...teaching English in Cairo

When I went around my beginner's English class and greeted each student individually last week, "Hello, how are you?" one of my Palestinian students responded, "I'm very sad." When I asked, "Why!?" he said, "Because my country is in fight and my city is in fire." That was the day the fighting broke out in Gaza. Cairo has been on fire about this.

They've since come to class with Palestinian flags and kaffiyas, as they've joined the protests downtown in support of ending the attacks on Gaza, and to pressure Morsi to resolve the situation. All three were smiling yesterday and there was something inside me that felt very proud of them, rather than sorry for them.

Teaching is going so well, so far. Ironically, my favorite class is my night class, which I didn't even want to teach in the first place. But the students have great chemistry together and everyone is a character. The three Palestinian boys are always laughing at my Arabic, and I laugh at their Arabic accents in return. I have a student who is always cracking jokes, one who must be unconscious for most of the class because he always says a completely wrong and random answer, and each of the 5 women in the class have sass. One is a mother of 5 and is married to an American and her kids are all American, so she thought it was about time she learned English. Another works in tourism and we all embarrassed her when she learned the word "boyfriend" and told us she has one. Simple things are so funny, like when i asked the unconscious guy, "Are you a sister?" and he insisted, "Yes, I am a sister!" the class broke out in laughter. We knew he meant he had one, but he didn't get my question.

The best part is that almost all the students will give me a hard time if I don't call on them to participate. So we just spend a great deal laughing and joking around with a tremendous eagerness to learn. It's very refreshing.

During breaks the Palestinian boys buy me coffee or tea. They're actually the best students in the class and bribes for A's aren't necessary. In my morning class, a female student is always bringing me these breadstix snacks that I love. The other teachers joke about how my students spoil me. I happily enjoy it. It's those small gestures of Arab hospitality that I just adore.

Yesterday I was caught up with some minor food poisoning and I actually had to stop in the middle of my first class to vomit, which took the life right out of me and the class. So at night, I told the class we'd skip our break and leave 30 minutes early. Funny thing is, we spent the first half of the class learning about food and the students were asking me to spell things like "macarona bechemel," "foul," "mahshi," "kawera," these are all Egyptian foods that could be translated, but there's no right way to spell them in English, like cappuccino, for example.

I'm enjoying it so much, that I'm going to add more classes next semester. In fact, I'm going to request that all my students in the Level I night class stay together next semester, and that I continue teaching them through the levels. The company's directors are both happy with me, and met with me to discuss progressing with them.

So everything's going well. :-)

the Mugamma: the end of egyptian civilization

the mugamma is the large building that proudly towers over tahrir square. it handles all things bureaucratic in egypt. anytime any kind of paperwork is needed, you go to the mugamma. people are officially born, married, or dead here; and if you want to have any legal or acknowledgable existence in cairo, you eventually have to make your way over to this monstrosity of a building.

after spending all of 10 minutes going through the organized, streamlined, peaceful, US Embassy to collect my new passport, i thought i'd try my luck by heading to the mugamma straight away to have my visa transfered to the new passport. since my visa is in my old, cancelled passport, technically in my new, valid one, i never entered egypt; i'm not here. so when i leave, that will be an issue. if i wanted to open a bank account, the bank would require a resident visa to do so, so for various reasons, this visa is important.

so i thought i'd pop in and get an idea of what i needed in order to get this visa transfered. the perimeter of each floor is lined with people sitting behind plexiglass windows, each labeled with a particular transaction. i would estimate that about 60% of the people who work in this building are completely useless and clueless and have zero professional sense whatsoever. i witnessed police men shouting at anyone who asked questions about the forms; i saw women behind the counters telling someone to shut up and leave her alone and ask somebody else. in the mugamma, there is absolutely no respect for the person; the human being; the civilian. we're all mashed up into one large piece of shit.

in front of the window are dozens of people shoving their way to the front. absolutely no signs of civilization whatsoever. whoever pushes the hardest gets to the front. doesn't matter if you're already there, someone will cut you. even the person behind the window doesn't care if you were there first, they handle whoever is speaking to them. doesn't matter that you're a woman, men are pasted all over you. the only way to survive this chaos is to join them and completely disregard the respectable concepts of waiting in line or having any manners. so you see, this is all a vicious cycle of chaos. act like animals, get treated like shit. get treated like shit, act like an animal.

the first person i spoke to said to go to window #41. i went to window #41. where is your paperwork? i don't know, what paperwork? you have to go to window #46. i go to window #46. i need paperwork to transfer my visa. are you egyptian? no, my father is. talk to this police officer. he tells me to go to another police officer who gives me a form to fill. tells me to go to window #12. i can't read/write arabic, so i go to window #12 with the form and tell her my name. in egypt, you are given a first name, and your middle name is your father's name, followed by his middle and last name. but i have zero evidence of being egyptian besides my name and that i speak arabic. i have no nationality, no ID card, not even my father's old passport. and that's fine because

all i want to do is transfer my egypt visa to my new american passport.

so she writes my name on the paper and tells me to wait. why? i have no idea. she calls me 15 minutes later. you can't fill out this paper because you have no proof you are egyptian. yes, that's what i told you. go to talk to this police officer.

i lose it a little. i have been circling this building for an hour, everyone tells me to talk to a different person, and i just want to put my old visa on my new passport, i will even buy a new visa, i don't care, i don't care about being egyptian!, just tell me where to go to transfer my visa. she looks at me with her eyebrows raised and a snarky expression that i wanted to slap off of her face and says,

"oh? did you think you were just going to walk into the mugamma, get your visa, and walk out?"

she was lucky there was plexiglass separating us.

i go to the officer and tell him, i have no proof i'm egyptian and i don't care, i just want a visa on my american passport. he says that he cares because i have an egyptian name, so he is the one who decides whether or not i can get a visa. so i have to go find this other guy in another room who is going to search for my dad's name and his birthday to confirm if i'm egyptian or not.

i get lost trying to find this guy, so i ask another window along the way, what to do. she gives me a new form to fill out and tells me to visit window #6.

i walked the fuck out of the building.

after an hour and a half, i had enough. i'll go back when my dad emails me his 1968 egyptian ID that will suddenly, hopefully, validate my existence so i can get the $15 fucking visa stamped into my new passport.

my new passport, my new relationship

my most prized possession, as i've said countless times, is my old passport. i love it. it means the world to me, no pun intended.

my significant relationship with my old passport has been the longest running in my entire life. we've been together for nearly 10 years. and like most relationships, i maximized all that i could benefit from it. it fulfilled me tremendously, and saw me through some exciting times. together, we traveled to all the inhabited continents around the world; we've seen just about 20 countries together, spoken 5 languages, checked-in on many flights, and flown many, many miles.

but sadly, sometimes relationships run their course. sometimes, after being in a relationship for 10 years, one of you changes. a man may get fat, or go bald; a woman may get fat, or get fat. sometimes you fill up all the pages in the book of your relationship, and there isn't any more room to grow together.

and that's when you get yourself a new relationship; a new book with which to grow, where the pages are empty and waiting for new stories to be told, new histories to be made.

and thus, i've welcomed my new passport with open arms. the american embassy in cairo completed this passport within 5 business days and for less than what i would have paid at the office in nyc!!

now i have to go through the major hassle of going to the Mugamma, cairo's building for all things paperwork and backwards, to get my visa transfered to this new passport. because technically, i'm not here without a visa; i don't exist. ugh, wish me luck.

things are turning around

i just had one of the best days i’ve had in months! it was exactly the kind of day that i came to egypt for.

today began our semester at school, and i met and fell in love with both of my classes. they’re both beginner level classes, so i tend to use arabic about 30% of the time to help the students along. funny thing is, i’m learning at the same time, because they’re often correcting my arabic! we all get a good laugh out of it, but these students are all so eager to learn that it’s actually a fun job to do! they participate and ask questions, and none seem too shy when i put them on the spot.

i lied earlier when i said that i never taught before. i tutored for years when i was in high school and college, and this reminded me so much of that rewarding experience. i feel so satisfied when i give a student the confidence that they are knowledgeable and/or correct, and see them develop on that. it’s a hard balance teaching a new language to adults, without making them feel like children, but i can’t patronize them and speak or teach material too quickly either.

i also gained a tremendous amount of respect for teachers today, because this job does require a lot of energy. you need energy to keep yourself as well as your students motivated. and although there are breaks in between, it does get tiring.

after a great day at work (can’t remember the last time i had one of those!) i went off to zamalek to see an apartment that i just fell in love with! it is located in the heart of everything wonderful in zamalek- so many restaurants and boutiques right on my block! it has a bawab, or doorman, a nice looking lobby, and the apartment itself is exactly what i’m looking for. it’s quiet, it has a living room, dining room table, and my potential-future room has not just a couch but a chair as well, in addition to a dresser and wardrobe closet. there’s wifi- so it would reprieve me of wasting money on taxis and coffees, in my rotating wifi-bumming at cafes activity. the bathroom has a large tub and everything is clean and in good condition. a cleaning lady comes every couple of weeks, and the grocery store down the street delivers for free.

the girls are both german professionals, not students, which i note because sometimes it seems that the only expats in this city are, and they keep the place nice and tidy with a, no boys roaming the apartment at all times, policy. i felt like it was a perfect fit! this is exactly what i’ve been holding out for. i knew that i was going to find a place that would immediately make me feel at home once i saw it, and this is the place. finally! i must have seen about 10 mediocre apartments by now and was starting to feel discouraged! understandably, she needs to meet with the other people who have contacted her about the place, but i am hoping she picks me (she said she liked me the best)! it would just completely revitalize my efforts in coming to egypt!!

i won’t allow myself to get my hopes up (too much). tomorrow i’ll be seeing one more place. but hopefully this weekend i’ll have a new place to call home!! or at least a place to finally FEEL at home.

things are really turning around and i feel so excited!

temporarily off funemployment

I gots me a job!

In my tenacious search for something with which to occupy my time, gain a bit of cultural exchange, and earn a little income, I finally landed myself a job!!

Last week I responded to a listing on Craigslist for native American or English speakers and was asked to come in 2 days later for an interview. I actually showed up at the given address in Dokki, without even knowing the company's name, let alone having researched anything about it. How awkward/arrogant!

Much to my surprise, it was a legitimate company-- an NGO even. I filled out a lengthy application that asked me questions about my previous career, why I'm in Cairo, and why I want this job. Before I knew it, I was spelling out my life's story on paper. I interviewed with the director of the organization who turned out to be a woman about my age, from LA, born to Egyptian parents, and has been living in Cairo for 2 years now. Like me, she spent her summers vacationing here in childhood and could speak both english and arabic. We immediately hit it off and wound up chatting like two longtime girlfriends for the next hour and a half.

By the end of the "interview", I had told her about everything that's happened with me since I quit my job. She knew about my family, my relationship, my need to find an apartment; and I knew about how she met her husband, how and why she created this NGO, and had an invitation to her thanksgiving dinner next week!!

The next day I came in for a new teacher training session where we were asked to give 2 presentations on our teaching styles. Being an engineer, and having never taught anything, let alone something like english, my brain doesn't really function this way, so I was nervous. Since I speak Arabic, I'm being given beginner's English courses, so that i can help them along with arabic, when needed. After speaking English my entire life, it's pretty difficult to break it down back to the basics to teach students from scratch.

My lesson was spending the class talking about food and eating. (I thought of this while I was in a restaurant having dinner.) I brought in some props: a Pepsi, cigarettes, and an apple Schwepps (couldn't find an actual apple). I particularly chose those items for a reason. The Arabic language does not have the letter "P," so instead, they use the letter "B" in its place- creating the notorious Egyptian accent in words like "bebsi" or "abble". I used them to demonstrate the difference in the sounds and spelling. I brought the cigarettes, not only because it is Egypt's national past time, but because in Arabic, you literally say you drink cigarettes, and obviously in English you smoke them... as you do shisha and hashish. :-)

I'm excited and nervous to see how it all turns out. The company provided me with the workbooks and they were flexible with my schedule. So for now, I will be working 3 days a week, 2 classes a day, with a 2 hour break in between to provide some private tutoring.

The other fellow teachers were really friendly and creative, and one joined for a drink afterwards. So now I'm meeting new people. Finallyyyy.

Time to go prep for my class!!

trying to resume a normal life as a female in cairo

i was raised to be a strong, independent person. and through my experiences growing up, i've only become tougher, a little more badass, and i absolutely refuse to accept that there are any differences in the capabilities and freedoms of men and women. just because i was born with ovaries does not mean that i'm less entitled or smart than someone born with say, balls. in fact, i've been told numerous times that i have pretty big balls myself, so...

it is annoying beyond imagination that as a woman in cairo, i always need to be "looked after." i'm discouraged from going and staying out late, taking taxis, living on my own, etc. but there's also reasoning behind that. sexual harrassment is rampant here in egypt. there was even a great article about this in the NY Times.

while i do dress a little more conservatively here than i do at home, i still wear "normal" clothes. no burqa, no headscarf, none of that. and for the record, most young women dress the way we do. they are just as trendy and fashionable as any of us westerners are. but there's not a single day that i go out that someone doesn't hiss, honk or make a comment to me. i just ignore them all. i once had my breast grabbed walking through downtown cairo, and some girlfriends had been grabbed and/or sexually assaulted in taxis or worse, given the, you're going to hell because you're not covered, speech by a self-riteous man. most of the women have noted that things have become much worse since the revolution, some even blaming the fact that the Muslim Brotherhood is now in power. sometimes it's an excuse that you're so exposed, you're practically asking to be assaulted. fucking animals, really, if men can't control themselves, they are no different than dogs and animals. but anyway, i digress...

so as i am still trying to stabilize myself here, i venture out into the city and spend about 90% of my time here alone and i don't think twice about it. this is what i'm used to, this is how i've always lived. i work alone, i sit alone, i drink alone, i eat alone. big deal?

but the other day while i was sitting in a restaurant having a shwarma, you guessed it- alone, i kept getting stares from the other male patrons. i just returned equally rude, can i fucking help you?, stares. yes, i'm a woman and i'm sitting in this restaurant alone. i'm not a prostitute.

i just want a damn shwarma.

but then i started to try to understand that their daughters probably never venture out alone. they absolutely do go out, but most likely it's in the company of others. i almost never see a local, egyptian girl by herself anywhere. so these men are just not accustomed to seeing this. there's nothing wrong with the fact that i am having a sandwich by myself, but it's probably just strange for them. they can be excused for their ignorance, their inexperience, but they can't be excused for their double standards, and they most certainly can't be excused for any actions in response to this.

so just fuck off and leave me and all the other women in cairo alone. shokran.

a day in the life...

so what do i do with my days here? not much.

i've been in cairo for just over 2 weeks now, although it feels much longer. there's something about this city that makes a day feel like two, and no one is really sure what it is. my american friend and i were having this conversation the other day over one of our wifi dates.

maybe the days last longer because you always seem to be caught in a traffic jam no matter where you are or what time it is. maybe it's just the pace of life. families stay up late, and on the weekends, wake up late. if they go out, it's not usually before 4pm, after they've rested, eaten lunch, and taken their time getting ready. no one is ever really in any sort of rush. if something doesn't get done today, it just doesn't get done today. and not much is a priority. especially for my unemployed self. everyday i'm faced with 3 very simple priorities: what to wear, where i am going for wifi, and finding a non-career focussed job. this is a complete 180 from my lifestyle in nyc, where my daily to-do list was tens of items long and my metrocard got over-exercised daily at turnstiles all over the city.

i usually wake up around 11am and by the time i'm dressed and ready, it's 2 or 3pm. i've by now strategically located about 7 cafes with free wifi surrounding me. i have them all on rotation now based on the day, if or where i'll be going out later, or whether or not i'm hungry. i also factor in things like the cost for the taxi and traffic too. there's a cafe that serves delicious, but expensive food, and everyone who goes there is beautiful. there's another that serves crappy food, but is located adjacent to a fantastic schwarma shop that is so delicious and cheap, so i load up on sustenance there and take my time sipping on an overpriced coffee while i bum the wifi at the cafe. i now know the waiters, they know my order, and it never seems to be an issue that i sit for hours on end, never ordering more than just a couple of coffees or teas.

so for the most part, i spend my days writing my book, getting caught up on current events, with friends/family, and doing the job and apartment search. i don't need a job, but i want one. i want something simple, like teaching english, somewhere nearby, and i only want to make enough money to pay my rent. first time in my life that i don't care about how much money i'm making. the reality is that cairo is such a cheap city to live in that it's not putting much of a dent into my savings, but still, i can only take the idle life for so long. so i just want something to keep me busy and to earn some petty cash.

later i'll try to meet with some friends in either zamalek, downtown, or mohandesin for a drink. sometimes we have weirdos give us their numbers and we laugh them off. a lot of times we make fun of the broken english egyptian men try to seduce us with... we are pretty sure karma will get us and we won't find ourselves husbands. not to mention that every guy in cairo seems to be 25. what happens after 25? where do all the 25+ year old men go? sometimes i eavesdrop on every other english conversation taking place around me. and sometimes i ask the cute american or british guys for a light even though mine is right next to my pack of cigarettes. i eventually make my way back home around 1am and write until i fall asleep at 3am. then start the cycle all over again.

people keep asking me why i'm here. why would an intelligent, independent female with a stable career leave nyc for cairo? i have no real purpose in being here other than the fact that i want to be. and maybe things have been a little siderailed with the whole getting closer to my family thing, but it's not going to affect my choice in staying. i'm here for myself.

hopefully myself will soon find a job and a place to call home temporarily. yalla ba2a!