Disclaimer: This was supposed to be a one month recap. It
has now been two months. Miranda is a big slacker (or very busy teacher) so she
has just finally gotten around to editing and adding her .02 to this post.
We have now been in Egypt for a month and still everyday
there is something new we find or another shop that we haven’t seen before. It
still is amazing to think we live here and it is not just some prolonged
vacation. Reality is kicking in though
now. Miranda has started work now and is working hard at planning and setting
up her room. This is her first week so she is still working out the kinks. Life
in Maadi, to put it simple, has been wonderful. The city is large and would
probably take 10 years to visit every shop and every restaurant. Every night we
get to see an amazing sunset, well the nights we are home I should say. The
people here are nice, courteous and treat both of us with respect. Our Boab, Haded, is very respectful. Every
night he says hi to Mike and waits for Miranda to say hi to him before he
replies “Hello Madam.” In this
culture/religion it is inappropriate for a man to speak to a woman so he waits
for Miranda to say Hello to him, before he will say hello to her. It feels very
safe here and we have no worries in the world. It’s amazing how much at peace
you can be when you are surrounded by 20+ million people and horns honking all
the time.
Since we have been here for a month, we figured we would do
a one month recap of our time here, places we’ve gone, things we’ve done, etc.
Living here has truly been eye opening compared to the
states. We are able to walk mostly everywhere. Not like Kent where not really
anything is in walking distance. Here there is about 3 grocery stores (markets) within a half mile
of our apartment and there are far too many restaurants to count that are
within a half mile radius around us. The added bonus to all these things around
is that they all deliver to us if needed free of charge, except restaurants and
they only charge about $1 to deliver.
Every day we are greeted by our building boab. A boab is a
man who is like your building maintenance person. He will also collect rent or
other bills, picks up our garbage at the front door, help you carry groceries
up, etc. You have to pay him a small fee per month. Our fee is the top of the
range and it is only $33. People here are very respectful of Westerners and are
always aiming to please you. There have been no issues of any kind since we
arrived. No hassling, no attitudes. We quickly realized how hospitable Egypt
really is. We read about how it was rumored to have the most hospitable people
but until you come here, you don’t really grasp how nice people are here and
they are sincere about it. They hold doors, they will call the elevator for
you, the cabs will wait as long as you need and not charge more for it.
The clutter here takes some getting used to that is for
sure. It is dirty and there is garbage all over the place. There are sand piles
here and there. But we don’t look at it as garbage. We see it more as part of
the culture of the city. It’s just Cairo. Does that mean it doesn’t sometimes
gross us out? No, once in a while we will get a smell of nastiness but for the
most part we don’t even notice the garbage. Another aspect is walking in the streets. There
really are no sidewalks to walk on here. You walk in the streets with cars
coming inches from hitting you. Mike has been hit twice, not hard but in the
hand by a mirror of a car doing about 20 mph, and then a bumper grazed his shin
when someone was backing out. You get used to crossing the street while cars
don’t really slow down. Sometimes they will stop to let you cross, but most the
time you just find opening to slip through and cross. Traffic here is crazy, we
have only seen one stop light since we been here (and they weren’t even
following it). Other than that, the traffic just flows with no lights and no
stops signs. How? We have no idea but it
just works here. They have a system and it just seems to flow. Merging is a
joke though just like home, maybe someday all people will learn how to merge
into traffic.
The cost of living here are also about 1/10 of the price as
it is back home. We have been able to buy things here for a fraction of the
cost. For instance, a cab ride here costs about on average $1-2 depending on
where we are going. At home it cost’s $5 just to sit in a cab. Groceries range
in price, if we want an American brand we have to pay a few more dollars for
it. If you choose to buy local, we can do our grocery shopping for about $70
for the month. We also are able to go out to dinner at a nice restaurant for
about $20 for both of us. Back home, we could maybe go to Denny’s for that
price and that’s pushing it. Mike’s Pepsi is also only about $0.75 for a liter
whereas the states they cost $2 each. We have also noticed that Egypt makes a
lot of Western products locally such as Heinz, Pepsi, Frank’s Red Hot Sauce,
Kraft and a few other things. Our apartment also is ridiculously cheaper. We
are on the 8th floor( 9th in the states) with an amazing
view of the city Maadi. Back in Seattle the view we have would easily cost
thousands of dollars. We pay $50 more for our 8th floor three
bedroom, 3 bath apartment in Maadi then we did for our 2nd floor one
bedroom, one bath at home. Also our square footage is triple what it was back
in Kent.
The food here is delicious. We have Chinese, Lebanese,
Indian, American, English, Fast Food and a few other multi-cultural foods to
choose from. All have been very good. Egyptian food is delicious, pretty much a
version of Mediterranean food. They have hummus, shawarma, tahini, falafel and
other types of food. Mike has had stuffed pigeon and chicken liver. Mike is not
one for trying new things, but one thing he told himself moving here was that
he would be open to trying new things and he has. He really enjoyed both the
chicken liver and the pigeon. Miranda hasn’t tried pigeon yet, but she DOES NOT
like chicken liver. We have an Expat club here that we joined called The Ace Club.
The food there is good, but sometimes there are things not available because
they don’t have the things to make it. We went about a week without being able
order a salad because of no lettuce. They have all kinds of food ranging from
filet mignon to pizza, burgers, and fajitas. They serve very western dishes.
It’s also a place to get a nice cold beer or cocktail. It’s nice to have a
place to go for a drink because most places won’t carry any alcohol since it is
against the Islamic religion. But there are also a couple places you can go and
buy alcohol and have it delivered to your door step. Like I said they deliver everything.
We have seen so many sites and cultural things since we been
here too. We have seen the Pyramids, the museum, the old market, the Mohamed
Ali Mosque and many other things. The architecture is truly amazing. The villas
here are huge and are an architect’s dream. Mike has always been fascinated by
architecture and the different ways things are built or different styles others
use. The thing that baffles Mike the most about the buildings here is how
things are built. It is nothing like the years of building and remodel he did
at home. They don’t use 2x4 and beams here. They use concrete and brick. They
start with a concrete slab and then build up with just concrete supports
throughout the building. There are openings between the columns which they then
fill in with brick. After they put the brick in, they run the entire conduit
for electrical and other things like phone line and cable. After that they do a
skim coat of concrete over the entire building. They form different types of
things and sculpted décor of the buildings. Mike looks at it and thinks how
does it stay standing, but this is also a culture where they have buildings that
are thousands of years old and are still standing. Well also you know the 5000+
year old pyramids are still standing, so they are obviously doing something
right. But if you want to hang something you need a mason bit and a drill because
there is no drywall. So nailing something to the wall isn’t going to work.
So all in all living here has been very eye opening. To see
the many differences of living here and living in the states is crazy. I could
write a book on the differences of living here and in the states. The crazy
thing is that there has been no culture shock being here from either of us. We
knew what we were getting into before we came and have been adjusting quite
nicely. We joke that it will be a culture shock going back to the states next
summer than it was moving here. We joke that we will walk in the streets
instead of the sidewalk or have a small heart attack when we go out to eat. When
we rent a car we will have to pay for gas again and to do anything we will have
to drive instead of walk. You get used to walking an average of 5 miles a day. We
will stop here for now, we hope all of you have enjoyed a small glimpse into
living in Egypt and the different cultural differences. Please follow more as
there will be more to come from the cuisine, traveling and also teaching in
Egypt. That is a post that Miranda will have to do when she gets situated at
her job.
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