Starbucks

So I'm sitting in a Starbucks on the Corniche because there's wireless here, and visiting a Starbucks in Egypt has made me reflect on some of the differences in everyday life here. I thought I'd share some of them.

Bathrooms. This is the major thing...you use them everyday, and a small difference in bathroom culture can cause a big disruption. So Egyptians don't really use toilet paper, which was a bit of a shock the first day when I arrived. Instead of toilet paper, there is a bidet-like attachment on most toilets. I was forced to try that out for the first couple of days, since there was no TP in my apartment. I ended up purchasing some toilet paper, however...I guess some aspects of your home culture are harder to let go of than others.

and tomatoes and pickled vegetables. One of my favorite places to eat is called Ahmed, where you can get (the breaking of the fast), my family usually serves me a soup with beef, vegetables, potatoes, and sometimes macaroni, and then another beef or chicken dish, with rice or potatoes, or sometimes kebab and Food. This one's hard to classify. I've had some amazing meals here, I've had some not-so-great meals here. I've (very luckily) not been seriously ill from something I ate so far, which is more than everyone else on my program can say. Let's hope I'm not next.... A staple of the Egyptian diet is fuul and felafel. Fuul are beans, mashed up, and often served with tahinaMohammedfuul and felafel served up with hummus and tahina and warm pita bread...delicious. Egyptians are also really big on meat and chicken. During Ramadan, for iftaarkoofta. Basically they feed me entirely too much, and then insist that I've barely eaten. I've discovered that food equals love here; one of the best ways to show you care about someone is to force them to gorge themselves on food you've prepared. And of course, you can find some tastes of the US - MacDonald's and Dominoes deliver amazing likenesses of their food in the US.

Family. Family is of the utmost importance to Egyptians. Children don't move out of their houses until they marry, and if they don't marry, they continue to live at home with their parents. My host sister just didn't really get why I wasn't planning on moving back in with my parents after I finished college. The idea of gaining independence from your family is not really present here. My host sister speaks to her sister who's married and lives across town every single night, and she speaks to her cousin every day. I haven't talked to my cousins in months! It's kind of nice that you're so close to your family here, it gives you an automatic support system. On the other hand, I don't think I could live with my parents until I married (no offense guys), so it's probably good I'm an American.

Dating. This is where some huge differences lie. Women and men date, but it's usually pretty secretive (their mothers may know about it, but definitely not their fathers). And dating here is not as we think of it in the U.S. - there's no kissing until marriage (maybe engagement, if you're more liberal), and pre-marital sex is definitely a no-no. It seems like most people get engaged and married fairly young (mid 20s or so), although there are a lot of people in the US married by mid-20s, so not so different. There does seem to be an expiration date on marriage here, as women over 30 are seen as too old for marriage (according to my host sister Sara).

Divorce. This is an interesting one: surprisingly similar to the US. I expected the divorce rate to be low here, but the director of the program here (who's divorced herself), told me that it was about 40%. I don't know what it is in the US, but I don't think it's too much higher than that. The down side to that number, as my host sister informed me, is that women are usually blamed for divorce.

But despite all of these differences, Starbucks remains almost exactly the same as it is in the US. Amazing what globalization has managed in a culture so different. Although I have to say, I prefer the grungier cafe's where you can get a cup of turkish coffee or tea and smoke shisha for a dollar to Starbucks where you pay at least $5.