake. A wave of... relief? Comfort? Familiarity?
   I don't know. I don't know why that makes me feel better. But this tough phase of adjustment, this too shall pass.

The apartment downstairs

   I met my neighbors. Despite being ten stories, my building is incredibly quiet. It's an old building, on a quiet street, with residents who have lived there a long time. I usually run up and down the stairs to my third floor apartment without running into anyone, except maybe Mohammad the doorman.

The view from my balcony looking down at their rooftop patio.

   But one day on my way up, I ran into a couple going to the floor below me. We exchanged greetings, established ourselves as neighbors, and they invited me in for lunch. I politely declined, saying I had work to do. "But this is Egypt, it can wait," was their answer. I couldn't argue with that logic.
   The apartment belongs to a sweet, elderly lady who has lived there for over fifty years. The couple I met on the stairs were her son and his French wife, who were visiting for the month. We chatted over tea, and then koshari, and then fruit, and then more tea, for a total of three hours in proper Egyptian visiting fashion. The koshari was so amazing, I don't think I want to buy it off the street anymore (which I still will, because that's what I can afford). Koshari is Egyptian pasta, that's made of different pastas, lentils, garbanzo beans, fried onions and tomato sauce. And this woman's homemade version was incredible. I'm actually getting hungry writing this.
   The apartment had that comfortable feeling of it being someone's home for decades and decades. The combination of the furniture, and the rugs, and the light fixtures, and the paintings, and the homey smell, gave it a very established sense. It's the apartment directly below mine, so we naturally had to joke that I must be the one making all the noise above them. It has the rooftop patio above the garage that you can see from my balcony, with the plants and seating.
   Over tea we chatted about many things. About how during the summer everyone leaves their doors open for ventilation and talks to each other across the halls. And about his experience growing up in Cairo, spending his career in the states, coming back, and then moving to France. And about French politics. And about culture in Cairo. About what I am doing here. And about how I was welcome anytime, Rory, the mother, would be happy to help me with anything I might need.  
   I'm glad I procrastinated my work and took the time to meet them. One more step towards feeling at home in this busy, busy city.
   

Living the typical post-college broke life, just thousands of miles from home.

This week was a big deal because I actually went to a salon to get my hair cut. In my broke, post-college, forced-to-be-a-hipster life these days, paying for a haircut has not been high on the priority list. The last time I got it cut, I had a Romanian guy living at the same hostel as me cut it for free. That might sound sketch, but he did a good job. 

But then I moved out and my hair kept growing into a shaggy mess that reminded me of an eight-year old boy's bowl cut. So my friend Sandy was kind enough to take me to a salon that was in my price range. Other places had wanted one hundred pounds (about $15) but we got it done for thirty pounds (about $5). Way more reasonable, for the budget of an ex-preschool teacher. This guy also did a good job.

Looking for deals and cutting corners when I can seems to be my style these days. I mean, we're supposed to be broke after college, right? Maybe it was a little ambitious for me to tackle this stage of my life in a foreign country...

But I find ways to make it work. Like by mastering public transportation. The metro and I are like this (insert crossed fingers to illustrate closeness here). I adore it. A straightforward system that can get me across the city while avoiding traffic? For the price of one pound? (About fourteen cents). That thing is my best friend.

When I moved into an apartment by myself and everyone thought I was crazy, I told a friend "I would rather eat koshari every day than live with someone right now." Well, now I have to eat my words. Literally. I'm essentially living off of koshari and goodwill right now. Good thing the cheap, convenient Egyptian pasta tastes good. At least for now. After I live off of it for another month, I might change my mind. 

My forced "hipsterness" is at it's highest when hanging out with my friends at the cafe. I'll be wearing my grey sneakers with neon laces that don't match anything, with a rip on the side, because they are my warm shoes. Comfort over style. My nails are half painted, because nail polish remover did not make it into the budget. And there's my skater style hat I bought from a stand on the street for twenty pounds. I don't think my clothes came from a thrift store, but they might as well have for how worn out they look now. Whatever. When we order hookah, I order maasal, a very, very Egyptian tobacco. Simply because it's the cheapest, and I love the reaction from the server, because how odd for a foreign white girl to be smoking maasal. Hey, if I save seven pounds on my order, that's seven metro rides. And that's how my brain works these days.

But as tough as it is now, I still love it. Who needs comfort? (At least for the next nineteen and a half days until I get my paycheck from my new job, but who's counting?)

The positive side of being broke is, I never have to worry that my friends are my friends because of my money. (Might as well count my blessings, because counting my pounds doesn't take me long...) And I'm just glad I have friends who are understanding of my life right now, because that's worth everything :)

Falling in love with those brown eyes

   I never thought preschoolers could be such heart stealers. But they are and they do it so well. Took me completely by surprise. I have never been a baby-crazy person. I have always been indifferent to having kids of my own. I always thought kids are fun, but mostly fun because at the end of the day, they go home with someone else and become their problem.

   But after just three months in an Egyptian nursery, all that has changed. I have become that person who constantly posts pictures and statuses to social network, cooing about how cute my students are. I'm worse than that obnoxious parent who always goos and gaws over their first child, because I got ten all at once! Ten walking, talking, prepackaged with hilarious antics children. My friends regret asking me how work is, because I have to gush about all the adorable things Moustafa and Marawan and Hala did that day. How did this happen?
   And everyday it happens over again. I walk in to class and get ambushed by happy three-year olds shouting, "Miss Liza! Miss Liza!" They may have stolen my heart but at least they keep it warm and happy for me.

Fareda walks up to me and goes through the usual routine. "Miss, miss! Mama gaya imta?" (When is mommy coming?) I got tired of making excuses a long time ago, so I look down at her seriously and respond, "four hours." "Four howers?" She asks with her baby voice, looking back up at me. "Yes, mama is coming in four hours." "Okay," she responds happily, as if that answer makes everything okay. She goes back to drinking her apple juice, making her brown eyes cross as she looks curiously at the straw in front of her.

Moustafa spends five minutes telling me about his mom's reaction when he is being naughty. He tries to impersonate her face, which looks like a face you might make while eating lemons with a click at the end. He's such a talker, and I'm sure that's not exactly the face his mom makes when she is mad at him for running around too much and breaking everything (according to his story), but his three-year old impression of it is hilarious. And the way he squeezes his little brown eyes shut to look angry.

Yassin goofs off at the breakfast table, playing with his cousin Marawan. The two are absolutely inseparable. Everything one does, the other has to do. But they are good friends to each other, and as much trouble as they sometimes cause, who can be angry with happy little boys who just have too much energy? Yassin's elbow knocks over his water bottle, spilling half of it onto the floor. I breath in and out slowly, because this isn't the first time. But his startled, innocent brown eyes remind me it was just an accident, and it was only water, and he's just too cute.

Malak sits quietly at the table where she is coloring next to the other children. She never fights over colors like the others, but rather patiently waits her turn, and sweetly asks me to sharpen pencils when they need it. Every time I come near she says, "bussy miss, aamalty eh?" (Look what I made!") And proudly shows me her colorful scribbles. "Good job, Malak! I love the green!" I'll reaffirm her, and she just smiles happily with her perfect brown eyes, and goes back to her professional three-year old scribbling.

My first Arab wedding

   

   I went to my first Arab wedding. Finally. I've seen my share of wedding processions drive honking by, and heard the celebrations go into all hours of the night. Seen the brides in their gorgeous dresses get pictures taken in the park. Heard the fireworks. And more fireworks. But I never had enough guts to crash one and see what all the fuss was about.  

   But a friend of a friend got married a few weeks ago, so a group of us put on our best going-out clothes and drove up to Alexandria. Late, naturally.

   We still made it to the hotel's reception just before the wedding party. They had quite the entrance. First at the staircase they were welcomed by a band playing traditional music, surrounded by guests taking pictures and videos with their phones. Honestly, the guests didn't need to bother because there were four camera men taping the whole scene from different angles, and everything was being streamed onto flat screen TVs in the reception hall.

   Then at the main doors they were announced to the crowd by a DJ, flashing lights, upbeat music, and a dancing troupe of men with poles lit on fire. It was intense to say the least.

   That was the theme of the whole night. Intense. Disco music. DJ. Flashing lights. Swirling cameras, zooming in and out, in and out. It was an interesting contrast to the very elegant and fancy décor of the hall. Beautiful table clothes, place settings, decorations, flowers, the works. The cake had five layers to it, and the cameras spent five minutes swirling around it, zooming in and out, in and out. It was a beautiful cake but I was a little dizzy by the end of it.

   After the bride and the groom were introduced, the dancing began. First, a slow dance for the newlywed couple. Then, the tempo sped up. All the men surrounded the groom and all the ladies surrounded the bride. Clapping, and laughing, and spinning. It took some pressure to get my friends and I to join. Let's be real, I love dancing and am not afraid of much, but it was so devastatingly obvious that we didn't know anyone. And we were so, so white. There was no way to blend in. At first I stood politely at the edge of the group, clapping and smiling politely, because I didn't know what the heck I was doing. But then some aunt pulled me into the circle with the bride, forcing me to join the group. I smiled and danced as best as I could, trying to gauge the bride's reaction to my random appearance at her wedding. She was graceful and welcoming, as I expected.

   I tried to look happy and not completely overwhelmed whenever one of the four camera men zoomed in on me, so that when the newlyweds watched their very expensive wedding video down the road, at least I would look like a fun wedding crasher. But I still predicted everyone the next day to stop and wonder, “who were those random white girls?”

   We followed along with the group for the dancing that lasted for the next hour. I was really confused because in America, dancing follows the food. So as the hour dragged on, I started to get hungry, and I started to worry that maybe at this part of an Arab wedding, there was no food. I tried to be rational. Arab culture feeds you all the time. You take a forty-five minute flight on an Arab airline, they feed you. And I remembered there being silverware on the table, so rationally food must be in the schedule at some point.

   It was. After the dancing, the doors were opened to the buffet room. After seeing the amount of food being served, I understood why the dancing happened first. No one would have been able to move if the order was reversed. It was a good strategy.

   As people left, the bride and groom sat on their platform to receive their congratulations and have pictures taken with the guests. We stood in line for our turn, I gave one more big smile for the camera, and left my first Arab wedding. Now I know what all the fuss is about.

Missing my fellow bread-carrying judger

Walking to school, the Abu Houl intersection.

   The art of bread carrying. I always admire the stacks of bread being transported from point A to point B while on my way to school. Bread is a staple of the Egyptian diet. The flat, round pita-type bread is eaten with everything, often times used as the utensil instead of a fork or spoon. And in a city of over twenty million people, that means a lot of bread has to make it from the oven to the home.

   The most common way I see is on a large, woven tray carried on top of the head, but there are apparently other methods to get that bread safely through the busy streets. Sharon, my walking buddy, and I used to rate the levels of expertise exhibited by these bread transporters.

   The bigger the tray, more points. The higher the stacks, more points. No hands, more points. Sometimes the tray has multiple levels, so more points. My favorite are the women who navigate the traffic, tray balanced precariously on top of their head, while talking on their cellphone. Or the kids swerving around cars on their bikes, bread tied in front or behind them. Bikes equal more points.

   Sharon and I couldn't believe it one morning when a car passed us with bread laid out on the hood. We had to create a special bonus round for that level of skill!

   Sharon was an awesome walking buddy to school every day, and I'm going to miss her while she goes back home to the states for a few months! Even though I have so many great friends from other countries, sometimes there is a special connection that can only be found in someone from the same place, same background as you.

   Sharon is a solid, down to Earth woman who understands my lingo, my accent, my mannerisms, how I see the world, everything. She lived in the room next to me at the hostel, having hung out in Egypt for a few years after marrying a sweet, shy Egyptian man. I definitely took advantage of her advice and experiences from living here, from how to get to the grocery store to how to have the best “don't mess with me face” while walking through the street.

   Sharon, I am going to miss walking into the flat every day after school and calling out, “Sharon, my Sharon!” And hearing you answer, “Liza, my Liza!” Then immediately sitting outside on the patio with your LM Whites, you listening so attentively to all my adventures with the three-year olds that day, and taking my side on anything that might have gone wrong.

   I might even miss you feeding the street cats that you spoiled so much now one doesn't even run away from me. And who is going to make me chicken soup? Because I know you said it's simple, and explained the process to me, but cooking an entire chicken is still intimidating.

   Don't worry, though. I will send you any updates about new ways I see to carry bread through the streets on my way to school!

The Thrill of the Microbus

   Moving to Cairo, I thought the most important language I would need to learn was Egyptian Arabic. Nope. It was the language of the road. The roads here are a crazy, hot mess. Looking both ways before crossing the street is a must, right? Yeah, but here, even for one way streets, look both ways twice. Or maybe three times.

A really bad picture of crossing the street.
Not exactly going to stop mid-crossing to try to
capture the craziness, but at least there's some
microbuses in the background to see.

   Crossing the street is like a game of Frogger, except the stakes are a bit higher. Like, no extra lives for one. You know the phrase, “walk like an Egyptian”? Yeah, I'm convinced that's not a funky dance. That's crossing the street like a boss; knowing how to perfectly time between those two cars, microbus, tour bus, and the motorcycle delivering McDonalds without dying. Whenever I am unsure about a road, I just find an Egyptian crossing the street and match their steps just a little upstream of them, so they can make the break in the flow of traffic for me. They are at the expert level, I am not. Works every time.

   Crazy traffic. Cars, big trucks, taxis, buses, tuk tuks, motorcycles, vegetable carts and donkeys, all trying to push ahead to get to where they are going. This is simply the result of so many people being stacked on top of each other in the same city after a rapid period of urbanization. There's at least 20 million people in Cairo, which always blows my small-town mind. It's weird to think that more people attend one mosque on Friday for prayer than live in all of Kalkaska county. For some popular mosques, maybe twenty times as many. It's a big thought to wrap my head around.

   And then there's the microbuses. White, crowded, box van looking things (they have the big sliding doors on the side, which sometimes appear to be optional) zipping through the streets of the city; connecting intersections, neighborhoods, districts, cities, basically whatever is economically profitable to connect. They are each privately owned, and an incredible example of supply, demand, and the “invisible hand” of economics. If a route is popular, there will be microbuses to pick you up.

   They are so intimidating to use, because they move so fast and there's no schedule or sign to tell me where they are going. So I stand on the side of the street, flag them down, and yell out a name of a location to see if they are going there or not. If they're not, they shake their head and keep going. If they are, I pile in on top of the other passengers and hope that I said the right place and they heard the right place before I end up on the other side of Cairo.

   I usually flag them down by just sticking out my hand to grab their attention, but if I was really cool, I would use all the really cool hand signals that correlate with specific locations. But they feel too much like gang symbols to me, what if I do one wrong? Like to go to Giza, you do an upside down “hang loose” sign. Total gang material.

   I don't bother flagging down the ones that already have a person hanging out of the bus where the door is supposed to be. Obviously, that one is already full, because that person doesn't have a seat. Sometimes I don't have to flag them down, they pull over because someone is getting off. A couple people get off, a couple people get on, from where I am standing it looks full so I don't even bother asking. Then two more people will get in, somehow, somewhere, and I get really confused wondering where they fit! Then I get upset because I could have taken that bus!

   Also I always hope I know exactly where to get off, so I don't pass it. Everything's so fast-paced, and everything looks the same. Walls with graffiti, restaurants, clothes stores, fruit vendors. It's like a reel of film that keeps looping. There's not exactly signs or anything. And it gets really old to keep asking the people sitting next to me, looking like the foreigner who has no idea where she is going, even though that's exactly what's happening most of the time. I just always feel stupid, because everyone else looks like they know exactly where they are going, so I feel like I should be cool like them and just know. I want to be part of the in crowd already! But it's nice when I sit next to a nice lady who helps me figure out where to get off. It's an extra bonus when she is getting off at the same place and I can just get off with her.

   The seats on the buses are bench style, no seat belts to be found. We just rock with the sway of the bus, as it zips around the road, dodging traffic and pedestrians, to the rhythm of the Arabic music on the radio. Since it is all privately economically driven, there is a strong incentive to get through the route as fast as possible so the driver can pick up passengers going the other way. I just try to ignore all the near misses we have, and all the accidents that could be but haven't been yet.

   The buses that have the sliding door permanently open have an extra thrill factor. I avoid the seat next to the door if I can, since one time we swerved and I wasn't prepared for it. I know in reality I probably only leaned out the open door maybe ten inches, but at the moment it felt like I was hanging perpendicular out the door, my head over the pavement. My friend Sharon though prefers that seat. She says it's because it's easier to get out when she's at her spot, but I know it's because she likes the added danger and thrill of it.

   The next trick is getting out. I have to tell the bus driver where I am getting off, he'll pull over and if I'm in an inside seat, it may require crawling over people to make it out. Sometimes they are nice enough to get out and let me out, or are at least skinny enough for me to squeeze by. Sometimes not. If I am in the front seat, I have to pretend to be smooth and open the door like a pro. This can be tricky because sometimes the inner handle doesn't work, and I have to stick my hand out the window and open it from the outside. Look smooth. Look smooth. Try to look as little like the blatant foreigner that I am.

   I know with time, I will become more and more confident using this “system” of transportation, but until then, it's a pretty entertaining adventure every time. Actually, it will probably always be an entertaining adventure for me.