Celebrate Good Times (C'mon)

I've officially made it through all of 2007 without dying.

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Wow, no post all month... who do I think I am, Luke?

The flight back to New York was smooth and uneventful, 12 hours in the air passing quickly thanks to some watchable movies and a bit of sleep. The time since then has been spent getting settled back into life here, catching up with friends, making plans for the future. I've been temping at a law firm helping them get their new website set up (for which my bank account is greatful); the assignment should be finishing in about a week so from there I'll move on to something new as I search for a new place. Based on my preliminary searching places in my usual stomping ground of the Upper West Side might be a bit thin on the ground; maybe it's time to get to know a new part of the city? Headed out to Jersey to see my family over Christmas; tomorrow for New Year's is bowling with Jill, Jen and the usual crowd. Life is moving on, as it always does.

Khalaas y3ani

Well, this is it – my last day at Silverkey and my penultimate day in Egypt.

When I first arrived here in March it came on the heels of 2 months of near constant moving around – around the US and Canada, then to the UK and Morocco – and initially I was planning on only settling here for a few months before moving on. Sadly those plans fell through, and after briefly considering leaving for another country in the region I decided to make a go of it here, luckily finding work through friends and moving to downtown Cairo from where I was living on the outskirts of the city. The year definitely didn’t turn out like I expected, but thankfully that’s not always such a bad thing.

The stuff I was expecting was fantastic. Getting to spend two weeks working with the Canadian MC and a further week and a half helping to lead MENA LDS gave me the chance to work with old friends on the things that I loved. Then my traineeship with the African YES Project made me push myself, learn new skills, make new friends and even helped me use what I learned in university to help teach others. I’m still stupendously proud of my team for taking on a project the size of starting up our own tea-making business.

Then, when things deviated from what I thought would happen, in true Cairo fashion this just opened up a whole range of new possibilities for me to take advantage of. If I had left, I never would have gotten the chance to work and live with a couple of crazy bastards. I never would have climbed Mt Sinai, seen the Mediterranean, jumped over sand dunes in the Sahara or snorkelled in the Red Sea. By my count I would have missed 6 crazy adventures, about 8 awesome parties, 5 good restaurants and many, many close friends. Khan al-Khalili? Never happened. Sitting on the street with the Boabs dressed in a Galabeya? Nope. That night Luke, Kent and I stayed up until 5am watching Chappelle’s Show and drinking chili vodka? Lost to the ages.

The sad part is that, while moving on means that there’s a whole new range of adventures ahead, there will always be things that are left behind. Egypt and Cairo in particular isn’t always the easiest of places to understand, or feel comfortable with. There’s much about this place that still seems strange and distant, and I think I could live here for the rest of my days and never truly understand certain aspects of life here. But for every annoyance there’s something to smile about; for every day I’ve returned home frustrated and angry, there’s a challenge that I met and beat. Like any time you’re in a strange place, far away from home, sometimes all you can do is plant your feet, smile, and meet whatever gets thrown at you with a steady mix of sarcastic humor and the ability to laugh at yourself. I’m sad to leave Cairo and the friends I have here, but happy that I had the chance to have that experience in the first place.

So, like I said, this is it. No more fuul, tamaya or shawerma, no more pomegranate juice or sahlab. No more dodging cars, arguing with cabs, riding microbuses in the middle of the night. No more karaoke at Harry’s pub, parties at Harrison’s place, drinks on the roof of the Odeon or laughing with friends at Horeyya. No more blue room, Mahroos, fighting with my shower, watching movies with Luke over dinner or saying hi to the guys on our street. No more sunsets in Al Azhar park. No more walking home over the River Nile. No more Cairo, no more Egypt.

At least for a little while.

Spider-Man likes Heavy Metal Music

Adventures in Cairo: Taks!

As Luke will probably tell you, I have something of a love-hate relationship with the cab drivers of Cairo. With the metro not quite reaching many parts of the city and the generally cheap cost of living, the thousands of black-and-white cars that patrol the streets are often the best way to go if you need to get from A to B – if you need to get to Mohandeseen, Maadi or Zamalek in a hurry, or out to Khan al-Khalili or further, cabs are your best bet if you’re not up for deciphering the bus system. Sadly, getting a cab can often be more of a challenge in itself.

First, you need to get a free one. While there are many thousands of cabs you also have to remember that there are many millions of people out and about as well. It might be 5 seconds before you spot one, or it could be my current record of 10 minutes. Of course, the cabs are also prone to stopping next to you as you walk down the street on the off-chance you want to jump in, but this usually happens when you have no need for one.

Then you need to get in. This is harder than it might sound. If the driver doesn’t know where you want to go, or he doesn’t want to go where you want to go, or just decides for shits and giggles not to let you in, then you’re out of luck.

Then you have to get there. This too is harder than it sounds. If you fall at this step, one of three things has probably happened; perhaps the driver has driven you 50 meters or so before intimating that he in fact has no clue about where you want to go. A second option might be that, after said 50 meters, the driver chooses to tell you that this particular trip will cost you 3 times as much as it should, at which point you repeat the number with a shocked look on your face before leaping out into oncoming traffic. The final option of course is that the car crashes, breaks down or otherwise expires en route – while this hasn’t happened to me yet there have been a couple of close calls.

Finally, you have to get out and pay. As the black-and-white cabs have no meters you pay what you think the ride should cost, and what you think and what the driver thinks this amount should be sometimes differs. I remember when I first arrived here I would negotiate before getting in to make sure I knew how much I’d be paying; now if the driver asks how much I’ll pay for the ride it’s usually a good sign that the guy will expect a high price.

So sometimes it can be quite an effort to get the form of transportation that should be the easiest option. That being said, sometimes you luck out and the guy is a badass. Like the cab driver who drove to the outskirts of the city to give me back the phone I dropped in his car; or the driver who presented Kent with a cup of hot tea the second he got in the car; or the driver with a MP3 player hooked up to his speakers, and who blasted Harrison, Luke and I with The Bee Gees, The Eagles and Prince as we sped over the Nile. And that one guy who got us singing falsetto disco songs in the middle of the Middle East definitely makes up for those past rough rides.

And so, in honor of the fine gentlemen mentioned in the previous paragraph, here are some eye-catching taxis from the streets of Cairo...

This guy had cool little skulls on his door locks. Spooky!

This guy had badass Street Fighter 2 decals.

Just above the shisha you can see a cab in Alexandria, painted their standard Black and Yellow as opposed to Cairo's Black and White. I was kinda hoping that each city would have their own color scheme, but nah.

That's not to say all Cairo cabs are the same - this one is Summer Citrus flavored!

Of course, in the desert the taxis are a little more lo-tech...