Maadi

Let me preface this by stating that I have lots to talk about.

In fact, I think I might have more to talk about then I can possibly talk about. I’m that busy. If I had the internet, I might be more inclined to write more often, but I don’t. But like I said, there is lots to talk about.

Allow me to turn to fun quotes of the day. We live in a residential block (mostly), but down the street, and one block to the north, there is a strip of shops. Grocery stores, hardware stores, a barber, scuba shops (idk), and a few other very small, family owned stores cover this 3-4 block stretch. So everyday we’ve been making trips out to this place and buying stuff because, well, thats what we do. One interesting thing that happened today occurred near the butcher. There is a butcher shop and it is real and hard core, like, you walk in and they have a window, with like 3 cuts of meat, and a scale, and to the left, the dead animal that the meat came from, strung up on a hook, with boys chopping it up as the blood flows onto the floor. The animal we saw (looked like a lamb) did not have a head, and the blood and guts sat in buckets along the back wall. The meat was hacked off with cleavers, washed, the bone/fat cut off, and then placed in huge chunks in the window. When you go to order a “cut”, this involves you saying how many kilos you want, and the man of the butcher shop takes a big cut, slices about four “steaks” if you want to call them that off of some sort of mystery meat, and then you paid for it. I bought 2 kilos, it cost me 95 pounds (about $20).

First, if you don’t like that picture, then maybe you should become a vegetarian. You do know that your meat doesn’t grow on trees. Maybe you should think about it once in a while instead of continually stuffing your face with hamburgers. Second, the meat was just fine, it was tender and everything. I think there is even a chance it was bovine.

Second, later in the day, we were walking by, and saw a peculiar sight. There was a man attempting to drag a full grown sheep into the butcher’s store. As one of my companions pointed out “They’re going to kill the f*** out of that sheep” -- well said. It simply struck me as strange. We usually see what comes out the front door of a butchers shop, and even if the meat is there, the animal is dead. What’s weird is a live bucking kicking animal being dragged INTO the store. Oh, it knew what was coming. I felt a little bad for it. Poor sheep.

One of the good things about these little family businesses is that they are usually pretty specific. There is a store that sells fresh produce (I’ll get to that in a bit), and this store sells meat. Well, there are 3 other stores within 3 blocks that sell produce, so you know you can trust the quality of their products because that's all they have to rely on. They can’t beat anyone on price, because there are no prices (its egypt after all), and so quality is what they have to live on.

I don’t want to finish writing out the story of what happened in the produce shop, but later in the day I bought a bunch of veggies, and the man did a nice thing for me today. Its one of the first true kind acts that I’ve seen.

I’m glad I'm living in Maadi, because its just different. I know all of my Egyptian friends want me to experience the good friendly Egypt that they all know and love, but as a white Westerner, I am going to have a different experience. In Dokki, it is a true Egyptian town, and Westerners don’t live there very often, so all the native Egyptians run into one kind of Westerner -- the tourist. Which means they aren’t there to live with the people, and it means they have money. So either everyone just stares and ignores you, or they give you the really “friendly” businessman smile, as every other person will offer to take you to the Giza Pyramids. I swear, when we told people we weren’t planning on going to visit the Pyramids for a while, they all had the biggest looks of shock on their faces. But we are living in Maadi, where a lot of Westerners actually live, and the difference is completely noticeable. When you go into a store as a tourist, you get treated differently, sometimes nicer, sometimes worse, but always different. In Maadi they are used to living WITH Westerners, and so when you go to the market to buy some tomatoes they treat you like someone who lives in their community.

It is very very hard to explain, but it is really easy to see in a person’s face when they truly want to welcome you here because they want to show that the Egyptian people in their community are nice, and welcoming, because they want to make a good impression on you as a person, and not because you’re a walking sack of money. We bought some sheets today for our bed (95 pounds), and the woman selling them to us smiled at me and wished me a good day, and she looked at me and smiled and the honesty shines right through a person.

The point? Its a completely different world depending on what subway stop you get off on. Its weird, but its true. Am I in the “real” Cairo living like most “real” Egyptians live? No. Maybe in a few months I will be, but I am living like the real Egyptians in Maadi live. And if I can be authentic in that environment, I can live with that.

Ok, I’ll stop the rantcast and talk about my day.

Today we had a lot on our plate. We needed to make some copies of passports as well as a copy of our rent, Andrew wanted to find internet, and I, not wanting to die of starvation, wanted to cook up a big pot of something. The hard part is that there isn’t much to work with atm. IDK where to get certain foods, and I don’t want to risk eating raw veggies -- yet. In the future I might, but I haven’t gotten sick yet, and I prefer that to remain true. Another trip to the ATM was in order, fixing the leaking of a toilet, cleaning up our mess from the pipes, and a-waiting the move-in of our new roommate (who as of the time of this writing has not shown up).

For food, I had a chunk of meat, and I decided to make a stew. I didn’t really have any seasonings, but I had meat, and veggies, and I picked up some sort of tomato paste stuff that I guess worked well, got myself some noodles, and made like a chili/stew type thing. IDK what it is, but I pour some milk in every bowl to simulate sour cream, and its great stuff. It fills me up, my stomach took it much better than I thought it would handle beans, it was cheap, and there is lots of it, so praise the lord!

I also found a cheap source of cereal (9 pounds a box), and so I am getting set for the food situation for the months ahead. There is milk everywhere, and the cereal are all nice arabic favorites (ripoff of american brands). I got matches to turn the stove on so I stop burning my hands trying to turn the stove on with a damn lighter. I figured out how to basically do the laundry, I took a nice shower in the morning, got sheets for our beds, and I’m bout ready to just go crash and go to sleep after this flury of typing. Still no internet, so idk when I’ll be able to post this, but w/e. Its written. I start school in a few days I suppose as well.

As they say -- good evening.