I hope this comic is true, anyway. I’m scheduling it before my plane has left, so inshallah I make it home without any delays!
Character: Stretch Longfellow
An American teacher in Egypt chronicling his experiences in comic form.
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Homeward Bound
And here’s Year 1 complete! THANK YOU for reading my silly little comic!
As I mentioned previously, I’m taking the summer ‘off’, posting quick Q&As instead of the usual comics. But regular comics will resume in September!
I’m posting this late from Kandersteg International Scout Centre, as the last week was CRAZY STRESSFUL. Moving to a new apartment and our school’s Moana production was crazy enough, but remember when my passport was stolen? Getting a new passport was easy. Getting a replacement visa so that I could prove that I was legally in the country in order to leave? Yeah, not easy. Managed to get it with SEVEN HOURS before I had to leave for Borg El Arab Airport.
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Good Morning
I was actually going to give the man a donation, but either he didn’t come by my place or I was out when he did. Usually I was able to just roll over and go back to sleep, and somehow I actually slept through his racket half the nights.
For those of you unfamiliar with Ramadan, it is (amongst other things) a period of fasting during daylight hours. Because of where Egypt falls in the time zone and that Ramadan landed near the summer solstice, this means in order to eat breakfast (and coffee), one has to get up SUPER early to finish the meal before sunup, hence the need for the wakeup call. Often a short nap follows breakfast.
Don’t forget to send me your questions for the summer Q&A!
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Eye Lasers
Okay, I know Egypt is not very advanced economically and there’s many factors in play, but COME ON AMERICA. Figure out your health care costs! Preferably before I move back, please.
Health care is really cheap here, but don’t take that as a drop in quality. Alexandria has a great reputation for their medicine, and several European countries will send their doctors here to study. Also, everything is specialized to the point where there aren’t really general practitioners (which is a right pain in the gluteals when trying to get a BSA health care form completed…).
Aml has been very generous in helping me navigate Egyptian doctor offices, especially FINDING them (not being able to read Arabic makes this difficult for me) and getting appointments set up. Most places do not book in advance, so that’s interesting.
If you’re not familiar, the character at the end is Jason Fox from the comic FoxTrot by Bill Amend (who is an Eagle Scout!). For some reason, every single time I go to the eye doctor, this FoxTrot comic pops into my head. I don’t know why it’s etched itself so firmly in my brain, but now I get to make my inside joke public.
I may be making a retraction on this comic at a later date; I’m having second thoughts about actually getting the ‘eye lasers’. I’m not entirely sure where the phrase ‘eye lasers’ originally came from, but my friend Steffan used it frequently and it stuck.
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The Modern Arabic World
So this one is a wee bit delayed compared to the actual event; I actually went to the UAE in February, but with the Survival Guide and then Meagan’s trip here, as well as other comics I wanted to make, it got delayed. I also debated about even showing it since it doesn’t really relate to Egypt, but I finally decided that I needed to show that not all of the Middle East is as third world as Egypt (although there are definitely parts that are much worse too!).
John and I only spent about three days in Dubai and Abu Dhabi, so it was quite a whirlwind! Dubai is definitely the most modern city I’ve ever been to, and Abu Dhabi is right behind. One thing I was fascinated by that didn’t make it into the comic was the diversity; only a small fraction of Emirate residents are actually Emirati. There are so many different cultures living there from all around the world! And just imagining the political hurdles of having most of one’s country be foreigners is fascinating.
Speaking of John, somehow this is only the first time he’s made it into the comic, and I’m glad he did as he will be returning to his home in New Zealand next year. He has been a fantastic principal to serve under; I couldn’t have asked for better. As mentioned in the comic, he did work in Abu Dhabi for some time (and yes, we did drive past where he lived only to find that it was gone), as well as Saudi Arabia.
If you didn’t see the news post below, I am looking for questions for a Q&A segment this summer. Send them to me!
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I’d Like to Buy a Vowel
Ref: Borg El Arab
Just throwing this out there: vocalizing the written word in a written comic is HARD.
Also throwing this out there: porgs are adorable. As soon as I saw the sign for Porg El Arab, I knew what I had to do.
You may have noticed that I’ve been putting more panels in recent comics. While it started by accident because I wanted to cram two strips into one to finish before Ramadan, I’ve been happier with the look this way. It may not be around for all comics, but for this one it works.
The street signs in Panel 4 do exist (slightly further apart, as there’s a tram line between them). Yes, it’s the same street name. That is also what the new Egyptian street signs look like, if you were curious. They have Arabic on them as well, but it turns out ClipStudio does NOT like Arabic (which is problematic for a strip like this one).
The narrator of my comic has been getting a lot of work done. Just don’t tell him I noticed or I’ll have to give him a raise. (You should give him a raise on my Patreon.) And don’t have him ask me how my Arabic lessons are going!
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Fasting
I have also learned that ordering food off of Otlob (a food delivery service that has around 100 restaurants on it) is pretty much a crap shoot during Ramadan. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t, and sometimes they accept the order and then the restaurant closes and who knows if you’ll get the food or not.
I had realized the food and water fasting, but it hadn’t quite clicked for me that this would also include coffee. Short of sleep + caffeine withdrawal = whee… Yet another reason I’m sort of thankful I was forced to give up caffeine.
I think this is the first time I’ve actually shown a generic student…in a comic about teaching in Egypt…huh. There are some reasons for this, which I will probably elaborate on in later comics.
(Wanna buy some black market water…?)
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Not All Days Are Good
Yeah, that wasn’t a good day, and not all of it even got into this comic. But huzzah for Aya taking me to the police station to get a police report and Momtaz for driving me to Cairo on short notice. And especially a shoutout to the after hours worker at the Embassy and the gentlemen who helped me through the paperwork when I got there; they made it as stress-free as it could be.
And hey, the plus side of carrying my passport in a wallet-like case is that the thief didn’t get my actual wallet!
I don’t have much trouble with roaches, but every once in a while one gets in. This one really chose a bad day.
When I have a bad start to my day, I always say what I did in Panel 2. Usually it works out.
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Egyptian Wedding II
AAH! I HAVE TO DRAW EXTRAS! NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!
…Ahem. Now that I’ve gotten that out of my system… One thing that was exciting about Meagan visiting was that we could go places together! Alas, dancing did not get to happen, as in Egyptian culture the men all dance on one side of the room and the women on the other. (This also describes American middle school dances, but for different reasons…) Sarah and Moustafa did get some dances together, but a lot of the time even they were separated.
This comic ends the strips about Meagan’s visit. Back to my ‘normal’ life next week! Also, stay tuned for the comic’s summer plans; I should be announcing those by the end of the month!
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Egyptian Wedding I
Meagan and I did enjoy attending Sarah and Moustafa’s wedding, but Egyptians definitely like things on the LOUD side!
I finally figured out how to free transform text in ClipStudio! Yay! This has been something that has been driving me crazy (but not crazy enough to Google it, apparently).