Cairo-Week 6: Roommate Conflict (minor)

Saturday, February 27, 2010 at 9:21am

My week started off with me trying to figure out how to get rid of all of the food I bought for my company. I really over did it. I bought pre-cooked food from the grocery store Spinney’s (in the section similar to where Wal-Mart sells cooked rotisserie chickens). Thankfully, my French friend with the Russian roommate was willing to take some of the food off of my hands. Before I left her apartment she was asking me about an exam for my class. I told her I knew nothing about an exam. She explained that her class is preparing for an exam and everyone in the center takes an exam at this time. I let her know that in my class it was business as usual and we were going over the new lesson.

Meanwhile, when I got back to my apartment I had a conversation with my roommate over the bills. To make a long story short, my roommate paid a guy to find her the apartment (prior to me moving in and back when her brother was her roommate) and she thought that I should contribute to the fee for the agent. I basically told her that I disagreed because that was a service she chose to solicit prior to me coming, I knew nothing about this fee before moving in, and I already paid the Fajr Center (where I am taking Arabic classes) to find me a roommate. So with that we had a disagreement.

My roommate thought because she helped the guy who found me find an apartment (by letting him know she needed a roommate) that I was supposed to get some money back or something to that extent. And then she said that she joked with the guy who brought me to her apartment about getting a cut of his fee. So she wanted me to ask was there some money supposed to be coming back to me. I asked and the answer was, “no”. My roommate felt that I asked the wrong question and said she would talk to the guy herself.

So, a day goes by and I go to class the next day and the second half of the day we start reviewing old material and I ask the teacher if we were having an exam and she said that we would have one in two days. Now, I really don’t know when she was planning to tell us. I think that overall that she is under the impression that we all know how the system works so there is no need for much explanation, hence why I need a tutor. After class I go back to the apartment and my roommate tells me I spoke to the guy (who helped me find a roommate) and “he is going to help you find another apartment.” Basically she said that she didn’t think it was fair that I didn’t want to pay the agent fee and other people would be paying the fee for me. So, I was like “ok”. I was very calm and at peace about it because I made Istikhara about it to see how big of an issue I should make of what was essentially an extra $15 dollars a month (75LE-sounds like a bigger deal though).

I went about my studying and preparing for my test although I wanted to leave immediately in dramatic fashion but did not have the means nor the energy to do such a thing. I found a roommate fairly quickly. The first thing I could think of was to ask the Chinese girl with the “boy friend” that I turned down in my original search. I was not feeling too excited about staying with her. Al hamdulilah (Praise God), my new second roommate (French girl) who is also moving out to stay with her brother said that I could move in with her after her brother leaves on April 15th. So, with that I decided to stay with the Chinese girl since it would only be for a short period of time.

I completed my exam. It was not that hard and I almost got nearly a perfect score except I misunderstood the directions in the writing portion. Apparently it said to write about a specific topic and I just wrote about anything. I don’t think it was clear because about 4 out of 9 people in the class did the same thing. A couple of days after my classes ended for the week I moved out. I am happy I did so because the day before I moved out my roommate also informed me that when the landlord found out that me and the French girl were now staying in the apartment that he was going to raise the rent. So, basically what I originally thought was an apartment for 1500LE a month was turning out to be 1750LE a month.

I am now adjusting to my new apartment and I am now closer to the Fajr Center. I had been trying to quickly eat the chicken and left over rice. I think it was just too old because now I have some GI issues to deal with. Until next time folks!!!