Of cons and conmen...and slackers and BSers and wasters of time

Anyone who's read my blog knows well that, for the most part, I love my life here.  There are so many advantages for me in living in Egypt.  But readers also know that at times my frustration level goes through the roof, and it's usually about the same complaint--that Egypt is basically a chaotic mess that just flies by the seat of its pants.  I think in too many ways the rule here is--there are no rules.  Or perhaps that it's a "me first" kind of existence, which leads to all kinds of complications.

Driving is a perfect example.  The death toll from traffic accidents is huge because everyone must be the first to arrive (hopefully) at his or her destination.  Doesn't matter how many other cars one sideswipes or how many pedestrian one mows down--it's all about getting there before anyone else does.  And that is because, while on many levels Egyptians appear to be quite generous, they are in many ways an arrogant and selfish people.  "It's all about me".

What really gets my knickers in a knot is how those in need are treated here.  Now by "in need" I dont mean the poor.  I refer to those in need of a product or service. From food shopping to buying, finishing and furnishing an apartment, from hiring a taxi to purchasing a car, from ordering a hamburger to having a doctor's appointment, those providing a product or service will bow and scrape and kiss your hand until you fork over your hard earned cash.  Once you part with the green stuff, you are SOL.  Because, simply, there is NO understanding here of what customer service means.  To sell you even a pound of onions, the seller will lie through his teeth and swear on the grave of his sainted mother that you are buying the best onions in Egypt.  No matter that he knows very well they are rotten to the core.  It's a dog eat dog economy and survival of the fittest most dishonest here.  The biggest bullshitter wins.

Now my complaints need to be divided into different categories.  We have the lowly salesclerks, waitstaff, counter clerks, technicians, etc, who work for some else's business or service, usually for a monthly pittance a cockroach could barely survive on.  Then we have the  managers of said businesses.  Next are those who have their own businesses and/or work for themselves, and last but not least we have the government workers who keep this country "running"--I think there's an oxymoron in there somewhere.

There is one underlying current running throughout all of these categories, and as bad as these are in and of themselves, there lurks among them some of the slickest snake oil salesmen (and women) you could ever not hope to meet.  Many Egyptians have elevated the con to an art form.  But more on that later.  In my next post, I will begin with "lowly salesclerks".

On the other hand.....Ana mally???

After that post I wrote about Egypt being "home", I have to warn you that all that glitters is not gold.  There is a litany of standard complaints most expats have about life in Egypt, ranging from the insane driving practices to merchants having no idea what "customer service" means--and a zillion more in between!  But more on that fun later.  Let me tell you about another common problem here--the "ana mally" syndrome.

This is a phrase loosely--and very sarcastically--translated to mean "and this is my problem, why???"   Egyptians say it all the time and in a very condescending way.  They say it for any and all occasions when they want you to be absolutely sure they dont give a damn about what you are trying to tell them!!! With a roll of the eyes and a "talk to the hand" kind of gesture, they hope you will get the point quickly so they can move onto bigger and more important issues in their life.


"Stop throwing your garbage into my yard!"  Response:  "Ana mally?"

"Excuse me, Mr. Butcher Man, but this meat I just bought from you is spoiled rotten!"  Response:  "Ana mally?"

"Didnt I just pay you 6000 LE (almost $1000) for this air conditioner that doesnt work?"  "Ana mally?"

"Hey!  You just ran over my kid with your car!"  Response:  "Ana mally???"

No joke!  About the only time you can get an Egyptian to stand up and take notice of anything you have to say is if he wants something from you--especially money.  Then it's all about grovelling and telling you things like "At your service, oh Pasha!", "Under your command, oh dear sir!", "I'll give you my eyes, dear lady!"  What a crock!  Once you pay for goods or services, they have another expression here..."Hit your head against the wall!"

So I had an "ana mally" moment with my landlord today. Half the electricity in my apartment stopped working.  So did the electric meter outside the apartment I live in--the one I pay the bill for!  So, is it my meter or not?  If half the electric is working, it seems obvious to me that it's pulling from an electric meter that someone else in this building is paying for.  By the same token, I am obviously paying for at least part of someone else's bill.  So I got my housekeeper to call him and let him know the electricity is all screwed up.  Before she could even finish a sentence, he was telling her it's not his problem and she can call an electrician.  Then he asked to talk to my husband.  She told him he was traveling.  Did he care that there were 2 "foreign" women living here with no way of solving this problem?  Would it have killed him to help us out a bit?  At least feign sympathy or concern?  Be polite and commiserate even if he was going to stick it to us?

While I grudgingly accept the fact that I might have to pay for repairs in my apartment (which is usually the owner's responsibility), I sure as hell dont want to pay to rewire his whole building.  But once again, I find myself in a situation I can do nothing about.  And so I rant and rave a moan and complain, to which my husband laughingly says "This is Egypt!  Take it or leave it."  And all I have to say to this is..."Ana mally? " !!!

Rumors

Text messages are circulating regarding possible terrorist attacks related to the bombing of the Alexandria church. People are warned to stay home, stay off the roads and out of large stores, shopping malls, etc. Some of these texts originate from people "in the know".

On the other hand, a government newspaper printed this.


Now whether these attack warnings are legitimate or not remains to be seen. One can only hope they are truly rumors. But with conflicting reports, do we really want to take the chance?

Can anyone, in a any country, trust state-run media? I dont think so, In short, better safe than sorry.

More on the Alexandria Church murders

I was so upset yesterday when I posted, that I really forgot to finish the last entry.  I wanted to extend my deepest sympathies to all those affected by this tragedy, especially to those who lost loved ones.  This is a disaster of international proportions, and it is also a horrendous and painful situation for those of us living in Egypt, whether Muslim or Christian or just plain human! In fact I cant imagine that a human did this...this is the work of an entity so evil...it is either Satan himself or one of his devout followers--I wouldn't even consider the perpetrator a human at this point. 

I also wanted to mention the overwhelming majority of Christians and Muslims--and Jews and those of other faiths as well--live in Egypt as neighbors and friends.  They share holidays, weddings, births, funerals, graduations--all life's events--as family, as  loved ones. There is usually respect for all and between all religions here, aside from the usual few whackos (I guess we would call them "rednecks" back home) who hate anybody not exactly like them.  Those people can be found in all races, cultures and countries though--it certainly isn't restricted to one place or time.

I guess my point is--in my own personal opinion--this crime comes from somewhere way beyond the scope of Egyptian citizens.  This crime is a result of an interloper, be it human or Shaytan.  There is some deep, dark reason this evil was carried out, and I don't believe for a moment it is as simple as someone hating Christian Egyptians.  There's a reason for this known only to Allah.  May He protect us and heal us as a nation, and as a national family.

The Alexandria Church massacre

I would be heartless and remiss if I didnt write about this evil atrocity in my adoptive country.

You can read much about the incident at Misry Al Youm, one of Egypt's online English daily newspapers.

For the record, this is NOT Islamic behavior.  True Muslims do not practice terrorism.  The Quran says, in an excerpt from Chapter:  The Table Spread [5:32] 

if any one slew a person - unless it be for murder or for spreading mischief in the land - it would be as if he slew the whole people: and if any one saved a life, it would be as if he saved the life of the whole people.

Muslims and Islamic organizations all over the world are mourning this act and are vehemently denouncing it.  I personally do not believe this murder was perpetrated by Muslims, but rather the work of agent-provocateurs with their own agenda.  I am not alone in my thinking--many more well-versed than I have said the same thing.

It is hard to imagine the shock and pain of something like this unless you get up close and personal.  Here is the last Facebook post of Mariouma Fekry, one of the innocent victims of this massacre. It is a heartwrenching read.  Kudos to blogger Organica for finding this post.

For those who wish to see this heinous crime as a Muslims vs Christian issue, I remind you of the story of King Negus who gave shelter in Abyssinia to the persecuted Meccan Muslims.  At the end of this clip the King, who was a Christian at that time (he later accepted Islam as his religion and died as a Muslim), upon hearing of the Islamic view on Jesus, drew a line in the sand and said "The difference between us and you is no bigger than this line."  This is true Islam!

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2011

A New Year...and today in retrospect

Today is Thursday, December 30, 2010.


It is nearly the end of 2010.  It is also Thursday, which means it is the end of the work week here in Egypt.

And so, as usual on Thursdays of late, I come home from work, tired but happy, and have some "me" time.  With a cup of freshly brewed coffee, I sit down at my computer, log into Facebook, and first thing I do is check on my 3 children.  Then I see what my friends are up to.  After checking my email, I start to surf the web a bit, and inevitably end up reading my hometown newspaper online.

And then it begins--that gut-wrenching wave of nostalgia for "home" that tugs so sharply at my heartstrings, I have to take a second or two to catch my breath.  I start missing my birthplace--which happens to be my kids' birthplace as well, and before I know it I am knee-deep in my weekly Thursday evening funk.  It sucks, this weekly ritual.

I should back up a bit and say for the last few months, my husband and I have discussed the possibility of going back to America to live.  He hasnt been so satisfied at work and was seriously contemplating a change.  We discussed this possibility at length.  Forget for a moment the hell I went through to move here to Egypt in the first place--and the many, many possessions I either sold, gave or threw away to make this move.  Ignore the fact that it cost me over $1000 just to bring my dog here!  Minimize in your mind the amount of money we spent making a home here--finding and furnishing our apartment was nearly 3 long years in the making.  We put our blood, sweat and tears into this place--and many's the time we got ripped-off in the process.  But just take all that out of the equation for now and think only of this...he wanted a job with more opportunities and I wanted to be "home" and close to my babies.  That's all we were focusing on.  We really didnt think about the "downside".  At least not at first.  Still, we both prayed the Guidance Prayer and left it in Allah's hands.

And slowly, we came to rethink our decision, for many reasons.  Reasons that came tumbling out of our subconsciences and caused reality to rear its ugly head.  What...Where we crazy???

My husband's work is in Islamic media propagating the deen. My career path has always led me to teaching in Islamic schools.  Our lives--both together and separately--have us working and living in very close connection to Muslim communities.  Communities all of which are now under intense scrutiny.  I dont think there's a mosque or Islamic school in the USA that is not on somebody's watch list.  Is is right, is it fair, is it warranted?  Perhaps yes--perhaps no, but it is what it is.  Is Islam almost Public Enemy Number One in the USA now?  Well, watch Fox News and you tell me.  Did we really want to go back into that hell?  Even though we are both law-abiding, card-carrying, anti-terrorism patriots, did we want to take the chance that some citizen-informant could easily put us--a woman in hijab and an A-rab with a beard--in harm's way if we happened to cut him off in traffic?  I think not.  Geez some people have no sense of humor.  But seriously folks...it was more than that.

Egypt may not be the garden spot of the world.  In far too many ways it still is a Third World country.  I hate to use that description, but it is--government services, infrastructure and so many other factors define it as third world, even though there has been much progress of late.  Yet it has its charms to be sure.  One can live here in relative peace and safety--and even freedom.  You can pretty much travel from one end of the country to the next without being stopped for an ID check.  There are at times some roadblocks here but that is primarily used to catch drug traffickers.  I wouldnt call Egypt a police state.  (Some may disagree with me.)

It's pretty rare here that you have to worry about so many things plaguing Americans today--home foreclosures, utility shut-offs, no medical care, etc.  Mostly utility collectors come to your door for payment and give you weeks and even months leeway before they shut off your services.  In any case the temps rarely go below 50 so you wont freeze to death a has happened elsewhere.  I personally dont know and never heard of anyone actually losing their home for getting behind on mortgage payments--most families buy their flats outright with help from extended family.  Medical care is fairly decent here and even the poorest of the poor can get very good care at  mosque medical clinics for less than $2 a visit.  Basic food stuffs are still cheap here--you can actually feed yourself with nourishing things like whole wheat pita bread, falafal, fava beans and koshari (a rice and lentil dish) for less than $2 a day.  Yes, you're not eating fillet mignon but you're not dumpster diving either like happens too often now in the USA.  In the rare case that someone actually becomes homeless here, it's not a shame nor is it unacceptable to sleep under a tree, a bridge, etc.  In fact lots of people of the poorer classes often just lay down and take a nap under a tree during the day and they are not disturbed.  Very poor people here are often fed by individuals, rather than government service organizations--the majority of the populace here is willing to buy food for someone who looks in need of a meal and it's just not given another thought.  In my little corner of this country, charity abounds and for that I am grateful those in need are cared for.

I know the above scenario may not appeal to those who have never lived here and seen how things work, but when you see and understand how horrible living conditions are in places like Haiti and many African countries, Egypt seems downright luxurious in comparison.

We have a decent and nicely furnished home.  We have one car totally paid for and are thinking to buy another just for me.   There are huge grocery and Walmart types of stores here, and amazingly decadent malls.  Western chain restaurants and coffee shops abound.  We can take vacations--to as far away as Europe or America, to as near as Ain Sukhna or the North Coast.  Masha Allah, I have a housekeeper who comes once a week, a gardener on call and a doorman who keeps my building clean.  I take taxis to do my shopping or meet up with some of the most wonderful friends I could ever have asked for.  The drivers carry my bags.  I couldnt begin to live this kind of life back in the USA.  And for all the true peace of mind I have living here--as oppossed to the nerve-wracking pressure of trying to make ends meet back home--this land has become "my land".


We are still not quite sure what the new year will bring, but it's starting to look more and more like we will be staying in Egypt.  He will most likely be continuing in his current job--at least it looks that way now, and I have a job I love.  Amazingly I am make enough money working part-time that if God forbid, worse came to worse, I could support myself with not too much of a crimp in my lifestyle.  Thank God for His blessings.


One of my New Year's resolutions is to try to avoid the "Thursday evening funk".  Because in truth, while I could go back again if I wanted to, after critical analysis, I live a much better life here than I could there.

And so, while I really miss my kids and the change of seasons and snow and rain and holidays and interstate highways and traffic lights and mountains and customer service and American football and my hometown TV channels and New York pizza, for now I must be content to just visit, because at the end of the day, Egypt is pretty much stress-free and it has become "home".