Day 10

January 29th

Today started off as a pretty uneventful day. Woke up, went to the gym with my roommate, went to AUC, got some free food at the Orientation then sat around doing Arabic and reading my guide-book. The weather was really cold today, apparently it was the coldest it has been in 30 years. I actually put on a long-sleeve shirt, that's how cold it was here.
Regardless, the day was pretty ordinary until we got to survival Arabic class. Our survival Arabic class is awesome. It only has five kids so everybody gets a lot of talking and time and its really quite fun. Anyways, somehow we got off topic with our teacher and started talking about the culture and the economics of Egypt. Apparently no one is this town makes any amount of money. A judge gets paid 3000 pounds a month. Notre Dame gives me 2200 pounds to live on every month. The police men who stand on the street every 25 feet get paid 50 pounds a month. 50 Pounds is almost nothing, not even enough to sustain yourself. I don't know how they survive and don't revolt. Anyways, I don't know how much she exaggerated, but she did talk about who the Cairo we have been in is the really wealthy Cairo and most Egyptians do not live this way. She emphasized that Cairo is a third world country not matter the facade it puts on for its foreigners. Our teacher said Cairo is both a open and closed society in that it is having to deal with the flood of West and a deeply conservative society. She also said the increase in oil prices has caused the prices of everything to increase, causing massive inflation and causing many people to simply not have enough money. I wonder what the effects of this are on those who are below the poverty line. I probably already know.
I also learned of the sentiment that people here really don't like Mubarak too much. However, they support him because they would rather have an evil they know, rather then an evil they don't know. What a terrible way for democracy to work in the world.