my addiction

so i previously discussed egypt's constant need for a fix. i too have a bad habit that i'm in constant search of a fix for, except mine is a bit healthier. i am a wifi-oholic. i need wifi like a crack head needs a pipe. imagine having a wonderful iphone with tons of capabilities, and yet offers you no more service than a paperweight. it sucks without wifi.

in effort to remedy this, i purchased a usb modem from vodafone- the largest local mobile provider. at best, this usb offers me some 2G service that well, isn't service. if i told you how long i had to wait to upload my pics to fb this morning... i'm even surprised i had the endurance to handle it.

so my solution to all this is that i have been mapping out all the cafes in my vicinity that have free wifi. i've drank a lot of juices; i've eaten a lot of sandwiches; and scarfed many, many french fries.

i figured i might as well be productive about this too, so i decided to create a new blog featuring all the cool spots in cairo. it will be similar to my nyc food blog, but will obviously be based here in cairo and will include boutiques and small business shops as well.

just as long as i get my wifi, ok?

thank you for smoking

it's an understatement to say that everyone in egypt smokes. everyone in egypt smokes. cigarettes are very cheap here, especially by nyc standards, and ok- let's say that everyone has or needs a vice. well given that alcohol isn't really available, cigarettes have become the go-to solution when in need of a fix.

in effort to curb the volume of cigarettes consumed, all cigarette packs are now sold with these unappealing, appetite-losing, gut wrenching images of the effects of smoking.i don't know what's more disturbing. the fact that these are ignored, or the fact that i still have to sit at tables where these images are being shoved in my face.yucky.

Keeping up with the Jones'

So Egypt has a very interesting and complex culture and society. It's the kind of country that has sharp contrasts between the classes. There is an incredibly large population of ppl who are illiterate and there are ppl with more money than anyone really needs. And where you fit along that spectrum matters. To most, at least. How you behave, dress, and speak are all indicative of your family's status and your upbringing. You want to be "of people" as they say here. So unlike at home, where spoiled brats have $1,000 bags and then pop gum and curse like sailors an have zero manners, that wouldn't fly here, presentation is a complete package. And girls especially always have to watch themselves. I am not used to watching myself, and I like to be a little less than put together most of the time, so stepping it up several notches has required some effort.

So when you have money, you show it. And when you want to go somewhere "classy" it costs. And most ppl may know that generally speaking, I'm pretty frugal. I don't like wasting money at all. I mean, I prefer to stay in $20/night hostels rather than the $200/night ones that I can def afford. I love to have nice things, but I don't like to be flashy. And I really don't want to pay $16 for a cocktail in Cairo.

So it's been a little difficult to keep up. When we go shopping I am shocked by the prices. They pay about triple what we pay for the same exact clothes, and they make a fraction of what we make. When we go to cafes, I'm spending what I spend in NYC... In Cairo! I don't understand how they manage.

But I drew the line with my iPhone. I refused to spend $150 to unlock this iPhone so that i could install a local sim card. Instead, I bought myself a cheap $20 phone with sim card to use while I'm here. At least I can call and text, and maybe I'll unlock my iPhone at home, or one of the 4 blackberrys that I have in a drawer somewhere. If it really matters, I'll bust out the iPhone to browse through pics and send txts on my cheapie phone under the table. Lol.

The commuter soundtrack

Today I sat on the beach at the Mediterranean and after swimming in some perfect water, I sunbathed for what felt like hours. It was exactly what I needed. Sun, sand, and music.

I listened to my most recently created playlist that I've listened to about 500 times on my way to and from work. But today all those songs felt 3x longer. I heard all the words. I heard all the instruments. I tapped every beat into the sand.

And then I looked at the time and only 30 minutes had passed.

observations on cairo

i can't say that i've ever seen cairo this intense, ever. cairo has really caught up with the world's access to technology, consumerism, and development. mega malls have popped up all over cairo, everyone has a cell phone and computer, and there is construction happening everywhere. but with all the money being poured into importing all these things from the rest of the world, i doesn't look like anyone has really stopped to think for a minute, hmm, what can we do for egypt here, within egypt?

forget about bringing over the GAP and Mango. forget about building the biggest shopping mall. forget about having the latest blackberry or samsung mobile phone. egyptians spend their lives in the most insane and inexplicable traffic all day, everyday. no one has given any thought to developing cairo's infrastructure. the infrastructre built about 40 years ago doesn't meet today's needs. more people have been moving to cairo, bringing more cars and the need for more housing. cairo is meeting the housing need, but has completely neglected to consider one important thing: how to get home. it would have been ingenious to build trains, trams, or subways while planning the new developments on the outskirts of cairo. but with the increased volume of people and cars, and the same old, crumbling infrastructure, egypt is literally at a stand still. it cannot sustain this way of living. quality of life is severely sacrificed here, and that also includes the quality of the environment lived-in, and the air being breathed.

whenever i come to cairo, i always notice these really obvious problems that have seemingly really obvious solutions, but i can never understand why nothing has ever been done to fix them. under the old regime, with billions being handed to the country from the US, you would think that maybe, a tiny bit would be invested back into the country?... maybe? maybe put in a new train system? maybe update the existing, sad metro in cairo, maybe expand it-- maybe improve it so that people would use it? maybe local trains for commuters into central cairo? or trams? it's so simple, even a child could see it.

and maybe that is a habit of the old way of living in egypt- you know it's a problem, but you accept it because you're afraid not to. and maybe now opinions will be considered, and plans to improve egypt will actually be made? maybe. but i fear that it is almost toxic to live here now. inhaling all that pollution and exhaust; enduring all that bumper-to-bumper stress; and then spending every last dime on the west's latest trends... how is this a sustainable egypt?

with all its great resources, egypt needs to find a better way for itself. tourism is one of the major industries here, but i can see why cairo has become such a turn-off for tourists. it is impossible to navigate! egypt thinks that by uncovering new tombs at the pyramids, they will attract more tourists. no. how about you make it so that they don't come here and spend most of their time in a taxi? that's way more fun. compared to morocco, where buses and trains are so easily accessible and so cheap, egypt is a nightmare to explore.

this of course, is a concern for me, because i don't know if i could deal with this for an extended period of time. i get upset when my subway is a few minutes behind schedule in nyc, imagine the strain of having to leave things in the hands of god?? i like a good, reliable routine. i love to stand in a line and wait my turn. i hate how uncivilized pushing and shoving your way to the front of the line is. imagine if i was working a decent job here and was spending almost all my salary to go to cafes and restaurants, or to buy clothes, just to maintain the same quality of life i have back home? imagine if i spent 3 hours of my day in traffic, traveling only about 30 miles total in both directions? i would go out of my freakin mind!

but i'm going to wait until after ramadan to make a better observation. when life goes back to normal, i could get a better sense of what day to day conditions are really like.

inshallah.

first stop: cairo.

cairo is maybe my favorite place in the whole world. my father was born and raised here, and his entire family still resides here. when my brother and i were young, we used to spend our summers between egypt and france, visiting family, but cairo has the most special place in my heart.

not only is our family very large here, but we're very close. we're a very large, loud, typical egyptian family. we travel to the beaches together, we go to the clubs (sport/country) together, we hang out together, and everyone is always eating, eating, eating. it's probably the one place in the entire world where i ever felt completely accepted. no one ever discriminated against me because of the way i looked, or because i speak arabic, or am muslim and half french, or am tall and large and have lots of dark curly hair. i fit in here, and don't get me wrong, we have our fair share of family drama, but it's the place i feel most comfortable.

so i'm starting out my year here. i'll spend the next 6 weeks with my family before heading back for a friend's wedding. while i'm here, i hope to maximize the time i spend with my family, while also getting out to explore some of cairo on my own- you know, solo travel, a la sabeel. i actually brought a lonely planet book on egypt, so i'm really interested to discover parts of cairo and the rest of egypt that i never saw as a "local." i may be choosing egypt as my "home base" when i venture back out for the 6 month trip. not only would it be amazing to spend the time with my family that i only get to see every 3-4 years now, but it would also be so much easier. i could stay with my grandmother, i could get a job here, i can speak the language... so we'll see. haven't made any decisions yet, but this is a good contender.

"funemployment"

My friend used this term while jokingly envying my current, self-inflicted job status. I'm on "funemployment".

The truth is that many ppl I know at my age are going through the same career-questioning phase that I'm going through. We all went to great schools, studied hard, got great degrees, found great, resume-building jobs, and now nearly 8-10 years later are tapping our fingers on our desks wondering, ok now what? What do we do now?

See, I personally think it is an outright tragedy that at the age of 16, students have to make one of the most important decisions of their lives without even having experienced real life at all. In our junior and senior years of high school, we have to choose our colleges and choose our majors. How exactly do we make the right decision for ourselves at that age?? I don't believe that we do. We choose based on our best subjects, or based on what's good on paper to get a job after graduation, or what may impress people. I still know that I made the wrong decision in choosing my major. Engineering highlighted all of my weaknesses and never allowed me to enjoy any of my strengths, skills, or hobbies. All 4 years of undergrad were torture for me. Had I gone to a bigger school with actual options for majors, I would have switched out. But I had a full scholarship to a very prestigious school, so I was trapped, I had to endure. And that's why, as much as I dislike engineering and although I know there are better fits out there for me, I've stuck with it for so long because of how hard I had to work to get through it. I put in so much effort, how could I give that all up? I had to endure. So I worked in construction, a little less dry than Engineering.

I never felt like I fit into that world. I was always perceived as the wild liberal with too much interest in the rest of the world, which really didn't matter to my coworkers. I was really good at what I did, and very hard working, but I struggled so much to fit in. I was in a conservative (white) man's world, and between being an arab/muslim and a female, i just felt so different all the time. They love baseball and beer, and golf, and they criticize Obama, the French, the Arabs, have no idea what's happening in Syria, or Egypt, or Greece, or Asia, or Africa, and want to spend their ideal vacation on a beach in Mexico. I've been asked if I have to wear a burqa when I visit Egypt, or if the Christians in Egypt are allowed to speak Arabic. And no, we don't ride camels to school either. I was asked what continent Morocco was on, and if it was right next to Egypt. ...And these are educated people! Sometimes I felt like I was living on the Fox 5 news set. I couldn't believe the things that I would hear and I'd always wonder what the hell I was doing there. I wanted to talk about cultures, documentaries, languages, my next destination... and I would get blank stares, or, coffee break's over. I had to just stop talking so as not to ostracize myself from the group. They less they knew, the better.

So after many years of trying, I finally admitted to myself that while what I've done is admirable, it's just not for me. It doesn't bring out the best in me. I'm not giving it all up, I'm not throwing it all away, but I'm trying to see what, if, there is something better out there for me.

And I'm pretty confident I will find something.