CH3 - Cairo Hash

No! Not that hash!

But I got your attention didn’t I? :-)

If I’m in Cairo for the weekend, I typically join the Cairo Hash House Harriers (CH3) on Fridays. CH3 is a local chapter of an international running/walking/drinking club. They call themselves a drinking club with a running problem. They gather on Fridays in Cairo (our Sunday) and carpool out into the desert within an hours drive of the city for a hike or run and some juvenile merriment. So, just as the devote Muslims are gathering for their communal noontime prayers, we are frolicking in the desert drinking beers.

CH3 is a good, fun group and you get see a part of Egypt not on any tourist maps and a little exercise. However, like my loyal volleyball teammates at home, sometimes there’s more beer then exercise. But that’s all part of the fun!

If you’re interested, you can check out the website http://www.cairohash.com/ and even search for a Hash House Harriers group in your area.

Economy Part 2

There are lots of weird jobs in Egypt. People are continuously employed and paid for things that others should be able to do on their own.

Here is just a sampling:


Tea Boys - every office of more than a few people employees men whose responsibility it is to make and deliver tea and coffee on demand all day long. They are usually older men, not boys at all. They rememberhow everyone takes their drinks, and at what time, and shuffle around after to clean up the empty cups. In the sooqs (markets), there are men that walk around with antique looking silver tea canisters the size of large army-sized backpacks pouring tea - in these cases there are communal glass cups. YUCK!!! but environmentally - if not hygienically - sound.


Floor matrons - all of the schools I know employ women who supervise the hallways and the bathrooms, they can also help transfer groups of children between classes, or discipline students when a teacher takes a bathroom break. It's kind of like an American lunch lady monitor but they are there all day long. There are also unlimited cleaning women and tea matrons in the schools, but they are not suppose to discipline the kids.


Bathroom attendants - almost all public bathrooms - from fancy hotels to malls - have women who sit in the bathroom all day and hand out toilet paper for a tip. Yup! That's right, I said it, you have to pay for toilet paper. But usually 1 LE (about a quarter) will suffice. They are also suppose to clean the bathroom but that remains to be seen.


Tissue sellers - OK these children and women are actually beggers but because they offer a useful product they are considered to be working. They sell individual size packets of tissue at a huge mark up on the streets. And as noted above tissue is in high demand.


Random Vendors - these guys sell almost anything they can get their hands on in the streets at rush hour. I've seen coveted furry dashboard covers; balloons and blow up dolls; santa hats - at any time of the year; flags; lighters; stuffed animals; shrimp. Sorry, but I just can't buy shrimp from the same guy who sells furry dashboard covers in the street on the previous day.


Go-betweens - it seems like it takes 3 people to do any one job around here. If I need a taxi at the office I ask one person who then calls another person who then calls the taxi. ??? Even our tea boy has a back-up man in case he is busy or praying or otherwise unavailable and someone's thirst cannot wait. At the apartment I often see one person working and two people supervising things like washing the floor, general maintenance, etc. And someone always knows someone who can get anything done for you better and faster for the right amount of backsheesh (tip).

Parking Attendants - near any store or shopping area or even in parking lots there are men who wander around and point out the empty parking spots to drivers and then expect - and receive - a tip for their "service." For a little extra they may help you later to get out of said spot by helping to halt traffic as you escape. And if times are really slow or you have parked there for a long time they may wipe down your car with a dirty rag and put the windshield wipers up so you know they cleaned it for you - for an extra tip of course.

It's crazy! Or at least seems so to me. But somehow makes perfect logical sense to people in the know here. And given the economy and the outrageous amount of unemployment I'm thankful they have a job at all and/or are being creative about trying to make money.


Plus all the tea boys and matrons love me cause I share mom's cookies with them. So I am greeted by smiling faces - and tea - each morning at the office. It's nice.

Priceless

The economy is on everyone’s mind. And I’ve been wanting to write about the cost of living and economy here for a long time. But, it’s pretty complex and I don’t pretend to even understand half of it. But here we go anyway.

First the cost of absolutely everything here is negotiable. And the price you pay depends on: (1) your race, (2) gender, (3) Arabic language skills, and (4) negotiation skills. There are at least two starting prices for everything, an Egyptian price and a tourist/foreigner price.

So you can see where I stand and that I pay a premium for absolutely everything. Although the shopkeepers get a good laugh when I try to tell them in Arabic “anna Masree” – I’m Egyptian give me an Egyptian price. Somehow they don’t believe it.

Further, within this pricing structure the Egyptians themselves are divided between the very wealthy and very poor classes. There is virtually no middle class in Egypt. These two groups live very different lives and shop in very different areas and essentially function in two different economies.

By American standards, Cairo is a very cheap place to live. You can get a 3 bedroom furnished apartment with balcony, marble floors throughout, in a nice neighborhood for about $600 USD per month. You can get a full-time maid for about $150 a month. You can get absolutely anything delivered to your house – groceries, beer, laundry, take-out food, anything for a very small price. My weekly trip to the grocery costs less then $20; unless of course I splurge on western delicacies. Like instant oatmeal for example costs $8 USD.

Dry cleaning costs about $1 per item, pressed shirts only 30 cents. A local Egyptian beer (20 oz) – which is totally fine – costs about $2 – 3 in an expat club; in a hotel bar it can cost $5 – 10. Imported beers, you’ll pay imported prices.

My 30-minute taxi ride across town to my Arabic class costs about $5-6 USD. I know the brunette Filipino teachers that live near me, one of whom is Muslim and speaks Arabic pay less for the same trip about $3-4 USD. The subway, bus and mini bus cost about 30 – 50 cents each.

Western things carry imported western prices. And cars are quite expensive. The cheapest new car available starts at $10,000 USD. And used cars aren’t much better, I’m told that you can actually make money selling a used car for more then the original purchase price. Further as a non-Egyptian you must pay duty-tax on a car which can be as high as the price of the car to begin with.

For Egyptians the prices are very different. That same apartment above rented to a fellow Egyptian could be as low as $25 – 50 USD per month. Seriously. In many cases, Egyptians have lifetime leases on property which essentially amounts to rent control as they pass property down through generations. Taxi rides, I have rarely seen an Egyptian pay more than 5 LE ($1 USD) for a taxi ride anywhere.

But before you get too excited or outraged at the obvious injustices, you need to know that salaries also vary by race, gender and negotiation skills. In the schools that I am familiar with, a foreign passport demands a premium salary; and there’s even a hierarchy among origins. Americans and native English speakers garner the highest salaries (for teaching any class not just English). Foreign-born teachers working in an international school here can expect to get salaries similar to those of starting salaries in the US - $35,000 tax-free, plus a housing allowance. Egyptian teachers working in that same school can expect to make about $1,000 USD per month. And, I have learned of some Egyptian teachers making less than $100 USD per month.

It’s shameful. That is more than some Egyptians spend in a night out in a club that can have a $40 cover charge. There are some very wealthy people here (about 5% of the population) but the vast majority is very poor.

The average annual income for an Egyptian is $1,390. Unemployment is rife, as high as 20-25%. On the way to and from work each day I see men sitting in the streets with their tools waiting and hoping for someone to drive by and pick up workers. The same men are there at the morning and evening commutes. So, I guess $100 is better then nothing. Many Egyptians live on less then $2 a day. And government assistance is rare – there is no welfare or housing assistance. The government does subsidize food, however not enough. See article about bread lines.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/17/world/africa/17bread.html"

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/2787714/Egyptians-riot-over-bread-crisis.html

So although it can be frustrating to constantly haggle over prices and know that I am paying more than others for many things, I feel like it’s part of my responsibility and duty-tax as a “wealthy expat” living in Cairo. And the experience living here is truly priceless.

Al-Qahir, Misr - Cairo, Egypt

It’s been awhile since my last post and I have heard that people miss me. :-)

I typically have been posting about adventures and new activities, but the truth is on a day-to-day basis my life isn’t all that different then yours or what my life was like in America. I go to work, visit with friends, exercise (ok not enough of that), go to class and go to bed to do it all again the next day. I do try to get out and see new things as much as possible but sometimes schedules and lack of money get in the way.

But, there is still plenty to talk about so I’ll try to post more often. So better late then never, here's some basics about Cairo, Egypt.

Cairo is the most populous city in Africa and the Middle East with a population of about 18 million. That’s about the same size as New York City; but in about ¼ of the land space. So, needless to say it’s a crowded place.

It’s a unique city in that old and new coexist. There are remains of the anciet walls that surrounded and protected the city. There is a modern underground subway. There are skyscrapers next to small hovels. Chauffer driven BMWs and SUVs share the road with donkey carts, taxis that have seen better days in 1920s and tuk-tuks (3-wheeled golf cart taxis)., and delivery boys on bikes and mopeds.

Gorgeous villas stand next to abandoned buildings where squatters have lived for years. And ornamentla mosques dot the skyline. Honestly, the majority of the housing in the city looks like NYC-style housing projects – 5-20 story buildings of plain concrete with laundry and satellite dishes on the balcony. And many buildings are unfinished and never will be finished. Apparently, you only need to pay property taxes when the construction is complete. So many buildings are never finished and owners will continue to build on more floors as needed and when money is available.
There are modern high end shopping malls with all the latest fashion, and typical american grocery stores. But there are also numerous open air markets and butcher shops with whole cow carcasses hanging and live chickens available.

Cairo is also a sprawling city. In an effort to move people out of cramped downtown they are building new “suburban communities” on the outskirts of the city. There is construction absolutely everywhere. These new communities remind me of gated communities at home. One, a lot of them do have gates and they are self-contained in that they have their own schools, malls, restaurants, mosques and churches etc. One community in which I work is call El-Rehab. It has about 150,000 residents (which makes this bigger then my hometown of Brockton) and at least 6 schools that I know about. It was built by a tel-com executive as a planned community (read factory town). The executive is now in jail for some kind of fraud and conspiracy, but the community thrives under his borthers supervision.

Other communities include crazy names like Lakeville - which has got to be a man-made lake, or maybe they will re-direct the Nile, anything is possible around here.

Work Update

I don’t want anyone to get the impression that I’m just hanging out and being a tourist all this time. I do try to make the best of my weekends and time off but I am working pretty hard here too. Work has been slow going and challenging at times, but overall I think we’ll have a good report in the end. It took 3 months to get teacher surveys returned but I have some data to play with now. And this past month, I have very busy doing a lot of site visits and child-level data collection with the four schools in the Technology in the Classroom Study.

As some readers are well aware classroom observations can be fun but also boring and tiring(even excruiatingly painful) at times. But I do my best to enjoy it as much as possible. And here there is so much to learn and see – everything is new. And the children – in any language or culture – are always entertaining.


Most of the classes I observe are conducted in English and they will only use Arabic to clarify a concept or manage behavior. (The teachers think I don’t understand them when they discipline the students. But, oh so much can be understood in tone alone.) These school visits have actually been a lot of fun. Sue me, I enjoy my job.


One school just could not quite believe I was satisfied sitting in the back of the classrooms quietly observing. They insisted I take the full tour with all the bells and whistles included. I was escorted through 4 kindergarten classrooms of 35 students each and when I entered each room they all stood up, said, “Good Morning, Miss Julia” and then serenaded me in English and Arabic with such songs as Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes, Days of the Week and ABCs.

I saw everything from kindergarten to high school. At one point a strapping, young sophomore lifted a desk over his head and brought it to the back of the room when he was instructed to get me a chair. It sent all the veiled girls in the room giggling. I tried my best not to laugh as well and embarrass the young man – but it was hysterical.

And then, the best English-speaking student in each grade was invited to “interview” me. The Kindergartners managed, “Hello, my name is….” But I was grilled by the 7th and 8th graders: Where am I from? What is my post (job)? What school do I like best? What do I like about Egypt? What would I do to improve Egyptian schools? I have to admit they were a little bit intimidating.

I have truly been humbled and am very grateful for the warm reception I have received at all of the schools. Everyone from the directors, teachers, staff and children has made me feel welcome.