Life in the Big Mango*

See, I told you - this blogging endeavor is going horribly. I've been in Egypt for two weeks today, and I just uploaded my pictures from my camera - a grand total of 18, 5 of which were the interior of my apartment, and 3 of which were repeat shots of my first Egyptian breakfast.

Typical Egyptian breakfast - juice, fuul (stewed beans with toppings of tahini, tomato, and pepper), 'aish (bread) and Nescafe (instant coffee - more on coffee later). Scenery not typical. This is not my apartment.

  Point being - I've gotten off to a poor start in documenting my Egyptian adventures.

  To be fair, I've really only started feeling ok in the past few days. A large part of it was the epic episode of Pharoah's Revenge (like Montezuma's Revenge, get it? OK, I'm done) last weekend. But an even bigger factor in my feeling unwell was the immense culture shock.

  Egypt hit me like a ton of bricks.

  Before I arrived, I thought I was fairly worldly, open-minded, and adaptable.  What I hadn't considered was that I had never traveled somewhere I didn't speak at least some of the language, or have experience in some form of the culture and religious tradition. I've only been to South/Latin America and the Caribbean, in addition to a brief vacation to Switzerland (I know just enough French to be dangerous).

  Absolutely everything is foreign to me here - the language, the clothes, the transportation system (er, or lack thereof), rules for gender relations, the role of religion in public life, etc. Having to consistently process those elements and make decisions when your brain would normally be on autopilot is exhausting.

  However, my downstairs co-worker has me set up in a cozy little apartment upstairs from he and his fiancee with a view of the Nile for a month until I can find more permanent digs. The inside is typical middle class Egyptian (they have a penchant for heavy, ornate furniture.

Zamalek (my neighborhood)

Nile and the National Bank of Egypt

Nile in the background

 

  I like being by my co-workers (see previous post) and I love the neighborhood, but I was hoping to have a roommate and this place just isn't big enough for two unrelated people (its two bedrooms but they bump right up against each other, and the living room is quite small). I'm checking out a few tomorrow and hope to have something lined up soon.

  I'm learning where and when its appropriate to take pictures, so hopefully I'll have some more interesting things to look at posted in the near future. Until then, lots of love from the Big Mango.

*Cairo is sometimes called "The Big Mango" (a nod to NYC, the Big Apple). Also like NYC, Cairo never, ever, EVER sleeps. Seriously. More on this later...