Hello Cairo!

Good Morning, good morning, good morning!

It's been now 2 weeks since I'm in Cairo, and I can tell you: it’s been a wonderful couple of weeks…!!

For some of you, this is the first report you have of me since I’m in Egypt. The thing is, since I am morally obliged to write a detailed report to my dearest mother, I seldom make just a few changes in it and send it out to everyone – that is, every Portuguese-speaking friend who might be interested in knowing my whereabouts and activities here in North Africa. Thus, I’ve been keeping the rest of the non-Portuguese speaking world in ignorance – that’s not fair, so here’s my first blog (title means: “my little corner that’s just my own”) in English!

A “quick” resumé of what has been going on over here:

My first week in Cairo:

Upon my arrival, I stayed at Takushi’s place.

Takushi is a Japonese diplomat who will be living in Cairo for the next two years doing nothing but learning the language, and whom I met through an Egyptian friend of my sister (she met Ahmed in Zimbabwe, he’s an Egyptian diplomat). Both Ahmed and Takushi came and picked me up at the airport (which was terribly nice of them) and we headed straight to a Shisha bar. So Middle Eastern! What a great introduction to Cairo’s ambiance!

It was a very nice bar, and we had a wonderful time! It was located in Old Cairo, the place where the oldest mosques are. Even in the dark (it was like 10h30pm) you could see how beautiful they were. It was a great first impression of this historical and majestic city…! But I was also introduced to its chaotic traffic right there and then. Goodness gracious, how terrifying it is to cross a street..! I promise I’ll make a video of it sometime, just so you can have a slight idea of what I’m talking about!

My room during that first week – week and a half, to be more precise – was very very nice. It had two king-size beds (so it was far from being small..!) and a little table at the end with an amazing view over the Nile. The only problem was the noise: along the river there’s a very busy road and every morning I seemed to wake up with a truck honking from my pillow! And I should add that honks in Egypt are incredibly loud and peculiar, so these are not regular honks. There’s usually a whole melody to them, which makes it 10x harder to bear!!

Two days after I arrived, I went to the office. Wait. I should say I eventually went to the office: I got lost.

Supposedly, the office is within a 10 minutes walking-distance from the Maadi Metro station. I took a cab though – as I was advised to do at first – because the streets’ names/numbers are not clearly marked and they are far from having the parallel disposition I’m used to. The taxi driver dropped me of at a huge roundabout where Jenna said I should stay and wait for someone to come pick me up. But my phone wasn’t working, so I could not call her. I had the map on my phone with the path clearly marked out in yellow and the address, so I thought to myself: let’s do this, it can’t be that hard!

L-o-l.

I got seriously lost. I talked to about 6 different men whose English was very very poor. Then, true men that they are, they refused to admit they did not know where the heck street 14b was, and so they all pointed out to different directions, committed to assist a young and helpless foreign woman. I ended up in a street where I found but one man. I wasn’t at all certain the taxi driver (#2) had dropped me off at the right place, so I gathered some charm and asked the one living soul there (apart from the old ladies starring at me from their windows) if I could borrow his phone.

Jenna had no idea where I was. And this man couldn’t be of much help because his English was below basic – and I don’t yet know how to speak basic Arabic (my fault. It’s his country, after all). I understood, though, that there was a doctor and that he was going for him. He left me there and came back 5 minutes later – the doctor was asleep (all this in gestures). Fuck. What now? We went to the neighbor, perhaps he could understand me. He could not. Damn it! But then a lady shouted in Arabic: the doctor was awake! I went up to his door and this man comes up to me in his pajamas – night-gown, actually – straight out of a comedy movie. An old man, in his sixties, with a furry mustache and a round belly clearly marked out by his silky night gown, with a grumpy face of someone who had been awaken in the middle of the night. I had to gather all my strength not to burst out laughing right then and there.

He talked to Jenna – his house was number 14b. Jenna told him 14b was not supposed to be the number of a house, but the number of a street. He thought she was silly and dumb – there was no street 14b. And so he went back to sleep, grumpier than before, and I agreed I would just go back to the roundabout and wait for Jenna there.

I finally arrived to the office. There I met Jenna in person, an American that has been an intern at Arab-West Foundation, but is now employed as the intern coordinator. She received me well and showed me around the office..

Kees, our boss, was there that week – he’s a Dutch and lives in Holland, so he is only seldom Egypt – and he immediately invited me to take part in a really exciting period for our organization. He was to receive the representative of the SG Party of the Netherlands – Mr. Henk van Schothorst – who was also a member of the European Parliament. He was in Egypt to try and build bilateral relations with various political parties which he was supposed to help structuring and organizing in order to improve the Democratic performance of Egypt. My role would be to take notes of each and every one of those meetings. Needless say how excited I was about this.

It was an excruciatingly busy week. For 5 days, I would leave the house at around 8 or 9am, and would only arrive at midnight – sometimes later. During the day, I’d be running around in high heels, but all covered – scarf around the neck, long-sleeve shirts, and pants (when it’s almost 40º outside, you can imagine my pain…!!) so as not to offend some of the most religious people we met with –, with my 100kg computer on my shoulder, and only sitting down during the meetings, as even to eat, we would do it on the run. Needless say, my feet were bleeding at the end of eacg day, and my back were curvier than ever, but as I met with members of the Freedom and Justice Party, the Nour, the Wafd and the Taghamu parties, as well as Newspaper editors and Bishops, I was too excited to even care much about it. Plus, I developed a really great relation with both my boss and Henk, who, besides being great men, were also really fun to be around.

Henk would make me laugh out loud with his clumsiness and funny remarks on cultural aspects to which he wasn’t used to, while Kees, in all his seriousness, personal and professional commitment to Egypt, would always shake his head in disapproval for our constant “misbehavior”. I gained two Dutch fathers right there. It was lovely!

I am now seriously committed to this organization, having understood how respected my boss is, and how impactful he can be in creating dialogue between factions of the Egyptian socio-political landscape who can be at time very aggressive towards each other. I am therefore very satisfied with my work – to say the least – and even now, as I am responsible to turn all my notes into detailed meeting reports, a task I’d normally find hard and dull, I find myself thrilled to be contributing to the work of my NGO.

Working, though, has been only a fraction of what I’ve been doing in Egypt!

Thanks to my dearest American-Egyptian friends Yomna and Engie, who have put me in contact with their Egyptian acquaintances, I have now a range of Egyptian friends who have been greatly dedicated to have me spend the best of times in Cairo: Dinana and Omar have contacted me and, thanks to them, I have gone out to see really nice and interesting places in Maadi, I rode a horse in the desert, with the Giza Pyramids and Cairo as landscape, I drove their friend Farid’s car in an Egyptian highway, and tasted delicious Egyptian food. Hend – Engie’s aunt, has also been following me closely on facebook, giving me a bit of a sense of protection, and I have also been contacted by Shrif and Heliana, two other friends of Yomna whom I plan to get to know soon enough. Sherif has assured me we will go for sandboarding (snowboarding, but in the sand dunes) someday soon. This is something I have tried out in Peru once before, but which I loved and look forward to repeat!

During my meetings, I also got to meet George Messiha, a member of the Wafd party, elected as a Parliament member (which is now dissolved though), whose kindness is beyond words. Besides being really patient explaining to me everything concerning Egypt’s society and political setting, George has proven himself to be a very open minded and genuinely kind man, the sort of person with whom you can talk about everything, even religion, which is the hardest, most “taboo” topic to discuss with just about every Egyptian. After one of our late meetings, when 7 hours had passed without having eaten anything (Kees’ rules…), George invited Henk, Kees and I to have dinner at his mom’s. There I got to meet his wonderful family: his beautiful wife, his adorable child – Daniel -, his endearing mom and his captivating aunt. I was fed like a Queen – except Queens are not persuaded to eat up to their nostrils, haha. It was my first truly Egyptian meal. It was beyond delicious and I had a lovely time!

Last Sunday I was also lucky enough to meet Michael – an intern at Arab West Report, but whose 3 months-long internship ended last Tuesday – and so I had no more than 2 days to spend with him. We met at the office – by chance, because, as researchers, we are not obliged to go there every day – and we immediately agreed to meet up later that day, for an Ethiopian wedding that would be taking place at a Catholic Church. Michael’s research was on inter-religious dialogue and he decided to, instead of starting off by interviewing people directly like an “investigator”, start by slowly integrating himself as a member of those communities. He also took advantage of their great libraries – he showed me a few – and so, during the course of 3 months, he was indeed able to make good friends in some of Cairo’s Christian communities. He and I had some very interesting conversations which were especially useful to me as I absorbed the perspective of a European young person like myself who was willing to share his perspective and give me some advice. Michael introduced me to some of his friends, got me to taste some Egyptian food and drinks and, overall, we spend a great couple of days together. I am sorry he is gone, but I am sure we will remain good friends despite not having even shared over 20 hours of our busy lives.

Before going back to Holland, where he is now, Kees got us to go to this meeting with some very “hardcore” Egyptian friends of his, with very harsh perspectives over religious matters – atheists, in the strictest sense of the wordl. It was very interesting because it got me in touch with exponentially different views. I was offered alcohol whisky and vodka and hashish (all of which I refused due to my stomach sensitiveness as it is still adapting to Egyptian food and water), and was often shocked – I believe that on purpose – by some of the statements made in that room.

It was in this house where I met a lady who was asking who could perhaps host the German daughter of a friend of hers who was arriving to Egypt very soon. I was still at Takushi’s and was not in such a hurry to find an apartment even though I knew I could not stay there forever. But I said yes anyhow and so the lady gave me the email of Sarah Keller. Now I can say - Thank God for that.

I contacted Sarah the following day, and three days after Takushi gave me some bad, unexpected news. I had to leave. The apartment belonged to a Muslim friend of his who was now in Japan, but who – as most Egyptians – did not like the idea of having a girl and a guy living together in the same apartment without being married – even if she did know Takushi has a Japanese girlfriend. The apartment’s owner’s mom showed up at our door a couple of days before Takushi gave me the news. As I was the only one at home, I answered and chatted with her a bit. She was very nice, but was clearly opposed having me living there with a man. “Are you a Christian?” – a hard question I have been often asked since my arrival and never knew how to respond – “Yes, I suppose”. “And Sasada son” – Sasada is Takushi’s last name –, “is he Buddhist?”, and I honestly responded I did not know. She left and, a couple of days later called our friend Ahmed (my sister’s friend who so nicely set me up with Takushi, and who was also friends with this woman’s daughter) telling him to tell Takushi I had to leave as soon as possible.

Takushi told me the news this past Friday, but said I should not be worried: he had already talked to another Japanese friend of his – Rikuya – and I could move in with him until I found a place. I was eternally grateful and can now honestly say Japanese have become my heroes.

Sarah arrived Saturday morning and I moved to Rikuya’s that same Saturday (three days ago). It is a wonderful apartment, but, as it has only one room where Rikuya sleeps, I sleep in the living room. It is an incredibly comfortable couch though, so I am very comfy here.

Sarah and I have been in close contact since she arrived and we have been going crazy trying to find an apartment. We have a low budget – she’s paid as an intern, I am an unpaid intern – and Sarah wanted to live in the center, either in Zamalek, Downtown, Garden City or Dokki. These are all very popular districts and so we knew, from the start, we were in for a hard and most likely long search. We met a couple of times already, and we get along really well, which is already great. Sarah has live in Cairo for around 3 years already, and so for me is also great to move in with her as she knows a lot more about the city and its “system” than I do.

Yesterday we finally found a place J

For the next six months we will be living right in the heart of Zamalek – the most popular area in Cairo (yet, unfortunately, also the most touristy), where there is every kind of store, restaurant, supermarket you can think of. It is surely more expensive, but hopefully I will be able to abstain from buying things I don’t need.

Our apartment is in a quiet street and it has three rooms. One for me, another one for Sarah and the third one is rented out to a British girl we haven’t yet met. Hopefully she’s cool as well. My room is big, with a big single bed, two bedside tables and a closet. It is still pretty empty, though, and so I asked the landlord to add a desk and a chair to it, which he agreed to do. Sarah’s room is really small, but a lot cozier. The apartment has a big living room with a TV, two sofas and one dining table; there’s a balcony, a bathroom and a half and a kitchen. It all seems to work really well, the landlord seems to be nice – the girls who are still there didn’t complain – and so we’re really happy. I will be moving into Sarah’s small room on the 15^th (I think) as mine will only be available at the end of the month. Sarah can stay where she’s living now until then, so in November she’ll move in to the small bedroom and I’ll finally move into mine. I’m so glad we’ve found such a cool place!

Yesterday, after settling things with the landlord by phone, we went with Sarah’s friend, Omar (he was with us there, as a translator sort of), to meet other two friends of his. We met at a shisha café and they were all really nice. At the very end, a Dutch girl showed up and, after chatting a bit, I found out she was the brand new intern at Arab-West Foundation who had just arrived the day before! Such a coincidence, really…! We have only 5 interns now, and the guys we were with were all Egyptians, so what were the chances? I had talked to Jenna about this girl that same morning, and there she was. Even in the 30^th biggest city in the World we can find it to be so small…!

Now that I have a place, I will finally be able to start my Arabic lessons. Hopefully in mid-March I will be able to converse a bit with people who haven’t been fortunate enough to learn English. I would really love to know more about Egypt - beyond the thoughts of a restrict and privileged social class. That is my goal.

Wow. I’ve written a lot. For those (few) of you who had the patience to read it all: thank you for showing interestJ. I hope I filled you in “a bit” on my life here in Cairo! If you have any comments or questions, I would be more than happy to answer you, so go ahead!

I send you all my love.

Diana