I have been checking out apartments on Craigslist…yes, Cairo has a thriving Craigslist community…because the school semester is starting here next week (i.e. Sunday, which is the Muslim Monday) so many of the apartments are getting snatched up quickly. And, let’s face it, I cannot stand living in a hotel much longer. I hate the impermanence of not knowing what is going to happen next week, much less next month. I can’t even buy normal sized shampoo because only the travel size will fit back in my suitcase if I need to pack up and leave soon.
Which I think I may not have to do, as I got unofficial word from my supervisor today that I got the program development officer job at the human rights NGO where I am currently interning. I still have not had an official offer and if the salary is too low, I may have to turn it down.
On the off chance that I do officially get offered this job, I went to see a potential apartment a couple days ago. I liked it well enough. It was clean, with a huge main room (most apartments here are built for several families so the living rooms contain at least two full sets of furniture, dividing the room into two sections. There was AC, satellite TV, wireless internet, and a bowab, or doorman, for security and quick fixes when things break down in the middle of the night (kind of like a "super").
The one drawback to the place is that my potential roommates were EXTREMELY weird looking. I mean really, really funny looking. One girl was very thin, and short, maybe like 5'3" with stringy red-orange hair and a hunchback that I didn’t notice but that Angelica, my friend who came with me to help me find the place, says was pretty obvious. The other girl had absolutely no facial features except slightly buggy eyes. She had no chin and all her other features are so flat as to be invisible. She looks almost exactly like one of those round little stress dolls that you squeeze and their eyes and ears pop out...only without the ears that pop out. But you know how those are faces that don't really look like faces? She was like that only with a Tinkerbelle blonde haircut.
Unfortunately, or, maybe fortunately, a girl came by to look at their place yesterday and wanted it on the spot so I missed out. Honestly, I am a little relieved. It would be a lot of pressure to be the hot roommate!
After seeing the place, I rewarded Angelica for coming with me by going with her to a casino in a fancy schmancy hotel nearby. All the machines are American and both the machines and the table games take only American dollars. They serve alcoholic drinks and there are some big money players there with slicked back oiled down hair who smoke like chimneys. Angelica, who is from New Jersey and plays at Atlantic City with her family all the time, lost $60 at the slot machines in less than an hour, and then made it all back plus about $20 at roulette and blackjack over the next two hours. I sipped my gin and tonic and earned my keep by holding on to her last $100 bill (so she'd forget about it in case she lost everything she'd at least walk out of there with $100) and reminding her to STAY ON 16!!!
Last night, Angelica and I went to see Transformers 2. It was actually pretty awesome, with great action and special effects. I was a little distracted by this article that I read about how Megan Fox has a slight deformity of her thumbs so that they are very, very short and the top knuckle is very wide and round with a very short, wide nail. Unsurprisingly, with all the rapidly folding and unfolding cars and exploding pyramids (yes, much of the movie takes place in Egypt), the mysterious thumbs get absolutely no screen time.
All right, it is time for the hideously melodramatic Arab soap opera with English subtitles they play every night for Ramadan. As always, I will keep you all posted on the job and apartment situation as I learn more.
Friday, September 11, 2009
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
Dear Wikipedia: do you come in audiobook form?
Okay, so the interview could have gone better.
Don’t get me wrong, I KILLED in the handshake and introductions section… it was when we segwayed into the “do you know anything relevant” section that things took a downward turn.
I pumped up all my program development and management experience from the projects I ran during law school, my grant-writing and fundraising experience from the condom casino (without actually mentioning the condom casino by name, of course), my writing and editing work for the int’l law journal, etc. They were nodding along. I felt pretty good.
And then they asked, “how long have you been in Egypt?” Um…. Okay, so this is my fourth day.
“What do you know about human rights in the Arab region?” they asked. Well, now that isn’t fair. Even if I knew everything there was to know about human rights in the Arab region, how does one go about answering that question?! So I sort of meandered around being familiar with the situation in Iraq through my work on contractors, having attended school in Yemen, etc.
Not good enough. “If we were to ask you to write a proposal for a project including several activities aimed at supporting the freedom of association in Egypt, and you were to sit down to begin your research on the issue, what would you do?”
Is there an intelligent way to say “I would type “Egypt” into Wikipedia”??
So conversation sort of ground to a halt around there. There was a little more chatting, an uncomfortable moment discussing salary (why does nobody believe that “I’m flexible” really means that I am flexible?!) and then the old “we’ll let you know soon.” But since I was told this morning that they would see me “soon,” and didn’t have my interview until 2:00, I’m not sure when I will find out if I have the job or not.
Don’t get me wrong, I KILLED in the handshake and introductions section… it was when we segwayed into the “do you know anything relevant” section that things took a downward turn.
I pumped up all my program development and management experience from the projects I ran during law school, my grant-writing and fundraising experience from the condom casino (without actually mentioning the condom casino by name, of course), my writing and editing work for the int’l law journal, etc. They were nodding along. I felt pretty good.
And then they asked, “how long have you been in Egypt?” Um…. Okay, so this is my fourth day.
“What do you know about human rights in the Arab region?” they asked. Well, now that isn’t fair. Even if I knew everything there was to know about human rights in the Arab region, how does one go about answering that question?! So I sort of meandered around being familiar with the situation in Iraq through my work on contractors, having attended school in Yemen, etc.
Not good enough. “If we were to ask you to write a proposal for a project including several activities aimed at supporting the freedom of association in Egypt, and you were to sit down to begin your research on the issue, what would you do?”
Is there an intelligent way to say “I would type “Egypt” into Wikipedia”??
So conversation sort of ground to a halt around there. There was a little more chatting, an uncomfortable moment discussing salary (why does nobody believe that “I’m flexible” really means that I am flexible?!) and then the old “we’ll let you know soon.” But since I was told this morning that they would see me “soon,” and didn’t have my interview until 2:00, I’m not sure when I will find out if I have the job or not.
Sunday, September 6, 2009
Intro to Cairo
First, a note about the title of this blog. Although "Yomummysofat" came in a close second, I picked Misree Loves Company because of its cute pun (Misree is the Arabic word for "Egyptian") and I thought the play on "misery" was appropriate because many of the events I narrate in my letters home are about all the bad things that happen to me when I travel. I tend to be a bit of a crap magnet and those stories always turn out to be the funniest anyway.
I realize looking at my watch that I have been in Cairo less than two full days, though it already feels like I've been here for weeks. Perhaps because I have developed the following bizarre sleep schedule:
I arrived in the afternoon of the 4th, having slept for about 3 hours on the plane. I pushed myself to stay awake for the rest of that day by reading in my room and then going to a mall all evening with my new friend, Angelica. I went to bed around midnight, slept like a freaking corpse for two hours and then snapped awake at 2:30 a.m. I stayed awake for about seven hours, ate breakfast, then finally fell back to sleep around 9:30. I then proceeded to sleep the ENTIRE DAY of the 5th. I woke up at noon when the maid came to clean my hotel room just long enough to tell her to come back tomorrow (which I cleverly described in Arabic as "the day which is not today"), then crashed again until 5pm. This obviously wrought havoc on last night's sleep as well, which also ended at 2:30 a.m., resumed at 6:30 a.m., and was rudely interrupted by my alarm at 9:30.
I blame the very tall Egyptian-American jerk who sat in my row on the plane. We both had aisle seats with 2 empty seats between us and agreed to split the middle row, each taking 1 extra seat. But of course he pushed his size 14 foot into my space within ten minutes of lying down (he was like 6'3", how did he think he could sleep lying down in 2 seats anyway?). At 5'2", I actually can fit lying down in two seats, but not without nudging uncomfortably against his massive foot so after tossing and turning uncomfortably for three hours in a semi-sitting position, I lay down on the floor. Where he stepped on me. To his credit, he then apologized. Then stepped on me again an hour later.
I was most concerned about covering the distance from the door of the plane to the door of my hotel without being robbed or kidnapped. This small victory I did accomplish but it took about three times longer than it should have (an hour and a half for a 30 minute taxi ride) because my driver and I could NOT find my hotel to save our lives. We passed the same shops, the same hotels, the same stretch of the Nile something like NINE times before we finally found a ten year old boy who had heard of the street we were looking for. I totally could have adopted that boy.
My first "day" of work was today, though I was only there for about 45 minutes. My "boss" is a researcher around my age with excellent English and American slang named Dina. I wasn't there ten minutes before she suggested I apply for a paid position in the fundraising department. Within fifteen minutes, she'd arranged for a formal interview for me this week. So we'll see how that goes.
Tonight, another walk along the Nile with Angelica (we're both trying to stay in shape the cheap way, since a gym membership at the nearby Hyatt Hotel costs $5000 per year, yes, I said FIVE THOUSAND DOLLARS PER YEAR. However, the cheap way also involves near constant sexual harassment (the dopey kind, not the threatening kind) by every Egyptian boy out on the prowl along the riverfront. Can't wait.
I realize looking at my watch that I have been in Cairo less than two full days, though it already feels like I've been here for weeks. Perhaps because I have developed the following bizarre sleep schedule:
I arrived in the afternoon of the 4th, having slept for about 3 hours on the plane. I pushed myself to stay awake for the rest of that day by reading in my room and then going to a mall all evening with my new friend, Angelica. I went to bed around midnight, slept like a freaking corpse for two hours and then snapped awake at 2:30 a.m. I stayed awake for about seven hours, ate breakfast, then finally fell back to sleep around 9:30. I then proceeded to sleep the ENTIRE DAY of the 5th. I woke up at noon when the maid came to clean my hotel room just long enough to tell her to come back tomorrow (which I cleverly described in Arabic as "the day which is not today"), then crashed again until 5pm. This obviously wrought havoc on last night's sleep as well, which also ended at 2:30 a.m., resumed at 6:30 a.m., and was rudely interrupted by my alarm at 9:30.
I blame the very tall Egyptian-American jerk who sat in my row on the plane. We both had aisle seats with 2 empty seats between us and agreed to split the middle row, each taking 1 extra seat. But of course he pushed his size 14 foot into my space within ten minutes of lying down (he was like 6'3", how did he think he could sleep lying down in 2 seats anyway?). At 5'2", I actually can fit lying down in two seats, but not without nudging uncomfortably against his massive foot so after tossing and turning uncomfortably for three hours in a semi-sitting position, I lay down on the floor. Where he stepped on me. To his credit, he then apologized. Then stepped on me again an hour later.
I was most concerned about covering the distance from the door of the plane to the door of my hotel without being robbed or kidnapped. This small victory I did accomplish but it took about three times longer than it should have (an hour and a half for a 30 minute taxi ride) because my driver and I could NOT find my hotel to save our lives. We passed the same shops, the same hotels, the same stretch of the Nile something like NINE times before we finally found a ten year old boy who had heard of the street we were looking for. I totally could have adopted that boy.
My first "day" of work was today, though I was only there for about 45 minutes. My "boss" is a researcher around my age with excellent English and American slang named Dina. I wasn't there ten minutes before she suggested I apply for a paid position in the fundraising department. Within fifteen minutes, she'd arranged for a formal interview for me this week. So we'll see how that goes.
Tonight, another walk along the Nile with Angelica (we're both trying to stay in shape the cheap way, since a gym membership at the nearby Hyatt Hotel costs $5000 per year, yes, I said FIVE THOUSAND DOLLARS PER YEAR. However, the cheap way also involves near constant sexual harassment (the dopey kind, not the threatening kind) by every Egyptian boy out on the prowl along the riverfront. Can't wait.
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