Some notes on Arabic

My ability to comunicate with non-English speakers here is miniscule, but vastly improved from when I first arrived. Hardly anything I learned in class back home helps, as far as vocabulary goes. I can recognize the letters of the alphabet, which is good, and I've probably got better instincts about grammar. I'm in a colloquial class here and I love it. It's so helpful, and I'm functional in very simple economic transactions like buying a toothbrush or changing money. But I love it--I love learning Arabic, and I know I'm getting better.

I was a little set back this morning about my Arabic. I finally found someone selling American coffee at a kiosk on campus, and I was so excited. It's instant coffee, but it's not as bad as instant coffee in the US, and it's cheap. If you walk into a cafe, you can't just ask for a coffee here, because coffee is much more complex. I have not yet ventured into the vast, spicy land of espresso. When I order "'ahwa americkia," I still have to wait the same amount of time as if they were making me espresso, because "'ahwa americkia" here is a single shot of espresso...plus enough hot water to fill up the rest of the cup. It actually tastes pretty similar, I'm sorry to say. BUT, so, I found this lady on campus with her Nescafe instant coffee, and I tried to ask her if this coffee was available all day long, everyday. I thought that I had constructed a decent sentence, but when I opened my mouth to say it, this horrible, nearly unintelligible accent came out. It was so Englishy that it was not Arabic, and she had no idea what I was saying. Luckily, she managed to communicate that the coffee will always be there for me. And I'm chalking my inability to speak up to the fact that it was early in the morning, and the coffee I was clutching possessively had not yet taken effect.

One of the biggest things that throws me off here is the Egyptian "word" for "yeah." As in English, where "yeah" sounds like a derivative of "yes," the Egyptian transformation from yes to yeah is ايوة (which sounds like Iowa, or more precisely "eye-wa") to او (which sounds like "o"). The part where I get caught up is inflection, because the tone in which you say او is highly reminscent of the way you'd say, "Oh," in an English speaking country when you're surprised. Except there's a very specific, consistent way that people say او here, which is specifically, consistently reminiscent of the way that a native English speaker would say, "Oh," immediately after they've been told, for the first time, some detail that is small but vaguely disappointing. Like if you found out that you had to change your traveller's cheques tomorrow instead of today, but you knew you had enough cash to get through today, then you might respond, "Oh, well then, I guess I'll do it tomorrow." I know this seems small, but this sound has a very clear and singular meaning in the US, and I never realized how such a small detail could make such a difference. But I was completely thrown off when I first heard او in my Arabic class--I would ask the professor a question to double-check some detail, and she would say, "Oh," in such a way, with that slightly descending tone, that I thought she was compassionately surprised by how inaccurate my understanding of the deatil was. But then she would begin to move on with the lesson--I was preparing for her to correct me, and she thought she had just affirmed that I had it right! I think it's for this reason that most of the American students here stick with ايوة.

Successes in Arabic so far include talking a little bit to one of female guards at the dorm, who's younger than me and very sweet and understanding of my inability to speak, and she has enough English to understand me when I have to give up on expressing myself in Arabic. Also, last night in the cab back from school, I managed to talk to our driver a little bit, with a great deal of help from Enas, my roommate. I conveyed on my own to him that I thought Egyptians are great drivers. I didn't try to explain that I think that because I know that Americans driving here would get in so many crashes--people ignore the painted lines on the road because you can fit more cars in a given space that way, and there aren't really traffic lights. I'm much calmer when an Egyptian driver is 3/4 inch away from another driver (no exaggeration) than when I'm in a car with an American driver a foot away from another car. They do it all the time here, and they crash about as often as we do.

People here speak so clearly--even if I don't know any of the words they're saying as they pass me on the street, I can tell exactly where each word stops and the next begins. This is very different from my experiences of native speakers of Spanish, even in Costa Rica where people spoke so slowly and clearly compared to how I hear native speakers of Mexican Spanish in Chicago.

The Egyptian students here are almost universally masters of the English language, including slang and how to curse and other complicated, esoteric uses of my native tongue. However, when they speak to each other, it's in Arabic with only an occassion sprinkling of English. This is good for me learning more Arabic, but socially I'm not quite sure of how to deal with the language barrier. If I'm in a group of only Arabic speakers, I'll sometimes look away from whoever's speaking so as to not make them feel self-conscious about using Arabic which obviously excludes me. I manage to get some of the jokes anyway, but all my meaningful conversations here have so far been with American students. Well, I take that back. My roommate is awesome, and we talk about below-the-surface stuff sometimes. In English, obviously.

First few days

Today marks my fourth full day in Cairo, what has so far been confusing but good. Since there's no class or structured time (until later today when my Survival Arabic class starts at 4:30pm) I've been wandering around the neighborhood, called Zamaalek, with other American students. There have been a couple great finds for shops, including a place where you can get one delicious felafel (called tameeya here) for 0.18USD (1 LE, Egyptian pounds). Prices range greatly--we found a bag of Sunchips for 40LE ($8), which was exorbitant, but good food on the cheap abounds when you hunt it out.

The light mist (or is it smog?) in the morning also adds to the beauty of the city, making it seem a little enchanted, like a city in the clouds. Architectural trends so far include:

• tiling the sidewalk directly outside your shop and no further, so that as someone walks down one block they step on many different colors and tectures.
• depressing the level of the floor of the shop about three feet below street level, so that customers open your door and take a couple steps to get the ground. I imagine this regulates tempurature in the store, but I haven't asked.
• having glass doors, even glass walls. At my dorm, the ground level seems very open even though the space is divided into different rooms because some of the walls are made of sheets of glass or have glass sections. It would look pretty ritzy if our grubby fingerprints weren't all over them.
• Because of the climate, buildings can be more open, so some places have no doors at all, or leave them perpetually open. Even if you can't go in, you can peek in.
• This one's not really an architectural trait, but compact fluorescent bulbs are all over the place here. They're a hippy thing in the US, but according to the wikipedia article on CFLs, they're quite a big deal internationally, particularly in big cities like Cairo where their low energy draw eases the strain on the power plants here (and where people are out and about at all hours of the night, and not just to go to mosque).

The population is in the vicinity of 17 million people, and the metropolitan area covers about 25 square miles, or so I read today. Because of this, it's difficult to regulate certain things like traffic (lanes are painted on the road, but ignored because you can fit 5 cars abreast if you ignore the fact that three lanes are painted on the road). I think this happens in other areas too, but traffic is the most obvious.

I'm doing well. I'm trying to drink a lot of bottled water--which you can find here for what I think bottled what should be sold for in the US at 0.25USD (or 1.5LE) for a half liter. I brush my teeth with the tap water. I eat Egyptian food at every opportunity, and my stomach has been shockingly strong. I haven't been sick at all , which I'm so grateful for. I've realized that my Arabic is nearly non-existant, and I'm not upset about it. I've been told that if I take a colloquial class, I'll get it easily. Many people selling food know relevant English words like "Spicy?" and "Two pounds," and I'll try to ask as often as I can "bilarabia?" to get them to tell me the word for whatever they said in Arabic. So far I've learned the words for spicy, change, fare, water, and cat. I excell at one word sentences. I travel almost exclusively in groups of other American students, which has many advantages. It helps my social life, but it also more socially acceptable to the residents here. I feel like I'm getting looks when I walk alone, although there's no way not to get looks. Also, the American students are all really excited about getting to know the neighborhood and learning about new places, whereas the Egyptian students who I've talked to already know the neighborhood and prefer to get delivery (everywhere delivers) and eat in the comfort of the dorm, even if the place they're getting food from is literally around the corner. I think the Egyptian students like foreign food, just like the American students do, but foreign for them includes McDonalds, and foreign for us is Egyptian food.

The dorm looks like a palace on the outside, and upstairs from the lobby on the residence floors, it is simple but complete in what it offers. I carry soap with me to the bathroom because there are the Islamic toilets here, where you clean yourself with water from a small hose or pipe, and not toilet paper apparently.

I feel like a wimp wearing a warm jacket here since it's the Middle East, but I've pulled out the sweaters because it is brisk outside and in, like early spring. I wear a hoody outside once it gets dark, which exposes me as even more of an American, but is necessary, along with gloves.

My roommate is not here yet, but should arrive by the end of the week. I am excited to meet her, and to describe academic life to you guys as soon as it starts. Pictures to come soon as well.

"Asalaam aleikum! Where are the frauenbathrooms?"

My paltry Arabic did me no good in the Frankfurt Airport, where I had about 3 hours layover between Chicago and Cairo. (For the record, frauenbathrooms are called "toilette," just like in French but say the final e, and they're right over there, just more discretely placed and with fewer indicating signs than in the US.) I took some pictures for your viewing pleasure.

Christ Jewelry and Watches International

Goethe Bar--if you click the picture, in the background you can see a big white statue of what is assumably the man himself reclining ina big hat

On the way to Frankfurt I sat next to a couple from Wisconsin going to visit their family in India, and on the way to Cairo I sat next a Finnish couple going to Egypt for a meeting. At my gate in Frankfurt, I saw a group of kids whose Georgetown hoodies and guitar case gave them away as American college students. I sat with them and sure enough they were all enrolled in the American University in Cairo (AUC) this spring. One girl mentioned that she felt loud and American in the Frankfurt airport and I felt the same, but ignorant too. It's kind of presumptuous to be in a place where your only vocabulary in the local language comes from "Sound of Music." Although some things are universal; Mom will be pleased to hear that I saw "Das Goldene Sudoku" stocked in the business class section of my second plane.

There were a couple moments on the plane when I thought, "Wow, I'm actually on the plane. I've been planning this for over a year and it's on the brink of actually happening." I think it would have taken me about 20 more years to pull this together if it hadn't been for Mom and Dad helping me so much. So many other people have prepared me, but it's not quite the same as late night faxes, endless phone calls on my behalf, and sacrificing their bedroom to serve as ground zero for my packing efforts.

Everything went smoothly getting from our house in Chicago to the dorm in Cairo, and the few glitches are not worth mentioning. All the AUC students were corralled and put on a bus going to our dorm. The drive from the airport was about an hour, which gave us the opportunity to see the city. It was a little before sunset as we were driving, which bathed the whole scene in a golden light, revealing a city looking quite like Metropolis (the new anime version), with a hodgepodge of buildings mixed together. It was stunningly beautiful architecturally. There was laundry hanging out of a lot of windows and satellite dishes on the roofs of crumbling buildings. Billboards are everywhere. There are palm trees and a lot of other greenery just mixed in. I even thought the sand next to the runway was beautiful. It's just so not-grass. Most everything in the city is paved, but even in that way there's just so much variety.

There's a lot more to describe but I'm very tired and quite jetlagged, so more later.