So apartment hunting yesterday… We were supposed to go with this guy named Samy that works for Dr. Maged Abdul Al Azim (who is the owner of First Class Egypt realty one of the largest real estate firms in the city. Oh and not to mention we had been looking at apartments online from their website!) Whatever, we were supposed to go with him when Ung Sang’s genious self deemed it “too sketchy” and thus we ended up going with this random guy named “Alex” that Maria had been emailing before she got to Cairo. May I also mention that this guy says “funky”, “shit”, and “damn” every other word not understanding that he sounds like a complete idiot! For example,

“This apartment is funky!” “Don’t let those other people shit you. I will make a good deal for you!” “And it’s like the damn beat around the bullshit they give you. I deal with a lot of AUC students and I know that they want funky apartments that won’t be shit!” Are you annoyed yet?

Anyway, he touts that he’s a modern Muslim, has lived in Germany, and has been a realtor for a while. And he has apartments all over Egypt that he can show us. Hmmmmmmmmmmm something smells quite funky. So he takes us on this tour of each alleyway before we get to the apartment he wants to show us, making us targets at every turn. Before hand we just looked like expats (or at least I thought so J) but after Alex’s tours of the hood we definitely looked rob-able (although the culture of Cairo is such that petty crime isn’t common – a combination of Islam, Egyptian prison, and ban on civilian weaponry Cairo is really a safe place). Then after the “funky coffee shops” and lessons that we should not be “shitted on” by the people who will try to “hustle” us, and after Monica and I enthusiastically broke out into Dirt of Your Shoulders by Jay-Z (and might I add Alex HATED our hip-hopera)((I’m a hustler homie/you’s a customer crony/ got some dirt on my shoulder could you brush it off for me? For those of you who didn’t know how the song related to the situation. Listen to the song and you’ll see why it’s one of Barack’s favorites LOL!)) and I guess homeboy hated me too at that point – it’s the whole seen not heard thing or maybe I’m just too Western and too dark all of which could have confused him.

Hmmm which brings me to a side story – I’ve gotten all kinds of looks and the one that are whistles or cat calls are expected. However, I get some looks that really perplex me (ps the hair is doing so well in this climate. It could be because it’s so dirty but whatever) back to the looks. Some people here – their looks hint on the side of disdainful as if I’m not acting as expected. They’re not necessarily unwelcoming looks but – they’re hard to explain. The color of my skin, the texture of my hair, and my purely American accent must confuse them as they do me. I mean some of the people here (some) look like members of my family – some even look like me! I mean I get the part that I’m in Africa and I’m African American but still these people, these Egyptians look Black (well some of them) American Black. The people here are GORGEOUS, absolutely beautiful (not all though). Some of the women, though veiled, would put the likes of Twiggy, Cindy Crawford, homegirl from project runway that always says, “you’re Aut”, and even Tyra to shame. LOL and boy do they dress, if even modestly they layer these colors, patterns and styles with this make up – (please see later entry on people for a clarification of what people look like here.)

But I digress. It’s so much to take in and still it has yet to register that I’m in Cairo which is in Egypt which is in Africa! I am in Africa. I have gone back to Africa, a place I have never been and a home to my ancestors. The rush of emotion that I thought would consume me hasn’t, but I believe it’s because it hasn’t set in yet that I’m finally here.

Ok but back to the story about Alex, the sleezy, extra funky (in a bad almost smelly way) realtor. After we brushed our shoulders off and got glared at, he proceeded to talk about God only knows what. (Al hamdu lillah!) ((That was for Monica, inside joke!)) (((It means thanks be to God just in case you were wondering))). Then we get in this raggedy, wrachety, rinky-dink looking hole in the wall posing as an apartment. If Whitney Houston on crack could be an apartment, she would have been that one! Now these sentiments are coming from a semi-spoiled (ok spoiled Mommy) brat who grew up in Humble, Texas – but for what he was trying to make it seem like and what it was were like heaven and hell. It was just not cute on so many levels in this real suspect looking building with no kitchen (sad is the bowab or doorman slept on a mat on the ground at the bottom of the building. When I think of truly poor people in the U.S. I picture someone pushing a basket with cans in it and a few possessions like a shirt, blanket of some sort – these people have absolutely nothing. Seriously nothing. He shared that same mat with 2 other men in this small room no bigger than the closet in the North Quad dorms at CMC). Moving on, Alex took us to one other apartment after that in Zamalek to a building where I wouldn’t send my worst enemy. Okay it wasn’t that bad but the elevator was smaller than an extra medium t-shirt on Jared before he lost of that weight with Subway. Oh and yes you can touch the walls of the building while the going up or down in an Egyptian elevator. Hahahah Interesting this entire experience has been hilarious. At some point after Alex grabbed me by the arm the 3^rd time, the bowab whispered in my ear, and the heat showed through my solid black t-shirt it was time to go. (For me at least I had had enough). We needed to get back, eat, see Elaisha fresh of the plane ride from India via UAE, shower and eat. I hop into the cab with Ehab, Monica, and Ung Sang and we head back down town only to turn around, chase the other cab with Dave, Jo Jo, and Maria and tell their cab driver (well Ehab tells the taxi driver of the other car in the middle of the street while moving) to take us to Dokki to see some other apartment with some other guy who never showed up. We were dropped off on a corner by a grocery store that had a faint smell of body odor, but in general was cool. Between me getting excited over the block of mantequilla and Monica screaming, “THEY HAVE FROSTED FLAKES!” it was amazing! The Dokki apartment was uneventful as was the ride home.

We passed out amidst the heat and other elements – like the potential of a cat walking around in our room, mosquitoes (they ate me alive!), and the heat. AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH SOOOOOO HOOOTTTT! That’s all for now. I’ll reach back to other stories later.

Holla!

“An ant was on my boob and I don’t know how it got there.”

- Maria Laborde

Today we went apartment hunting, let’s just say interesting. Sleezy real estate agents, sketchy areas of town, and boo boo apartments. P.s. quote from Elaisha, “the guy sitting next to me on the plane smelled like isht and was faurting his life out!” LOL so anyway since I stayed out to 4am last night with Dave and JoJo and Ung Sang (after eating Kofta and grape leaves stuffed with rice) I slept unintentionally until 11:45a the next morning. Yep almost till noon, then had biscuits, tea, and cheese for breakfast while chatting it up with the boys, calling our real estate agent (little did I know at this point that “our” real estate agent would take on a new meaning when Elaisha and Monica arrived.) I took a cold shower and then passed out again on the brick slab that was my hostel bed. Monica arrived today and Elaisha too. I promise to write about Dokki, Zamalek, Alex the creepy real estate agent, Ehab, Heliopolis and ‘why isn’t it bad’, small kitchens, almost killing a child, “India”, “Oh Natalia”, 90 L.E. … oh wait 75 L.E., sheesha being the only thing that smells good in the entire city, getting lost in a Zamalek building in a dark- seemingly never ending staircase to avoid the claustrophobia inciting elevator that I wasn’t sure I’d make it out of alive, 10% being the worse thing a simsar could say, looking like a tourist in the neighborhood – hood spot, Sanaa, Samy and Ehmad. I’ll recount these stories later on – oh and I can’t forget to mention cousin LeRoy.

So the next part of this blog entry consists of the housing preferences of Elaisha, Maria, Monica, and myself. The first week in Cairo was made so stressful because we were running around trying to find somewhere decent to live. In order for four girls to effectively look for an apartment in a foreign country they have to have what they have to have! Meaning, if we weren’t clear about what each of us specifically needed the apartment to have we would be in a world of chaos. And because Elaisha and Monica are such planners, the following lists made it easier for them to sleep at night in that hot, humid, mosquito filled, throw back to the Flintstones hostel room.

Maria:

1. Air conditioning

2. Internet

3. CLEAN (bathroom especially)

4. Location

Monica:

1. Air conditioning (at least in the bedrooms)

2. Internet

3. No child’s room (okay so the story is that some of the apartments we visited had the smaller rooms that served as children’s rooms. They had teddy bear wall paper and creepy looking stickers on the wall. If you stood in the room to long you thought you were in the middle of a Stephen King inspired low budget horror flick. Monica especially had trouble with these rooms, as after one visit to the one with Teddy Bear wall paper it was all she could think about.)

4. Location (Dokki, Zamalek, Downtown, Garden City)

Elaisha:

1. ASAP an apartment (quote from Elaisha that was repeated from the moment we met her at the hostel until we came across an apartment we like three days later was, “we like a house we buy it.” Well for the other three of us we really believed Elaisha meant that she wanted the four of us to buy a house. Later that statement was reinterpreted and rephrased to the tune of: “We like an apartment we sign the lease.”)

2. Air Conditioning

3. Internet

4. Clean

Natalia:

1. Air Conditioning

2. Kitchen/Bathroom cleanliness and workability

3. Internet

4. Balcony (at this point I was still disillusioned thinking that we could find and then afford a nice spread on the Nile. LOL also I find it necessary to explain the importance of Air Conditioning in an arid but humid at the same time, hot, desert, camel inhabited country. While we were staying in the Pension we had a room with four cots – I mean beds, a tall ceiling to help the heat escape, a fly looking ceiling fan that did nothing to help the sweat stop rolling down my back, inhabiting my brow and covering me with a thin film of salt seemingly permanently fixated on my skin. Oh and we had this one old school fan that was our only source of relief throughout the night. It was so hot that my skin began to retreat from itself. The sun’s rays penetrated my long sleeves and jeans and boiled my blood producing little pockets of heat rashes with the passing of each hour. Add to that equation the thick brown air, reminiscent of the smoke from true Texan bar-b-ques, that sat on the city growing into the very culture like that woman who sat on the same toilet for 2 years letting the seat redefine the “junk in her trunk”. Basically it was hot, dirty, smoky, hazy, nasty, gross. LOL – air conditioning would at least alleviate the hot part and hopefully help the heat rashes heal – oh and help our attitudes cause the heat made tempers run short.)

I didn’t have the internet for the longest time, and now that I’m bootlegging it from “Pathology-internet” whatever that is, I can update my blog. From here on until I have finished all the back logged entries - every post will be an excerpt from my travel diary. Without further adieu, here are the stories of my first encounters with Cairo.

August 22, 2008 (about 4am)

So, I arrived in Cairo today at around 2:15 or 2:30 (14:15) pm. I, along wit 50+ others (AUC students) were all hoarded quickly through customs by one estranged and overly energetic Egyptian man who kept yelling “yall-lah” which basically means haul ass or move it. Then, bcause I wasn’t going to Zamalek (where AUC housing is placing study abroad students in their one hostel only to move them to a hotel now featuring such amenities as a toilet, pool, and hot tub…) with the rest of the AUC children, my transportation to the Pensione Roma hotel was a little up in th air. Did I mention the fact that it’s hot yet?  I’m falling asleep as I write this so allow me to continue tomorrow. I haveto write about this random party, crossing Cairene streets at night, what you SHOULDN’T wear in Cairo, Cairene fashion, ex pats, Brits and Frenchy’s, Egyptian male dancers, how the 3rd world is like 3rd Ward Texas (shout out), and many more short stories as I have been here all of 13 hours now.

So, the most recent housing quest has been interesting. Originally I was supposed to be staying in the dorms on the new campus - all decked out in red terra cotta in the middle of the desert. However, those plans had to quickly change when I recieved an e-mail that said:

Re: important information about your Fall 2008 housing assignment

 

Dear Ms. Natalia Simone Bailey,

As AUCians eagerly enter the final stages of the move to our new 260-acre campus in New Cairo, we have been notified that completion of some units in the on-campus residence complex will take longer than anticipated. We are arranging temporary accommodations in the vicinity of the new campus and in the downtown Cairo area, which will require between 15 and 60 minutes commute.

Okay so the color embelishments werer my own but really! Can you imagine getting an email like that a month before you leave for a foreign country where you’ve never been ever in your whole life. No one in your family has ever been there, but oh my housing is just up in the air. You know, we’ll find someplace.

Needless to say I was………. MAD! And then I realized what that meant - I get to live in an apartment! I quickly linked up with my fellow travel buddies Monica B and Ung Sang Lee, Elaisha, and Dave to begin the apartment search.

See, the new American University in Cairo campus is in New Cairo, Egypt. Where is that you ask? It’s equivalent to that suburb that’s about an hour away from the “big city” but takes 3 hours to get to with traffic. Just imagine that suburb was pure desert with very little near by. AUC is like an Oasis in miles of dusty sand. I was excited to live there, but now that I have the opportunity to explore, live in, play in Cairo I couln’t be happier.

The options for 3 girls on a strict but not too tight budget are endless! But it wasn’t until Monica and I lucked up on a 4bdrm penthouse with views of the Nile and the Pyramids with 2 balconies that we were like, “Oh yes, we’re getting an apt in CAIRO!” From that point on it was pure chaos. We researched all day trying to find “simsars” or Cairene Real Estate Agents, and different flats in the areas of Zamalek (island in the Nile where the slightly better off live), Dokki (the non-tourist more homogenous mainland version of Zamalek), Downtown, Mohandissen (metropolitan area south of Downtown toward Giza), and Garden City (metro area North of Downtown).

We’ve narrowed it down to a few places, set our budget and apartment preferences, and picked a meet up location (which doubles as the hotel we will stay in once we all arrive). The girls: Me, Elaisha, Monica, and Maria (Non-CMCer but received the National Security Education Program Scholarship with me and is sooooo cool cause she’s Puerto Rican) will room together. The boys: Dave, Ung Sang, and Grant (if we can find him) will room together - and hopefully close by. The last thing we want is someone staring at Monica’s red hair, catching a glimpse of Elaisha’s wrist, or gawking at my hair peeking from under a Hijab stalking us without reinforcements. LOL

More details on the Egyptian Housing Crisis will follow as the details unfold!

Luv to you and your puppy dog too

Natalia

:-P 

 HI!

First off thanks for making this site CMCers! I am so excited to blog now that I know that the people I care about will have easy access! I am leaving in… *drum roll please* 17 days! I am so excited to embark on this new adventure to one of the most historic, cultural, amazingly wonderful places in the world - Cairo, Egypt! It’s going to be quite an interesting experience to spend 10 consecutive months there. That’s right kids - I’m not coming home. Mom is coming to visit me in December but other than that, I will be living, eating, sleeping, and well you know as a Cairene for a year.

The most grueling process is the waiting. I feel like I’ve been doing it all summer - just waiting for something amazing to happen; waiting to hop on that plane and fly all over the world for 22 hours before I set on land again.

I’ve spent this summer working. Yep, working Monday thru Friday, 8:30a-5p non-stop, living-for-the-weekend life since the end of May. However, it’s not as potentially horrible as it sounds. My internship at KPRC Local 2, a Houston based NBC affiliate station owned by Post Newsweek for the last four years has taught me a lot. Not just about corporate America either, but life lessons about staying on your toes, how to keep fresh ideas rolling, how to convey the message that I don’t do filing, and yes I would like a raise, and yes I will do this long-wonderful-interesting-time consuming- research based-analytical-contact building-idea pushing-promo making-website building-political project for you. LOL My political ad campaign project has been my pride and joy for the last 2 months of my internship. Basically, my supervisor gave me an arbitrary budget, flight dates (weeks when commercials are scheduled to run) and told me to build an ad campaign for the candidate of my choice. I will load it later for anyone interesting in seeing it.

Oh - and I sang at the Comets game (WNBA Houston). I sang the National Anthem! It was soooo much fun! I will post the video once I upload it to youtube!

Anyway, that’s all for the “hello world” post. From now on this blog will be solely dedicated to my adventures, drama, fun times, pictures, stories, housing issues, and other randomness in, around, or about Egypt (and surrounding areas LOL).

Luv to you and your g-ma too!

Natalia