"Insha'allah" The Masr Mantra

"Ahlan wuh Sahlan! Marhabikum fii Al-Qahira, Masr! Or, “Hello! Welcome to Cairo, Egypt!”

Egypt's national soccer team, the Pharaohs, just won the African Cup of Nations a few hours ago, and the streets are still full of honking and beeping. Though I have an 8 am class, since no one else is sleeping, why should I be? Instead I will take this rather exceptional opportunity, and finally write a really short update here.

Sorry for the extended absence since arrival—things have been absolutely crazy. Attending the American University in Cairo (or AUC) is much like attending universities in the US (yes, it might have to do with the fact it is called the “American University…”). We started classes this past week, and it has actually been so hectic that there has been no time to think of where to even begin this blog. It's strange, because in this study abroad program, you deal with all of the pressures of university at home (real classrooms and libraries and schedules), while attempting to enjoy your study abroad host culture to the fullest extent (staying out late watching soccer games and dodging traffic and visiting Alexandria), making for almost two full experiences in one semester. It is challenging to balance which aspect becomes more important any given moment (besides, today marks only week two in the country, so I think I'm still allowed to feel a little overwhelmed).

Anyway, I’ll do my best to get something down here.

So, yeah, Cairo. It’s just really so big, both the city and the experience thus far, that it’s hard to know even what to say. I suppose it would be logical to start with my many flights to arrive here two weeks ago. Those flights actually began on Friday evening from St. Louis. It was then an extended layover in Charlotte, since my JFK flight was cancelled, then a flight to La Guardia, a shuttle to JFK, a cold night on a concrete airport bench, a delayed flight to Abu Dhabi, and a delayed flight to Cairo that finally touched down somewhere early Sunday afternoon. Needless to say, I had a lot of time to kill doing such exciting things as contemplating the genius of the “SkyMall” magazine. Surely you are familiar with this wonderful plane diversion? It’s the catalog under the seat tray tables that sells all of the necessities of life. I struggled for awhile deciding between the “Personalized Barbecue Branding Iron,” (brand your initials onto your very own steak) and “Poop Freeze,” (liquid nitrogen spray that hardens doggy poo, making it easier to clean up at the park)—I just don't know how I've been living without that branding iron--(if you haven't before, you should definitely check out Sky Mall on your next flight...).

Anyway, the long, tedious, and oft-delayed flights were a great way to begin the adjustment into "Cairo time." No, I don't mean the actual time zone change; by “Cairo time,” I actually mean “Insha’allah time," the official time zone of AUC (“Insha’allah,” in case you missed an earlier blog, means “God-willing” in Arabic). Let me elaborate a bit. You experience AUC's Insha’allah time any time you visit an office or center in anyway connected to the giant bureaucracy of the University. Want to get registered for classes? “Insha’allah tomorrow." A copy of the essay you were supposed to have read before class? “Insha’allah it will be ready tomorrow at 6 pm" (too bad the class begins at 12 pm). Gym pass? "Insha'allah next Sunday." An AUC e-mail address to access the wireless? “Insha’allah in two days." Every task seems to take an average of 2.3 trips to myriad offices on campus to take care of details and "remind" people of what you need from them. Delays and annoyances in the registration process have been inevitable, but each day does indeed become easier since: 1) I actually, finally have finished a lot of the tasks that directly connect to the bureaucracy, and 2) I am becoming adjusted to just hearing "insha'allah," and relying on it.


Perhaps the incident that best reflects insha'allah time, however, is one that affected the entire country of Egypt. You may or may not have heard, but Egypt completely lost internet for about 5 days last week. Apparently, an errant ship anchor hooked several underwater fiber-optic cables just off the coast of Alexandria, Egypt (in the Mediterranean), and dragged them a few miles before they snapped. It cut off service to Egypt and Kuwait, as well as telephone services in UAE. We seem to finally be running pretty normally again, al-hamdulilah, after a week. It more or less iced the proverbial cake of stressful orientation week. Ah, welcome to Cairo!


In service of getting some of inevitable Egypt-Morocco comparisons out of the way, I'll just write a short paragraph here (to save you from the musings my patient friends have put up with here: "oh, they don't do that in Morocco..." "oh, that's not the same in Morocco..." etc.). In a word, Egypt is "easier" for me than Morocco was. Easier would probably not be a word most people would use to compare Egypt to Morocco, but it works for personal comparison, considering how different my own situation has been in each country. For example, in Egypt, I live in an apartment (which will merit its own blog one of these days), whereas in Morocco I lived in the homestay. Regardless of any characteristics of a homestay family, it is almost always going to be easier to live in an apartment; I don't have to explain myself to anyone, I don't inconvenience anyone with my schedule, they don't inconvenience my schedule, I can eat (or not eat) whatever I like, etc. Along with living in the apartment, I'm also attending a large American university, where I chose from many class options, have bookstores, have made tons of new acquaintances and friends, and even have a shuttle that runs back and forth between my island neighborhood and AUC's downtown locale. Egypt, and more particularly Cairo, is also easier to navigate for me than, say, Rabat. Aside from the fact that there are really no twisty, streetsign-lacking "Medinas" here as there are in Morocco, the street signs are in English/Arabic (as opposed to French/Arabic), many people speak English, and al-hamdulilah, the Arabic dialect is much easier to pick up than Moroccan Derija is (not that I'm proficient or even navigational yet, by any means). Also, Cairo is an enormous and relatively wealthy city, meaning that there are many more eating, entertainment, and cultural opportunities. Cairo is also surprisingly more Westernized that I expected it might be, so much so that there are literally scores of little Starbucks-style coffee shops offering wireless internet, and the four restaurants directly outside the AUC main gate are: McDonald's, Pizza Hut, Hardee's, and "Dagag Kentucky" (KFC, as you may know it--though Cairenes lovingly just call it "Keen-tuck-ii"). Anyway, I will be sure to make many more comparisons in the future between the two places (it's inevitable), but I'll leave it at that for now.

You know, I think I'll actually just leave this blog altogether, for now. I want to really devote some time when I write about the city, and I can't even do justice to it then. Cairo is really amazing. I also feel like I've only explored about 1/1,000 of it thus far, so it will be better to write with just a little more information under my belt, you know?

Oh, but one more thing. So, the question every taxi driver in the city asks me is: "Shufti al-ahramat?"--"Have you seen the pyramids?" Since I thought you might be curious as well, the answer is yes and no. Yes, I have seen the pyramids with my own eyes, but, no, I have not "visited" the pyramids. The reason for this will give you another valuable insight into a large facet of Egyptian socio-economics: "baksheesh," or tipping. You see, a friend and I decided to go out to the pyramids one afternoon after classes. We hopped on the metro and rode out to the Giza stop. We then took a 30 min. taxi ride out to the pyramids. (Something you can't tell when you see the pyramids on tv is how much the Cairo suburbs stretch out to the pyramids, there's actually a really poor neighborhood right in the pyramids backyard). Anyway, we finally reach the roadblock before the pyramids and a police officer walks up to our taxi. "Pyramids are closed," he says. "What?!" comes our obvious response. It is barely after 4 in the afternoon, and we know that the pyramids can't be closed; they do a sound and light show for tourists every single night at the pyramids (and besides, there are tour buses in the eternally-clogged traffic behind us waiting to get in). Well, not being very schooled in the "baksheesh" way of business, my friend and I decide to head home. On the way back, we realized that the police officer was waiting for us to pay him just that little bit of extra "tip" (more commonly known in the US as a "bribe"), and since we didn't, he let us drive away without visiting the pyramids. Baksheesh is a commonly accepted form of "getting what you want" from people in service industries such as tourism and taxi-driving. I really hate giving it, not for stinginess so much as for the fact that I still have to pay the regular price on top of whatever it is that these people think they deserve--it's the principle of the matter. So, we were annoyed, but my sense of pride didn't suffer as it might of had I doled out that little bit of money. All in all, it leaves the pyramids a mystery to be solved another day (although I'm pretty sure that I'll be heading out there on an organized trip this Friday--we should ride some uncomfortable, smelly camels, yes!).

Anyway, thanks for reading, and looking forward to updating you all again soon!
(Cairenes still honking, lighting firecrackers, and shouting outside--what a night!)