Henna and a Wedding

I've been back in Egypt now for a little over three weeks and in that time I've been to a hen(na) night and a wedding, visited a cancer hospital, had a few exams and bought a bedroom. To stop myself from waffling I'll write about each event in its own blog post, starting briefly with the hen(na) night and the wedding!

The henna night is exactly like a hen night in the U.K, except held at the bride-to-be's house and a lot of henna tattooing goes on. There were two women there who organise henna parties; they were a lot of fun and had some great ideas. When you book them, you choose a selection of 6 themes from around the world, for example Spanish flamenco, Hawaiian hula or (obviously) belly-dancing. One of them then organises all the music and the other organises the costumes and the bride-to-be spends the whole night getting changed and spending 15 or 20 minutes dancing to the music that goes with each theme. It was SO much fun and one of the women was doing henna tattoos for everyone while this was going on. I'm not really 100% clued-up on the controversy surrounding black henna; I only read up about it after I'd had the tattoos, but I did suffer from a horrible, itchy rash for about 2 weeks afterwards - word of warning. Thankfully it's gone now and I didn't have any kind of reaction to the tattoo on my hand: 

The wedding itself the next day was a quiet, toned down affair, so I've yet to experience that big, stereotypical Egyptian wedding I've heard so much about! It was held on a boat which then cruised for two hours up and down the Nile in Cairo, with a buffet and entertainment including a singer and a belly-dancer. I checked out some wedding dress shops with the bride-to-be, where there were many available to rent as well as buy. From the photo, you'll see the trend here for big, fluffed up dresses; the Arabic word to describe them is 'manfoosh'. 

p.s. Mum - thanks for the nail polishes, they matched my dress perfectly! x

Keeping up the pace

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم

Photo time... finally! Since our university programme at the Language Centre got into full swing it's been hard to find the time to get my thoughts together. If these first two weeks are anything to go by, it's going to be a busy year! We have 14 hours of fusHa (Modern Standard Arabic) a week and 4 hours of the Egyptian dialect, which isn't as balanced as I would like but the expectation is that you will learn the dialect out on the streets and in everyday life. This is true of course, but the homework for fusHa is pretty heavy too, which leaves little time to get out and about! Classes in general are a mixture of translation, reading comprehension, literature and media. The reading comprehension and literature classes are really challenging, as the teacher has a policy of speaking exclusively in Arabic but I suppose that's the best way to learn. Anyway it's not too bad, as we discovered last night in our Tuesday evening (6-8pm) literature class; when Arabic fails there is always the opportunity to roll around on the floor and play dead just to make your point. This might sound a bit drastic but we were reading an Arabic poem about men in a village who wanted female company and in a drunken state decided the best way to achieve that goal was to pretend one of them had died. As you do. 

Here's some photos of the flat which I'm sharing with three of my friends; Hanna, Sara and Chiara.

 

 A limited view of my bedroom due to the mess it's in at the moment, but at least you can see my beloved fan!

 Our living room

 The corridor with the bathroom on the left and bedrooms on the right

 My balcony overlooking the villa for the Saudi Consulate staff (unfortunately for my curiousity no one is ever home)

Panoramic view from my balcony

 The landlord's father constantly watching over us!

 The kitchen (out-of-shot: massive fridge on the right)

 The reception area: all the furniture here was previously in my bedroom behind on the left, the door in the top-right is the living room

 The dining/study area

I love this photo! Hanna and Chiara before their trip out to Rosetta (rasheed in Arabic)

Hanna also is keeping a blog during our time here which you can find here. She's much more organised with pictures and things than I am! Meanwhile last Friday we visited the catacombs here in Alexandria, which were a really bizarre and intriguing mixture of Greek, Roman and Ancient Egyptian art and funerary customs. I managed to sneak some pictures even though you're not really allowed cameras inside, so I'll post an update with those soon insha Allah (God willing).

WE HAVE INTERWEBS!

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم

As the title suggests, this post is primarily to celebrate the fact that we finally have the internet at our flat! Ten long days arguing with technical support, a visit from a technician and a visit to the office later, it is finally shaghaal (working). A word of wisdom just in case anyone finds themselves looking to purchase wifi from LinkDSL - and again for those who missed it that is service provider LINKDSL, ahem - in Egypt, don't do it. Unless you are prepared to withstand their so-called 'installation' period which apparently lasts ten days as standard, but they won't tell you that at the beginning. Meanwhile, as polite and friendly as their technical support team are, their concept of time leaves a lot to be desired; 'within 24 hours' generally refers to a duration lasting between 48 hours to one week.

Anyhoo and more importantly, we started our formal lessons today. After the placement test last Thursday I was put into the advanced group for fusHa (Modern Standard Arabic) which is alright if a little challenging. Especially after focusing on trying to understand 'ameyya (colloquial or dialect) for so long, it's more of a struggle to adjust back to the formal language again. Our Monday morning lesson every week will be based on Arabic media; television, radio and print while our afternoon classes feature things like role plays in the Egyptian dialect.

Speaking of dialects, I met a lovely Libyan family yesterday on the train back from Cairo to Alexandria. I hope to blog more about my train adventures and include pictures later, as I absolutely love the journey through the Nile Delta region; it is a very interesting contrast to city life here. If you take a direct train which uses Spanish carriages, the journey takes roughly two and a half hours, while the journey time for a train with several stops using French carriages is closer to four hours. Tickets are cheap, so far I have only used 2nd class which costs 36 EGP (=£3.60 ish) one-way for a service which includes a lot of leg space, comfortable reclining chairs and a food trolley. When I come back to the U.K, the first thing I'm going to do is go to First Great Western and tell them what's what! Like I said, I'll try to compile a more train-specific blog in the future because I really like them here.

Back to the lovely Libyan family... a couple and one of their (four!) sons bought me a bottle of water and shared their lunch with me, chatting away the whole time and although I found it quite hard to grasp the subtle differences of their dialect, I managed to make a bit of conversation. I asked about how things were in Libya now and Ahmed, the father, was very optimistic and even invited me to come and stay with them. He said that Tripoli now is fine, there is stability, security and things are back to normal but there may still be a few problems in some rural areas. I was sad to say goodbye after they gave me their number and address - truly the kind of people you feel lucky to meet in life. Many people here have been really great, such as Kareem the doorman who I mentioned in the last post and more recently the security guy at Alexandria's Misr station, who bent over backwards before literally taking a running jump off a departing train, in order to convince the train inspector that my ticket WAS valid despite the fact it was on my phone and not printed out. Internet has obviously not yet made an impression upon the mofattisheen (inspectors) of Egypt's train service.

Enough of t'internet for now... I'll leave you with a sample of the delicious seafood which Alexandria has to offer; crab, prawns, mussels and calamari!

Finding a flat in Alexandria

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم 

Nearly three weeks after arriving in Egypt, al-hamdulillah I and three others have finally managed to find a flat to rent in Alexandria. The flat-hunting process is definitely no picnic, especially for four girls looking to share together; this year it also seems to have been more difficult to find something suitable than in previous years. This is because, or so the simsars (brokers) tell us, demand for renting in Alexandria has increased due to the large number of Syrians and Libyans in the country. The situation in Syria has also probably led to an increase in foreign students coming to study in Egypt, as Damascus was one of the more popular destinations for the year abroad. 

The locations in which we were able to search for flats were also limited this year by the conditions imposed last minute by the University of Alexandria, resulting in our studies being transferred to the Alexandria Centre for Languages. Their office is situated ten minutes behind the University; however the actual centre is a 45 minute bus journey away. The bus pick-up point is at the office at 8:45am, so to avoid two long journeys in the morning the immediate area around the office is the best place to look for flats. I'm still not 100% sure of all the districts of Alexandria, but I think this covers Azarita, Shallalat and Mahattat ar-Raml. So dashed were my dreams of a flat with a sea view... c'est la vie!

The location was the first restricting factor, then our number was the second. Unlike Cairo, where there is a variety of flat sizes and shapes to suit particular tastes, the Alexandrian standard seems to be two- or three-bedrooms. The four of us were ideally looking for a room each, although we eventually resigned ourselves to the fact that two of us may have to share. In the end, we managed to find a three-bedroom place with a small reception room suitable enough to convert into a bedroom, although it remains to be seen how well the single bathroom works out... 

This doesn't mean there are NO four- or even five-bedroom flats in Alexandria, but after a lot of exhausting searching and brokers who will test your patience until you forget that you ever had any, you could be forgiven for thinking that this was the case. Even when you discover a palace for a reasonable price, with five bedrooms and three bathrooms, as another group from our course did, there will be glitches. This particular 'glitch' came in the form of a very fat, angry Egyptian neighbour armed with three dogs, CCTV and a penchant for marble. He appears to have a great deal of power of intimidation and unfortunately, the group now have to search for another flat.

The only advantage of this long process where brokers will insist on showing you everything they have to offer, regardless of whether it suits your criteria or not, is the opportunity for learning the colloquial dialect. By hearing the same conversations, the same problems and the same selling tactics, you become familiar with all things 'flats.' A useful vocabulary list can also be found here to get started.

The broker system here is similar to, but less organised than, a network of estate agents. We were assured that the best way to approach finding a flat was to simply ask the doorman of 'any nice-looking building.' While this approach may or may not be the best way, there is probably few other options. A doorman may or may not put you in touch with a simsar who will then expect a fee if you rent one of the flats which they've shown to you. This fee should not be extortionate, but they will try their luck, especially with foreigners. If anyone does get unnecessarily pushy and intimidating, mentioning the police apparently calms them down a bit! The bawaab (doorman) will usually expect a small fee also. We had the pleasure of knowing a really honest and helpful doorman called Kareem, who is definitely one of the people I'll remember from this year and I hope we see more of him.

I needed some distance after this heavy flat-hunting experience, so I've come back to Cairo for a few days before our formal start at the centre on the 27th September - photos of the flat will soon follow! It's a lovely old building opposite the Saudi Consulate; but unfortunately it is on the 3rd (technically 6th) floor with no asanseir (elevator) and only one bathroom. The family renting it have lived there for fifteen years and never rented before, so it feels a bit like living in someone else's home but I'm sure after a couple of weeks we will make it our own. I'm paying £150 approx. a month for the converted reception/bedroom, which is probably a little more than the average price you'd expect to pay in Alexandria for a flat without a sea view. We also viewed a flat with a sea view, overlooking the library for 6000 EGP, which is approximately £600. Prices this year are also a bit higher than previous years, I'm guessing due to increased demand. Still after a year here I know I'm going to cry at the prices back home in England!