First, I just wanted to let you all know that I probably won't be posting for a while, and that my email situation is equally spotty, because the internet all over Egypt is kind of....broken. Apparently the cables that connect us to Europe's internet service through the Mediterranean were cut by an anchor during the last storm, and the internet for the entire Middle East is right now being routed through South Asia. There are a few good spots, so I'll try to touch base when I find myself in one of them, but it is going to be at least a week until they fix this. Apparently these cables went to Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Iraq, and maybe Libya? My flatmate read the BBC article, but I didn't hear everything. So you can do your own research....conspiracy theorists are having a field day, and though I don't personally agree, the bloc of countries affected is, uh, amusing at the very least.
In the meantime, here is the post I typed yesterday, thinking I'd be able to put it up that night:
Everyone knows that traveling, living, and studying in a foreign country will eventually lead to culture shock, whether it occurs in the airport the day you arrive, or moments before you leave. Throughout my weeks here in Alexandria I’ve been waiting for the ‘shock’ to hit. Although I’ve definitely experienced frustration, fear, and irritation…nothing so far had really distinguished itself from the frustrations, fears, and irritations I experience in my ‘normal’ life in the U.S.
* * *
Yesterday Caitlin and I had to be at Naya’s apartment by 6:15 in the morning (according to her host family) in order to leave for Cairo. We got up at 5:00, shoveled some leftover koshary in our mouths, and hopped in a taxi. Being up at that time of day was beautiful…no traffic, the weather was nice… We all made resolutions to get up earlier more often (although we also complained about having to be awake so early after our late-night, mandatory concert).
Then we began what turned out to be a long day of constant, constant noise. The trip to Cairo was organized by a group of 20-24 year old Egyptian students (friends of Laila and Khaled, the children in Naya’s host family), who happily met all our problems (like not having enough seats on the chartered bus) with lots of singing, yelling, and eventually…another plan? By the time we arrived at our first stop, the pyramids, it was around 1:00 and all the Americans (five of us: Naya, Michaela, Helena, Caitlin, and me) were hungry, but very excited to see the pyramids in real life for the first time. It was already getting hot…hard to believe it’s February here, too.
For a while we all milled around the entrance to the pyramids, and then suddenly the Egyptian students started pulling us along with them into a tightly packed line. A mother who had been sitting next to us on the bus pulled me in next to her and kept telling me in Arabic to “look at the ground, look at the ground.” I realized that when the organizer bought the trip as a package, she had entered everyone as Egyptians. They were trying to smuggle in the foreigners.
They hadn’t met us before this trip…maybe they thought we would look more Egyptian (Helena and I are both ‘blonde’ by Egyptian standards, and as I’ve said before, any Egyptian woman as white as us is definitely mohajjiba)….if we’d known we would have at least tried to disguise ourselves a little better.
Naya got in, but the guards at the entrance started yelling at Michaela when one of the mothers tried to drag her in, and soon we were all cordoned off outside the gate. The guys kept trying to negotiate a way for us to get in at a reduced price, because we’re students at an Egyptian university, but we would still have to pay at least 25 pounds, which was way more than what everyone else was paying. On the other hand, 25 pounds is less than 5 U.S. dollars…but the group was only planning to look at the pyramids for 20 minutes or a half an hour. It wasn’t really a big deal from a logical, mathematical, financial perspective (although 25 pounds would have taken out half the cash I was carrying at the time…I needed to go to an ATM), but there was something about seeing the group we came with inside the gate, and everyone talking around us and about us while we stood outside, and being so close, and realizing that no matter how long I stay here, or how good my Arabic is, or what my purpose is, or whether I even have an American salary to justify being charged American prices, or how much I really connect with the people around me…I’ll always get hassled by taxi drivers, officials, guards at tourist sites, what-have-you, and people will always try to get the most money out of me that they can, thinking that they deserve it (and on one level I really understand it, and it makes sense, even, if you’re a tourist on a vacation taking time off from your high paying English/American/European job) and I’m being stingy and cheating them if I try to pay normal prices etc. etc. etc. etc…….that pushed me over the edge. My eyes started to water and I felt I had to concentrate very, very hard in order to keep myself where I was. Oh no, I thought, there it goes....
Later that evening, when we finally got away from the group of students, Max took us to see his friend Safi, who is Sudanese and has lived in Egypt for a long time. Safi asked me what I thought of Egypt. I said “Ana baheb Masr…” (I like/love Egypt). Safi interrupted me.
“No, no, I’m not Egyptian, you don’t have to tell me that Egypt is beautiful and nice…what do you really think?”
“There is a second part to the sentence,” I told him. “I do love Egypt so far…that’s true. But I don’t like to be a foreigner in Egypt. And I don’t like to be a foreign girl in Egypt. It’s hard.”
I think the first wave of culture shock is a kind of milestone. This weekend was the first time I’ve cried since I got here, and I think I needed to. The story is going to be a little different from now on, but I don’t think it is going to be sadder or worse in any way. Just more real.
As always, there is much, much more to tell, but I only have so much time and energy…and this post is already very long and convoluted. Stay well until next time!
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