Things I Saw Yesterday

Things I saw yesterday (in chronological order):

Smog:

The air has been terrible this week. Since I only have two pairs of shorts and I just joined a gym, I've done laundry several times this week. I wash the clothes at night and hang them out on our eighth floor clothesline. I wake up in the morning and the desert air has dried them even in the dark. Unfortunately, the morning smog also gets at the clothes, coating even the clothespins in a brown dust the color of everything in Cairo. When I looked out at the city yesterday, I saw only a light brown smudge where the city should be.

Bag of blood:

Seriously. Stepping up onto the curb as I got out of my taxi, I passed a clear plastic bag, knotted at the top with maybe eight to ten ounces of blood in it. I spent last week reading articles about how Egypt is one of the top five locations in the WORLD for organ trafficking and organ tourism (there is no law against taking someone's organ without permission...if a case can be made at all, it is only a crime of simple assault). So a bag of blood on the street at nine in the morning was both surprising and not particularly surprising. I tried to imagine someone the night before running out of meat in his small café and buying some extra to get through the remaining customers…then pulling the meat out with his hands, neatly tying the plastic bag full of blood and dropping it on the street. Okay, that probably isn't what happened but I'm not willing to consider the alternatives.

Mean people:

I went to a meeting at the European Commission's offices in Egypt. CIHRS had been invited to discuss a project we are conducting as a junior partner with the European Organization for Human Rights. The EC instructed us to come ready to present on our part of the project and to bring a member of the accounting staff to answer questions if necessary. We arrived at the meeting and my supervisor introduced our junior accountant. The two women we were meeting shook their heads and said in their French accents that since we are the junior partner in the project, and their contract is actually with EOHR, all questions had to go through EOHR and that we could neither ask nor respond to questions in the meeting. They were very rude.

Second-largest "Medium" cappuccino I've ever seen:

Necessary to cope with the hurt feelings of the EC meeting.

This:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2QX9sMV5xI
Awesome.

That trainer again:

The trainer who could not stop looking at my belly when I was first introduced to him on my first evening at the gym came by my treadmill to tell me that an abs class was starting. Sure, he told everyone in the cardio room so I assume he was just trying to fill his class, but instead of saying "If you want to come…" he said "YOU WANT TO COME." It is common among people with okay but not great English here to never use the conditional, "if." Doesn't matter, call me unforgiving, but I still maintain that this guy sucks.

The largest cockroach IN THE WORLD:

Seriously. I saw this guy one other time and was so ambivalent about what the proper course of action should be (step on him with my sandal? Go change into hiking boots to step on him? Knock him off the counter and then step on him? Try to kill him where he stood? Spray him with ant spray? Break a glass bottle over his head?) that I wound up merely watching in frozen horror until he scrambled back under the sink and into the pipes from whence he came. He became my Moby Dick. I winced every time I turned on the kitchen light for a week hoping I would not see him on the ground because then I'd have no choice but to step on him and in my flip flops I am pretty sure I'd just slip right off his nuclear winter-proof back causing no damage. This was a month ago and it wasn't until last night that he again reared his ugly…well, the whole damn thing is ugly. Lucky for me, he revealed himself by FALLING OFF THE COUNTER behind me as I stood at the stove and landing helplessly on his back, tiny double jointed evil-haired legs flailing. I beat him over the head with the full garbage can several times, then with a full water bottle, then folded a plastic bag (not filled with blood) into a thick hand-sized pad and scooped him into the garbage can. With plastic bags on both my hands, I tied the garbage bag securely and put it in the dumpster.

Nerve damage in my ear:

Okay, so I didn't exactly see this. But I have a tingling, creeping sensation just inside my right ear. Has been there for about a week. The internet tells me this is nerve damage and I probably have either myocardial infarction (heart attack) or multiple sclerosis. Ugh. I am going to treat it by skipping the gym tonight (no coincidence, I'm sure, that the nerve damage started around the time I started the gym!) and drinking beer with a friend instead.