Salaam Alekum -- "Peace be with you" from Cairo, Egypt.

We are slowly but surely adjusting to our digs here in Heliopolis. We arrived Sunday, August 22 at 7 p.m. or so Cairo time (We're eight hours ahead of Texas time) after a long detour through Frankfurt, Germany. Nigel, our cat, was absolutely top notch and adjusted to Cairo more quickly than we anticipated.

We've been trying to get set up on E-mail at our apartment, but have been having some difficulty. We're sending this from the school connection.

Taxis are the only way to travel here, but cost us more than anticipated -- 5 Egyptian Pounds (LE) for foreigners. We have been told that once we know Heliopolis and Cairo we can negotiate our way down to 1 or 2 LE.

There are a few questions I had before getting to Cairo, which I have also answered below.

1) What are your first impressions?

From the airplane, I noticed that Cairo looks like one of those science fiction cities that has tons of high-rise buildings stretching for miles. The difference is that mosques (places where Islamic people worship) and neat-looking buildings pepper the landscape. Unlike the US, where we might consider that to be too crowded, the look and feel of Cairo (from the air at least) seems more appealing. The buildings are part American, and part Islamic, which is quite different from Texas. Everything is packed into tiny spaces; the streets are dirty and dusty; there is sand on the sidewalk; there is a smell that makes you think of cigarettes, garbage, dust and polluted air all at the same time. Some of you who have been to the Texas State Fair on a hot day might understand how lots of different smells can mix together like that. Unfortunately, Cairo doesn't smell as good as the Texas State Fair (we miss the funnel cakes & corn dogs most).

Getting through Customs was not as bad as we had been led to believe. This is probably because we were helped by people from the school. Customs agents did have to inspect our digital camera, which we are happy to say is still in our possession. It cost us $15 each for our visas. By the way, one Egyptian Pound (known as the "LE" here) is equal to about 33 cents.

2) Where exactly do you live?

We live two blocks from the Al-Riqabah al-Idariya government building in Heliopolis. This Heliopolis, not to be confused with the ancient Egyptian religious center, is a Belgian-built section in northeastern Cairo. Just like you live in sections of Lewisville and Denton, Cairo is the same. Heliopolis is about the same distance from Downtown Cairo as Lewisville, Ponder or Justin is from Denton.  They speak Arabic here (not Egyptian) and also English and French. Our school is located in Nasr City.

Our apartment on Mahmoud Sadek (mah-MOOD suh-DECK) Street is pretty big; it is certainly larger than our Denton apartment. There is a small reception area with chairs and a TV (Sorry, but we miss being able to watch Looney Tunes anytime we please. We have instead settled on Nile TV, an international channel showing Arabic, English and French shows). We also have a dining room and living room, large kitchen, office/spare bedroom with two full-sized beds (or the equivalent) with room to spare, a large kitchen, full bath and lastly a large master bedroom with a king-sized (or equivalent) bed and wall to wall wardrobe/closet space. Our first full day was spent unpacking and getting to know the part of Cairo in which we live.

We walked four blocks to a Cyber Cafe to do our first e-mail to our family. From that experience I can tell you that the people here are FRIENDLY and HELPFUL. We were able to get shampoo, conditioner, toilet paper, their version of Pepto Bismol, and glass cleaner from a neighborhood pharmacy without any problems. English is spoken here, but the people who speak it are sometimes hard to understand. We are working on improving our Arabic, too, which we use as much as we can. Those of you who remember about us practicing Arabic with CD-ROM will be interested to know that the dialect of Arabic here is different from standard Arabic. It's the difference between, say, people from Iowa and Texas. Texans say "y'all" for the plural you, or "might could," instead of "might be able to." Both are understood by the people who are listening, but you can easily tell an Egyptian by the way he speaks his Arabic.

The traffic is terrible, by US standards. There are no street lights or stop signs. Cars weave in and out of traffic. Lanes are painted, but no one uses them so far as we can tell. In some places you might have six cars (side by side) trying to squeeze into two painted lanes of traffic at the same time. Down smaller streets, it's not unusual for three cars to squeeze or scrape by each other (side by side). Think about marbles in a funnel, where only one marble can go down the chute at a time. Similarly, one might think of a bunch of children out at recess trying to get in the one door closest to the portables -- and get in all at the same time. But the drivers here, as reckless as they may seem, really do know what they're doing. The difference between the traffic here and coming in at recess is that the drivers talk to each other through a system of honks, which sounds like a herd of elephants trumpeting. While it's a foreign language to any Texan driver, who rarely honks at anything, it is an amazingly efficient way for these Egyptian drivers to "talk" to one another. A honk lets the drivers in front and behind know exactly where you are in relationship to them. Kind of like sonar, but on the streets instead of the ocean. Because the streets have no traffic signals whatsoever (no stop signs, no red/yellow/green lights, no yield signs, etc.), the driver has to be ready for anything, including ignorant Americans who want to cross. Speaking of which, crossing the street ain't what it used to be. The cars don't stop, so you are basically playing the video game Frogger WITH YOUR LIFE. All in all, we're enjoying the city -- what an exciting place to be.

3) How is Egypt different from Texas, and how is it the same?

It is HOT here, but dry. I could easily compare the temperatures to a good hot July day (July 4, perhaps?) when there are few clouds in the sky, but the need for a good deal of lemonade or Coke lingers in the throat. Notice I didn't mention water. Bottled water is in ample supply, and one could technically drink the water from the tap. But the CDC (Centers for Disease Control & Prevention) warned us to boil our water first. We DID think to bring a water filtering pitcher, which is SUPPOSED to get rid of unwanted germs and bacteria, so we haven't been completely without water. You can also buy large bottles of water at the store.

Texas air is cleaner than Heliopolis, which almost goes without saying. The streets are made of asphalt, the buildings out of concrete and brick. But many buildings look from the outside as if they have not been well maintained. I would say that being poor and being religious are both equally seen here.

As in Texas and elsewhere, where many churches can be found, Cairo has a mosque every four to six square city blocks in Heliopolis. The prayer call is discreetly loud (loud enough to hear, soft enough not to disturb) and mixes itself into the seemingly incessant honking of horns on the streets.

There is an abundance of recognizable shops and eateries: Bennetton, Chili's, McDonald's (of course), TGI Fridays, YMCA Egypt, Macy's, Arby's, Popeye's Chicken, Radio Shack, and the list could go on. American economic influence abounds.

Most local shops are within easy reach of your apartment. This may need clarification. Easy reach means under 10 minutes walking time, door to door. In fact, Barbara and I took a 30 minute walk around the block and found shops that sell essentials (water, milk, cheese, meats, toiletries, etc.), live chicken, pigeons and ducks for sale (which they will happily kill, pluck, and weigh for you to take home), lighting and furniture shops, lots of children's toy shops (including 4 on one section of street), two banks, and a mosque. There is also a German-Egyptian Cultural Center that caters to Arabic speakers interested in learning German or English not 5 minutes from where we were. The Cyber cafe is about a 15 minute walk from where we are staying, with the pharmacy conveniently on the way. The larger supermarkets are actually quite a ways from us, though we have been tempted to try walking there.

Each apartment house has a caretaker (known as the Bawaab). Our Bawaab, Mohammed, does not speak English. We wanted to find out what to do with our trash, so he enlisted the aid of two others before starting to understand our plight. Everything eventually got settled (we put the trash outside of our doorway each night and pay the Bawaab 5 LE each month for the pick-up service), and led to us getting to know our Bawaab better. He's a man slight of build with a smile bright enough to light a forest fire. The Bawaab of an adjacent building, who was among thjose enlisted to translate, has helped us with our Arabic -- and we are helping him with his English.

We're sure you have questions to ask. Just e-mail us back and let us know what questions you have, and we'll see about answering them here.


Now the FUN stuff: PICTURES!!!!!

NN1-0.jpg shows Aunt Sylvia's van packed with boxes for the journey. We took (all in all) 8 large U-Haul boxes worth of personal items and school-related materials, two suitcases each filled with mostly Barbara's clothes, and two duffle bags with the same.




NN1-2.jpg shows off Barbara's new hairstyle while waiting in the Washington-Dulles International Airport. There is much debate as to who the goofy guy sitting next to her REALLY is :-)



NN1-3.jpg shows the street off of our balcony. For the record, the main six-lane street is El-Nozher Street. As you can see, the traffic was relatively light when I took this picture. That's because traffic is typically worse at night. By looking at the side street adjoining El-Nozher Street, one can see how narrow these streets truly are, and how three cars can easily? fit side by side.



 

Ma Salaameh (Goodbye) until our next report,

 Todd & Barbara Thomas