“And forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair.” -Khalil Gibran, The Prophet


We were told, shortly before and immediately after we arrived, that we would get sick. Being on a continent in which none of us grew up, the daily germs and microbes are different from those we’re used to, and a slip-up as simple as eating an apple washed in city water could result in the dreaded Egypt Gut Rot. It would pass, we were told, but not until our roommates had become extremely familiar with the sounds and frequencies of our bowel movements.

Even my classmates who have been to the Middle East several times tell me that each time they return, they get the Gut Rot again. Hence, I had prepared myself for the unavoidable nature of this unpleasant guarantee. I brought a family-sized bottle of Pepto Bismol, some Immodium, and enough Ibuprofen to get me through the summer.
I definitely taunted fate a few times. I’ve been careful about the fruit I eat, and make sure any soda I get doesn’t come with ice. But once or twice I was without a bottle of water at night, and, here in Alexandria, decided to bite the bullet and drink straight out of the tap. Maybe the Gut Rot is more common in Cairo, for a few days of that and I was still feeling fine. But one by one my peers felt a rumble in their innards. I loaned out the Pepto Bismol. My Ibuprofen is almost gone. And mid-week last week, my stomach gave a cramp worthy of pregnancy. I sweated a little. My stomach cramped again, and, well, the rest of the afternoon is sort of a blur. I’m pretty sure my life flashed before my eyes, but I was in a semi-conscious state, struggling to stay upright at my desk.

That evening after class, my roommate and I stopped by – hear me out, now – McDonalds. To use their internet! It’s the only establishment in town with free wifi (that we’ve found so far), and we just wanted to check a few things before returning to the snail-paced internet at the E. Hotel.

But Cally, I lied to you. After a half-hour at McD’s suffering through our respective misery, the two of us became famished. We succumbed and got one hamburger and one large order of fries, and wolfed them down in moments. (I had the fries.) And we both agreed: it was the best McDonalds we’d ever had. I can’t believe I’m going to say this, but eating at McDonalds actually made me feel LESS sick than I felt beforehand – my stomach cramps went away entirely, and I’ve been gut-rot-free since then! *knocks on wood*

In retrospect, some vegetarians I keep company with say my symptoms are similar to their experiences after having eaten meat accidentally. I wouldn’t be surprised if it turns out one of the twenty-cent falafel sandwiches from Gad had a few flecks of shawarma in it, or the olives served at breakfast in the hotel had been stored with the meat. I guess I’ll never really know – perhaps I should start drinking out of the tap again and test the theory.

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Two weeks ago when we were still in Cairo, we attended a mandatory meeting at the U.S. Embassy. There, a State Department representative informed us, among other things, that “in Egypt, crossing the street will be the most dangerous thing you’ll do.” So far, my peers and I agree as a whole: he was absolutely right.
Sometimes, the roads have lines delineating traffic. Occasionally, drivers heed those lines. Stoplights exist, but more as an indicator of “the other direction has a green, so while you blow through this intersection, there will be cars coming straight at you.” Fifty percent of the time, I SWEAR that cars speed up when they see pedestrians in the road. If this directly leads to my demise sometime in the next six weeks, I just want you all to know I love you and care about you tremendously, and please emboss on my urn “I DID look both ways, Mom!”

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As in Greece, the streets of Cairo and Alexandria are home to countless stray cats, and occasionally, dogs. The cats are beautiful, long-faced, lithe-limbered Egyptian cats, but have lived their lives on the streets. Their sticky, mangey fur is just enough to deter me from scooping one up and making it the E. Hotel’s mascot. But every now and then you’ll see one sneak into an open door and scurry into a convenience store or – like I saw last week – skulk up the stairs of our school.




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I’m seriously lamenting the lack of exercise I’ve had in the last two weeks. The run I took through the streets of D.C. on June 2nd may well be my last run of the summer. I have not seen a single runner here since arriving. My classmates and I have brainstormed that it may be possible to run along the Cornice in the early, early morning, but even then a few drivers and millers-about are out, and running would add to the spectacle of a white, foreign, single, uncovered woman being on the streets of Alexandria. I might just have to count on the restricted caloric intake we’re all experiencing, ample sweating and a few in-hotel exercises to get me through the summer.

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The honking is incessant. People honk to say “get out of my way,” “feel free to merge,” “excuse me,” “what’s up,” “hey there, you look like a foreigner; I’m intrigued and wish to capture your attention,” and “oops.” The first break from honking came Friday morning. Few people on the streets, few people on the roads. Sometimes taxis honk when they pass us on the streets – either for any of the above reasons, or because they assume we gringos will be in need of a ride. It bothered me for the first week here, but now it melts into the general background din of Alex’s streets.

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It’s very common here for women to be…acknowledged. I should clarify: as a white, single, foreign, uncovered woman, I’m finding that I’m very frequently acknowledged by the men in Alex. This acknowledgement runs the gamut from friendly, surprised “hello”s, to stares at my approach and passing, to somewhat unwanted statements of “You are beautiful, you speak English?” to marriage proposals (most of them facetious). I estimate that, of all the women I pass on the streets in Alex, 99% of them are covered. Of the women who cover, I’d estimate that 10% of them wear a head-to-toe cover with openings only for their eyes. Some of my female peers will wear scarves over their hair when they’re out at night, and say it dramatically reduces the attention they receive. Others have said it changes the nature of the attention – rather than catcalls in English, they get them in Arabic.
I resigned myself to the fact that I look like a foreigner, walk like a foreigner, speak like a foreigner and will always BE a foreigner. In Greece this bothered me somewhat. It does, too, here. But I’m attempting every day to come to terms with it and move on, to love the luscious life I see and live here, to squeeze from this experience every succulent drop of opportunity.

However, in regard to being an undeniable outsider, I will now begin an ongoing narrative of the most useful items I packed for this trip. The first item to make this list is a pair of sunglasses. I was told by a few people who have traveled to Egypt before to drop the Minnesota attitude and avoid making eye contact. As an obviously foreign, white, single, uncovered woman, any glance that is caught by another person (particularly a male) indicates my foreignness and invites inquiry. A glance of mine into a shop or store that is caught by the owner results in lavish invitations to come in, browse, check out the latest deal that I’m offered for no reason other than I’m (obviously) American and Barack Obama visited Egypt two weeks ago, and perhaps marry him. Hence, with sunglasses, I can maintain a small semblance of aloofness while allowing my eyes to roll wildly in their sockets, taking in the marvelous peeling buildings that attest to years in the sun and sand and wind, the beautiful women and their breathtaking fashion senses,the shops that sell candy, soda and water for the equivalent of quarters and dimes. Definitely, item number one on the “Damn, I’m glad I brought that” list is sunglasses.

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Egypt reminds me of Greece – or what Greece probably would have been like before it switched to the euro. The exchange rate when we arrived was 5.5 Egyptian pounds (LE) to the U.S. dollar. A pound can go a long way – if you’re picky about how you spend it. The modest stipend that we were given can easily carry us through this summer if we’re thoughtful. As I mentioned in my last entry, we have little to no opportunity to prepare food (other than peeling open a can and sporking its sweet sweet treasure into our mouths). Our stipend was meant to fill this need – if we’re careful about our spending habits, we could possibly seek outside sources of meals on a daily basis.

Though, as one of my classmates noted, there’s little middle ground. On the rakheeS end of the spectrum, there’s Gad, the Egyptian equivalent of a highway McDonalds. As I’ve mentioned, I can get a falafel pita sandwich with a few shreds of “salad” in it for one pound, or about 20 cents. Two of those, and you’ve got a mildly satisfying dinner. (Though we all agree that Gad is also the intestinal equivalent of McDonalds. Dining on those sandwiches, you’re taking a risk.) On the other end of the spectrum, there’s Café R.* This American-style restaurant offers steaks, quesadillas, pasta dishes and the smoothest, silkiest lattes in Lower Egypt…for near-American prices. The restaurant itself opens up with a vaulted ceiling and wood-paneled walls, enthusiastic air conditioning and cliché theme music done on piano looped once every 15 minutes (no joke). A meal there can easily cost 30LE – thirty times a measly sandwich at Gad (though still only six dollars). But there’s very little middle ground. Not many places offer a sandwich, or plate of hummus and falafel, for five or ten pounds.
As a result, we’re cycling our food sources. One day at Gad, an occasional day at Café R., and a once-in-awhile trip to the highly-acclaimed Alexandria Mall where a Wal-Mart like store sells limited groceries next to shawls, shoes and the Qur’an. We may not be able to prepare food, but canned corn tastes like steak when you’re hungry enough.

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By the end of our first week of class, I was sick of everything. Sick of class, sick of Arabic, sick of being spoken to in Arabic, sick of being a foreigner, sick of the attention and catcalls and living out of a suitcase in a hotel. I was nostalgic for anything that was familiar, and began to crave the doldrumity of living at home, sleeping in the bedroom of my childhood, driving on familiar roads. Over the weekend I chatted with some folks on Skype, and saw faces halfway around the world smiling in their familiar residences. And I realized that if I fight the unfamiliarity and the language barrier, this fantastic opportunity to be immersed in a language and culture will be forever wasted. I realized where much of my anxiety and despair was coming from - I don’t like not knowing everything. But by the start of this second week of class, I was ready to start over. Arabic words were no longer bouncing like ping-pong balls off a brick wall in my brain. Some were sticking, like Gak, and leaving a filmy, oily impression…before falling off noisily. But at least it’s sticking more than it was last week!

This is my first language immersion experience (yes, there was Greece, but we weren’t called on to use Greek daily). And it’s intense. It’s intense in a way I couldn’t completely prepare for without experiencing it.

I’ve come to another conclusion: The past is only nostalgic because we know how it ends. And the unknown is scary.

I don’t think I’ll be chancing the tap water any time soon.

“Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.” –Khalil Gibran, The Prophet.

*For specific names, shoot me an e-mail. I’d prefer this blog not come up in internet searches of specific businesses.