Three days of work, five day weekend (at the sunny and impossibly blue North Coast).
Two days of work, and then tomorrow--back to the beach! I'm actually quite lucky to have returned to Cairo early, during Ramadan and for the Eid holiday, since the workload is incredibly low and we get so much time off. It's been a nice transition, but I am worried it's making me lazy.
The best part of the past two weeks has not been the beach, but instead all the awesome people I've been meeting. Friends of friends, people on the street and at my gym, just about everywhere. A fellow SAISer who is in town for about a week introduced me to one of his friends, the one who was awesome enough to let me crash their bro-mance outing to the North Coast. His friends are hilarious. One likes country enough to have some songs on his iPod (at first I thought he was messing with me). Another is just so funny and all we do is make fun of each other--I put ice down his swimsuit and he called me fat. My favorite moment so far was laying in the grass with a bunch of new friends at the beachhouse, looking at the stars, listening to the waves, and generally goofing around. Seriously, so amazing.
Despite how awesome everything has been, there have been incidents that highlight the fact that all is not well. Harassment spikes during Eid--apparently some men think in return for being pious for a month they can be douches during the holiday. A friend walked me home last night after a movie, but we had some not too pleasant encounters. I was worried mostly for him, because I knew if something were to happen he would have to step in for me. Also, I also had to ditch a taxi who was driving me around for too long, asking for my number and being a creeper.
The good outweighs the bad, however, and I think that is something lost during a lot of the talk about Egypt and harassment. Because while there are some men who suck, I have met many, many more who are just awesome, funny, and want to ensure this crazy khawaga (foreigner) is safe.
Two days of work, and then tomorrow--back to the beach! I'm actually quite lucky to have returned to Cairo early, during Ramadan and for the Eid holiday, since the workload is incredibly low and we get so much time off. It's been a nice transition, but I am worried it's making me lazy.
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| I was there. And tomorrow, I return! |
Despite how awesome everything has been, there have been incidents that highlight the fact that all is not well. Harassment spikes during Eid--apparently some men think in return for being pious for a month they can be douches during the holiday. A friend walked me home last night after a movie, but we had some not too pleasant encounters. I was worried mostly for him, because I knew if something were to happen he would have to step in for me. Also, I also had to ditch a taxi who was driving me around for too long, asking for my number and being a creeper.
The good outweighs the bad, however, and I think that is something lost during a lot of the talk about Egypt and harassment. Because while there are some men who suck, I have met many, many more who are just awesome, funny, and want to ensure this crazy khawaga (foreigner) is safe.
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