Getting settled in Cairo

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On Sunday, November 27, I arrived at the International Language Institute (known hereafter as "ILI") to register and test for my Arabic classes, and search for more permanent accommodation while in Cairo.

Security

I was surprised to walk around the corner, spot the school, and see a guard with an AK-47 sitting out front. Apparently the number of foreigners there merits such attention. I must confess I have never gone to a school with an armed guard before. There seem to be four levels of building security in Egypt (in order of increasing security):

• Unarmed private security guard out front: often asleep or reading the newspaper.
  
• Unarmed private security guard with metal detector: also often reading the newspaper, and despite setting off numerous metal detectors, I never seem to get searched.
  
• Uniformed policeman, armed with an AK-47: often spotted around places where foreigners congregate. This is ILI's security level, but I can't say I feel that much safer: the guard is often dozing or reading the newspaper.
  
• Uniformed policeman with AK-47, standing behind bulletproof metal shield: often found around government buildings. These guys are most assuredly never asleep, and look like they mean business.
  

Classes

I'm taking two classes at ILI, MSA ("Modern Standard Arabic") and ECA ("Egyptian Colloquial Arabic"). The former is used mainly in newspapers, the mass media, and so on. The latter is used on the street, and therefore is much more useful for accomplishing day-to-day tasks. Of course, like most Arabic students, I have been studying MSA exclusively for the last two years, so when I speak to Egyptians, it's in a flowery, highly-literate style. It would be like someone coming up to you on the street and starting to speak in Chaucerian Middle English.

My classes have a wide range of nationalities, with Norwegians, Italians, Koreans, Japanese, Finnish, Swedish, British, and people from Brunei ("Bruneians"?) all in the mix. The MSA class runs two and a half hours a day, four days a week (Monday to Thursday), while the ECA class is two hours a day, also four days a week. The classes and teachers are good, and you can't beat the price (about $500 US for a month of instruction).

Palatial apartment

ILI helps students find apartments, and I met up with two British and Swedish guys who were also on the prowl for an apartment, so we spent an afternoon together going around town looking at various places. We decided on a huge three-bedroom apartment in the Mohandiseen district that is about a 15-minute walk from the school. It's more space than we would ever need, with a huge living room, gigantic bedrooms, two bathrooms, a kitchen, and two balconies. One of the balconies faces a busy street (is there any other kind in Cairo?), and it's fascinating just to watch the world go by from our fourth floor perch.

On the downside, we are very near a mosque, and the call to prayer every day around 5am is deafening; I have only managed to sleep through it once so far. Cairo is not a place for light sleepers, and while I have gotten used to the constant background noise of traffic and car horns, the call to prayer never fails to jar me awake.

So my weekdays are mainly filled with classes, studying, eating, and sleeping. The three-day weekends are good for exploring Cairo and the surrounding area. This past weekend I visited the Pyramids, Egyptian Museum, and Old (Coptic) Cairo, so stay tuned for those tales...

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Comments

[Jon]

Maybe this is obvious, but what about ear plugs?

[anonymous]

are you living in midan libnan?

[wandering_walrus]

Yes, I was living in Midan Lubnan... about two months ago.