Since planning our move here, two elements of “settling in” have seemed the most daunting: finding an apartment and learning Arabic. The former was most stressful for me, since language learning happens over a long period of time, so needless to say, I’ve spent a lot of time praying for (and, admittedly, fretting over) a place to live. The good news is, we found a place! But I have to tell the full story to do it justice…

It was recommended to us when we arrived that we contact a local agency that helps ex-pats find apartments. We were leery of using them because these apartments are usually overpriced, but we went anyway, and sure enough, they had only two apartments in our budget. Both were slightly run down and in a terrible area, so we said “no thanks” and left. We knew we had to get creative to find what we wanted. The next day we went to two neighborhoods that sounded good, Cleopatra and Mustafa Kemal. Cleopatra was more interesting and closer to the sea, so we decided we wanted to find a place there. While walking in Cleopatra we saw an open pharmacy (it was the Eid holiday) and I asked Gabriel if he wanted to go ahead and get something he needed there. We went in, and to our delight, the pharmacist spoke excellent English. We bought our Neosporin and asked the pharmacist, Amed, how he liked the area. When we told him we were looking for a place, he said “hold on” and went outside. He came back three minutes later with a man named Mohammed.

Mohammed was the “samsar” for this street in Cleopatra. A samsar is a sort of unofficial realtor and nearly every street has someone who acts at the samsar. Mohammed took us from one flat to another, but none were what we were looking for. One flat had a woman inside and so we awkwardly walked through her home while her kids ran around after us. She had even set out a little bowl of peanuts and some Pepsi for us. The next apartment had a man praying inside when his wife opened the door. She invited us in anyway, and we gingerly walked around him, trying not to interrupt. After he was finished praying they had us sit down and whipped out the cookies and made tea. We watched soccer and had a limited conversation for almost 45 minutes with them. They were wonderfully kind, but the most notable thing about their flat was actually the furniture; the sofa and love seat had the most horrific upholstery. Literally, it was brown and white cow print. It was also small and dark, and the balcony overlooked a car park, so we said thanks but no thanks, and left. We saw five or six more and were weary of it, but he said he had one more to show us, so we followed him.

It was three bedrooms and quite spacious. The kitchen was okay, but needed new appliances. The furniture was horrible, and too large for the space, and the balcony, which was huge, overlooked another car park. Gabriel said he was okay with this one, but I was reluctant. It wasn’t everything I wanted, but we had seen so many and Mohammed said he had no more to show us, so I started to wonder if I was just being too picky. We told Mohammed we would call him the next day.

I felt like taking it was settling, yet I felt almost hopeless about finding something else, and looking at one after another was exhausting, especially because Mohammed spoke no English, so we were using my limited Arabic and hand signals. We prayed about it and decided to wait and try to see more. We also prayed that God would send us an English speaker to help us find a place.

We kept walking in Cleopatra and saw a couple of buildings that, on the outside, looked nice. We walked to a gelatto shop and approached a man sitting outside. We asked in English if there were any flats for rent in these buildings. To our surprise, he responded in impeccable English. There were none for rent in these buildings, he said, but Yahyah, the samsar for that street, would be able to tell us. He told us where to find Yahyah the next day. We left slightly encouraged.

The next morning we set out to find Yahyah. The streets are relatively deserted in the morning, so we asked the only person we saw where to find samsar Yahyah. Right as we asked, Yahyah walked by and the man called him over. Yahyah was stressful to be around from the beginning. He was loud, short with us, and appeared kind of angry. He spoke no English, and he thought that by yelling in Arabic we would understand what he was saying. No dice. We went with him several apartments, all of which were AWFUL. One, in particular, was exceptionally bad. The building had no elevator so we climbed eight flights of stairs to see it, and when we went inside, it was filthy. There was nothing in the kitchen but a sink and trash; no cabinets, appliances, counters, nothing. The rooms were tiny and hot, and the furniture was worn and flimsy. The balcony overlooked a trash dump, and there were cats running around in the garbage. Yahyah tried to sit us down to discuss it, but we gave him an adamant “no.” Gabriel pointed at the map to the area closer to the sea and used his limited Arabic to say we wanted something with a sea view. Yahyah, exasperated, ushered us out.

He had nothing to show us with such a view, so we just walked around the streets with him. I was despairing that we were going to have to take the apartment Mohammed had shown us, but I was trying to remind myself that God had worked many miracles to get us to that point, and that even finding the pharmacist, the guy at the cafe, and Yahyah, were miracles. Suddenly a man approached us and began talking to Yahyah and leading us down a side street. We followed them back to the building with the cow print furniture!

We tried to say “we’ve seen this one,” but Yahyah insisted we come up. This time we went to the 11th floor, so it was a different flat. When we walked inside, we were surprised. It was almost completely unfurnished, but it was being remodeled. The kitchen had new cabinets and granite counter top that were being installed. The living and dining rooms had fresh paint and nice molding along the ceiling. The bedrooms- three of them- had wood floors and large windows. There were two balconies, one which overlooked Cleopatra, and the other gave us the most lovely view of the Mediterranean. It was the cleanest, nicest apartment we had seen in Egypt, and the price was right, below what we budgeted! Needless to say, we liked it. After an hour of “discussion” in English and Arabic with the landlord’s nephew and Yahyah, we decided to take it.

That was last Friday. Yesterday, we signed the contract and in two days we will get the keys and move in. This was a long post, but I really wanted to communicate how guided we felt in this whole process. Even in the contract signing there was Grace shown to us, and we believe that God is going to continue to guide us here. We just have to persist, and be patient, and most importantly, trust Him.  If you read all of this, I commend you, and you must come visit us!