Cairo Chronicles I: Controlled Chaos

Photo: Daisy Wright with permission for the CLC.

Year Abroad Student Daisy Wright explores the intricacies of finding a new home in the first instalment of her column.

All I knew about Egypt before stepping off the plane into a busy and bustling Cairo, was a basic knowledge of ancient Egypt from my childhood spent reading Rick Riordan, and the limited history and culture Cambridge had tried to teach us, much of which was lost in translation and swallowed by essay deadlines.

Cairo, a city of 20 million people, seemed pretty daunting to someone whose countryside childhood makes them think that Cambridge is a big city. Eight months of language school for my AMES Year Abroad seemed very daunting, especially with the warnings we had about how hot it would get in the summer in Egypt. Despite my nervousness and anticipation, there were feelings of excitement bubbling around too: for the sun, the food and the new experiences ahead. 

After a 6 month break from any arabic, I assured myself it was still in my brain, albeit very very deep down. But how wrong I was. It turns out 2 years of Arabic at Cambridge (and one of those years via the famous language learning platform Zoom) does not help you navigate everyday life in Cairo. Surprisingly enough, being able to recite the different patterns and forms of verbs does not prepare you for making Egyptian friends, trips to the supermarket or haggling with the sellers at the souks (markets) of the city.

This was always the part of my year abroad that I was most apprehensive about, and I was definitely dreading it a little. We’d been warned about how exhausting it would be living in Cairo, especially with the warnings we had had as women about harassment in the city.

But I was sorely mistaken. My anticipation and nervousness was unnecessary. From my first few days in the city, I have fallen in love with Egypt. Its vitality and hustle and bustle make it a fun city to explore, although it is never completely quiet or still. You get accustomed to falling asleep to the sounds of traffic and car horns harmonising with the call to prayer -  a specific brand of cairene lullaby. I’ve felt more harassed in London than I have in Cairo, and have no qualms walking about the city alone day or night. Although my blond hair means I can never blend in as I wander about the city, the attention comes more from curiosity than anything else, from both men and women equally. 

Getting to know the city has been a long process, with the days disappearing in the blink of an eye. Fridays and Saturdays are the weekends here, a chance for a much-needed lie-in after three hours of Arabic classes starting at 9am Sunday to Thursday. The afternoons are a chance to explore, do our wagib (homework) and have a much-needed nap. Many of our afternoons in the first weeks of living in Cairo were filled with exhausting flat viewings, in which brokers tried to convince us to take flats that had everything we didn’t want. Finding a flat gives you a safe haven within this busy city, a space to relax and a neighbourhood to call home. We live in Zamalek, the island in the middle of the Nile that is full of embassies and gentrified cafes to sample, my new favourite, a pistachio latte whilst attempting to learn a grammar rule or some vocab. 

Cairo and Egypt have their own brand of friendly, disorganised chaos, often trying to be helpful but just missing the mark and sending us not quite the right way to the markets, and the museums. The concept of punctuality and time is not so omnipresent in Egyptian culture, but they will always turn up eventually. Our first séjour outside of the city really hit this home, with our driver finally turning up two hours late. Leaving Cairo makes you appreciate the hustle and bustle of the city, with never a dull moment and always something going on in its streets. 

Despite already having been in Cairo for a month, there is still lots of the city left unexplored and that, I think, is the charm of the year abroad: having the time to explore a place on a deeper level than simply being a tourist, although I must hand my head in shame as I have not yet visited the Pyramids. I soon hope to return to being a tourist in the city, now we have a permanent flat and have settled into a routine with language school. I look forward to exploring new areas of the city, particularly Islamic Cairo and Coptic Cairo to see how the religious dichotomy has affected the city itself and its architecture. 

And without even noticing it, 6 weeks have flown by and I am inching closer to the end of my time in Egypt, already knowing it will be hard to say goodbye to the cairene chaos.