And the Cairo Adventures Begin!

May 12, 2009
Right now it’s 11pm on my first full day in Cairo. (I’ve been here twice before but this time I’ll call it home for the whole summer) I’m sitting in my new apartment on one of the 4 couches that are stuffed in here. Not like the couches are stuffed with fluff, but the apartment is stuffed with couches. You’d think they’d skimp on furniture but we have 4 couches (2 in my room) and 4 big armchairs. My Romanian roommate, Madalina, and I have our own rooms and bathrooms. There’ll be daily squeegee action in the bathroom for sure, as there is no actual shower, just a showerhead coming out of the wall.
So I safely arrived in Cairo but my suitcase sure DIDN’T. I’m not surprised. Luckily I brought a swimsuit, cap, 2 shirts, and extra underwear in my carry-on, but I still really want my suitcase. Ok Lufthansa? Ok. Actually, it’s the guys at the Cairo airport that I don’t trust.

Good thing I had my suit and cap (cap is required for girls) because I attended a new coaches training meeting tonight and I had to display my breaststroke and butterfly skills. I haven’t swam in a while so it was a little unnerving to be the only American, the only girl, and be half dead of jetlag symptoms while about 20 guys watched me swim. Needless to say, I didn’t swim ultimate pro style. At least I wasn’t conscious of my lack of a razor to shave (no suitcase).

A little about my job here in Cairo: I’ve been hired as a swim instructor for mostly young children. There are about 50 coaches, and only 3 of us are girls. I’m the only American aside from Will, the supervisor that hired me (which is cuh-razy awesome/unsettling). I’m getting certified to teach and then I start in a few days. I’m excited, and a little nervous since most of the instructors teach completely in Arabic and they’re pretty experienced. I observed them teaching today though, and I’m picking up all the Egyptian Arabic that I’d forgotten. I certainly lost my ear for Egyptian (as opposed to Shamy or Jordanian/Lebanese) Anyway, there are 2 long swim lesson shifts every day. We get one day off a week, so unless I postpone my departure flight, I won’t be doing much sight-seeing outside of Cairo. Now that I’ve given up on trying to visit Gini in Telaviv (yeah gini, its true), my main goal will be to climb Mt. Sinai (WITH gini??). There are two sports clubs, called Nadi Wadi Degla, and I live 2 minutes from one of them. I’ll be here a little over 3 months.

My apartment building is awesome. It’s under construction and you can hear the noise of it all day.
Internet: I’ll only be able to get internet in the café at the club, so I plan on writing blog posts here at home, saving them, then posting them when I get a chance.

Fun little things to share with you:
1. there was a bug in my suit when I took it off.
2. driving conditions made me grin today, because I’m surprised again that I’m NOT guilty of exaggerating the conditions. In fact I’ve probably been too conservative in describing the dangers of the road here. Loosely strapped 2 by 4’s on the back of rickety trucks, men holding babies up in the front seat while cars careen around them, no lane rules.
3. back to boxed milk
4. I got a pleasant chunk of mango in the bottom of my juice this morning.
5. There was Jif peanut butter at the metro mart. Woo! And there’s a Carrefour 30 min by foot from here. It’s similar to a super walmart. We had one in Spain when I studied there, and any place you can get pepto, sweatpants, groceries and pastries all in one go makes me happy.
6. no suitcase. I had to correct the baggage guy when he was writing down my airport connections. He wrote CTY for “Salt Lake Cty” and it took me a long time to explain that the computer would only recognize SLC, not CTY. Honestly, it cant get MUCH worse than when I stepped off the plane. In fact its gotten much much better.
7. Just like in Jordan, my bed has a bottom sheet and a comforter. That’s it. At least these pillows have CASES, a blessing indeed.
8. It’s pretty cool here at night so far. In fact I’ve been a bit chilled. Won’t be this way for long.
9. I was reminded of the old saying that says if you drink from the Nile, you’ll return to Egypt. I’m almost tempted to try it, or even jump in (up river at a place of moving current) but Will said the parasites you can get are pretty nasty. I’ll keep thinking about it.
10. I just dozed off. Night.