Settling In

We had a dorm orientation two nights ago. There were around sixty or seventy kids who showed up, 22 of which were from Georgetown. That makes us by far the biggest group among the foreign students in the Zamalek dorm. Orientation wasn't particularly interesting, but the residence directors seem pretty laid back. Basically, we can come and go as we please, with only a few restrictions. Security guards check our bags every time we come in to see if we have any alcohol, guns, or drugs, which are, sadly, prohibited. If one manages to sneak any of those things in and later gets caught, it’s a stern letter of warning sent home to the parents. On the other hand, the dorm is strictly segregated, and should someone be caught on the opposite sex’s floors at any time, that individual gets kicked out of school, no and's if's or but's. This seems logical – I clearly pose more danger to the ladies of the dormitory than an AK-47 would.

The best part of orientation was when it was over, because we got free food. Alright, so this food happened to be Pizza Hut, but whatever. We all partook of a hearty meal, which was shared by one of the craftier stray cats that roam the dorm. This particular fellow jumped up on the table when no one was looking, and I caught him chowing down on olive pizza. I happen to have a grudge against this particular cat, so I shooed him away. The cat and I don’t get along for a couple of reasons. First off, he looks kind of like Hitler. He’s black and white, and the black across his face resembles a fuehrer-esque mustache. Secondly, little Adolf had the audacity to harass me the first night I was here. I was innocently trying to eat my Hardee’s in the lobby at 3 in the morning when, without invitation, the cat jumped up onto the table we were sitting at and meandered across it to check out my food, which I was holding in my hands at the time. It’s kind of a challenge to toss a cat onto the floor while eating a chicken sandwich, but I think I’m getting pretty good at it.

On a different topic, I’m not sure if I stressed enough how insane traffic is here. I saw four guys run out into the middle of a packed highway with cars whizzing by in order to board a bus that was in motion at the time. Seriously, who does that? I’m also slowly learning to decipher the meaning of various types of car horn honks, as they seem to comprise a highly advanced system of communication here. There are countless different types of honks, which vary in tempo and duration, and they’re very standardized. You’ve got your common wedding honk, your “we just won the game” honk, your “I’m coming in really fast off the bridge so you better watch out” honk. There are even honks that sound like swear words. Mostly, though, honking just means, “look out, I’m here.” Once a driver merging into traffic has honked, establishing himself as the “honker,” he’s sort of passed the responsibility for a collision onto the receiver of the honk (or the “honkee,” if you will). It’s very different from driving in the states, but the Egyptian traffic system has a charm all of its own.

I found myself in another weird situation two mornings ago. I was half asleep, and I heard Dan messing around with the door. I had no idea what he was doing, but he spent five or ten minutes flipping the door lock back and forth and jimmying it around. For a while I thought he was purposely trying to torment me, but as the haze of sleep cleared it eventually dawned on me that he couldn’t get the door open. At that point I switched from being annoyed at his obnoxiousness to being irritated with his incompetence. It was wrong of me to judge him so harshly though, because it turns out that for some bizarre reason our dorm room keys wouldn’t unlock the door when used from inside the room. Moreover, our door locked itself automatically when closed. So basically, we had locked ourselves in our own room. A random dorm worker happened to pass by and notice our predicament, and he tried to get Dan to shove the key under the door. It wouldn’t fit. There’s a locked door between our room and the one next to us, though, so Dan finally got the key under that and our neighbors gave it to the maintenance guy, who then bailed us out. Fun. And this happened again the next day. Today, though, someone finally came to fix the problem, which is fortunate because I thought it was kind of a dangerous situation. I mean, what if there had been a fire or a mummy attack while we were locked in our room? We would have been totally effed.