I hate Egypt day

I just had my first ‘I hate Egypt’ day. I've never had them before; Egypt and I have usually gotten on marvelously. I even managed to bypass ‘culture shock’ pretty smoothly, because I think it hit just when my mum visited in December, so I was very distracted with warm hugs and yummy food.

It really mainly consists of little things annoying you. People, most of the time. Before I was able to ignore men hassling me on the streets, and just keep walking by, but now if I hear one indecipherable comment in Arabic, my blood starts to boil and I want to thump the guy with a spiked bat. The hypocrisy of people’s attitudes are also starting to piss me off. Don’t give me a holier-than-thou attitude about the family values and Islamic, conservative values of this country if you have hordes of men assaulting and raping men on Eid downtown. "We are religious, but our men are sexually repressed rapists who will mass assault women on the streets if they can.” That’s not a country with family values, that’s a country with no clue how to bring up and control its people.

The Metro is doing my head in. I used to think it a wonder, since compared to my 60 LE taxi to Ericsson, getting a 1 LE train ride to Maadi anytime of the day is a breeze. But now its finally getting to me. The trains here have all women carriages, and while that is a blessing because you don’t have pervy men staring at you during your commute twice a day, it means being literally hoarded into the carriage like a cattle of cows. The trains get so so crowded here during peak hours, and the doors close shut so bloody fast that there is no such thing here as ‘letting passengers out before making your way in’. The doors open and its every woman for herself — sometimes I fear I wont be able to get out at my stop because of the women pushing their way in.

And I’m getting so angry these days that sometimes when I’m getting out I make it a point to stampede my way out and if I step on anyone’s foot or shove someones shoulder, I feel a distinct curl of pleasure inside me. And sometimes the carriage is so packed with women, and then there are even more women trying to push push push their way in, you don’t even have to hold a pole to prevent yourself from falling, the women around you do the job quite well.

Another thing. I listen to my iPod everyday on the train. Granted that women stare at me anyway since I look foreign, I think they stare at me more because of the iPod. I know this because on several occasions I have had someone asking about the iPod wondering what it is. Plus my earphones leak music. So one day, I’m sitting next to this woman reading the Quran on the metro, and she pokes me and tells me to basically turn down my music. Fair enough, but now every time I catch someone staring at me, I imagine them silently judging me for listening to my sinful Western music — ok ok I know I’m being a dickhead. For some reason, I’m finding niqabi women very threatening these days. It's never happened to me before. I don’t know what's prompting it now.

And I’m also having the opposite of I-hate-Egypt days. I’m having I-miss-The-West days too. Where you can walk the streets and no one stares at you or hisses dirty things into your ear. Where you can do a hop and a jiggle on the street, and no one will bat an eye. Where people understand me and I understand them.