"I don't want to marry you, I only want your money"

Everyone here thinks Peter is Egyptian.

As soon as we got into the airport yesterday morning a few Egyptian men began coming up to him speaking rapid Arabic. The look on Peter's face is priceless when it occurs (and it occurs often). I wish all of you could see it, but I'm sure everyone in his family can imagine in detail how he handles the situation. Which is normally an awkward smile and a scuffle in the opposite direction. Also, I know this might be a bit blasphemous so say, but I believe Peter has been cheating on his Armenian heritage these past two days by relishing the fact that he looks a bit Egyptian, and trying to play it off like he is so. Unfortunately I don't think he realizes being mistaken as Egyptian while not knowing Arabic is a bad thing. Haha.

Today we began official student orientation at 9 am at the Old Campus in downtown Cairo. Apparently the new campus will be up and running this semester because 99% of the campus is done. However the 1% that is left accounts for quite a bit of scaffolding and dust. The new campus dorms also will not be done until November, meaning all the lucky students who were supposed to live there, now get to live in hotels at Heliopolis, about halfway between Zamalek Island and the new campus.

The president came to orientation, which was located in an auditorium. It reminded me of the student orientation at St. Olaf. The one where the parents officially said good-bye to their son or daughter "forever"(minus the St. Olaf hymn, the professors in Harry Potter robes, the all around emotional setting, and of course our parents). We learned some very interesting statistics. Apparently there are around 225,000 US students studying abroad this year. The top countries are the UK, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, China, Costa Rica, Mexico, Australia....and down the list. Egypt isn't on the list, apparently no country in the Middle East even made the top twenty. I guess only .2% of students make up this category. Which I find disappointing, considering the focus of our foreign policy right now, and everything we have "learned" about Middle Eastern countries on the news. Anyway, I won't get into it but it did spur on some good conversations. The AUC is also the top publisher of scholarly material in the Middle East, just in case I still need to sell some people on the credibility of this college...it's a keeper!

We also got some good advice about street smarts, then got to test out them out this evening at a bazaar located in the Old City. I've been noticing subtleties in the actions between men and women, and a few of my thoughts were confirmed at the meeting.

First I'll just say I was always taught to acknowledge people with eye contact or a hello when passing by them at a desk or walking down the street, completely ignoring them would be rude. Men here do not initiate eye contact with a woman, and if a woman does it, it is considered an invitation. The interactions between men and women are also closely monitored on campus. Last night Peter and I made the womens' hall guard nervous by sitting across from each other at a table and talking. (Yes we have guards at the entrances of the men and women dorms at all times, if a man is caught in a women's dorm, or vice versa, they get thrown out immediately.) I was disappointed to find out that women are not allowed to go swimming if they are over the age of 12.

So with the strict rules between opposite sex relations, the environment is very safe for women. If a man does show special interest in her on the street by yelling at her or reaching for her, other men will be quick to react in condemnation. Today a man bumped me on the street, and begged me to forgive him. So, mom, no worries about that. It's not like Ecuador. Even Peter got yelled at today for wrapping his arm around me to pull me away from getting hit by a car. A man across the street in English yelled "Do not touch! Looking is ok, but not touching!" Hahaha.

Actually, the street vendors seem to be the only ones breaking the social norm of having the utmost respect for women. Here's a list of the phrases we heard.

"Come on baby light my fire!" -A man selling Hookahs
"I do not want to marry you, I only want your money"
"I will kill my wife for you"-?
"Can I tell you that I love you?"
"Lucky Man!"-Peter got offended when none of the men said lucky woman
"You stepped on something"...."What?"...."My heart"
"You will spend here"
"Give me your money!"

Anyway, all we had to do was say "la shookrum" No thanks. And they instantly stopped. Laughing them off was also fine, they knew how ridiculous they sounded to us. As the one man said, all they cared about was money.

We also went to this SWEET hundred year old coffee house, which doubled as a hookah bar. Peter shared a hookah with this girl named Heather. He tries so hard to be cool. Haha anyway, I won't do it for several reasons, one of them being women just don't smoke them in public. Heather got reprimanded by a man who was watching her. He basically said that it was bad for her because she was a woman. So I asked him why it wasn't bad for men. He took my comment as an invitation, and started following me. Which is unfortunate because that could have been an excellent conversation!

Tommorow we continue our orientation! I guess it's also Bedouin night, and horseback riding. Unfortunately I don't like horses, however Bedouin sound a bit interesting..