Day Two

I'm sitting in the courtyard of the housing building right now at 12:30am and its probably in the upper 70s. Today was an interesting day of orientation and then going to the sook (market). That was definitely a big culture shock, my friends and I are slowly, but surely learning how to avoid being ripped off. The market was very crowded with lots of things to see and lots of people trying to lure you into buying things. We had the same guy come up to us at least four times trying to sell us silver jewelry. The guys say comments like howdy, Yankee doodle dandee and other things like that to get your attention. One guy was like you dropped something! And I was like looking around to see what it was and he said "you dropped my heart". I started cracking up! My roommate and I definitely plan on going back once we figure out what it is we want to buy. It can be very overwhelming. It has been surprisingly hard to find cheap food in our area. There is a felafel place but it closes at 9pm, usually before we have time to get there. Everything here is done later and slower.

At the sook, we were sitting down eating some food and this young girl came up and starting stroking the hair of my friend that has red hair. She was really cute and only spoke Arabic so it funny trying to communicate. I was with a group of guys and girls and she wanted to know who we were married to. I took some pictures of her with Maggie (the girl with red hair.)

Its very interesting to see the wealth gap in the area. You know who the elite are because they dress like Westerners, with skinny jeans and everything. The poorer they are the more traditional the clothing. Those that have money also are more likely to show PDA, one thing we were strongly advised against doing. I was surprised to see that between an Egyptian man and woman. My friend joked that money can buy you anything, even public displays of affection. :)

Feral cats are abundant. I thought it was going to be dogs with the big fuss the doctors made about rabies, but the only dog I have seen was on a leash. It is really sad though to see all these starving cats. We have one roaming around inside our housing that is obviously pregnant. It also doesn't help that they are adorable! It is very tempting to pick one up but they are covered in bacteria and parasites.

When we were eating dinner outside a little girl came up to us and started begging for money. This was the first time I have seen this in Cairo and it was extremely depressing.

So far I am taking it a day at a time. At times it is very overwhelming, especially with the language barrier. But every day I appreciate it more and more and I am enjoying my time here.