life lessons!

I went into work a half hour late yesterday and got into an argument with my taxi driver; I’ll explain why. So I live in a part of Cairo called “Abassaya Square” (ab-a-say-ah square) and I work in Heliopolis which is approximately a 15 minute drive, it can be 20 minutes however due to traffic. So I usually get into a taxi around 8am so I can get there on time. Yesterday I get into the taxi at 8am and to my surprise this one spoke English I thought oh cool, lucky me this should be easy…haha why do I even kid myself? I immediately notice that the taxi driver isn’t turing around to go towards Heliopolis in fact he is headed towards the opposite direction “Maadi” (ma-a-di) I tell him many times “Heliopolis is the other way you need to turn around” and he just replies “oh I know I am just looking for a place to turn” as we pass like the fifth place he can so easily turn. The reason he is doing this is because he wants to get extra money from me for the fare and I decide that isn’t going to happen. So I eventually give up my futile attempts for him to turn around and I actually was just smiling there laughing at the situation I was in and the soon to be confrontation I was about to have. He finally does all the way in the middle of Maadi and we get to the office eventually at 9am when I needed to be there at 8:30. So I give him 10pounds which it usually costs from Abassaya to Heliopolis and he says “hey, I want more…” and I say “no if you wanted to be payed more you should have taken me the right way” and start to walk away. He of course follows me yelling “this isn’t fair I had to drive an hour and you only give me this?” and I ignore it and before going into the building I say “I’m sorry that this had to happen I hope that next time you are more honest with your next passenger” and I go inside. Was I upset? Yes kind of, but in life I try and look to see why this happened. So what I took from it was this. I am a push over. Don’t try and dispute it you all know it, I am like a walking floormat that people can just do whatever or say whatever and i let it happen. Sometimes I try to kid myself saying its cool I don’t really mind it, but in actuality I do, so from this experience I feel that God just gave me an opportunity to be able to say NO and confront something that was being done unjustly to me. So thankfully everyone is sympathetic at my office and were very kind to the fact that I was late and I was able to practice being stern; overall a good day.

Other than that we went to this crazy restaurant called Planet Africa for a goodbye dinner for the girl I am replacing, her name is Tameeka by the way if I hadn’t said so before. It was a good time and I enjoyed it the place was like we were inside a jungle with all these animal statues and fake leaves and trees everywhere and all the televisions had Animal Planet playing on them with Arabic subtitles. I feel bad about leaving you guys with a post which the bulk is of an unpleasant event but with a moral reward. So I will tell you guys about a funny mishap that happened after work…

…So there I am in my room just reading a book which I really like so far (It’s called Grace Walk but that’s for another time). Anyway so I am there reading when all of a sudden my door opens and there is an elderly man standing there with a key and two suit cases. We look at each other with a little bit of doubt and I break the silence with “umm, do you live here?” and he goes “uhh yeah yeah I do” and he holds up his key again. So I have stuff like all over the room because I figured I was going to be alone but now there is this guy here and I guess I am going to have a roommate. So he looks around and I start apologizing like crazy cleaning everything up moving stuff around saying things like “I had no idea I was going to be living with someone” and stuff like that. He was very kind about it and was like its ok and just sort of not sure what to say. So he starts to set his things down and we begin to talk. I introduce myself and go “Hello, my name is Andrew Ghobrial and I am here working for—“ I get cut off as he goes “oh I am sorry I am an old elderly man this key says 110 not 101” (101 is where I live and my door is unlocked while I am here so he just put the key in thought he unlocked a locked door and came on in) so we laugh and he leaves and I look around and now my room is all cleaned and crammed into half a room. I feel kind of bad I didn’t get to fully introduce myself but I think people are going to start living here because usually everything is completely empty however when I got home from work there were people all over the courtyard. So who knows maybe I’ll make a friend or something…

Haha I still laugh when I think about it, also I will provide you guys with a picture. Now for those who don’t know or remember I live next to the Police Academy and have to listen to about 30-45 dogs barking always (not an exaggeration it is always) I was asked to take a picture of them but unfortunately I am not allowed to because it’s the law. The law states I am not allowed to photograph the Police or a Mosque and the dogs are technically police, however I think I found a loophole…
this is a picture of the sign next to my building...the translation is basically security center for training police dogs. Not a dog...but close enough, right?