Howareyou, Welcome

Walking the streets, I get a lot of "How are you"s and a even more "Welcome to Cairo"s. This appears to be the extent of most of the speakers' conversation, but the effect isn't so bad**. Where else do strangers welcome you wherever you go? People are also very quick to help out even if their help is no help at all. For instance, when trying to order in a taimea shop you might find yourself surrounded by two helpers in addition to the shop's employees. They chatter amongst themselves and ask a few questions to which I generally answer with one word sentences and what I hope is a friendly face, but not in a I am a foreigner and therefore want to sex you up face.

Men on the streets also like to say "Howdy," but their pronunciation meant it took me a few days to realize that this was not an Arabic word. Reminds me of this interesting book I read called "Graceland" which was set in Nigeria (the main character, Elvis, was a struggling Elvis impersonator in Lagos. Wonder why it appealed to me at the library?). The folks would gather for American movies presented for free by American cigarette companies (cigarettes were distributed to all guests no matter what their age) and they'd all cheer on John Wayne. But apparently their understanding of the movies' actual content was so tenuous that the called all good guys "John Wayne" and all bad guys "actor," even if the hero were Clint Eastwood or the bad guy, god forbid, actually John Wayne.

Okay, that was a stretch, reminds-me-wise, but whenever I hear the howdy now I think of movies starring maybe-John-Wayne in Africa.

Today was the international graduate student orientation. It took one million billion years. No one will recognize me any more because my hair is now gray and I walk with a limp. Very very much information was disseminated, more than I could comprehend, but luckily it's all in the heavy paperwork we were handed. We had speakers from the Academic integrity police (not their real name), the American Embassy (boy goodness did she talk fast) and some other departments. Also heard about a program I'm very excited to join called STAR - Students Teaching African Refugees. . . I think. Twice a week volunteers teach English classes to Sudanese, Somali and sometimes even Iraqi or Eritrean refugees. I've only had a little teaching English experience, but it was so rewarding and this sounds even more extreme. More of a challenge, more of a reward.

Then, after our four and a half hour orientation, I had my last three hour Survival Arabic class with an "outing" tacked on for another two hours. Our teacher led us around various markets and stores pointing out things to the class, much to the amusement of the shop keepers, then we went to a kushry restaurant she says is the best place and the original one in Cairo.

I'm worried that I may be spelling that word wrong and I do not want to dishonor my New Favorite Dish. I hear so many different pronunciations. Some sound more like kushwari or kushuri. However you say it, though, it's delicious. I was the only person in my class who asked for seconds, about which I felt a bit Miss Piggy-esque, but tall people have to eat more than little midget waif girls, right?

Right?

In closing, here is a picture of a donkey card on the street of my neighborhood.

I wasn't trying to take a picture of that woman, it just happened that way. She is walking in the middle of the street here because everyone walks in the middle of the streets; scarcely anyone uses the sidewalks. The sidewalks are broken and disjointed anyway and the air conditionings rain down constantly creating puddles and disconcerting passers by.







Here we have a view from the top floor of one of the classroom buildings:

I was up there looking for the gym which supposedly was on the eighth floor. I couldn't find it, but I'm assured it exists. I'm only half done with my gym ID anyway - have I mentioned that, to use the school gym, we have to fill out an application, get a physical and submit two pictures? I may have already, but the bureaucracy here is so impressive that it bears repeating. - not to mention the fact that the gym doesn't even open until next week, but I still want to see it.

So, if you look far in the distance of this picture you can see something that looks to me like the walls of the city. And if you're wondering what color almost all the buildings are, there you go.

It just occurred to me: do you think someone lives on that roof? In the book "The Yacobian Building" a whole bunch of folks lived on the roof in little rooms. Apparently the real Yacobian Building is somewhere near where I live, or so said the cell phone selling gentleman. I also got a free movie ticket with my cell phone purchase. What should I see?

** Much better than how most people, upon hearing someone speaks French, bust out the lyrics of "Lady Marmelade."