Cairo-Week 2 (Part 1): Finding a Place to Stay

Saturday, January 30, 2010 at 12:18pm

My objective for my second week in Cairo was to try to get some concrete leads on places to stay. The first week that I was here I saw 3 places. All of them were in walking distance from the Fajr Center where I will Inshallah (God Willing) be taking my Arabic classes. The first one I saw was very nice. It was a three bedroom. The only bad thing was two girls were leaving to go back home and that would leave one girl and maybe me to pay the rent for a three bedroom. The place was fully furnished with pretty up-to-date appliances and satellite TV. I didn't like that it would cost $375 to stay there, which I hear by Egyptian standards is a lot of money. I found this place through the Fajr Center which says they will help you find accommodations.

After I saw the nice place, I asked to see another place. I saw two other places, one was a one bedroom- it was almost alright except in the bathroom there was just a shower head. There was no shower curtain, no basin or tube to stand in-just a shower head. So basically, I was supposed to shower and get water all over the floor for 1400 LE a month, which is about $280 a month and according to my sources too much. The third place I saw was horrible. It was “furnished” but all of the furniture was dilapidated, and I am being nice with this description. This was a two bedroom flat for 1400 LE ($280) a month. So, once I saw the third place I started think that Al-Fajr Center was running some kind of racket because the price seemed high but the quality seemed very low. The guy who was showing me around basically said anything nicer would be more money like $400 a month. So based on this, I stopped dealing with him. Then I started thinking I could stay in an area called Al-Rehab which according to people nice and still a good price. I found out that the low price flats are unfurnished meaning you would have to buy the cabinets, refrigerator, oven, and all other imaginable furniture. The furnished flats are presumably more and the place is not as close to the Fajr Center. The other thing is that it is hard to find a place on your own often times people get brokers. I talked to this one guy and his fee was one months rent for finding you a place!!!

So with all of this information I heard about some British girls who stay in the girls dorm for Al-Azhar. Al-Azhar is a popular Islamic University in Cairo and apparently if you are studying at another center you can stay at the girls dorm for Al-Azhar for a fee. The cost…..150 LE or $30 a month!! Now, of course I thought that sounded like something that I wanted to look into. Of course I was skeptical about what that 30 bucks would get me. So, I spent pretty much my second week trying to get in touch with the British girls and waiting to meet them and then waiting to hear back from them. I eventually went and saw the place. There is a doorman, the girls have to sign in and out, they can only go and come from the building 2 times a day, they can have visitors on Friday, once a month stay away from the dorm, and they have an 8:00 pm curfew. You also have to share a room unless you are getting a Masters degree from Al-Azhar. The place looks like a dorm with two kitchens on each floor and communal bath areas. They have a library/study room and a computer room (with no printers or internet). They also have an area to wash clothes. Overall the place was clean, decent, and in a quiet and remote area. In order to live there you apparently have to speak to the manager and have an interview. According to the British girls he wanted to know why they were in Egypt and how much Quran they knew. To stay there you also have to take a blood test. I don’t know what exactly they are testing for. With all of that being said, I waited two days and heard back that I would probably have to wait 3 months to stay there. So now I am back to square one. Pray for me. I need a place to stay!