WEEK I

Getting There

Two weeks (filled with failing chemistry, writing a paper, clearing out my part of the kitchen, going home to my parents, writing applications, meeting old friends in Hamburg, my brother’s birthday and visiting my grandfather) after my last anatomy exam I fly to Cairo for the second time on July 28. After twenty minutes to change planes in Munich, spent on my toes at emigration, I am more or less the only German on the plane. Most of the other passengers are Egyptians going home for the summer and Ramadan. The plane is fully booked and as a nice surprise I receive an upgrade to business class! After some rearrangements an Egyptian dentist who lives in Asia is seated next to me (and explains the peculiarities of business class to me), his wife and daughter who live in the States now sit on the other side of the aisle as all passengers sitting next to the emergency exits have to speak English. Good to know I will be responsible for this door if anything happens…

Getting the Picture

I sleep through much of the flight; most of my view is blocked by the wing anyway, so I only catch glimpses of South Eastern Europe’s mountains and coast line. As we begin the descent I regret not having my camera at hand and thus missing the chance to catch some really nice views of this gigantic city. The lack of pictures illustrating many of my impressions will be a continuing phenomenon on this blog, too. While I don’t perceive Cairo streets as crowded, there are nearly always people around somewhere and taking pictures is not very appreciated, so most of my photos will show architecture, plants and panoramas.

Arrival

Injy picks me up at the airport, I’m very happy to see her again. I don’t feel all that foreign and the heat doesn’t hit me as badly as expected although it’s 20 degrees above Hamburg’s 14 degrees I left behind in the morning. My host family lives quite close to the airport, but as they are still at work, we first head to a nice little bistro in the neighborhood and have some pizza. All along the way I notice a lot of graffiti on walls and sidewalks. They appeared during and after the revolution and range in complexity from trees, lamp posts and walls just covered in the national colors to more symbolic  collages of hopes for the future, the unfolding of the protests and homages to the martyrs. You can have a look at the displays of revolution all over this city of maybe 20 million inhabitants here.

I feel very welcome in my host family and as I’ve been to Cairo before I don’t get the immediate novelty shock. However, after one or two days culture shock does hit.

I’m lying on my bed late at night, unable to sleep, it is far too hot, and everything is foreign, the whole day, everything. I think to myself, what are you doing here, maybe I am too old for this, how many more times am I gonna do this to myself? As my heat experienced health care professional brother had pointed out the importance of taking with me and using a thermometer over and over again, it crosses my mind to check my temperature and I discover it to be 38.3 degrees. That probably explains a part of the exhaustion. Over the next few days I rediscover that although I more or less know how to settle in at a foreign place, it still is work. But also that I reach a first level of comfort quite fast, as I remember thinking less than a week after my arrival, actually this is fun, and yes, I will do that to myself again in more distant places if I get the chance!