Blogging the Nile | iBonding, the big rip-off, and Arabic numbers

CAIRO, EGYPT (FINALLY!) – Volleyball in Egypt is loud!

It’s only 7pm, but after an entire day of travling, it feel like a quarter till one. We were to be picked up from the hotel at 6:30a to resume our travel to Cairo, so at quarter after 7, Ethiopian Airlines picked us up to chauffer us to the airport. I love Africa time.

About the only cool part of this morning was meeting Kasim, a Kenyan who’d stayed the night in the Jerusalem Hotel with us. He was on his way to Sudan to extract land mines for the United Nations.

“Most are pressure sensitive, so when you step on the, they explode. But some have a trip wire that’ll detonate the device when you walk near it. Some pop out of the ground and explode in the air, which cases much more damage. And some are timed bombs – they’ll explode automatically, when they’re ready.”

Have a great breakfast!

Now, after the highs of listening to stories of land mines and the lows of trying to get out of the plane just to use the restroom, I’ve made it to the Adventist guesthouse, a half a block away from Midian Roxy in Roxy, Cairo, Egypt. The smell of rain that’d fallen earlier in the day mixes with the permanent smell of Cairene fog. The sound of volleyball, being played at the recreation center directly under us, barges through the window. A crowd is shouting instructions, cheers, and support in a language I’ve never heard before. Cool.

Three observations:

1. “Where culture separates, iPod unites.” It sounds cheesy, but when I go back home, I’m submitting it to Apple as a possible advertising campaign.

I’m a poor American student-missionary traveling to Egypt for the holiday. She was a 30-something Egyptian woman, probably returning home from a business trip in Kenya. I’m Christian; she’s probably Muslim. She most likely speaks Arabic, English, and a plethora of other languages. I only speak English (but speak it very well, I must add). We had nothing in common. There was no reason for us to notice each other at all. So what’s the reason for our eyes meeting?

White earbuds.

On the flight from Addis Ababa to Cairo (with a quick “don’t-even-get-out-of-the-plane” stopover in Khartoum, Sudan), I met up with 3 other iPod users, jamming on their tunes. While that’s not a huge deal in the States, meeting so many other members of the white headphones club was a nice taste of home.

2. “How do you say ‘We’re getting ripped off’ in Arabic?” When we made it into Cairo, Ranya, our Egypt contact, had a driver named George waiting for us to bring us to the guesthouse from the airport. George is a private van driver who Ranya worked out a connecting with to take us around Egypt. His brother, Michael, is a travel agent, “volunteering” his services in helping me plan the trip. We were to meet Michael at the guesthouse, so we hopped in the van, made our way through northern Cairo, and finally arrived at the destination of Midian Roxy.

Long story short, even though Michael isn’t charging us for his tour information (which by the way, I feel like an expert on), he does want us to travel everywhere with George. He says it’s a more reliable, safe way to travel, but I think it’s just a more expensive one. For example, a bus ticket to Hurghada, diving capital of the Red Sea, costs 55 LE (about $10) in every guidebook I’ve seen. However, George wants to charge $100! As our conversation went on, I got the feeling that Michael’s “helping us out” was really just “screwing us over.”

So I do believe that Lauran and I are going to actually not use George very much. The one time we may, though, will only be a tad bit more expensive than usual because it’ll be split four-ways, not just two. We met up with an “eccentric” Southern, couple from Frankfurt, Indiana, the Gregory’s. They were wanting to go down to Mt. Sinai, as well, and being that George was going to charge $80 for the van down there, it became much easier to swallow at only 1/4^th price instead of full. We compared schedules, talked it over, and made arrangements to hike the historical mountain the very next day!

3. Getting’ the grub. Being that we hadn’t eaten since our flight in, we decided to make our way into the main Roxy shopping area and get something to munch on. After stopping at a money-changing place to go from dollars to Egyptian pounds (LE), we began the search. It was at this moment I first realized I was in a foreign country.

Looking through my previous blog posts, I never once mentioned Egypt being an Arabic country. I knew this, of course, but simply hadn’t thought about it. Not only were all the signs, menus, and words in another language, but for the first time in my life, so were the numbers! I had to get used to these things now.

Luckily, we delayed the inevitable when we found, incredibly enough, a Kentucky Fried Chicken with English numbers and a picture-menu. Safe! With the English numbers, we knew we could live one more day safely, and now, we’d have the strength to at least attempt the Arabic numbers. After eating, we swung by another fast-food place that specialized in falafels and other on-the-go food. Somehow we communicated that we wanted 4 falafels each, and after waiting a few moments (and just throwing a 50 LE note at the guy since I didn’t know what he was asking for), we realized that the 4 big pita-sandwiches cost 2.5 LE (like 50 cents). I think I’m gonna like this place.

We also ran into a grocery store and managed to buy bottled water for the next day’s trip, even though it was encoded in the foreign language. I also bought some soft-cheese and hot dog buns to snack on for breakfast. Price: 16.3 LE. $2.50. Nice.

Ok, I think I’m out now. We leave for Mt. Sinai tomorrow at 6am! Later!

-cw, (or in Arabic, )