Sunday, May 31, 2015

4 Things I Learned in Egypt I Wish I hadn't

Egyptian girls are bitches

I don't have many Egyptian girlfriends although I didn't have prejudice after I was repeatedly told to stay away from them. My first boss in this country showed me why! That chick was an unbelievable bitch that was hated by every single person in the office who refused to pay me. As she was the first one to show me the Egyptian deal of handling people which I'm now used to I was shocked back then. My new boss, just as bitchy, at least had a skill set to back up her bitchiness with and I respected that. But then, yeah then, I met my various landladies. The first one kicked me out of my home with 24h notice, not caring for a single second I'd be homeless and the second one and her disgusting daughter used nothing short of psychopathy to get rid of us. Both of them had only one reason to do so: greed. Without a dime of our deposit back she then proceeded to call me a thief on a Facebook group. Totally lovely, those women! Either one of these ladies would individually deserve the title biggest bitch I ever met, and they all have one beautiful thing in common: they call this country home!

Being soaked from sweat, not rain, is pretty freaking disgusting

I hail from the rainiest place in Germany. Then I moved to Scotland. It's like rain is my middle name. The absence of it is really awkward. However, with the absence of proper air conditioning in many places as well, being 'wet' is even more awkward. This kind of experience brought up some pretty new thoughts in me: No, I did not just shower, I just rode the metro for two stops, crammed in a compartment with 300 heavily clothed women and nothing but a 'fan' on either end of the compartment. And no, this usually loose shirt is not just magically stuck to my body. The feeling of dripping from sweat is an experience nobody really needs to make in their lives, but if one so wished, thirty seconds on the Cairo subway should suffice.

Celebrity sucks

Obviously, I'm not a celebrity but the reaction I'm getting to looking, well, foreign are sometimes making me feel like one. For everyone who suffers from the desire to be the center of attention desperately I have one thing to say: come to Egypt and wear your hair down. That's genuinely all it takes! The perpetual stares and super obnoxious "oh la laa"s will make anyone hate attention. To think that Beyonce gets this treatment every day makes me feel sorry for the girl. At least her consolation prize is a multi million dollar career while I get sexual harassment and death stares as as result. Ok, let's not be unfair, I do get lots and lots of free food and drink, clothes and other perks but I miss being myself without everybody having an opinion about it. At the same time, I'm appalled how easy it is to become a person of influence in this city. Why did I get free stuff? Because I wrote for a big magazine. Is that all it took? YES! Insanity! I would hate to be Beyonce!

Hearing a bomb go off is a whole new level of scary

About two months ago, while I was conducting an interview in a cafe, the surroundings were shocked by a loud noise that immediately put shock on people's faces. I had never heard a bomb but I immediately knew it was one. However, that part of town rarely saw explosions. People rushed out of the cafe to see what had happened. I started investigating on Twitter and found out that the bomb had gone off less than ten yards away from me, however, on a bridge above my elevation. I didn't plan to take that route either, so I did not look death in the eye that day. One police officer, on the other hand, did, and died the second we just heard the boom. Even though that wasn't the day I was supposed to die I had a hard time accepting I live in a place where my life could in fact be ended by a bomb explosion. Putting things into perspective was one thing that did; imposing a stronger than usual urge to leave the country was the other.
                                                    

No comments:

Post a Comment