...that's the flat, not Alexandria. Ouch.
10/09/2011 02:30am:
I am writing this from the temporary apartment in Alexandria, two obscenely dirty feet up on the sofa not because I'm a slob, but because there are cockroaches on the floor. We're currently getting through our first minor incidence of being 'cheated' by landlords; having been assured of a clean flat with air conditioning, the reality is somewhat different. It hardly seemed worth arguing over £20 but as we discovered this evening, that's the equivalent of a taxi fare, drinks and two-course fish dinner for five people. But then again, it's this knowledge that's keeping me from being at all disgruntled in the first place.
We left Cairo in the early afternoon today. I have discovered that Egyptian drivers have two things in common with Sri Lankans: firstly, they drive Tuktuks (mad, rattling three-wheelers prone to falling over if they turn too fast), and secondly, when they say a journey is two hours, they mean four and a half. Even if this were not the case it was good we left early, as according to Al Jazeera - if we're going to bake to death, apparently it's imperative that we get to do it with a functioning television - protestors have stormed the Israeli embassy this evening. Latest TV reports show images of papers flung from the embassy windows, and people on the streets below running both to and from clouds of smoke and tear gas.
It's not until you try to make your way out of Cairo you begin to realise just how vast the city is. Apparently the city is home to approximately eight to ten million people, mostly crammed as we now discovered between the 'city centre' and the pyramids. A landscape under construction looms ahead as we speed down the main road, cranes towering above apartment blocks that seem both innumerate and impossibly high with just the faintest but distinct ghosts of pyramids, a long way off. On the ground people dodge between traffic and cats limp across piles of rubbish that take up whole sections of pavement (apparently, one thing that has deteriorated since the fall of Mubarak is the city's cleanliness). Then for around fifteen minutes we drive through an area more reminiscent of Ancient Egyptian-style housing; tiny, ramshackle houses just one storey high where one might imagine it would be cooler to sleep on the roof than inside. Then the flats spring up again, even more densely than before, and slightly sinister: many have no windows on three sides, no balconies, just boxes stacked perfectly on top of one another, reaching higher and higher. There are no shops, at least none I can see. Nowhere to gather in public, no cars off the main road. Just boxes. Photos don't do it justice; they really are bizarre.
And then suddenly you're clear again, speeding along an endless desert road that with its shimmering mirages and battered Toyotas could be anywhere in the Middle East. I promptly and completely unwillingly fall asleep.
By the time we arrive in Alexandria the sun is going down. It's a beautiful sight which I will describe properly another time when Harry Potter 2 in Arabic is not playing tantalisingly in the background. Alexandria is a little cooler and feels far more chilled out than Cairo; we've already seen a number of women with their hair uncovered, and locals in the evening gather in the cafes and shisha bars along the seafront, out on dates, buying ice cream, plunging through traffic with terrifying nonchalance.
We meet up with Natasha and her parents and check out two apartments suggested to us in different, far quieter areas of town than where we're staying at the moment. Plastic furniture spray-painted gold and pastel-coloured dressing tables are a recurring theme but here and there some of the furnishings really are impressive, and a shock considering the price we'll be paying (between £100 and £200 a month) and after tonight we have a pretty good idea of what we will and will not settle for. Fairy lights have been discussed.
I can't wait in the coming weeks to write in more detail about everything we've seen this evening. Once again it has been a total sensory overload (a horribly overused phrase but there really is no other way of describing it) that would take days to fully communicate. For now maasalama.
10/09/2011 22:48pm:
SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEE WE HAVE A FLATTTTTTTTTTTTT
13/09/2011 10:48pm:
Still no internet, dangit. Yes we're still in Chez Cockroach, until Wednesday evening.
The flat that is soon to become ours for the princely sum of £130 a month plus bills is in a lovely area of town, opposite a primary school and not far from Sharia Fou'ad, a busy main street. When pictures are to follow there seems little point in describing the place in detail but certainly our feelings about the place are cemented by the presence of a Japanese-style mother-of-pearl-decorated screen, a keyboard, HUGE and ornate dining table and, perhaps most importantly, a pastel-pink corner bath. We stand on one of the two balconies and jump up and down.
The flat is owned by a lady named Ibtihaan and her four daughters, two of which - Dina and Riham - we have become good friends with, who have never rented the place out before and are only moving to their second flat further out in Alexandria on the beach. During the six hours we spend discussing the practicalities and then waiting for the contract to be properly drawn up, and over 'American coffee', Riham chats about her studies (her art course has been for the most part put 'on ice' as all the ministers, including the one for education, are being replaced), her hair (in common with quite a few Alexandrian women she wears it loose and without a veil, and the city is generally perceived as slightly more liberal than Cairo) and the revolution - in what she describes as 'propaganda', she believes Western media portrayed the protests as far larger and more dangerous than they actually were. Indeed, she says, in Alexandria they were almost non-existent. Dina, who at 19 is one year younger than her sister, is about to go to spend a year studying in Istanbul; if she likes it she will try to switch to a degree in political science, her true ambition. Both girls are immeasurably kind and hospitable and gently mock the Western preconception that Egyptians are all thieves. By the time everything is all sorted, the deposit paid and the 'no boys' clause firmly understood, it's about 9pm and we go back to the flat for celebratory 30p-for-12 falafel.
This, it turns out, is a huge mistake. The day we should have spent celebrating the acquisition of somewhere to live is instead spent lying on our backs popping immodium and having heated religious debates in an attempt to keep the gnawing cramps, shudders of hot and cold and feverish dreams involving cannibalistic Woodcraft folk at bay. It is inevitable and probably mostly down to the heat, truth be told, so it's probably good it has happened now rather than once term has started. As it turns out it is nothing that three rounds of Immodium, a sachet of dehydration treatment, Vitamin C tablets, eighteen hours' sleep, Discworld and a KFC spicy wrap can't cure.
With Deko still feeling a little queasy and me fizzing with the boundless optimism of the newly-recovered we agree to meet Natasha's family to visit the library, to pick up Vicky - the last of the four! - at about midnight, and somewhere in between fit in a cinama trip with Riham.
The world-renowned library is vast, even bigger than I'd imagined, and with far more English books. Past the reception desk, which is surrounded by the work of 'resident artists' and offers bibliographies on a number of prominent literary figures from Homer to Harold Pinter. Then, down a few alarmingly slippery stairs, the books begin. One enormous room with ascending levels, alternately desks with internet access (which predictably most occupants were using to check their Facebooks) and shelves of books mostly in English, French and Arabic - the library houses approximately 8 or 9 million, and inexplicably closes at 4pm. In a culture where the majority of citizens don't stir until 2, this means we will have to go entirely against the grain in order to get our hands on just a few of the fascinating volumes we found during our brief tour inside. Aside from a number of useful textbooks for Arabic study (and Hieroglyphs!) Deko became absorbed in a history of Hasidic Judaism and me a short piece discussing the significance of laughter in religion, and the role of women in Ancient Greek worship (can you tell which shelf we were at?). At the very bottom of the cavernous room is a map of the world from around 1150AD, with north at the bottom, on which among the wiggly and confused shapes of continents London and Lincolnshire were, to my amazement, clearly marked. We resolved to come back armed with passport photocopies to sort out a membership as soon as humanly possible - which technically ought to be this morning, but as I write this we are happily sprawled in front of Al Jazeera with fig jam and look to stay that way for some time yet.
Next we visit a cafe on the seafront and have 'lunch' at 5pm, watching the sun go down over the water. In Alexandria despite the extensive menus in most of the beach cafes fresh lemon juice rather than orange is the most popular choice, as well as tall glasses of yoghurt with honey that is initially delicious but leaves a funny aftertaste a bit like a farm in your mouth. There appears to be no correct time for smoking shisha and the majority of locals in the cafes, women in particular, are not without a heavily-scented water pipe between them. Those wearing the full headscarf with just the eyes showing deftly lift the bottom of the material, take a puff, and then drop it again with gloved hands. The sea is wonderful in the early evening light, little waves crashing against the rocks with fish writhing in the shallows, and not a cloud in the sky. Further down boys yell and splash in the water. I remembered the 'comfortable silences' speech from Pulp Fiction. Then the phone rings.
Meeting up with Riham to go to the cinema is ridiculously complicated as neither Deko nor I have credit on our phones yet - and then when we do, a recorded voice lists a number of options in Arabic that we in our baffled state assume is a list of adverts, and etisalat (a main phone provider in Egypt alongside movinil) have cheated us out of our £1.50. Eventually she gets our numbers from Natasha and we arrange to meet by the library which, given its size, isn't much of a help. "THE BLUE LIGHTS!" we both scream at each other for fifteen minutes. Riham's boyfriend Hassam, who is genuine, well-spoken and once again one of the friendliest people I have ever met, pulls up in the car and we drive to a massive shopping centre named 'City Centre' (lie) surrounded by brightly-lit American and Tex-Mex restaurants, slightly outside of town and not far from the airport.
We have a highly Western evening listening to Jessie J in the car, watching Captain America 3D and discussing Paulo Coelho's The Alchemist in a diner. Hassam finds my use of 'tasharrafna', an incredibly formal and old-fashioned word for 'pleased to meet you' that we learned was still commonplace, hilarious and is affronted when we tell him that in our textbooks Maha ends up marrying her cousin. Again the topic of Egyptian stereotypes arises and again we express utter embarassment on the assumptions made by so many people from our own country. I remember when I first put Arabic down on the ucas form and a friend asked me point-blank why I was learning a 'terrorist language'.
Later we make our way to Al Nozha airport, little more than two rooms and a vending machine where arrivals and departures are merged and luggage is dumped unceremoniously on the floor for a full-scale fight to ensue, if it arrives at all. Vicky emerges suitably traumatised and is not particularly comforted when her biggest suitcase is tied into the open boot with string alone for the ride back. But we make it in one peace and drop, exhausted, into our gold-painted thrones. Two more days, we remind ourselves as a discarded date on the floor mistaken for a cockroach causes immediate hysteria. Two more days.
13/09/11 18:42pm:
Finally found the internet cafe next to our flat. 10p for one hour, can't complain.
Pictures to follow...
No comments:
Post a Comment