Living and Working as an Expat in Cairo, Egypt | Expats Everywhere

hello and welcome to expats everywhere if you could tell us your name where you're from and a little about yourself my name is Ilya I'm originally from Clemson South Carolina and I'm working as a teacher in Egypt for the past six and a half years wow that's awesome and what are the countries have you worked in honestly I mean besides the United States just Egypt I came here and I fell in love with it and just never left and what's it like working in Egypt it's great it's a it's a very strong community and the best thing about working here are the friendships that you build the Egyptian people are very very hospitable and warm and definitely they love bringing people in and making them a part of the community okay well we target english-speaking expats so what kinds of jobs are available for english-speaking expats there so of course most of the people that you meet here that our expats are going to be teachers this is just the main thing there are other other jobs I do have a relative or an in-law who works in medical devices he's American but he came and he's working in medical devices as an engineer there's also a lot of people who will have jobs contracted at them in construction oil I'm working in banks of course people who work as ambassadors that sort of thing and what are some of the predominant nationalities most of the people that I've the I'm an acquaintance with are either from the UK Canada or the United States now I also know I've we've had people from Romania from India from Australia and New Zealand I mean it's very international but most of the time American Canadian or from UK well let's look at you specifically what is it a typical day look like for you at your job my job well um everyday is actually thank goodness it's very different you never know what could come with Egyptian people they are definitely energetic and um so for me it's just different challenges that come for example we've decided oh we've seen something new that's related to Egypt we want to check that into the curriculum or we have just a very normal day we're just kind of everything's going spine but one day to the next it's very it's very different it can be very different okay what time do you get your day started what time you finish and what do you do after hours okay well first things first is every day I'm very lucky that there is a drive-through Starbucks right down the street so every morning no matter what we go through the drive-through at Starbucks and I have to be at school at 7:30 and the day last I'd leave about at about 3:00 and I usually get home I don't live I don't live far off so it takes me about 15 minutes to get home now other expats because I don't live in the expat area most expats are in a place called Maya deep and it's in the city and on a good day it could take you about 30 minutes to get there on a bad day I couldn't take like if there's a car accident or something you could be on there for a good hour and a half to two hours and that's one reason why I don't choose to live there I like being close close by yeah so you said a lot of the expats live in that certain area and you're you're married to an Egyptian so you're choosing to live elsewhere yeah yeah I am choosing to live elsewhere we lived now I lived for five years in the city now right now I'm living outside the city in a place called Alva Hub City it's really nice it's gated very very secure I lived in a place called Holly Ollis which is inside the city and I was commuting every day I just got sick of it and last year I said to my husband we gotta move that's it and so we packed up in one month and we moved we moved here and it's a big difference from living inside the city to living outside the city talking about a teaching position how much can you expect to earn in Cairo okay obviously it's gonna differ based on your years experience and your degree so but obviously someone who's just starting out and only has their bachelor's degree is going to be probably a lot less and the mistakes that a lot of people make when they go to these fairs as they look at that offer that's originally presented to them not realizing that the cost of living in Egypt is very very low and so yes maybe that offer seems low but when you take into account how much you're gonna save it ends up being actually more than what you would be able to say working as a teacher in the United States or the UK or Canada yeah we try to tell teachers a lot of times to look at the savings rate not necessarily what your salary is gonna be yeah absolutely it's it's it's a lot honestly you're able to save a lot I know so many people that got themselves out of debt by coming and working here can you give us a general salary range that people should look for um I mean it's definitely gonna differ from school to school I'm definitely out for schools that are new because generally schools that are new don't have an established faculty or administration you want a school that's been around for a while I mean I can tell you I would expect anywhere between for someone who's just starting out maybe between 23 to 30 someone who only has maybe one or two years of teaching and then a bachelor's degree and then obviously if you got like I got my master's and stuff and I've been teaching for a while so obviously that went up you know a good deal okay so 23 thousand to thirty thousand USD for someone who yah USD now keep in mind that a lot of schools now are not paying 100 percent of the salary in USD but that whatever that percentage that they're giving you in EGP Egyptian pound you'll use for daily expenses and that sort of thing okay because of the currency fluctuation they're more hesitant now well that's what happened the and it was good for us expats because suddenly our dollar I mean the dot the Egyptian pound used to get you could you could get six pounds for one dollar and then suddenly of course economy collapsed and it went up to nineteen now it's it's been steady at seventeen point five around there for the last year hasn't really moved but still that's really good for someone who is getting paid in dollars okay let's look at the middle of that range you gave let's go with twenty-six thousand USD if you're making twenty six thousand USD how much could someone save with that I mean it depends on how what the way that you live so a lot people who especially single people when they come they get here and they realize oh my gosh too much traveling I can do because you're really in the middle of ever globally I mean Europe is you know a four-hour plane ride you have so many cool trips you can take like to Tanzania and and go to Cape you know go to South Africa I mean ages right there so it depends on how you live somebody who is is seriously like they're really working to save I mean if you're getting let's say you know twenty five you could probably save fifteen to twenty of that if you're if you're really watching because it really especially because most schools pay for your housing and they pay for your transportation so really all that you're paying for is food and maybe medicine if you have to go to the doctor that sort of thing that is a super savings right yeah and then also keep in mind you really don't do shopping here and clothes clothes shopping here is really really expensive I mean I take home every year to empty bags and fill them up and bring them back you don't do shopping here okay we'll touch on that in just a little bit but do you think that having twenty six thousand is enough and what kind of lifestyle can you live oh it's definitely enough and as if when you're starting out no after you've been going at it a while and you've accumulated your degrees obviously you will you will expect more and after expect that with your master's degree it is a huge bump up usually so I live I if I'm being 100% honest and this is frustrating to my husband I don't really watch what I'm I don't look at the prices of things when I go into the supermarket or whatever we go to a restaurant just kind of whatever when he's like you're not gonna even look where's the receipts I don't know I don't know where the receipt is so but I'm still saving a lot because that's the the cost of living here so low but at the same time you can live really well and those things that you wouldn't be able to do in the United States like have someone come in to clean and clean your house have all of your clothes sent out for dry cleaning all the time take you know go to the hair salon and get a manicure get your hair done all the time I mean these things you don't normally do all time here it's a part of life you know to have these things these things on a daily basis on a regular basis and even with all of that you're still saving a lot it's pretty good yeah I think when you're saving like mad like that and living a lifestyle where you don't have to look at price tags you're living a high quality of life yeah yeah definitely that's why I'm um and they stay here for most of my friends who are not Egyptians have been here yeah 8 10 12 years because they come here and they love the the life here hmm you talked earlier about taking two empty suitcases home let's talk about packing how should someone pack to move there and then what's the weather like okay so you need to pack everything from a bikini to a really SuperDuper heavy sweater because in the summer it's hot and you're gonna go to the beach like the there's a beach really nice Beach City called ina sofa that's only an hour and a half away from here and we drive down on the weekends and have a nice nice holiday but in the winters I have to tell you I I don't the winters here are harder than for me the winters in the states because of the buildings they're not insulated they're built of concrete so they act like refrigerators and it's colder inside than it is outside okay what are some things that you can't find in Egypt that you recommend people should bring um you can pretty much find everything there are little things like I'm from the south so I love dr. pepper and so meek up stumbling across the can of dr. pepper is like finding gold but most of the things you can you can find here and if you don't find them you learn to replace them with other cool things that that they have here like when I moved here I didn't really know Nutella even existed and they dip everything in Nutella here so and they do the coolest things I would say there really isn't that much that you can't find here okay well what's your coping mechanism for your dr. pepper cheery cool I just replace it but I have it now they are starting to get it more I know I know where to go and if I'm really willing to go that like 10 minutes extra Drive out of the way to get it I will pop mine and get it dr. Lee nice let's switch gears and talk about safety how safe is it there and do you feel safe on a personal level oh absolutely I feel very very safe now where I'm living in particular is very safe one it's a gated city and in order to get into the city you have to have either a card or a scanner on your card and if you don't have one of those you have to go into one of the visitors gates where they actually take a picture of your license plate so they know you know the people that are in this video are allowed to be there so if something happens they lock it down nobody can get out very very safe and but even I've never been in a situation where I felt unsafe I just came back from a week-long long field trip in the desert in the western desert this week actually and I felt unbelievably safe No zero zero hesitation and doing anything wonderful and you made it back to do this interview so there we go so why do you think they have these big gated checks um one I think it's just out of precaution and in one thing you'll know Cairo in the suburbs it's a lot of gated compounds a lot of that they are within gated compounds the street or cleaner things are more control whereas when you're not on a gated area people are you know you'll find that maybe there's more trash on the ground people are parking wherever that sort of thing it's um it is partially for safety but it is also about okay this is an area where the quality of living is a little higher then perhaps somewhere else okay got it well how do you meet people and what do you do for fun well we do a lot of things for fun and I meet I meet people in so many different ways one I meet through we're member of a sporting Club and it's not just for sports I mean they have like a clubhouse and restaurants and all of that and I meet people I take yoga classes Zumba classes I went to go take some Chi robux classes and that sort of thing I meet people there obviously my work friends are probably my closest friends and then through them we meet other people I took language course when I came here I was sick of not being able to speak to people so I went and took an Egyptian Arabic course and I met that it was it was super fun and then you one thing is that you'll find yourself meeting people through people because Egyptians are very keen especially with foreigners they love they love meeting foreigners and and talking to them about their lives and oh really you like living in Egypt really and they're they're shocked to hear that that we like it so I we meet lots of people it's not hard to make friends at all that's awesome what's the visa process like for moving to Egypt it's not fun definitely dealing American the Egyptian embassy is not it it's not always the easiest to get in contact with um for me it wasn't so it wasn't so difficult but I would say for others I've heard I've heard stories where okay it took a little bit of time but it's definitely worth it to go ahead because when you start doing things most schools do trips and things like that so if you don't have your proper work visa in place it can cause a lot problems you can cause a lot of problems school it's just better to make sure that you get it done doesn't take it's it's not a fun process but once you get it done it's just you know week off your shoulder how's the health care system like and would you feel comfortable getting your procedure done there I actually have I my first year here and my husband died we got pregnant with our first child and I actually got a really bad food poisoning and the hottest one of the hottest summers on record and I was stupid went out and ate at a restaurant and oh no you know and I got food poisoning and I actually had to be put in the hospital it was the same any hospital that I would be in the States if anything those ladies know how to put an IV in really well without any pain at all I mean and very clean first-rate health care III have no problem I have no problem at all going to an any any hospital here or most I mean you know which ones are better and which ones are gonna have the best care but I had LASIK done here it was really it was really great how much was that for me it was at the time it was 3000 Egyptian pounds and at the time the pound was about around 10 so it was about 300 bucks three four hundred dollars super cheap yeah super cheap yeah okay it's awesome I had mine done in South Korea and it was about 500 USD and I so you got a better deal no I had both well I had both but you know they give the prices per eye so yeah they're not funny you kind of touched on this earlier and I think I know the answer but do you think that Egypt is a good travel hub why or why not amazing it's the best travel hub because you are in the middle of everything I mean we and this is the thing my husband and I travel internationally a lot two times a year minimum and and if we have it for our 10 days of Spring Break I maybe we might do an international trip this year we're not we're keeping it in Egypt or take it we're still taking a plane we're going to a place called har geta for the kids for the waterpark but we we've gone from Egypt we've gone to we've gone to London we've gone to Venice we've gone to we go to Berlin a lot we went to Prague over over winter break we go we travel a lot so and it's because Europe is four hours pretty much ever take an hour anywhere you're going and I mean Asia is a little bit farther yes obviously if you're gonna go so much like Bali or go to India or something like that but it's so central to everything brilliant well let's wrap it up here what are the pros and cons of living in Cairo Egypt okay I'll start with annicon so we can end on the positive note sure um the cons definitely will be adjusting to things culturally that are different that you wouldn't think you don't realize while you're living in the States like for example traffic lights or people actually getting in a line inside a supermarket those little things in the beginning will kind of you'll be a little frustrated but eventually you get used to it okay this is just the way it is the pros are definitely one the people amazing the you build lifelong relationships while you're here too the quality of life that you can have for next to no money and the ability to save and in three the opportunity to travel and experience things like desert camping and safari and you know canoeing on the Nile and you know mountain climbing any of these sort of things that you probably might not experience living you know in the United States or Canada or something like that that's so awesome Aliyah thank you so much for stopping in with us and doing this interview guys she actually saw our interview with Randal another interview we did about Cairo and just felt compelled to write us and thanked us for that video and we want to thank you for doing this video we really appreciate you contributing to this community thank you thank you so much as my pleasure and if you guys want any makeup tips for little bits and bobs about Egypt you need to pop over to her channel we'll put that in the description below so you guys can check out her channel thank you so much talk to you later you

Channel: ExpatsEverywhere

Views: 33,481

Keywords: expats, living abroad, expatseverywhere, 4inship, life strategist, theexpattraveller, Cairo, Egypt, Cairo Egypt, living and working in Egypt, money, making money, salary, saving money, things to do, travel hub, safety, where to live, job opportunities

Id: 57XGMLEvscs

Length: 19min 47sec (1187 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 13 2019