The smell of burning trash? No! The smell of adventure!

I got the job! I am now a Program Development Coordinator at the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies. Making a wopping $640 a month. Which is about twice what Egyptian teachers make but not quite what I had asked for so my fingers are crossed the Executive Committee approves a raise for me next year.

And I’ve found an apartment. With a Mexican woman named Marisol who works for an Expedia-like travel company. It is in Zamalek, one of the nicest neighborhoods in Cairo, filled with foreigners, little shops and even bars, but a bit of a walk to my office.

So I am rapidly progressing toward a normal existence. So now if I can only MOVE INTO the apartment, and OUT of my freaking hotel, I will be set.

I did move into a new desk today, instead of sharing the table in the library with the other interns, but whereas the interns were adorable chatty 20-year-olds, and the library was bright and thoroughly air-conditioned, I now share an office with two smokers and an ancient, sputtering air conditioner that rivals the Model T for functionality. I need to think of a tactful way to wear my swine-flu-esque air-filtering facemasks to work or else leave the room whenever either of the two light-up…which is about every half hour.

In other news, I went to the pyramids yesterday. It is true that the Sphinx seems smaller in person, but it is no less amazing. There is something really calming about its posture and expression, like a cat sunning itself. And boy was it sunning itself yesterday! Temperature was easily 100 and although Angelica and I went around 8:30 am and only stayed until noon I swear we both had mild heat exhaustion when we got back home and we were basically useless the whole rest of the day.

Oddly, three different men trying to sell things to the foreigners stumbling around in the sand of the Giza plateau, upon learning we were American, shouted “Welcome to Alaska!” An ironic joke?

The entire taxi ride back was filled with the smell of burning trash along the Nile. I realized that I kind of like the smell of burning trash. When I was a kid, I had two babysitters who lived way out of town, out in the juniper and tumbleweeds, where burn barrells were common. It was what building forts and jumping irrigation ditches smelled like.

I am very nervous about staying in Egypt for the semi-long term, especially on such a low salary but I am excited to finally be doing human rights work and to be learning the development side of things. Hopefully that experience, plus the time to work on my Arabic, will position me for one day paying down my loans.

Off to read my second Grisham book in 2 days. Missing the law, I guess.