This is the post where I talk about my first week of school. In Egypt. I suppose normally I would say how awesome it was and blah blah blah. Unfortunatly it amounted to the worst. week. ever. But we'll start off nice and cheery so as to disillusion myself that it will magically change if I write something good.
The last few days before school were actually great. There was an ALI orientation that everybody in the program had to go to. ALI is the Arabic Language Institute, and its all Arabic classes and its designed to teach you Arabic as quickly as possible. Its pretty intense. So we had that, and we got our schedules; I have three Modern Standard Arabic classes, and two electives, which are listening and trying to pick out the letter the professor says, which is still slightly non-easy, and Readings in the Quran, where we discuss the readings and talk about it. They also discussed trips that the program sponsors throughout Egypt, so hopefully I'll get to do some cool traveling. That ended early, so a group of us went downtown to a party that some off campus AUC people had. There are a surprising number of military academy students here for a semester; these guys were from West Point and the school had paid for their apartment. It was pretty awesome. It was in Zamalak and had a balcony with a view of something other than sand. Impressive for the desert. We got home around 430 and watched the sunrise basically. It was a fun night.
Then hell started. I woke up feeling pretty miserable. And no, it was not a hangover. At first, it was pretty managable, the stomach cramps and nausea. I even made myself venture out with friends for the night. We went to Khan al Khalili again which was a good time until sketchy mcsketch 40 year old Egyptian male decided to follow me around and continuously grab my ass. It was dirty and I wanted to smack the bastard, but still undecided if that's the best idea. I think next time it may happen. We went to this awesome Hibachi restaurant after. It was literally on the Nile, like a boat. It was really good. It was Saturday night and it was the last time I ate until Thursday. Meanwhile, I was still feeling not so stellar, and my stomach hurt everytime I moved, walked, went over a bump in the cab, etc. Great.
And then school started. I barley slept the night before because the room was really warm and every time I tried to move, I would wake up in pain and not be able to sleep for the next three hours. Of course my first day I had three classes starting at 9, and I'm not so sure how I even made it through the day. It hurt to walk, to sit, anytime I had a cramp, I couldn't even keep walking. So by the end of classes, I was back in bed for the day. I managed to do my homework. I guess the silver lining is that getting incredibly sick this week was good, because we learned the alphabet and didn't have a pile of homework yet.
Monday was much the same. Miserable, painful, more forcing myself to go to class. I couldn't eat anything, nor did I feel like eating anything, so water and Gatorade became my best friend. I went to the doctor cause I didn't want to die of some funky Egyptian disease. So my thing is when I'm sick, especially when I'm sick over five thousand miles away, I cry. So I started crying to this little lady doctor, and she tells me to stop crying. Now I'm scared and scared to cry and I'm trying to tell her what's wrong. She says, oh this is common, don't worry, but come back tomorrow if you're still feeling not good or you think your getting worse. So guess who had to go back the next day. Now, she decides that she wants to run tests to see what's really going on. Except the tests are an hour bus ride away downtown in Zamalak. So I drag myself to the bus and try to curl up on a seat so my stomach doesn't die on this very very bumpy ride downtown. So I get there and venture to the lab, which is thankfully pretty close to the Zamalak dorms. Except at this lab, the techs are two older Egyptian men and here I am giving them very personal information and samples of things you would rather not give to older Egyptian men you don't even know, or even communicate with. No shame anymore I guess. Now, the thing about the bus to and from campus is that it doesn't run every hour. So now that its about 130 and I've done my thing and the only thing I want to do now is to go lay down in bed because that's the only thing that makes me feel remotely pain-free is impossible. Because the next bus back to school isn't until 630. So I have quite a few hours to kill. I read a book I bought and tried to sleep in the middle of the dorm lobby (no shame, remember? :I went out with Jess and Tim until my bus, because Jess had to go to campus too. So I finally got back around quarter of 8, did my thankfully minimal homework, and tried to sleep. Tried because I couldn't stay asleep for more than a few hours at a wack, thanks to my awesome feel-like-I'm-hemorrhaging stomach.
Now these test results. I had to pick them up. And of course they weren't ready by the time I left, so I had to do the same thing on Wednesday. Back to Zamalak for hours I went and did much the same. Sit, sleep, feel miserable. But I did eat half a bagel. Improvement! This time, the 630 bus was delayed. For at least a half hour. Just what I needed. Typical Egypt. So we left at 7 and got back a little after 8. And I did homework and went to bed for a few scattered hours of sleep.
Thursday. I woke up and for the first time I actually felt marginally better. Still not great, but the cramps/hemorrhaging as I'd taken to referring to it in my head was actually almost manageable. I was still a slave to Gatorade, but I actually ate a whole bagel...with cream cheese. Made my day, since it was the first thing I was able to eat since Saturday. I was able to get things done, including dropping my test results off to lady doc. She looked at them, and said that I was right to cry that first day. Didn't help much, since I was dry eyed and almost happy at that point. We're not sure what I ate but I had a wicked bad case of food poisoning and she is giving me these strong meds next week to make sure its gone. And then I get to go back to the lab to have more tests done to make sure its really gone. So adventure part who knows next week. Maybe I wont have to spend 7 hours in Zamalak in-between, but at least I feel better so it won't be as bad.
So this was my week. Except that wasn't exactly all that was going on. On Sunday, I found out I had a hold on my account, and my internet didn't work, my ID didn't get me into campus or the library, and my email didn't work, all because of this hold. And this hold was due to the school giving me the wrong registration number and they registered me wrong. I had been giving a different number this summer, and when I used it, they said it was wrong and I explained that this was my new number, but they didn't believe me and went ahead and used the wrong number anyways. So I had to add a new class and drop some that I wasn't signed up for, but I couldn't do that until my hold was lifted. And since I was wasting away having tests done and feeling like death everyday, I couldn't really do anything about fixing it. But I did manage to get some of it settled yesterday. I got my new ID, after being sent to four different buildings on opposite sides of campus in the 96 degree heat, in jeans, each saying go somewhere else, of course. The IDs had to be activated separately, so I asked where I could go to get mine done. The guy said it was already taken care of so I was pretty excited. Until I got to my dorm and it didn't work. So I guess its not activated after all. And I can't get it activated until at least Monday because its the end of Ramadan today and everything is closed Thursday-Sunday.
So that in a semi nutshell was my first week of school. In Egypt. I guess my disillusioned hope that it would change if I was all happy at the beginning didn't work. As some wise not so old soul told me, learning to cope makes you stronger. So I hope I'm stronger. But all I have to say is that if the four bug bites on my leg turn out to be West Nile, shit is going to hit the fan.
Stay healthy! (and send me a miracle, I could use one..or a wish if I want to be cliche and quote songs :)
No comments:
Post a Comment