Hannahegypt's Blog

Mubarak just stepped down

hannahegypt — Fri, 11 Feb 2011 16:33:12 +0000

I cannot believe anything I have seen since the 25th of January, but BBC and Tahrir square seem to agree…Mubarak has stepped down.

What comes next? We can only wait and see.

I am choosing to remain cautiously optimistic.

Enshala the peace and euphoria will continue.

Emotions run high

hannahegypt — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 19:50:50 +0000

January 20th, I found out I had passed the first round of the Fulbright scholarship. At the time, my biggest concern was that things have changed in the past two or three months, and I just wasn’t sure I wanted to move to Egypt next year, if I would be awarded the scholarship. Actually, a string of curse words left my mouth as I opened up the nicely worded email congratulating me for making it past the first rounds. Mainly because choosing between an extended period of time in Cairo vs Baltimore would have been a very intense, hard decision for me to make. And I’m so burnt out yet happy that I only want easy decisions.

January 25th, protests began in Tahrir square.

January 28th (Friday of Anger)

Yesterday, things got violent.

Today, journalists and foreigners seem to be targeted (along with everyone else).

We’re on Day 10, and no one knows what is next. I am in shock watching tanks roll down streets where I have stood. The decision would be easy if I had to make it tomorrow, one can’t move to a country that the State Dept is evacuating people from. However it could be much harder to make if it still has to be made six months from now.

There have been few events in my life where I have an emotional reaction to the news. 9-11, SARS, swine flu—-but this, this is different. This is happening on streets where I stood to people I’ve talked to.

I can’t wait until going to BBC’s webpage no longer makes me sad.

Enshala’a

hannahegypt — Wed, 20 Oct 2010 16:29:03 +0000

Submitted my fulbright application to return to Egypt on Monday. I want it so badly, but I know it’s a long shot with my poor language skills and other factors. Wish I could’ve done a better application, but in the end I did what I could…

shai

hannahegypt — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 10:36:42 +0000

the woman at the university (i should know her name, i wrote it down somewhere while jet lagged at a conference the day after i got in), makes the best tea. i’m not even sure she uses water. when it gets to me, it looks like sweet milky bonee(brown) liquid, with little pieces of the tea floating right in it.

really busy at work, tomorrow is Eid as is Friday and then the University is closed, so taking advantage of all the free internet while I can—but actually doing work yes.

crazy day yesterday work till 4 (very late by Egyptian standards,) wandered Zamalek, (they’ve finally opened sharia (shara or sharia) brazil after the egypt/algerian riots over the football team’s loss, couldn’t find a koshari place up to my standards (I have high standards for $2 meals apparently) fell asleep at 10pm (probably b/c the day before i took a mid evening nap and was up till 3 watching crappy MBC movies in the hotel room), and couldn’t get my butt out of bed till 9am today.

Decided to take a cab to save time, at least it saved energy, probably time—it was about 20LE on a metered cab to Abisaya, got to talk with the cab driver–told him ieza abisaya, gamb il metro demerdash, he didn’t know where the metro stop was, so i told him muskura il nur, we got to talk, I forgot the word for college (gama’a?) but remembered the word for hospital, mustashfa, he told me my arabic was good (it’s obviously not) we talked about my husband back home (i don’t have one but when any male in this country who is not a colleague asks, I do), how i don’t have kids yet but he has two boys and a girl the youngest being 1 year, (a boy) showed me pictures of the other two looked to be about 5 and 8. that was that, got to the office now working hard.

christina if you’re reading this, rapid train of thought style just for you—although i read somewhere they did a sutdy that people who were good at languages processed words in their home language differently, faster I think. that could explain a lot.

Happy Thanksgiving all who are back home!

back to musr!

hannahegypt — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 14:40:49 +0000

I can’t quite believe that in two days I will board yet ANOTHER flight for Egypt. If you had told me four years ago that I would’ve visited Egypt three times before I turned 30, I would’ve laughed in your face.

And yet, here I go, third time. THIRD TIME!

I can’t wait for Arzak, and to catch up with my old roomate, and turkish coffee, and vacation (+a little work!). I really hope this trip revitalizes me because I need to bang out a dissertation here soon and I am just not feeling it. (as noted by the blog post at work).

10am survey meeting, hopefully we can get this done!

diluatee mish sekna fil maadi

hannahegypt — Fri, 29 May 2009 19:15:58 +0000

so, now i don’t live in maadi, but i never learned the past tense—-

last night, i subbed for ESL at RPC up in NE Baltimore. A different world than Cairo. That’s for sure. Different even than Pompei, my old haunt with actual desks built for adults not 3rd graders and whiteboards instead of chalky chalk boards with 3rd grade homework scribbled all over them.

It was an amazing class. I love teaching. I don’t mind my actual work/day job, actually as far as jobs go it’s pretty neat, I get to work with Egyptian trainees, play with ICD-9 codes, learn psych meds and will eventually get to work in the hospital.

Still, at ESL last night, I told them I hadn’t taught in a while because I was in Egypt. One woman got so excited when I said that, so happy and said “That’s my country!!!!” So I said to her, Uhna sekhna fil maadi. She cried. Happy tears, but she was wiping tears away from her eyes (probably an appropriate response to my poor Arabic skills j/k)…

It was nice to be able to reach someone with just a simple phrase. It meant a lot.

At the end of the night, another man came up , said thank you and gave me an apple. An apple for the teacher. How sweet.

Even though I enjoy my job here, my “real” career, I’ve yet to find anything that makes me feel the way I do after a good night in front of the ESL classroom.

Maasalama Egypt

hannahegypt — Fri, 01 May 2009 19:08:57 +0000

I’m back in Baltimore now. I will probably upload pictures to a seperate site and insert the link in here later.

I’m a little jet lagged, I arrived at my appartment around 11pm last night, exactly 24 hours after 6am when I woke up in Cairo to start my day. It was a loooong day of traveling, 6am woke up, finished packing, mopped the floor, walked with Christina to the bus station and Talitha to a cab, then took a cab myself (with my backpackers backpack) to maadi grand mall, where Mahmoud the driver met me to take me to the airport, we went up and got my bags (no elevator in the Maadi appartment), and off to the airport.

After an odd delta security screening (they demanded receipts from my trips out of Cairo, and foolishly I complied, I should have just lied and said I didn’t travel, those weren’t even Passport control guards but delta employees and it was none of their buisness, a short wait to board the plane, I was off on my 11 hour flight to JFK. There was a friendly American Egyptian guy beside me, an adorable baby in front of me, and the airplane was fairly empty, I had two seats. No trouble with the weight of my bags nor the size of my carry ons. The only drawback to the flight was that the Delta from Cairo to the US doesn’t have individual screens, but rather one big screen up front, and they only showed 3 movies and a few crappy TV shows, so the flight dragged on a little bit. I also didn’t sleep, the combination of no nighttime plus just not being able to sleep was a bummer.

Then, got to JFK, went through customs, rechecked my bags (using recheck as a light term here, put my bags back in the mass pile of bags to be rechecked), and got on the commuter to BWI. (the orig gate assignment was wrong, luckily I knew not to believe the info from Cairo I had been given, so I double checked).

It was a trip of tarmacks, between the CAI airport system and the commuter plane status to NY, I did a lot of walking up stairs with my heavy carry on and personal item that was practically a carry on.

Ironically, I saw my global health professor on the commuter JFK to BWI, she was coming back from a conference in Istanbul. It was great to talk to her a little about the experience, especially since she was influential in my trip as her group gave a small grant to fly over there in August.

Since landing in Baltimore it has been exciting as well. Met mom and dad at the airport, we gave some Italian physicians a ride to their hotel (the Hyatt in my neighborhood), but not until the one guy had to make a lost bag claim because his was misplaced in JFK (see description of random bag disorganization in JFK post customs), and then when we finally made it out to the car, mom and dad couldn’t actually find it….so the three international travelers who had been up 24 hours straight waited with the bags until they did. Then a hillarious car ride with bags piled all over (5 person sedan and my bags alone were equal to like two people’s bags), we dropped them off at the hotel, mom and dad ran the stuff up and I pretty much crashed in bed.

Today has been exciting too. First off, it’s amazing how fresh (non dusty) the air in Baltimore is! I got up early today (and of course last night I woke up in the middle of the night confused about where I was, I stared at my racing numbers in disbelief until I realized I was in Baltimore not Cairo and that I wasn’t even going back to Cairo)…started to unpack, walked to the office with Marin, realized I brought the lab key but not my house key. Have been catching up with the office (though it’s kinda crazy with Swine Flu business), and had an awesome lunch with Marin and Kristen. It was amazing to sit with such lovely ladies (such lovely DOCTORS! I mean!) and know that we were all genuinly interested in what’s been going on in each others lives during the past two months, and to just have them be interested in stories of my trip—and me getting to catch up on the monumental events in their lives (I can’t believe you guys are doctors!) since last time we talked.

Also, there was a 9am phone call from Rome that was VERY EXCITING, I AM GOING TO BE A MAID OF HONOR IN 2010!!!! I saw the unrecognized number and was like huh??? I thought maybe it would be someone from Egypt and picked it up, but there was no sound. Whoever it was called back, and I heard pieces of a female voice, and when I finally realized who it was talked a little about her trip and my trip and then got the exciting news. More on that later.

So happy for everyone’s big events, such a blessing they are all positive. I am so proud of all my friends and think every one of them is either an amazing career woman, mother, doctor, traveler, independent single woman and/or all of the above. Halas and maasalama!

Hannah

taxi drivers

hannahegypt — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 22:26:41 +0000

So I took two cabs today. The first one, the driver offered me a sandwich, asked me “bush wu badin…” ohhh obama…and spent the rest of the trip saying bush kulb. bush kulb wu humar (bush is a dog, bush is a dog and a donkey (ass). the second cab, i was offered a ciggarette. Two days ago, when I went to Alex, the driver insisted I take a piece of candy on my way to the metro. In moderation, I can stand cab drivers, however I’m so glad I didn’t have to be reliant on them.

Today, metro to Demerdash/the office, cab to “You Can” language institute for my last class, walked home, metro downtown to old AUC campus, listened to two fullbrighters, an opera singer and a guitar player give a recital, Sequoia with Christina and her Georgetown friend, and then home late at night after a feast of sushi and my yummy pumpkin desert!

Drinking songs in a language I don’t understand

hannahegypt — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 06:49:23 +0000

So last night, for some unkown reason (ok the reason was probably alcohol), there was a group of men on my street, singing very loudly and out of key in a language I did not understand. Not even one word. Which rules out all the logical choices, Arabic, Chinese and Spanish. They sang for several hours, like a Mariachi band or a bunch of boys doing a Pub Crawl—till finally one of the Egyptians yelled “SHUT UP.” “SHUT UP OR I WILL CALL THE PO-LICE”. You know you’re being ridiculous when an EGYPTIAN tells you to be quiet, given that the average noise level here is supposedly equal to a 747 jet (okay, so Maadi is a quiet suburb, but still!). They finally simmered down, but it was an interesting evening!

In other news, don’t be scared of the swine flu—yet. I was laughing as I watched the press conference, everyone seemed so angry that we didn’t have a vacciene. Come on people, that’s like being angry that they’re not printing tomorrows news today! It’s sad that people are getting sick, and a little scary that there seems to be person to person transmission, but so far it hasn’t mutated and secondary cases are mild. For accurate information, check CDC.gov, stay away from the doomsday media.

And speaking of Epidemiology, SHOUT OUT TO DR. SCHWEIZER! yay for the question & answer period being cut short so all the ID people can run off to Swine flu meetings.

Awesome Day!

hannahegypt — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 21:31:38 +0000

Aside from a fun day by myself in Alex, I had a nice ride home. The actual train was a little slow, but I managed to catch the metro back around 11:40 and I’m pretty sure it closes at midnight. Anyway, I walked a little way from the station, till a cab practically stopped in front of me and I took it as a sign that I should get in. As the woman was paying and getting out, I asked the driver if he could take me to Midan Delga. Then I said the name of my street. As she was leaving, the previous cab occupant, a middle aged woman in a Niqab (face covering veil), said to me, in British accented English “You speak Arabic very well.” It was the nicest thing anyone has said to me all day, (yes, shebab thank you for your line “inti bikam, you how much?” on the corniche.). The rest of the two minute ride home was amazing. Cheesy as it sounds, I got a little choked up. I don’t speak Arabic (though I’d love to!) and it especially shattered expectations to hear a woman with her face covered say that, it meant a lot. That’s probably the second best compliment I’ve ever gotten, even if it may not have been 100% true, second only to “Ana ha dominado la lengua” from tiny scary hillarious nun “Rut” in the Dominican Republic. Thank you niqab cab rider for your British English compliment on my Arabic!!