Alexandria – Page 2 – Arabian Misadventures

Selfish

He was sitting outside my classroom waiting for me to finish. The secretary had told him about me and he was very eager to meet me.

After hearing his story I felt sorry for him. The Alexandria university halls of residence, which had been recommended to me by the Chinese and their Arab friends was apparently an expensive dump. The main attraction for the Chinese was their discount, they were paying 1000 EGP a month, whereas the Arabs were paying only 500.

This poor Japanese guy was paying 300 USD per month (or more) for a place that he claimed was extremely dirty and small. He had communicated with the TAFL Center via email (from Japan) and the TAFL secretary had quoted him the Chinese price and recommended the halls of residence to him.

This left me a little confused. The director of the language centre (Lana Habib) had suggested I live there and said the price was only 1000 EGP. Due to the Chinese, I was thinking of moving there from the hotel (where I had a big problem with mosquitoes).

In the end I helped arrange for this young man to stay in my hotel, which was certainly cleaner and cheaper.

What may have started off as a healthy friendship soon became very complicated. He was not attending every class and complained that the teacher would often use English. He also told me that the teaching style was archaic and he felt it was his right that I should lunch and dinner with him every day in a restaurant. I slowly found myself teaching him how to speak Arabic, which was not my job of-course.

He introduced me to his colleague from France, who also wanted to find an apartment. I helped them find an apartment on the corniche, but there were only two rooms. So I suggested that if she (the girl from France) was not interested I would take the room. However, he suggested I share a room with him, but I told him that was a bad idea.

Back in the centre, the girl from Denmark (his other colleague) agreed that it was bad idea, whereas the Koreans believed it to be a normal thing and mentioned that two of them use to share a bed.

Anyway, in the end, they (the French girl and the Japanese guy) said that they were interested, but they took forever to make a final decision and we spent the whole evening with the landlord listening to her story about how she was involved in some project to help students find accommodation in Egypt.

The next day, they were late for the appointment. I was on time even though I was not required to be there. By the time we arrived together in the apartment, the landlord had already reached an agreement with a group from Cairo and had taken the money from them.

So the search for an apartment for this student from Japan continued and continued and he moved in and out of the hotel. Meanwhile, my assistance to him consumed a lot of study time.

Chinese New Year

One of the Modern Standard Arabic teachers asked if we would be interested in attending the Chinese New Year party.

The Romanian woman was not interested, but I was.

However, I expressed my concern that perhaps the Chinese might have a problem with a British person attending (perhaps I still remembered the NATO bombing of the Chinese embassy in Serbia or perhaps it was the Opium Wars that bothered me). I was reassured by the teacher that my attendance would result in the opposite effect.

She was right! From that point onwards I never felt alone in the centre and I enjoyed practicing MSA with them 🙂

The most significant contact I made was a Chinese student from the Faculty of Arts (Literature).

After the party, some of the Chinese took me outside with them (to the corniche).
I was nervous, but I had no other friends in Alexandria and wanted to exploit every opportunity.

I got to know some of them a little better. They seemed so soft, friendly, open-minded and attractive.

During our walk-around, I noticed some Egyptian boys talking about us, but I was not certain. As we walked by, one of them asked if I was Egyptian, so I told them that I was not.

Continue reading “Chinese New Year”

Sociopath

The first day I met this fellow student I was a little excited.
I sensed she might be older than me and thought that might be more interesting.
She asked about my background and then insisted that I am a first generation immigrant!
Then she shouted at me as she informed me that Muslims kill Christians in Egypt (as if I’m responsible).

At that point I raised my voice and asked whether she was blaming me! (Blaming me was like me blaming her for the murder of hundreds of Jews in Romania during the Second World War).

She then shut her mouth. However, not for long, as she then suggested I live with her friends in Sidr Bishr or Jaabir and that it’s right next to the university. She told me she had done the same and her Arabic was tops now (she never stopped using English, inside and outside class, right up to the end of term). I replied that I was not interested in teaching the locals English and that I just want to learn Arabic and go home.

Could not understand why she was learning Arabic. She often complained that it was written using Arabic script.

Perhaps all she needed was a dose of dopamine.

Most of the less useless conversations I had with her was with reference to how beautiful her country is, her suffering, her conversion (from Orthodox to Protestant), how smart her people are (and that she does not need grammar), how God talks to her, etc.

It’s strange how so many travel to the Middle East in order to learn English!

There is one thing I could perhaps admire her for: she would fight for what she wanted. For instance, when the director wanted to film and interview us for a television channel, she flatly refused arguing that the students should not be expected to take risks. Last thing we wanted was to be made famous during an unstable political period.

Before I left Alexandria, she gave me a copy of the Bible in Arabic. However, due to her rude and abusive behaviour towards me (throughout the whole term), I just did not see the point.

Arabi Center

After I finished my contract, I had a month to spare before enrolling at the main centre that I had decided to study in. So I decided to do a few weeks of private one-to-one at the markaz Arabe (or Arabi Center).

The Egyptian Colloquial went well, but the teacher was only half interested and a little boring. Probably not her fault as she was not a trained teacher, but the fault of the centre. I guess the director found her through her social circle.

The focus of this centre was really Modern Standard and Classical Arabic and for this I did notice a difference in teaching quality and enthusiasm.

My biggest issue with this centre was that they made a mistake with the dates on my certificate and when I mentioned it, the administration started to argue with each other and at the end of that they were rude to me and refused to make any changes.

Mr Toxic

The conversation started with why, in the end, I had not studied for a masters in history.

Despite my passion for this subject, the answer for me was simple: the banking crisis of 2008 and the subsequent personal financial loss in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

Apparently, I had misunderstood the situation. Qadir Ali argued that studying the Arabic language in Alexandria would lead to a job and a better career. He also tried to convince me that I am not the engineering type and that my degree in computer science was a mistake.

The opposite is true. By following his plan, I lost more than three years and was over 100,000 dollars (financially) worse off.

When looking back, it is very clear that one cannot trust most of what he says. Was a liar, is a liar and probably always will be a liar.

The truth is that Qadir Ali only joined a FANG company (Facebook, Apple, Netflix, Google) after attaining a 1st class Arabic (and Islamic studies) degree from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) and not from Alexandria, but this was not before being unemployed for six months and then working as a sales-type for a hardware company, for a year, based in some village near High Wycombe.

While encouraging me to leave an IT career, I later learned, he was studying the Japanese language and Machine Learning; perhaps eyeing a Google (Alphabet) career in Japan?

As late as 2013, I was having doubts about his plan for me, but he told me to man-up and compared me to a mutual friend (of an expat family from UAE) who had studied eastern history exclusively with English texts (hence, in his opinion, a loser).

He also tried to convince me that I need to do at least four years of Arabic in order to study history at SOAS. Qadir Ali made this claim despite knowing that according to the professor (the convenor of the history module, which I was interested in) two years of Arabic would probably be fine (and all I would probably need is a few months revision). He also kept it to himself that I could purchase the actual course Arabic texts from the SOAS bookshop, (which I could focus my attention on, but I guess that would lead to a more successful outcome and that is not really what he wanted – as became clear later). In the end, he even recommended I do a degree (3-4 years) in Arabic at Leiden university.

Qadir Ali misled me about Alexandria. For example, he promoted the library as open 24-7 when actually it’s open only until around 5pm. He described the city as the most beautiful place in the Middle East, but failed to mention the mountains of rubbish (that you will come across every 1000 metres).

He claimed that the programme in Alexandria was superior to that in SOAS and that the SOAS graduates could not speak Arabic. He should know (I thought), he studied in both places.

Before going out there, he insisted I study Egyptian Colloquial Arabic (ECA), but after I enrolled for both Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) and ECA, he explained that the colloquial course is rubbish and that I needed to sit in the smoke-filled coffee houses to learn the dialect (therefore, thanks to him, 850 US dollars immediately wasted in fees to a racist institute). He also wanted to send me Egyptian dramas (perhaps illegally downloaded), suggesting this is the way to learn.

Why then did he tell me to enrol at the TAFL center in Alexandria?

What was his motivation for deceiving me? Was he bored with his translation career. Is Dublin, Ireland not as exciting as he imagined? Did it anger him for not being able to find a job in London? Or does he regret not following a different career path; one that would sooner lead to a job in his hometown of Newcastle? Or was he fed-up of sharing apartments with strangers and not being able to afford a one-bed flat and save money at the same time. Or was it for his retarded ego?

With hindsight, I should have left him from day one. Back then (five years ago), Qadir was often abusing people, but perhaps we felt sorry for him because he started out his student life in London by sleeping on the buses. I also thought he genuinely wanted to be my friend and (much) later (on) wanted to help me sort out my career. I use to think that his rough side was due to his upbringing in Newcastle (never been there myself), but this was a misconception. He was simply aspiring to be a fountain of lies. I guess his definition of friendship was different from mine.

After Qadir returned from his year abroad in Alexandria, I was excited to meet up with him in Hampstead Heath (where is was staying), but he had an abusive attitude (that I had to correct before continuing) and I found him with a cigarette in his mouth, which I ignored (perhaps at my own peril), which I did not expect for a person who did not even want to go to the cinema with us. Was it really because he could not afford such entertainment, (but then how could he afford cigarettes)?

Another omen was when Qadir seconded the opinions of the mixed-heritage guy from Jordan, but later criticised him in a phone-call to me (as a way back into my life – I now realise). Much later, once he was confident again in his use of weasel words, he justified the Jordanian mixed-heritage guy’s retarded arguments or downright lies.

What did I do to deserve this? Had I not been a friend? He use to brag about being working-class and perhaps, for a while, I saw myself in him (not the bragging bit) – working my hardest to get out of poverty and then to culture myself and help others.

My father once said, that (as a child) he always preferred the poor over the rich. Perhaps that only works in the countryside or perhaps times have changed. Whatever the reason, now I know from experience, you cannot judge a person by their economic background.

At least a couple of times, I paid for his lunch/dinner and encouraged him to study hard and not concern himself with the lack of motivation of his rich-kid classmates, which he was becoming increasingly obsessed about (whose parents were always going to sort them out with money or a job).

I even invited Qadir to my parent’s home where he enjoyed my mother’s cooking, and my late father had sincerely welcomed him. However, none of this appears to have made a difference.

Three years from now, he will honour me with impoverishment and a ruined academic (and working) career. I suppose we should expect no less from somebody who aspires to be a munafiq.

The hypocrites will be in the lowest depths of Hell, and you will find no one to help them (4:145).