Shower Prayer

Will some sort of deity hear my cry? Bring me hot water. Bring me a shower curtain. Bring me a working shower head.

Taking a shower includes flooding the entire bathroom, considering the shower head doesn't fix to the wall and we don't have a shower curtain.

As of now, the little mishaps in our cutesy pseudo-Potemkin village flat are endearing. We have a faucet that doesn't turn off and a leaky window (?), our kitchen houses a portal to Hell, and our closets are chock full of mystery gear from years (and years) of mystery tenants.

Ana vs. Anna

This post is for Anna, my flatmate, who will undoubtedly read this at some point.

In Arabic, "ana" translates roughly to "I am...". Upon even the smallest of social interaction, most Egyptians inquire about your name, which requires a response like, "Ana Caitlin." Poor Anna is asked to repeat her, "Ana Anna" several times before the understanding Egyptian laughs and laughs at her unfortunate mix up.

We wonder if this will ever stop being funny. Luckily for Anna, most people think my name is Kevin.

AUC

Acquiring internet is more grueling than we thought - I'm writing from a cafe. This won't be the lengthy post I promised, but I do want to update about my school life at AUC.

Let me preface this post (and future posts) with an apology, because I'm growing more and more incompetent each day. I chalk this up the increased usage of a foreign language; I can barely speak gud Engleesh anymore, and my spelling has gone completely awry (e.g. "so" became, "os" and "built," "buitl"; I'm blaming this on Arabic's right to left read). Anyway, I'll scour this post for spelling/grammar errors, but please overlook the missed ones. Shukran!

To begin, AUC is a stark contrast from the rest of Cairo. Whereas Cairo is friendly, poor, and culture-rich, New Cairo/AUC is elitist, rich, and bland. The new campus is quite beautiful, but does not reflect Egypt in any way, which is a major disappointment. At the risk of sounding pretentious, AUC's educational standards are quite subpar to the University of Michigan's, and unfortunately class has been rather dull. I hoped to really increase my Arabic skills, but I'm beginning to question how much I'll actually be learning - my Arabic professor announced we could only miss 12 classes a semester (12?!?!?). With that said, despite everything, I'm still enjoying myself. The campus is brand new and is still working out various kinks; in addition, I'm in Cairo, where patience is the first virtue learned. I'm meeting wonderful people, and it's quite interesting to view Egypt's elite in a social setting.

All of my classes revolve around Egypt or Middle Eastern culture, and undoubtedly I'll learn something. For example, I've already learned that Egyptians are rarely on time, as my professor prefers to walk into class 20 minutes late. 

On a good note, some of my classes have several field trips planned - we may be going to excavation sites, which will be incredible, to say the least.

In other good news, the Obama craze continues, and one man actually "raised the roof" when he found out I was American. 

Also, I feel compelled to tell you that it's 80 degrees here - wah-wah!

Egypt fact:

No flushing toilet paper.

Egypt fact:

There are virtually zero public trash cans.

update

Flat hunting was quite stressful, and pulling it off on little sleep proved to be trying. We found a fantastic place right off the bat, and were thus disappointed with every place afterward that paled in comparison. Unfortunately, the flat we fell for was too much for our budget (still very little in comparison to Ann Arbor - har har!), and the landlord refused to negotiate. We were crestfallen all day, and over dinner our exhaustion and disappointment accumulated to silence, a first for us three conversationalists. 

However, lo-and-behold, shortly after acknowledging our poor morale, we got a phone call from the sheepish landlord of our dream flat, explaining this and that, but has "decided to lower [his] asking price." AL HAMDUH L'LAH! - We have a Nile view!

currently...

I'm eating breakfast on the veranda. 

Little kitties at my feet.

Breakfast of shai (tea) and two loaves of bread with fig jelly.

60 degrees.

Anyway, I've decided to stop uploading pictures to my blog and start using Flickr instead. There's a slideshow of my Egypt pictures on the left.

We're going apartment hunting in Garden City - it's as nice as it sounds.

breakfast

where I eat breakfast:

my view:

beginning in Egypt

What has struck me most about being abroad is the amount of people that, upon finding out I am American, exclaim their joy about President Obama. 

I spoke with a woman from Norway who went on and on about how handsome and eloquent he is, saying, "Oh, and when he smiles, he lights up the room!" 

I also had a long conversation with a Czech man, who wanted to be sure I didn't vote for McCain - haha.

Every foreigner I've encountered has been quite friendly; I've gotten some mixed feelings from Egyptians, because most of them think I'm Egyptian as well. An Islamic woman hit me as I walked by, I'm assuming because I was with an American-looking male (which is disproved of, if I were indeed Egyptian). We had a good (stifled) laugh over that. Everyone else has been quite friendly, and I'm enjoying Egypt immensely.

Egyptian quirks:

• Mannequins. So many mannequins. In my exhaustion, I thought a children's clothing store was a doll shop. We got to our hostel at 4am, and I kept thinking, "GOOD GOD, WHY ARE THERE SO MANY DOLLS?!"
• Everyone smokes. 
• It's green! The Nile provides certain areas with enough water to sustain beautiful plant-life.
• Street dividing lines are just for show. Our various taxi drivers preferr to use any method of getting ahead, nearly annihilating crowds of people at a time. It's actually quite fun...

Tomorrow I go to New Cairo. From there I'll get a bus tour and a horseback adventure; what a drag. Adieu!