Finding some semblance of comfort

The school feels vaguely movie-like - at times I'm Clueless

After a little over a week of trips to and from here, I'm starting to feel a little more grounded.  Oh, I still have my Alicia Silverstone moments while there, but I'm feeling vastly better than I did 10 days ago.  My classroom is coming together, and along with an extra day of work time (Sunday wouldn't have felt like Labour Day anyways), I'll be at the point where I can say enough.

Yup, palm trees in the courtyard.

Getting ready for class has been a relatively all-consuming endeavour for the past week.  A large part of my workload has been developing and arranging all of those things that I never anticipated would need to be considered.  What's my late policy?  How will I deal with classroom management issues?  I assure you that this isn't going to devolve into one of those "teachers are underpaid because nobody knows all the things we do..." soapbox sessions, but I never really realized how much goes on behind the scenes.  Even having done my three practica during teachers' college didn't really prepare me for this.  But, given that today was payday, I shan't dwell on the negatives for too long.

6th of October City

During the trip home today, I was looking out of the window and realized that surprisingly enough, Cairo is starting to feel like home.  Oh, it's a little bit lonely at times, and my list of valuable phrases has only increased from about 5 to 15, but I'm at that point where sights are starting to seem familiar.  I'm no longer shocked by the pedestrians that cross the highway in the morning; although they are helped by the speed bumps in the highway (Giza's way of trying to encourage drivers to maintain a speed of 60 km/h), I still don't see myself trying that crossing anytime soon.  I've actually started to internalize the sensations felt during the drive so I can slip in and out of consciousness on the way home and wake up when we exit the highway at Maadi.  I'm even starting to recognize some of the strays in my neighbourhood.

In case anyone is considering visiting me, my current list of valuable words/phrases is:
Sah-baht  al  Care ... Good morning                             Mah-sah  al  Care      ... good evening
beh-kom  dah       ... How much is this                          Mah-ah-sah-lah-mah ... goodbye
Lao  Sah-maht      ... Please                                          Fa- heem                  ... I understand
Mish  Fa-heem     ... I don't understand                         Shh-mel                    ... left
Share-ah  meh-teen  Cam-sa - sab-bah-een ... Road 275
Yeah-mean           ... Right                                            ah  lah  tool               ... straight ahead
Yell-ah                  ... Let's go (thank you True Lies)     in shah-al-lah            ... "if god wills it"

As I'm sure you can imagine, I rely heavily on Mish fa-heem right now.  I'm sure there will be others that I thoroughly enjoy, but in shah-al-lah has to be my favourite.  Although there are theological overtones of fatalistic beliefs ... that isn't the true meaning in practical use.  The first usage is ... I've got a two o'clock appointment and I'm running behind and traffic is hell ... I will arrive there in shah-al-lah (ie  at some unknown later time).  When I return to Canada, and Shannon asks me when I want to go to Red Lobster, I will definitely employ the second usage.  Given that underwater cockroaches (lobster, shrimp) are my least favourite meal, in this case it means something like "if god wills it, I'll go there but don't expect that I will unless fate compels me."  In effect, it's a very polite euphemism for never.

Just a couple of quick vignettes from tonight and I'm done.  I decided that I'd walk to a new wireless store to get my data topped up, and couldn't find where it was located.  Oh, I'd drawn myself a sketch of my route ... but street signs don't exist here (that I've seen), and I soon realized that I was within a couple of blocks but couldn't find the store.  After walking up and down what I believed to be road 216, I knew that it was time to ask for directions.  So I wandered in to the closest grocery store and was thrilled to find that they had my favourite pop.  If I haven't mentioned it, most of the pop over here is either Coke, Pepsi or fruit based ... and my favourite has to be Schweppes Gold Pineapple pop.  Well, I asked the cashier and he wasn't too sure.  The moment that I pulled my map out to try to figure out where I was, someone else in the store came over and tried to help me.  When he couldn't, he walked out to the street and found someone who knew where the store was and made sure that I knew where I was going.  Although I didn't understand the directions, as he kept saying "momen", I wandered where he was pointing, and found the store beside a coffee shop named "Mo'Men."  When I say the service is excellent here, I mean it.  The moment you're lost or confused, people always go out of their way to help.

My second event during my walk tonight occurred at my favourite stationery store, Samir and Ali.  I'm sure it's a standard practice, but once you find somewhere that you feel comfortable (when you're not familiar with the area), you automatically head to that store or location no matter what.  There's a pharmacist right beside my building, but I always walk 10 minutes to the Grand Mall despite the limited selection because he understood my drawing of bandaids.  Similarly, I buy my water from one store (by Grand Mall) and my bread from another store (especially since I just found marmalade there) - even though both stores sell both items.  Well, I was at Samir and Ali tonight getting some school supplies and happened to run into one of the managers there.  When he found out that I was a teacher, he invited me in to his office and we chatted for about 30 minutes about politics, religion ... and he translated some additional phrases for me.  (Please note that I would never broach one of these subjects myself, but was happy to discuss them once he started the conversation).  During our chat on religion, he confirmed that the reason why he was helping me was that it was part of his faith.  And given the number of people that have helped me out and gone above and beyond what I could have expected, I realize that his behaviour is typical - people really do walk their talk in Egypt.  It's definitely a refreshing change from the West where many many people only seem to dust off their faith around Easter and Christmas.