امثال شعبية

اللهجة المسرية عندها امثال كثيرة و اريد ان اضع بعضهم علي هذه الموقع. اولا سأقولك الأحسن اعبارة في وجهة تظري.. اللي شربت من نيلها، دائما يرجع تاني.. بمعنى ان تشرب من النيل، ستجع مسر مرة اخرى في حياتك. المثل الثاني جاي من واحد صاحبي في مصر.. ابو حول زبره مش يوقف.. بمعني ابو حول مخصي.. و من الاعلانات المصرية عندنا "استرجل" من شركة البيرة و "اعيش حياتك" من كوكا كولا. ثم في اعبارة عن امريكا و لكن لا اعرف ما معني هذه الاعبارة لكن هحب صوته.. امريكا شيكة بيكة.. و اخر لكن ليس اقل عندنا المعكسات.. اكيد ممتك نهلة علشان تجيب العسل ده كله

North Coast

Holy Moses!!!!!! 

The North Coast is sick. Running around on soft, white sand alongside the bright blue Mediterranean is pretty awesome. The water is pretty warm too... it's not like the Pacific in Northern California at all. In more ways than one too... there were no girls on the beach. But, hey I'm in Egypt... you almost get used to these kinds of things... almost. 

I check out two beaches, one in Marina and one in Ghazela. The Marina beach easily topped the Ghazela beach as the water at Ghazela beach is filled with rocks whereas Marina is pure sand. The only other north coast beach I've been to has been in Marsa Matrouh and that was pretty rocky too. 

Anyways, the north coast draws a certain crowd. It's made up of two hotels and thousands of summer beach houses that are owned by mostly wealthy Egyptians. The guy next door to the house at which I stayed had a Audi TT and a Porshe Cayenne parked next in his drive way. We drove up in a convertible Mini Cooper, and our friends met us in a Focus station wagon. These kind of cars are absolutely absurd (it's all about relativity), when it comes to normal day life. You are extremely lucky if your taxi has a seat belt. 

It's a green revolution on the coast. Everyone has grass in front of their house, and the beach shack was circumscribed by 10 meters of grass on all sides. That's grass right next to the sand. It's the good kind too. Where's all this green grass growing from? Green money. The summer houses are all located within a kilometer of the sea. All you can find past the first kilometer from the sea is desert. These people created a huge strip of beach homes across the coast in the middle of the freakin' desert!!! It's the green revolution... the same color seems to work for so many revolutions. (You have to at least admit that the rhetoric is slightly humorous)

I chilled with 4 guys (one who I had known from nine months ago, and three who I just met). Unlike most Egyptians, these guys like to drink, but they don't do it very often. They bought a bottle of tequila from a friend who got it at a duty free shop, meaning it's foreign and therefore good. The alcohol in Egypt sucks... you don't want to drink any hard liquor here and the beer and wine are terrible... this is coming from a 21-year-old mind you. Anyways, they wanted to take shots of gold tequila with lemons and salt... Well, you don't do that, but whatever. Every shot, they made crazy faces, but they still wanted more. 

After about 6 shots in about an hour, we were good to go out. Now only four of us had drank. The other guy didn't want to drink. And, we get in the car. I am offered the front seat "since I'm the tallest." *People always find a way to make an excuse for you to enter the doorway first or sit in the front seat or whatnot in Egypt. The guy that comes to sit in the driver seat is the smallest of the bunch who had just had six shots. So, I said to him, what are you doing? And, he said I am driving. So, of course I said, are you crazy or what. Now, all my Egyptian friends knew that Americans don't drive drunk (or at least the smart ones don't and all Americans know you shouldn't), so they tried to explain to me that it's ok in Egypt. After a 5 minute discussion, where I spoke in a joking manner, but at the same time wouldn't budge on my position. The drunk kid gave up his seat to the completely sober kid. Needless to say, I am alive to write this post.

That's a taste of Egypt's North Coast.

 

Swine Flu

Common knowledge is not always common. The culling of the Egyptian pigs epitomizes this phenomenon, and I just have to post some updates on the situation. Just as a common understanding is not always common. Human rights in Egypt is a good example, but I'll get political later.

Two cases of pig flu were discovered less than a week ago in Egypt. These two people are actually Americans who planned on attending summer classes at AUC (American University of Cairo).

The Egyptian Ministry of Health responded by quarantining all the students in the Zamalek dorms. All the students in the Zamelek dorms are basically the foreign college students (mostly Americans) coming to study at AUC for the summer. The quarantine is supposed to last for a week for who knows what will happen.

When I go on the subway, which I take to and from work every day, I come across people who hold tissues in front of their face banking on the safety of the tissue to protect them from the evil pig virus. 

When I went to the movie theaters, I saw a guy wearing a face mask.

And, here's an e-mail from a expat e-mail list, Cairo Scholars:

Actually this is aint a joke but something to laugh at. A friend of my sister's from college (AUC) taking a cab, and once the cab driver knew he is an AUCian, he stopped the car and told him to get out!! LOL The kid was laughing so hard he couldn't argue back, he told him "It's not us, the foreigners who are infected" the cab driver answered back saying "and you guys swim with them in the same swimming pool" (I HAVE NO IDEA how did the swimming pool at AUC spread in Egypt that much!) and cabby added " you're rich AND you bringing us diseases!! roo7 ya shiekh 7asby allah we ne3ma el wakeel" hahaha! the kid of course get off the cab.

So the moral of the story, if you're an AUCian, NEVER say you are one...EVER! :)

Funny thing is, we (I don't know what to say, we as rich ppl (and become an ignorant arrogant posh) or we as Cairo people, as infected bird flu people are in the cities around Cairo)  didn't run away from country side people, although until now they don't get hiding birds in their houses spreads diseases!

Anyway, God Bless Egypt and protect us.

-- 
Best Regards,

Hisham ElHifnawi

So, this is just a funny story about how people get crazy about swine flu. If you read between the lines, you can get a little more information on what AUC is all about. 

AUC is made up of mostly Egyptians and foreigners studying abroad. I would not suggest AUC for anyone looking to learn Arabic because I've never met a foreigner from AUC who could speak better than a kid on the Middlebury program.

For Egyptians, AUC is known as the place you go if you're in the Egyptian upper class, but aren't able to attend a university in the U.S., Canada, or Europe. The AUC study abroad students usually describe the Egyptian AUC students as "stuck up, rich kids." And, of course, for Egyptians not attending, they see AUC Egyptian students as the privileged kids who are dumb, but just paying for college. Of course, there's more to it than that, but whenever you have an elitistish school you're going to get stereotypes like that from the outside.