roaches, couches, and creeps

May 25, 2009
Monday, my day off! I planned on going to the pyramids and other important sites to visit today with some AUC friends I made, but I was up with Mada (roommate) doing some paperwork for the SwimAmerica office until 1:30 then I didn’t sleep all night due to the invisible mosquitos that ate me alive. THEN this morning I couldn’t leave the vicinity of the bathroom for more than 15 minutes at a time so I opted out of the unnecessary site-seeing.

Two nights ago the cockroaches of Cairo gave me their long-awaited proper welcome. Three separate cockroaches at three separate times welcomed me to the sports club café and to my bathroom. Two survived.

Since I stayed home today, Mada and I cleaned the apartment hardcore and rearranged all the furniture. Honestly, I don’t know how we did it with the 30,000 couches and sofa chairs that we have stuffed into this place. Tonight we’ll go out to eat Lebanese food with our boss of bosses, who is on the board of Egypt’s Swimming Federation. After he gets done with a federation meeting he’ll take us out. He originally invited me out alone, but I said Mada had to come with me because whether he’s my boss or not, I’m not going alone. At the risk of this blog being seen by anyone in Cairo’s Swimming crowd (which I’ve made a point of not allowing since I arrived, in case I need to vent), I must say that this certain boss either doesn’t understand the innuendos coming through in his English, or he is a creepy hair-slicked, top-two buttons-undone kind of “roller” that expects me to be a clueless young American girl. nuff said.

There’s been no faith restored in me about Egyptian professionalism or efficiency since I arrived, and I doubt that will change. In fact, even the Egyptians who speak English really well and have possibly traveled abroad a bit usually turn out to be more alien to you than you expect, no matter how “westernized” you think they are. My personal example of this is with Ayman, the administrative assistant that I work with in the Wadi Degla Sports club. He’s been a good friend to me and I’m glad to have him around to joke with. Yesterday he took me to eat Saudi Kabsa (delish) and then bought chocolate covered donuts at the bakery next door. I was skeptical about the donuts at first because they looked too big and dry to enjoy, and besides that they were sitting out in the sun near some bread that a bird pooped on. Luckily, the donuts were thick, soft, and half soaked in oil. Turned out to be pretty good, and unless I want to gain 50 kilos, I can’t eat them ever again. Anyway, Ayman is still very Egyptian in a lot of ways, even if he seems a step above the rest. He’s a serious gentleman and very accommodating and polite, yet he still does things like try to cheat on his final exams. It really surprised me, seeing the little cheat sheets he’d made. That's just one small example.

Oh, speaking of gaining 50 kilos, I have 2 things I just thought of to mention:
1. I’m trying to get used to the metric system (you think I’d learn by now) and Celsius, and I’m not computing it very well yet.
2. Will, my LDS American boss, let something slip the other night when we had dinner with the Knapps (an LDS couple here that has an amazing 10th floor view of Cairo’s high-rises, pyramids, and citadel). He told me that some of the other swim coaches have been making bets about how much weight I’ll gain here this summer. Ha. Now the pressure is on. Besides the fact that I always eat a lot in general, Mada gained weight here and they think I’ll do the same.
We’ll see, eh?? Speaking of weight issues, I wish I got to spoon out some of that frosting I was given at my going-away shindig at Renaissance. Chad are you saving me one?? Here are pictures from the little party that I promised: All of the language department in one room! Except Mr. Yu had to run. I sure miss you guys. and I miss the frosting too :)



Alrightee, I hope everyone is well. If not today, I will soon post a slideshow of pics or something like that for your viewing pleasure.
Love, “Captain Nicole” <- (this is my coach name. we are all “captains”. Cute eh?)