Living Abroad: Not Always Fun and Games

Most of us have a healthy sense of self-preservation. When things are bad for us, we think about avoiding them. When we are hungry, we eat. When tired, we sleep. But I've always been a B-student, doing only the minimum on auto-pilot to insure no one notices that I'm not bothering. Always enough to get by, to stay below the radar of anyone who might notice and call me on it.

I've put on ten pounds since 2005. Which doesn't sound like much, until I realized that in the previous 20 years, I'd put on zero pounds. I accepted that it was a waste of money for me to join the gym here (since I wouldn't go), bought a mat, and brought along an exercise DVD that came with a salad I bought from McDonald's in JFK Airport last year. Admittedly this is a half-assed approach. But have I—the B student—used even these? Once. Last night. Ms. Virtual Reality McDonald's Fitness Trainer kicked my butt.

Living in a hotel, working long hours, and moving across oceans every three months is not conducive to a healthy lifestyle. It makes me too tired to seek out healthy food, too resigned to write, too discouraged to bother interacting with people, and too alienated to know what to do with one when I end up across the table from one. I seek out the easy comfort of the digital world, where if people don't respond in a way I like or expect, I can just hit the Off button.

I am aware that all of this is kind-of pathetic. That's why I used the fitness mat last night. That's why I found Mango's new store in Mohandiseen and forced myself to buy three shirts yesterday. That's why I bought a box of imported Raisin Bran and a bowl instead of continuing to eat the free hotel breakfast of omelettes, potatoes, and bread. (Shipping across the world had turned my $6 box of Raisin Bran into Raisin Crumbs, but I am eating it anyway.)

I've purchased a single-burner hot plate so that I can stop eating takeaway food. And now I find my laziness is my worst enemy. I bought some rice, butter, a pot, and a sharp knife. And the trick is this: What can I cook that is so easy that I can do it on a single burner in the hotel bathroom, healthy, and so simple that even a lazy, tired, disinterested non-chef can make it without excuses?

Or maybe I should just eat hummous for the next two months. That might be all right too.

You Can't Be Good at Everything You Try

Hypnotized by the lights and escalating murmurs of the crowd, I gazed up at the six levels of mall towering above me. I was sitting in the basement level of CityStars, the swanky shopping mall out on the border of Nasr City and Heliopolis. I'd grabbed a lift in a taxi with three guys from work, en route to their Maya 3D class. I gawked up at this mall, surely the equivalent of even the largest malls in Dubai.

I had come shopping to buy some clothes. I looked in dozens of stores and found nothing. What I did find—besides banks of escalators, what seemed to be thousands of Cairenes and visiting Saudis, the obligatory glass elevators, and the Fuddrucker's burger I was guiltily snacking on—was Guess, Aldo, Accessorize, Benetton, Mango, Levi's, Calvin Klein, and Esprit. Same crap, different country.

You'd think in a mall this big and excessive, I'm be able to find something worth buying.

Instead, I learned that Cairo Fuddrucker's is better than Kuwait Fuddrucker's, but not as good as the US parent. And that the Kuwait Starbucks franchise has expanded from their original City Center Cairo location into CityStars Cairo.

The fire alarm bell jolted me out of fast food critic mode. Startled, I looked around the food court. Would there be mass panic?

No. Cairenes did exactly what New Yorkers do when the fire alarm goes off.

Nothing. Just keep shopping.

I picked up two T-shirts on sale and skulked home, shamed again by my ineptitude as a clothing shopper.

Stinky Dirty Clothes

I admit it. Cairo is hot.

And I don't mean sexy.

I expected Cairo to be hot. Not exactly a surprise. The humidity surprised me though. It's nothing like the drenching humidity at home, but the moisture is still noticeable. The hot-air-dryer-quality of the wind blowing through taxi windows leaves me exhausted and unwilling to exert myself. I look at the exercise mat I have in my room. And then I look away.

A side effect of the heat is that my clothes need laundering frequently. Sweat happens.

In my old Cairo flat, I had a washing machine in my kitchen. But I'm living in Flamenco Hotel. I like living in the hotel because towels miraculously clean themselves. The bed, left messy when I leave, is neat and tucked in when I return. I don't have to worry about the electricity bill. I didn't have to pay a huge security deposit. If dust finds its way in--and it does in Cairo--someone cleans it up without me having to buy a Swiffer. The place is clean, has a desk, a fridge, a Nile balcony, and now that I have gone to the Alfa Market, it also has an electric kettle, a hot plate, and the fitness mat. But I hate not having a washing machine.

In Uganda, I'd wash clothes in the bathtub. I once scratched the tub surface with the buttons on HM's Levi's. Here in Cairo, I think I'm going to start doing this again. Not scratching the tub, I mean. Hand-washing.

There's no laundry-by-the-kilo or pound here. It's all by the piece. I've tried three laundry services here and all are completely over-the-top. My jeans are returned dry-cleaned and ironed (and shrunk). My T-shirts are returned on hangers. Even my underwear comes back ironed and wrapped in plastic.

Of the three—American, Ritz, and Modern Laundry—Ritz was the most professional and user-friendly. But it's not like at home, or like in Bangkok or many parts of the world, where you drop your dirty laundry on a scale and that's how they determine what you owe. It's all by the piece and laundering is an art. My clothes are mostly cheap, bought at Target, Marshall's, and Macy's on sale days. It costs me more to wash them than it did to buy the items new.

I appreciate the sentiment that all work worth doing is worth doing well. But I'm switching to the bathtub.

Ancient Papyrus Unearthed in Luxor

Wonder what Dr. Hawass makes of this artifact?*

*Artifact photo provided by author Peter Moore, who unearthed and photographed it (no flash, of course) during his epic Cape-to-Cairo expedition in 2000. I don't think his archeological discovery made his book.

Sky Police

When Peter Moore rode his Vespa around Italy for his book "Vroom with a View," he was obsessed with the Kinder Surprise, a chocolate egg with a children's toy inside. These are illegal in the States, because of a law about not mixing up candy and toys. Some get through, perhaps through the highly secretive kiddie-toy black market, spoken of only in whispers.

Egypt has its own version, an locally produced knock-off. I spotted it at the Metro supermarket and though I knew the chocolate would taste awful, I bought it in honor of Peter.

It was partially unwrapped by the time I got it home, because the smirking checkout clerk couldn't make the UPC code scan without tugging at it.

Sure enough, the chocolate was disgusting.

Sadly, I could make no sense of the many pieces of the toy inside, "The Sky Police's Reconnaissance Plane." I wonder how Craig is with engineering puzzles. Or if I should take it to work and assign it to the marketing department, who told me they were "doing nothing." Is it unethical to force your Egyptian marketing department to assemble knock-off Kinder Surprise toys? I wonder.

Under Construction

I like how the glass windows and furniture are gone from this shop, but the mannequins were left behind.

River Party

A balmy breeze blows across my hotel room balcony. It isn't a windy night in Cairo, but my room overlooks the Nile with its eternal caress.

It's lovely. There are usually a few kites being flown from across the river. I see houseboats and restaurant boats both below me and across the river.

Tonight, the Xena: Warrior Princess battle cry wafts across the road and up to my window. What is going on? Is the Ethiopian choir in town, or is this also an Egyptian thing? Then the drums kick in along with a snake charmer horn. And some singing, or is it chanting? Add to this the horns of taxis and squeal of brakes and it's an utter cacophony outside my window. All I need now is for the mosque across the river to go off.

I open the balcony door and look down. There's a crowd on one of the restaurant boats but I can't see clearly to figure out what is happening. Spotlights across the river remind me that the circus is in town. But at least I can't hear it.

Men in robes, 30-year-old taxis, and partygoers crowd the streets. Three mosques with their green-lit minarets catch my eye. I'm absently rubbing the spot where a total stranger grabbed my bare arm earlier on the elevator. Gross. I won't be getting much sleep tonight with the party going on down below me on the Nile.

But I'm lucky. So many people have to stay home for their jobs. Me, I get to go to all kinds of interesting places.

Abigail Sunday and her Shirts

"I brought over five suitcases," said one of my dinner companions last night.

I avoided mentioning my luggage--one soft bag with wheels and a duffel full of Muneer's Maya textbooks and some pork salami. The duffel has since been emptied and collapsed.

"My luggage is mostly my clothes," I heard as I nibbled on some bread dipped in hummous.

I hadn't bothered. My clothing--frumpy modest at best--isn't worth wearing at home, much less dragging halfway around the world. I knew I'd have trouble "buying on-site" but no more trouble than I have at home.

Today I went shopping in Zamalek. There are some small boutiques here with interesting clothes, but nothing quite right for the high prices they charge here in Embassy Central. I was dragging in the afternoon sun, but finally went in one last shop before heading back to the Flamenco.

The last store had a selection of Levi's, Tommy Hilfiger, and Gap clothes. And some T-shirts that didn't seem to belong there. I realize that some of the products are knock-offs, and others are made in Egypt so these are spares, seconds that were not up to snuff to be exported. But who thought it was a good idea to sell a dozen T-shirts for a Baptist Church in the US?

Swimming through Taxi Farts

The haze of Cairo doesn't weigh on the Nile. The Nile is somehow exempt, a breezy spot among the dense concrete and dust of the city. The bringer of life is not clean, but is self-renewing as it flows from the Ethiopian and Rwandan highlands, past hippo shit, religious and oil wars, and ancient temples on its way to the Mediterranean. Two years ago I lived on the Ugandan Nile. Now I live on the Egyptian Nile. Older, wiser, damaged. Mistrustful but functioning. Like the Nile, moving with purpose but without intent. Sometimes controlled by dams, other times flowing freely. Simply continuing.

This morning, the haze of the city was nearly tangible. I've been in Cairo not quite a week, but I'm already accustomed to the view from my balcony. The legendary air pollution gives the skyline the look of a city bathed in a steam bath. But it isn't humidity. It's fumes from industrial operations, and leaded auto emissions. Carbon dioxide. Unspecificed "particulate matter." Taxi farts.

It's Friday--the weekend here. I dropped off my laundry and then waded through the air to get an iced coffee. There's a slight breeze but not enough to lift the haze. I hurried back to my room. It's a good day to use the hotel's air conditioning.

Who's the Freak?

"You just dry cleaned the towels," said Craig over a Cafe Americano at Coffee Bean this morning.

Okay, I admit it. I did something goofy. I dropped off Craig's sheets and towels at the laundry. I thought it seemed a little expensive but I've dropped off very little laundry in Cairo, having had a washing machine in my last flat.

And then I felt like an idiot again later, though it wasn't my fault and had nothing to do with laundry, but everything to do with clothes.

My hotel is full of tourists from the Gulf. Most of them are friendly, but when I got on the elevator tonight, a couple and two small children were on board. The mother was covered from head to toe as well as veiled. The little girl's eyes got big and she stared at me.

I smiled and waved at her, but she just continued to stare.

Was it my six inches of calf peeking out from under my Target skirt? My short-sleeve shirt? My lack of a head covering? She looked at me with her mouth open.

I met her mother's eyes with a smile. Her mother just glared at me, apparently stoney faced.

Yow. She hates me. Not very tolerant today, are we? I felt a little guilty for invading her small elevator and being a bad influence on her daughter.

I glanced away quickly but as I turned around, I spotted a toy.

The mother was holding the kid's toy.

A huge plastic machine gun.

So much for my guilt over being a bad influence.