A bowab is a doorman, handyman, trashman, etc. in this culture. My bowab is named 'Gad.' I met a girl that used to live in the same apartment as I do. Apparently Gad tried to stop a fight a couple years ago and somehow 'accidentally' killed a man. The problem came when it was found out that the man that he killed was from the same village in upper Egypt and was from the opposing side in a long standing feud. She said the door was always locked and there were plenty of times when she had to wake him up to open the front door, only to find him sleeping with a sword.
oh, and apparently he likes to play this game where you chase each other around and grab at each others balls. these are true stories and this man is the security of my building.
life is good
Every single day I see something that is so amazing that my brain gets flooded and I can't think straight. So in an effort to appreciate each thing to its fullest I decided to start blogging about things I see in cairo each day. Today I noticed that Egyptians must think 78 degrees is quite cold as 1 in 5 seem to be wearing jackets, scarves, etc. I was sweating by the time I got to the bus station, but everyone else around me appeared to be cold. I ate my granola bar and yogurt drink and even 'cheers'd' a guy that was staring at me from 6 feet away.
as a side note, I like saying oddly offensive things in public situations in which there are no native english speakers. nothing says funny like ordering 'cocknipples' at a restaurant.
anyway, the guy that sat next to me on the bus was wearing a canadian tuxedo and felt the need to read the koran and sing his prayers. This is one of those things that gets old really fast but you can't do anything about it. All you can really do is pray about it and hope that your god is stronger, cooler, or has more of a respect for people around him than this guys god.
Last weekend I got into a cab for an expected 40 minute ride (this costs ~$5). The driver had no cassette player or radio so he did what anyone would do in this situation...he selected a ringtone, let it play, chose another one, let it play, etc etc. occasionally he'd come back to one he liked but i think he had a bit of a playlist in mind. Keep in mind he is doing this while driving a 30+ yr old fiat with manual transmission through some crazy traffic. Also, he did not have a nice phone at all, it was one that you could get in the US for free 6 years ago so it was all midi tones.
The weather in Cairo is amazing right now. It's in the upper 70's all day and at night it drops down to the mid 60's. It's just enough to feel like fall, only it's egypt so it never rains...or does it?
I was able to see rain for the first time since having to ride motorcycles through monsoons in July. I have a friend who lives on the 34th floor of an apartment building. You can easily see the pyramids from the windows, it's amazing. Anyway, it got really windy so we had to shut the windows and then you could see this massive dust storm coming across the dessert into the city. It was just like in the movie The Mummy, giant face and all. Then just as the dust storm passed it started to rain, but not like rain in the states, this rain was so light that it floated around like snow. I ended up just staying at my friends house and watching My name is Earl on dvd because I was afraid the next thing was a plague of locusts or frogs dropping from the sky.
Sorry I've been lax about the posting. The job has been keeping me increasingly busy and I had another bout of sickness. I'll be better, I promise.
Last night I ventured out to an exhibit opening at the Goethe Institute. It was a graffiti exhibit in which the artists we allowed to put up big pieces on the side of the former East Germany embassy. Some pieces were amazing, some mediocre, but the standout part was the fact that there was a rap group and a break dancing group. It was all in arabic so I have no idea if they were any good, but their name was 'Arabian Nights' although i never saw it written down so it could be 'Arabian Knights.' It was fun, beers were cheap and there were a lot of kids I hadn't seen at the normal foreigner hangout spots.
This all happened just a few days after I saw an upper egyptian man in traditional dress with stainless steel fronts.
Then I saw two pairs of twins in one morning and ate curly fries at hardees.
Also, Hardees does not serve the '5th meal' here, they don't even open til 11am. I guess there's no old people here that enjoy biscuits and gravy.
so i forgot to say what the pizza egg was...
basically it was flat bread, like a pita type thing and on top, in the middle was some cheese and olives. inside it was seriously some combination of tomatoes and hotdogs i think. i had to throw it away.
as a side note, you should know - hot dog pizza is something that is on every menu that involves pizzas. i think they thought 'what do americans like? pizza. hot dogs. done.'
i'm not sure where the 'egg' bit came into this pizza egg thing, but i'm sure they scrambled an egg in there somewhere.
When you call my phone it now plays Bootylicious.
This is made funnier by a few things:
1. I'm in Egypt
2. There were only a few English options and one of them was Bootylicious
3. I'm in a position of responsibility and I have to use this phone for work
4. Everytime someone calls me it plays a dated song about how you're not ready for my jelly.
5. It only cost 1 dollar to have this done
6. My body truly is too Bootylicious for you baby
7. Since I am probably the first website in a long time to have the word 'Bootylicious' typed so many times, if you google 'bootylicious' Hamburger Hotdog will probably be on the first page.
I am ordering something called a 'Pizza Egg' from a delivery place by work. No one here knows what it is because the Arabic is just the words 'Pizza Egg' written again. I'm so excited. I always thought of pizzas as mammals.
I have a new goal: Socotra. It is located pretty close to here, but there are no available flights at this time and when there are they only go to the island once, maybe twice, a week and there are monsoons for half the year. I will travel there. It will be mine.
In July, I sold most of my my belongings and moved to Cairo. My goal was to work in the field of journalism without any real experience or anything lined up beforehand.
Last month I started doing freelance writing. Then I basically just kept showing up to the magazine where I saw the most potential. I became a staff writer within a couple of weeks, and yesterday I officially became Senior Editor of an international design magazine.
Apparently my corporate background came in handy, as they really needed someone to come in and organize the entire editorial staff. It's the first time in my life I don't mind working long days. I never look at the clock until the end of the day, and that's only to wish I had a few more hours to complete necessary tasks. I officially have a career, not a job.
The magazine needs a lot of work, and I'm just the man who is grossly unqualified to turn it around.
Well...my internet has been out at my house for a minute, I'm being promoted at work on a consistent basis, and I went to Dahab for Eid (post Ramadan feast/week long party).
As you can tell from the photos i'm still telling stories/jokes and wearing the same shirts i've owned for 10+ years.
Quick story, then I have to get to work -
The guy in the middle of the picture is an Iraqi refugee named Hassan. He loves America. His family is still in Iraq and he is being relocated to DC pretty soon. You seriously couldn't meet a sweeter guy. But...one time during our trip we had planned on going to the dessert with Bedouins and watch the sunset, see the stars, etc. The cars that were supposed to pick us up were over an hour late, so our friend Danny called and complained to the drivers and then called off the trip (after much yelling) and demanded the deposit back. This was not going to happen -ever- according to the drivers. Hassan grabs the phone and tells the driver "I don't care about the deposit, just tell me where you are right now. Why? Because I'm going to take my thumbs and pull out your eyes." We ended up getting our deposit back and had a huge group dinner with the money. I'll put up the pictures on facebook and flickr today.
