Friday, February 5, 2010 at 5:23pm
Since the folks at Al-Azhar University told me I had to wait three months before I could possibly move-in I was very anxious to find a new place. Al-hamdulilah (Praise God) that I someone told me about some other options. I was given the number of a girl from France who I thought at the time was looking for a roommate. I sent her a long text explaining my situation only for her to send a text back that basically said that she did not speak English and that I spelled her name incorrectly. So, with that I decided to use google translate to text her a message. This was very helpful but the only problem was that she was texting me back in French. I don't know if she was using short hand or I didn't have the proper letters with accent marks to type into the google translator but I could only make out portions of her message. We eventually managed to come up with a meeting time and place. Because she didn't speak any English we could only communicate in Arabic. She knew as much Arabic as I did, which is not much and it was hard to for me to understand her Arabic with a French accent. Thankfully, we met at the Fajr Center and someone was there to translate what she was saying to me.
Basically there was a girl staying with her and her roommate that needed a place to stay/roommate also. So, the plan was to meet someone that her roommate knew that had a potential place but we couldn't do it until after Salatul Asr (3:30pm) and when we met is was 10:30 in the morning. So, in the mean time my new friend from France invited me back to stay at her apartment until it was time to go see the place. While I was there I was able to meet her Russian roommate who also did not speak any English. The two of them spoke only Arabic to one another. The lady from Russia has lived in Egypt for three years and spoke Arabic very well and I was able to understand her much better.
While I was waiting at their apartment I got a call from the guy at the Fajr Center who was supposed to arrange for me to have a roommate and housing. He told me he had a potential roommate/apartment for me to see. Al-hamdulilah, I was already in Nasr City (where the Fajr Center is located) and only had to walk ten minutes to meet him. So when I met him I was introduced to a Chinese girl who was studying at the Fajr Center. She had an apartment close by and was in need of roommate. She was with her friend, a guy, also from China. The place was decent and the price was fine. My biggest concern was her boy friend, which may have just been a guy friend or actually her boyfriend. He seemed very familiar with the apartment and was the one that was doing most of the talking and giving the tour. He said himself that he would move-in and be her roommate but the program wouldn't allow it. I was really thinking that he might visit more than I would like and I don't want to have to deal with that. So, a couple days later I told her “no, thanks."
So, after the tour of the apartment with Chinese girl I still had several more hours until seeing the other place. While I sat with the ladies from France and Russia they explained to me their perception of America. They were explaining to me how it is very easy to get killed in America. One of the ladies was indicating the act of shooting with her hands. She wasn't even using the old pointer finger and thumb she was using two hands almost to indicate people get killed with machine guns. I was explaining to them that I think they watch too much television. And even though they swear they don't know English together they came up with "economic crisis" to explain how bad it is in America. The girl from France motioned to the floor while explaining in Arabic that people in America are living on the streets. I told her that it is not as she thinks. They both were adamant that it might not be like that where I live but maybe in other places like L.A. and New York. Their take on America was interesting to say the least but all and all they were good people who fed me twice while I was staying there! So, I was at their place for hours and for whatever reason (language barrier) didn't see the place I intended on seeing. They said that they would be in touch. I heard from them the next day and from what I could gather from our phone conversation (it is very hard to talk to someone in a different language over the phone) was that their friend found a place staying with a woman who had children. However, I was not interested in staying with someone who had young children or any children for that matter.
That same day I heard once again from the guy at the Fajr Center. He had another place for me to see. I was praying very hard that the place would be suitable. When I first saw it I knew that I would say yes. The place was decent well furnished and nicely priced (it is a 3 bedroom, 1 1/2 bath apt and the rent we will each pay is about $136). My roommate is from Nigeria she already knows a lot of Arabic b/c she has studied at Al-Fajr center two times before. The apartment is probably a 15-20 minute walk to the Fajr center. It is one of those things where if I walk all the way to the bus stop I might as well keep walking to the center.
Walking might be a good thing considering one of the last times I was on the microbus this guy was trying to touch me. Just to remind you riding the microbus is like riding in the back seat of a car everyone is close together. The guy sitting to my right kept elbowing me and his knee kept hitting my knee. I thought this was strange. We were on a bumpy unpaved road but I thought that he could make himself smaller. So I kept scooting over the best I could without being all over the guy to my left. Then next thing I know, the guy on my right has moved his right hand on his left leg and it looked like he was doing spirit fingers in my direction (while the palm of his hand was still on his leg). As soon as I saw this, I shoved my pocketbook (which is pretty big) in between us and then he scooted over really fast. Then I started thinking if he could scoot over that much he could have done that from the beginning. Thankfully, this was a short ride but needless to say I was utterly disgusted for the rest of the day. At least now I am comfortable taking taxis by myself. I am getting good at playing "name your fare" with the cab drivers. The taxi drivers won't tell you a price for a ride. They want you to tell them, so maybe just maybe you can say a price higher than they would have charged you. I think I will post pictures of my apartment soon.
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