The Art of Shopping

I've never been a serious shopper. I find it takes too much effort. I have about a good hour at the mall before I become tired, hungry, and inevitably cranky with the whole ordeal. 

So here in Egypt, I am even lazier when it comes to buying things, because there are more things that make it difficult. 

Like haggling. You can buy almost anything you want off of the street, which is convenient. What is not convenient is it most likely will not have a price tag on it, and I usually don't know the going price of the random things I need, like light bulbs. So I have to ask, and try to feel out if the vendor is giving me the real price or a haggling price that I'm supposed to negotiate. It's stressful. I know my Egyptian friends would help me if I asked for a range, but they aren't always around. So sometimes I just procrastinate excessively or go without all together.

For example, I almost didn't buy gloves this winter (yes, it got cold enough for gloves) because I knew how it would go down:

Me: How much is this pair of gloves?

Icecream. Because shopping is hard work.

Vendor: Thirty pounds.

Me: How about fifteen?

Vendor: No, no. I have to take at least twenty-five pounds.

Me: I'll give you twenty.

Vendor: No, that five pounds is my profit. If I sell it to you for twenty, I make nothing.

Me: I'm only giving you twenty.

Vendor: Okay, okay. But only because you are a guest here. Welcome in Egypt.

I would walk away feeling very happy with myself and my cutting edge haggling skills because I got him down from thirty to twenty, only to find out later that the gloves only cost seven pounds. Ugh. Welcome in Egypt indeed.

The other inconvenience is I didn't know my size. I tried to buy pants, and the salesman asked me if I was a 32 or a 34, and I was like.... an 8? That doesn't make sense. So I had to discover that out by trial and error. Apparently if I was an 8 in European sizes, I'd be dead. So 32 it is.

Same thing for shoes. My friend Morgane and I went shoe shopping, and I realized it was my first time since leaving America because I still only knew my American size! I was literally measuring my foot against Morgane's to try to get an idea before I asked to try on any pairs. 

The very convenient thing about this experience is that all the shoe stores were right next to each other. I have found that to be a common theme here in Cairo. Shops congregate towards similar shops. I suppose it gets them more traffic if people can come to one location to find a certain item. One time I stumbled upon a street that exclusively sold lamps for two blocks. So Morgane and I went into around twenty shoe stores on the same street. Go into one, look around, walk out the door, go into the next door, repeat. It was very efficient, my kind of shopping. It was also very productive, we both got new shoes, and in case you were wondering, my shoe size is apparently 37.

Favorite Shopping Moment:

Morgane eventually switched to looking at handbags, since every shoe store also sold handbags. Commenting on the "Made in China" tag hanging off of one, she said: "When I was in China, I didn't feel bad about buying things made in China, because they were local."

8 things I learned when I shaved my head

Most people in my life remember me as the redheaded girl with really long hair. That makes sense, because for twenty-three years I was that girl. Please see exhibit A.

Exhibit A

People who have met me within the past year have a hard time finding me in this picture. Pro tip, I'm the redhead.

The non-redheads are my gorgeous sisters.

People ask, awww Liza! Why did you cut your hair? Answer, because those above pictures took a lot of effort, and I didn't usually look like that. Oftentimes, my hair looked like this.

It required a lot of maintenance to not look like a crazy person.

Then one day I got tired of it. We could say lazy here, but I prefer the term "efficient." Basically, I saw another girl with a shaved head and hip glasses like mine and I thought it was a pretty sharp look (is that how trends start?), and a really good way to save time every day. My brother Greg told me not to do it, I would look like an angry feminist. That's okay, sometimes I am a little anyway so I decided I could live with that. That same week I walked into a hair salon on Grand River, and walked out a completely different person.

I would be lying if I said I regretted my decision, I don't. I learned so much. And you can never replace the initial shocked reaction of everyone I knew when they saw it. How many times can you text your best friend, "hey, I just shaved off all my hair"? Not many, is the answer you were looking for.

The things I learned:

1. I have a really round head

The most nervous thought going through my mind in the salon chair, looking in the mirror with the black salon cape wrapped around me, was that I might have a funny-shaped head. It was a serious risk that you can't know until it's too late to go back. It would be much harder to justify this decision if I had a bumpy head. But I got lucky, and many compliments on the beautiful shape of my skull.


2. It's really cold with no hair
A note of advice to anyone considering shaving their head: don't do it in winter. I had no idea how much of an insulator hair was until I didn't have any in Michigan's February. Hats and scarves became my best friend, even indoors.


3. The convenience is unparalleled
If nothing else, I always credit my good grades during my last semester to being bald. This is because I saved so much time in brushing, washing, drying, and styling every day. The hair part of my daily routine literally vanished. I simply couldn't have a bad hair day. Maybe I never had a good hair day, but at least I couldn't have a bad hair day. Imagine girls, that all you have to do to your hair every day is wash it with a dime sized drop of shampoo and run a towel over it, mostly out of habit because it dries almost instantly on its own. Done. But like, actually done. And working out without that obnoxious ponytail in the way is incredible. The feeling of freedom while running, that alone was worth it. Sometimes I just want boys to shut up about how beautiful long hair is, because they really got the better end of the deal with this social norm in terms of convenience and efficiency.


4. What you look like can really affect your perception of how others perceive you
When I chose to shave my head for apparently no reason at all, I know people questioned my sexual orientation. This didn't bother me in an offensive way. I don't think placing a sexual orientation on someone should ever be an insult, and was not offended if someone thought I liked girls. But I still found myself self-conscious that maybe girls would think I was hitting on them when I wasn't, or that boys would think I wasn't interested when I was. There was just no getting around that my lack of hair was the most notable physical attribute of my body, I know people noticed. So I would add strange comments into conversations that I didn't need to, like "so that really hot guy in my class today..." or "oh yeah, my last boyfriend used to say that too." This was simply to give signals that I probably didn't need to give, based off of what I thought people thought of me. While harmless (and somewhat humorous) in my case, as I chose to shave my head and wasn't generally bothered by any stereotypes people might place on me, it made me think about how deep a role physical appearances play in how we interact with each other.
For example, I wondered what kind of behavior black men do to try to signal that they are not scary thugs to people they meet on the street. And then I got angry that they should even have to try to show that, because our society shouldn't assume that information before getting to know someone, just based off of a physical characteristic that they didn't choose. Or what do cops do to show that they are just normal people with normal lives, whose job happens to be a commitment to public service. Or what do Arabs living in the states do to not be labeled as a terrorist. When there is such a strong stereotype placed on a specific characteristic, anyone carrying that characteristic cannot escape it. It can affects their lives, thoughts, and actions, even if they do not match the stereotype at all, simply because they think people might be stereotyping them.
Humans are visual, so while we say we shouldn't judge a book by its cover, we all do to some extent. This experience definitely made me realize how much it can affect people's mentality when they are on the receiving end.


5. The good people in your life really love you for who you are, not what you look like
I know it's a common mantra that we push in society that beauty comes from within, it's what's on the inside, not the outside that counts, etc. But honestly, in our beauty-based society it is really hard to make yourself believe that all the time. But after I shaved my head, I found I didn't lose any friends. And if I did, they must not have been that good of friends anyway, because I didn't notice. My family didn't disown me, maybe they didn't like it but I was still invited to Easter. I didn't lose my job, I didn't get kicked out of yoga class, I still led song service at church. I was my own living proof that looks didn't matter, my life went on. That was a really good lesson for me to learn. There were some times that I looked really funny. The bowling pin stage. The Chia pet stage. The hedgehog stage. The Justin Bieber stage. The second Justin Bieber stage. The pixie-cut-that-was-too-short-to-really-be-a-pixie-cut-stage. I went through all of them, and there was nothing I could do about it. If I looked in the mirror and wasn't crazy about what I saw, I had to toughen up, deal with it, and still go outside, because hair doesn't grow back in a day. It's really important to remember that the important people in your life will still love you, and it's really important to remember to love yourself, because looks are not that big of a deal.


6. Moms do not appreciate you using their words against them
My mother was less than pleased with my radical decision, and wasn't afraid to tell me so. I tried to reason with her, reminding her how she always used to threaten to shave my hair off if I didn't brush it. "Mom," I said, "I didn't want to brush it anymore. I'm just being responsible." She didn't think it was funny. Now I think she is happier that my hair is long enough to be "in my face," something else she used to always scold me about, because that at least means I have hair. But I know she still loved me, and hair does grow back. It's not like I got something permanent like a tattoo, at least not yet.


7. Graduation caps, and other hats, fit way better
Maybe the other girls crossing the stage had thick, bouncing curls under their graduation caps, but they also had a head full of bobby pins trying to make that "one-size-fits-all" monster stay off the floor, or at least on straight. Win for the baldie.


8. Hair grows back, but at its own pace
Overall, I am really glad I took the leap; it was a nice twist to my roaring twenties. Yes, there are times when I wish it would hurry up and grow. But it doesn't work like that, and it's fun (and sometimes awkward) seeing all the different stages. Like the most recent "Velmster" stage, as I like to call it. At least the Justin Bieber stage is over.

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.