I give you necklace for 200% discount!

I should have some pictures up today as I took a few when we went to Hussein, a part of Cairo with the bazaar and the cafes.

Today we woke up and went into Cairo with the rest of the teachers to have lunch. The other teachers are interesting (for the most part). There’s one girl from Scotland and one from New Zealand, but the rest are American. A couple have been either in Alexandria or Cairo for some time. One girl, Lacy, has a Palestinian husband who came out with us and was very nice, he helped us get around and didn’t seem to mind all the annoying questions we asked (how do you say “excuse me”?). I like a few of them, others…eh, we’ll see.

So after lunch we went out tooling around Cairo for a while and we all wanted to go to a sheesha place, so Mohammad (the Palestinian husband) took us to Hussein, the big café/shop area of Cairo. We sat at the Fishaway, which is the oldest café in Cairo. It’s open all day everyday and it’s pretty famous because it hasn’t closed in something like a couple hundred years, not even for an hour.

We smoked sheesha for a few hours there. So long, in fact, that it was too late for us to go see the pyramids, as we had planned. Oh well, there will be plenty of time for us to catch all the sights while we’re here. The Fishaway was really great. It’s basically an alley outside where people sit and smoke hookah while vendors come by and try to sell you useless crap for way too much. (no, I do not need a turquoise necklace, I believe you’re looking for 1991).

After, we walked the streets and perused the collection of cheap jewelry, pyramid statues, stuffed camels, brightly colored fabrics, slipper-looking sandals (which I kind of liked) and hookah’s (don’t worry Emily, I didn’t forget you). Along the way, I think Sara and I received a total of 5 marriage proposals and many random compliments, the best probably being “beautiful breasts” aimed at Sara (they’re real, and they’re fantastic).

It’s hard for me to get around because I really don’t remember much Arabic, but I just keep telling myself that that will change in time and to be patient. The other girls seem either clueless or sloppy with the language too, so I am not alone.

The taxi on the way home took us to Ma’adi by way of the Nile, which was beautiful. Our driver was really funny and didn’t try to cheat us just because we’re foreign. He also had to put up with my poor Arabic as I told him we lived on street “Two hundred thirteen and three” instead of “two hundred thirty three.” We eventually made it home then went out for dinner.

I have my first day of work tomorrow, where I will get my books and lessons. I am teaching primary 2, basically second graders. We teach one book a semester and I am pretty excited to see what books I get to teach. Sara is teaching The Jungle Book and King Solomon’s Mines for Primary 6. I will have a lot more with which to fill up my free time. This is good as the floor puzzle is getting pretty annoying because most of the pieces are broken and we’re pretty sure some of them have been lost.

I’ll talk to you all soon and I will hopefully have some interesting things to say about work.