The first few days

Shopping, shopping, visiting the suburbs looking at unfinished apartments (all called houses in Egypt), getting some cleaning done and working out the washing machine system, trying to open a bank account and get a good night’s sleep, these are a few of the things that have taken up my first few days.

Every morning Mohammed and I set out with a list of things to accomplish to move both his business and mine forward. Every evening when he drops me off at home we have a small post mortem to see what we’ve managed to get done and what we need to transfer to the next day. The last couple of nights have almost resulted in hysteria. Tonight the conversation started: “So one week, and we have no new.”

Let’s take the bank account first. A straightforward task you’d imagine? Not quite so simple perhaps. We have chosen the Commercial International Bank as it has branches everywhere and it’s the bank that Mohammed uses so it seems easier all round. We get assisted parking from the security man outside as the cars are parked everywhere (and by that I mean pointing in all directions and several deep) and there doesn’t seem to be a space to be found. Past more security guards at the front entrance and check in with the man who gives you your number. Once we have our number we go upstairs to sit and wait our turn. We are about 25 numbers from the head of the queue but the electronic system seems to churn through them, at least the man at station 21 is churning through them. Soon we take a seat and Mohammed explains I wish to open a new account. So sorry, the account opening system is down today, not sure when it will be working. Mohammed asks him to “make a check” but a quick phone call confirms that it is indeed not working without any timeframe in sight for getting it up. We agree it’s best to come back tomorrow.

And we do, and we go through the same routine although parking is even more difficult as it is Thursday and the last day before the weekend for the bank, Friday of course being the holiday for everyone and for some Saturday is also. Again we get our number, even further down the queue. But Mohammed senses from the general conversation that perhaps the account opening system is “still bad” and a quick check with our friend at station 21 as he flits past on other business confirms that indeed the system is still down. As we leave I can be heard to mutter that I hope the system fixing people don’t take holidays.

We’re going back tomorrow.

(So now it’s Wednesday and we went back to the bank today – the bank is closed for a holiday!)

Washing my first load of clothes was an experience I haven’t had for many years, at least not in this way. Whilst I washed a few clothes by hand in Ethiopia, this was far more difficult. In a confined space I bucket the water in, wash, bucket the water out, drain the rest onto the floor. Bucket the rinse water in, spin, bucket more rinse water in, drain more onto the floor, final spin and then, avoiding breaking your neck on the wet floor, get the washing to the drying rack in the spare room. Then rinse out the machine, drain more water onto the floor and finally mop it all up. All in all about an hour and a quarter to do just a couple of days washing! I’m sure I’ll improve on my time – it’s a challenge I’ll set myself.

Did another load this morning – my time was actually worse!

Sleeping is sometimes another challenge. Every car that comes down the street, no matter the time of day or night, sees fit to blow their horn to warn every parked car and possible pedestrian of their presence. I have found however that it’s really extremely quiet around 3 to 4 am. Morning prayers are at 5.00 am and the mosque isn’t too far away. Then, no matter where you are in Cairo you’re pretty close to a mosque, Mohammed tells me there are 1000 of them in the city. And on Friday night there was a wedding. Wedding parties go from midnight until 6.00 am roughly, and include travel through the streets with music playing, and a huge procession of friends and family in cars, all blowing their horns, cheering and shouting. I’m not sure how many rounds the party made on Friday night, quite a few I reckon. And of course the footpath conversations pass no more than six feet from my bed!

But last night I slept well so maybe I’m getting used to it.

As for shopping I’ve now been to some of the biggest malls – City Star (largest mall in Egypt and second only to one in Dubai for biggest in the middle east), Carrefours (2 of them) and a couple of smaller ones. I’ve bought yoghurt instead of milk (although in my defence the litre bottle did say full cream milk); I’ve bought hand towel instead of toilet paper (surely you’ve all made that mistake at some stage); I can’t find the equivalent of SO many things, simple things like Jif or cheddar cheese; the Turkish made ironing board feels like it will collapse under me at any time (today a man came to the door – he collects ironing and does it and returns it – I suspect the ironing board won’t matter very soon); the only brand of washing powder I recognize is Persil and yet the shampoo shelf looks identical to home. And, given that we’ve been looking at new houses for me to consider, I have also visited ceramic showrooms, furniture stores, the duty free emporium and huge supermarkets that sell plasma televisions and washing machines and stoves. I’m almost shopped out to tell you the truth (and I know you never thought you’d hear me say such a thing) but I suspect that there are many places still to visit, especially once I decide on a house. And the list needs to get at least a few things crossed off.

It’s all part of the adventure of this very new life I have chosen.