Cairo: What a great place!

Hey All! Well I made it to Cairo, Egypt safe, with all my baggage and all my money ;) Carrying $1000 in cash makes one a little nervous (thank you Gilman Scholarship!)

I’m living in a second floor flat with seven other girls. There are three total in my room, Esther and Ruthie, who seem really great. The beds are as hard as rocks, but I assure you after not sleeping for 24 hours they felt fantastic. It’s interesting how big a deal who you are going to live with at home is such a big deal. Here, we were assigned to a flat and then we were just kinda like… uhh I’ll be in here. My room is the “non-morning room” ;) Our flat has the most outrageous furniture in our “living room,” reminiscent of Louis XVI style. It’s nice though.

The weather is actually chilly, and I’ve found I wish I had packed my gloves. We had our devotionals this morning on an open roof, and I was shivering! Being in the bus around the city is fine though, and I’m enjoying knowing the numbers in Arabic and reading the license plates. The numbers read left to right like English, but the words read right to left. I’ll never figure it out! ;) You can pray for that.

The group, 24 in all, seems really great, and we are all having a good time together so far. Today we had breakfast, walked around our neighborhood “Agouza.” I really dislike being in large groups and don’t like being stared at because we’re wearing pants with our hair free flowing. It goes against everything I’ve learned as an Intercultural Studies major. I asked the director, Dave, why we weren’t required to wear the full covering outfit, because I feel like we could “fit in” with the culture so much better. I was disappointed to learn that the outfit isn’t a cultural thing. It’s really a Muslim thing, and one of things we are being instructed to do is not to over-identify with the culture. So if we were to wear the head covering and such, we would be thought of to be Muslim. I guess I will just have to learn to stick out like a sore thumb. Maybe I’ll at least dye my hair black. There are some Egyptian women that don’t wear the hajeb, but from what I’ve seen it’s about two percent.

We did buy some head coverings today (the girls), as we are visiting a mosque tomorrow, the holy day being Friday. We will continue to be doing orientation stuff this week, and start classes next Wednesday. I can’t believe I’ve only been here 24 hours!

We saw the pyramids today from a little way away, as we drove around to see the city. Some of the other pictures:

This is where we bought veils. They are everywhere and beautiful as every woman wears them (practically). The women are so sharp looking, matching their head coverings with their dresses, sporting layered colors, and such. It’s very fashionably nice.

The Nile! It’s not very glorious, but there it is. We’re about a 10 minute drive from it. I think. You know how I am about distance and time orientation….

City of the dead – where people have started living in cemeteries, along with Garbage City, where trash is recycled (I believe). We’ll go there later, so I’ll give you the full update then.

My room – notice I haven’t unpacked. My bed is the non-bunk bed one.

My living room, like the atmosphere?? ;) We’re going to rearrange.

Cinnabon in Cairo! Crazy globalization.

An example of the move from the rural area to the city – crops being grown close to the center of the city

A pick up soccer game right next to the major freeway (for a lack of a better term – you can never go that fast because what is supposed to be 3 lanes becomes about 5 and there are so many cars). This is for Will :)

Pyramids - in case you weren't sure...

Women in the traditional black outfit. Not very many have the full outfit covering the whole face (except eyes sometimes), but there are some.

This is a typical looking Cairo street. Croweded and not very full of color.

Well that’s all for now, I took a nap this afternoon because I was so stinken tired, but now it’s 10:55 pm and I’m not tired yet. Bummer. I’m going to unpack a little more and try to get some sleep.

Ma’ a salaama! (Peace be with you!)

Sarah