Crazy Days

Life has actually been quite busy lately. Last Tuesday jump started it all. I had a pretty full day at work then right after helped out the advising center with a video conferencing event with this community college back in the states. Left there to go to an LC meeting and facilitate a presentation with Mustafa. It was a good session. The topic was challenging world perspectives. We focused on the perspectives that Arabs have about Americans and vice versa and talked about misconceptions that can be formed, the differences between the two cultures as well as the similarities and tips on how to constantly change a persons world view. It was a really cool session; I personally had some perspectives challenged on both the Egyptian and American culture.

Wednesday was another crazy day where I worked on this Civic Education manual. This is something I’ve worked on for the past month or so changing the formatting of the document into something that was presentable. I swear I started having nightmare about margin changes and color choices! It was definitely an experience I’m glad has come to an end. Thursday was just as hectic. After work, I headed to the villa my company uses as an additional location for classrooms. There I assisted in a session about studying in the U.S. Another American and I sat with some Egyptians who were interested in studying in the states and answered questions that they had. That lasted til about 7pm and then I headed to the train station to catch a train to Cairo.

I hadn’t been in Cairo for a weekend in almost a month. I headed downtown once I got off the train to meet up with Nisrin, Dody and Martina. We walked (and got semi lost) to this restaurant/bar and met up with Simon and Percy. Megan, Kent and Taher joined us later. It was really cool to just hang out with a large group of people. After chillin at the place for a while, we went to see the new James Bond movie in the most random theater. The movie was aight; I think I like Pierce better as a Bond. I had been to the movies here a few times, but this theater definitely gave me a new experience. People talked and were loud during a good portion of the film and some smoked in the theater. Needless to say, I have no desire to visit that particular establishment again!

After the movies, Nis and I headed back to her place where we proceeded to talk until 7am! Hadn’t had a night like that in a while. It was really great to be able to sit around and talk to a friend for hours on end. And Nis is one of the few people that I can talk to on a vast range of topics. She’s been around since ’03 so she has some historical background, has the AIESEC perspective and is a trustworthy female….what else you could possibly ask for!

We woke up the next day ‘round 1pm and headed to Lucille’s. Okay if anyone who decides later in life to come here and you love an American breakfast, you gotta go to Lucille’s. Even tho’ it’s pretty far, in Egypt terms anyways, it’s totally worth it. I went with, Nis, Purvi, Tom & Kenny. Afterwards, I headed to the SilverKey office and chilled for awhile. Later we attempted to see a movie but couldn’t get tickets. Instead we went to Purvi’s place and hung out. It was a real chill night. We sat around and watched Al Jazzera for a while (yea we’re cool, watching the news on a Friday night!) and played some “intellectually stimulating” games.

The next day was the craziest of all. Nis and I woke up sometime at 9:30a and 10:30a respectively and headed downtown to meet up with Megan, Pam, Brian, Tom, Purvi and Simon. We left Pam and Brian’s place and took a trip to the City of the Dead and Garbage City. City of Dead was formed back in the sixties when a bunch of people came to Cairo and had no where to go, so they ended up living in the tombs located in this huge cemetery. The City has a really pretty mosque which has an amazing view of Cairo. Tho’ I didn’t get to see the completely spectacular view cause my fear of heights would only allow me to go so far up the building.

We ventured to Garbage City next. It’s the place where all the garbage from Cairo goes and people sort it. There’s a shit load of garbage there (no pun intended). It’s crazy that some of the people there had better cell phones than I did. Most of the people there are Coptic Christians and there’s pork there! It was kinda nice to for once see a pig hanging instead of a cow or lamb. Going through Garbage City you get to this area where there’s a lot of different churches. The churches were built in the mountains that the stones from the Giza pyramids were taken. The sides of the mountain have different images of Jesus and the disciples carved into them along with some scriptures. It was really beautiful. This one church had sitting for about 1,000 people. The alter had several biblical paintings. All pics of the last supper had Judas missing. There were two other churches that were basically built inside caves of the mountain. I was really happy that I got to go there. Stupidly I left my camera in Alex L cause I never really do anything in Cairo that warrants the need of one. Luckily Pam, Megan and Purvi did!



After getting some food, Nis and I began a journey around Cairo. First we headed to Radio Shack to get some equipment for a presentation that Luli had to do the next day. Then we headed to the Ramses Hilton to purchase tickets to a movie. After we dropped by Salman, Miguel and Kent’s place to chill for an hour. We really needed that time to just hang cause we were so tired. It was good to see all of them plus Githanjali and Mustafa (sad how that was the first time tho’) and met a new trainee Farzina.

We headed to the movies afterwards. We saw The Departed. It was a really good movie and I got to see it in a nice theater compared to Thursday night! Once the movie was over, we went to Dody’s for a BBQ. It was a good-bye party for Pam and Brian as well as a cook off between Kent and Tom. Great food surrounding by good friends. There was grilled chicken, lamb and veggies. Plus Pam scored some bacon (which was marked Haram! Pork!) and we got some beverages from Drinkies. I don’t even know how many people came thru. I was able to talk to Kaitlin on Skype…I need to get Skype when I get back, it’s awesome.



I got to sleep around 2:30am and proceeded to wake up at 6:10am. I meet up with Mustafa and we went to pick up Oznor, a CEEDer from Turkey. We all got on a microbus and headed back to Alex. It was a bad ride back home. People were arguing over the price which was basically a difference of two pounds! I got home around 10:15 so I was already late to work. Showered and got dressed and was at work by 11am. Work was rough. Tho’ I am glad that I went cause I found out that I am officially staying on with the company for another two months. And that I gotta move to Cairo as soon as I can. So now I’m looking into places to live.

I got home yesterday totally exhausted from the past week and this weekend’s activities. I got home around 5pm and by 6pm I fell asleep while reading a book. I didn’t even wake up til 8:45am this morning minus a phone call from the roomie and the cat loudly meowing. Which sucked cause I ended up washing most of my work clothes and didn’t hang them up to dry b/c I was asleep. It was fun trying to figure out what to wear this morning.

This week is gonna be just as random. I’m heading to Cairo Wednesday for Nis’ bday and Sarah Sommerfield is coming to visit from Turkey for a few days. Plus it’s Turkey Day this week! I can’t wait to have some turkey. Egypt just keeps getting better :)