Apparently it’s been rather long since the last real update. To be completely honest, there hasn’t been all that much to write about- my days have gotten rather monotonous. I wake up, stumble onto the bus, ride across town to campus, go to class, get back on the bus, then go back home for dinner and homework. It turns out college is more or less the same no matter where you are.
There was a little variety in the routine last week, though. We had the day off to celebrate Thanksgiving. Although Egypt doesn’t recognize the holiday, I guess the university figures there are enough Americans in their administration, faculty, and student body that they ought to give us the day. My friend Maddie and I had originally planned to go to Alexandria, but as we have another trip in the works, leaving a week from Thanksgiving, we decided it would probably be better to stay home and get some work done.
Many expats in Cairo go to the big hotels, the Marriott or the Hiltons (any of the Hiltons, in fact. There are a few) for their turkey dinner, while many others choose to cook it themselves. And here’s your factoid for the day: turkey can be found here, called in Arabic “dika roomey,” which translates literally to “Roman rooster.” Go figure, right? Anyhow, Maddie and I decided part for practicality (we have no kitchen, and the Marriott is expensive) and part for the principle of the matter that we’d break with the tradition. As Maddie put it, “It’s not Thanksgiving without spending the day in the kitchen with Mom while the boys go out shooting.” While, as many of you probably know, unless there is extensive pie-baking involved, I’m rather disinclined to spend the whole day in the kitchen (and it sounds like my sister had things well in hand, anyhow), and I certainly don’t identify with the “boys going out shooting” as much as I do with the “boys on the sofa watching football.” But nonetheless, I think Maddie summed it up well that if you can’t do the family traditions with said family, then why keep with tradition at all?
In that spirit, Maddie and I set out to pursue our own traditions. First, I managed to get my laundry done and my room cleaned, processes which are usually hampered by the other girls in the dorm after the one single dryer and housekeeping team (yeah- we’re required to call in the housekeepers to clean our rooms. We’re not permitted to clean our own floors or change our own sheets. It drives me bonkers). So after these small victories that took all morning, I called up Maddie for our afternoon adventure: finding a hair salon.
Well equipped with my Arabic-English pocket dictionary, and a quick briefing by one of my Egyptian friends on key hair terms, I emerged from the English-speaking protection of the dorms looking to have some red added to my usual palate of hair color. We wandered the better part of the island before finding a promising place on the second floor of a building under construction. We had to ask the boab, the doorman, where exactly we were to enter the structure, but we found our way up and were greeted by this fellow who, curiously enough didn’t look Egyptian, so his sort of continental-European look and vibes meshed interestingly with his Arabic accent and Egyptian staff. His eyebrows shot into his hairline when I said I wanted red highlights, but he obligingly directed me to an older gentleman with fingers blackened from years of hair dye. Now that’s the sign of a man you can trust with your hair. This is a man with experience. After thoroughly plating my head with aluminum, he smiled fatherly, and asked “’s good?” yes, yes, very good, I replied. Also I think if I turned my head a little to the left I could pick up the Discovery Channel. They brought me lemon juice to sip on and asked if I wanted a manicure while I waited. Here it bears mentioning that in Egypt I am no longer the impoverished college student. I am a foreigner, and foreigners have money. Wages for a blue-collar laborer are about 30LE (about $6US) per day, so in Egypt, my $10-a-day food budget has expanded my means considerably, so when I say places like this wait on their clientele hand and foot, I do mean it.
But, not to get too spoiled, I declined the manicure, but was quite enthralled to see my hair get trimmed and styled with no small amount of showmanship and talent, and emerge a new(ish) hue. It actually wasn’t quite what I expected (I kind of have pink stripes, but they’re subtle), but it’s certainly fun, and Maddie, whose hair had been made rather shorter than intended, and I emerged looking quite dolled up. After the adventure, we picked up some mocha cream pie and settled into our new hairstyles while placing orders for our Thanksgiving dinner. We ordered absolutely ludicrous amounts of Chinese food for the festivities. We both phoned home to say hello, and then set up camp once the food was delivered with the Thanksgiving episode of Grey’s Anatomy, the first two Lord of the Rings movies, cashew chicken, hazelnut chicken, vegetable lo mein, five-spice beef, steamed basmati rice, fried rice with egg, and our Mocha Cream pie. And then we ate it all.
Orthodox it was not, but we certainly enjoyed ourselves.
