“No matter how bad things are, you can always make things worse.” ― Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture

It has been officially announced, a few days ago, that work will not start until the 15^th of September. The initial shared feeling was joy, as it allows you to prepare even more and feel completely in control. The next set of feelings was the reminder that all this is due to the political situation here in Egypt.

It is all nice and happy to have a new work place, new lovely colleagues and a new awesome place that keeps your mind busy, as you try to make it feel like home; nevertheless, we all still remain very conscious of the hard times we live in.

Also, families and friends(Hi!), originally openly scared and expressing their thoughts, have recently been more quiet about it, yet again, none of them is completely sure about our decision and we know it.

The week end plan was to visit a part of town called Zamalek, which has been recommended to us as a great place where to start. We are desperate to discover Cairo and had decided to visit it in the morning (before the end of the morning prayer) and come home before the 1 o’clock deadline, since tomorrow is Friday.

Well, yesterday, it was reported that some shooting took place around in Mohandessen, a few doorsteps away from some colleagues; I do not believe that there were any casualties. These distressing news were reported to us, followed by a strong recommendation not to go anywhere near town tomorrow, even before 1.00.

So today, and evidently tomorrow, won’t be good days for Egypt.

As an expat, who has brought her family along, I know that these news (today and tomorrow), when heard by our families and friends, will create more anxiety for them. Of course, we will reassure them, ensuring them that we are safe here and will not go out, as we were told. This is the automatic “please don’t worry, we’ll be okay” response.

Now, the truth is that I do believe what I say when I reassure people, but I am also scared about the situation nowadays. I think of my family here, I feel deeply sorry for this country, I hate not being able to discover the town, I sometimes find myself panicking and thinking all sorts and then I bounce back to the quote:  “No matter how bad things are, you can always make things worse.”

Because in reality, we can be as anxious as we want, it will not solve or even impact on the situation. Instead, I recall that we came here because we strongly believed and still do that things will work out here for Egypt and for us and we are here because it was meant to be. I am, by no means, a fatalist, but as I was once told: “Everything happens for a reason”. I focus on the positive connotation and hope that my appointment, here and at this time, is one of those things.

An interesting read: 
https://medium.com/i-m-h-o/5e5c6b702fd5

Week end/ “I’ll shoot you if you dare to do more than stare”

Being an Islamic country, life here is punctuated by prayer times and as our first week end dawned on us, we realise that during the week end (Friday and Saturday) will not really start until 1.00 pm. 
The shops do not open before 1.00 on Friday and start opening at 10.00 on Saturday.
Also, with the current curfew, which was 6.00 until 17.00 and is now 6.00 until 19.00, shops tend to close a little earlier than usual, understandably.

As for harassment, I have been warned several times by friends and also colleagues and have been practising a “I’ll shoot you if you dare to do more than stare” look to anyone lingering a bit too long. 

Now, I can only speak for the past week over here and say that unfortunately it isn't a myth, yet, however as careful as we must be, us ladies out here, we should bare in mind that not everyone is ill minded.

I also have to point out that there seem to exist different status, which work kind of like a ladder:
5 : Egyptian and conservative married women
4 : Egyptian married women
3 : Egyptian single women
2 : foreign married women with one or several children
1 : foreign married women
0 : foreign single women

As you can see, I am only making it to a 2 and it is true that if I walk around with my Buls, I do not get such intensive stares, even though I still do feel like foreign meat to some extent.
Yet, should I be walking by myself, I do feel like a BIG 0 on the scale, walking around and getting a lot of attention. It appears that the "pss" or call out systems (in Arabic luckily) here get you a long way, as young men do it.

On the other hand, I have to say that I got some assistance a few days ago, from a man, driving past me in his car. He spotted me dragging a box, way too heavy for me, and as he stopped next to me, I gave him one of my best "I'll shoot you if you dare to do more than stare" look; instead of driving away and after attempting to talk to me in Arabic and realising that I couldn't communicate with him, he just picked it up and drove me to my building and waited for some more help to come, ensuring I would be fine.

So, in a way, I am everything but naive about the harassing culture and I will keep giving my “I will shoot you if you dare to do more than stare” look, I have to bare in mind that we need to give a chance to people too.

Landing and first impressions

As promised, we were looked after as soon as we landed, and we went on outside our merry way, following the clickety clack tempo of our duty free stash of alcohol, to the 6^th of October area, West of Cairo (It is difficult to purchase alcohol here and if you can, it is very expensive). 
As a personal reaction, I was first struck the heat as we came out of the airport and somewhat reassured by the dry yet strong heat.

Once on the bus, there was no traffic. A very small aparté, I was told today that the driving test here consists in manoeuvring between some road signs once forward and once backward (5 minutes and that’s it for the driving part) and do a one to one test on main signs on the road and there you go, you can drive!. It explains the way things are here because a week ago, I used to think that Turkish taxi drivers were mad and had no idea!!! Foolish me! Nothing, even kind warnings from friends can quite prepare you to the street chaos.

Anyway, as I said, on the way to the hotel, we did not notice it so much. We noticed, instead, the landscape: it is dirty, as in VERY dirty with trash all over on the side streets, the roads are in a state that I had not seen yet, but the most astonishing is the concrete jungle, or rather, the semi concrete jungle. There are several buildings, which had clearly started being erected and have stopped. Places that have two floors and the pillars of what should be the third one sticking out in the air, in expectation for the actual roof. Now, what stroke me is that despite having no concrete walls or windows as such, the first floor of this very same building is inhabited... And from the airport up to where we settled temporarily, there were hundreds of those, lingering on the side of the streets, half built but yet inhabited; as if someone had, from one day to the next, made all the workers disappear in the middle of their work. Two potential reasons I am told; the first one is that in Egypt, you do not pay a tax on your property until it is completely finished and the second being the Jan 2011 revolution and the lack of financial support ever since for the completion of those concrete empty and half built havens...

But yet, as we (the four of us saw it almost simultaneously) contemplated the looks of our new host country, reflecting on the filth, general chaos and trying to draw parallels between the places we have seen or lived in, here they came and the four of us saw them almost simultaneously. The shadow of Khufu appeared between two of those strange and half built blocks, rising majestically and disappearing as we drove by. It appeared once again and there they were, the great pyramids and with them a strong feeling of awe, despite the distance, the speed of the bus and the haze over them. As we looked at them, all the original feelings, especially the ones still trying the deal with the cultural initial shock, they are the ones that suddenly put my heart at peace and reminded me why I had always been fascinated about Egypt and why we had accepted the position here. They do mesmerise you and really put my heart at peace for a moment.

After a landscape punctuated by more sand, oasis of buildings, we saw more sand and then another oasis, without forgetting the occasional green patches, we arrived at our hotel.

Creating "walking like an Egyptian"

This idea, I owe it to some friends who initiated a blog and shared their travel experiences with everyone, an unselfish mean to say how you feel as you go and offer a chance to family and friends to feel as close to you and your mind as possible.

I wish I had done it when we arrived in Istanbul and for the four years after, as the old Constantinople really grew in on me; the most beautiful city I have ever seen, where I feel the most at home. But better late than later, I shall start in the land of pharaohs, in these hard, yet decisive times for Egypt and its people.

I feel, as a preamble, I have to clarify our sanity. Before coming, and especially after the events that happened on Wednesday the 13th, we were assailed by questions (with good and kind intentions we know), regarding our state of mind and questioning our decision about going to Egypt in these troubled times. All I can say is two things : I am committed to a school, kids and don’t like to give up, but most importantly, we deemed and still hope that we are right in assuming that things will be fine and if not, the school will take good care of us.

It is of course, with a big knot in our hearts that we landed, hoping we did the right thing, hoping everything would indeed be fine.