Tonight we had our weekly reflection dinner, where we get together as a group to discuss how our week was, our progress in all our projects, what we still have to accomplish, etc. However, tonight's discussion was more like an airing of our grievances with the program itself. The main problem we are all facing is that no one except for the 13 students and our 2 advisers truly understands the scope of all that we are doing. Our program has three separate segments: taking intensive Arabic language classes, teaching English to refugees, and then our additional NGO work (street kids at Ana Al-Misri for me). Our contacts at each of these sites behave as though theirs is the only responsibility we have while in Egypt, and any one segment could make for a fulfilling study/work abroad experience on its own. Yet as we stand now, none of us have time to do 3 hours of Arabic homework and go to a church to interview Coptics (Christian Egyptians) and extensively plan lessons, including going downtown to check out library resources and make photocopies, and devise games and art projects on the side. The result is the feeling that all of our responsibilities suffer, and that we can never do our best at one thing because we are being pulled in so many directions. And this leads to another question - if we can't provide the best English classes (or whatever) possible, then why are we here? Why am I bothering to do (or try to do) so much, when inevitably I can't succeed in all three? Part of the answer, at least as I see it now, is my own exposure to the system present in the Middle East and the creation of new bonds and bridges between communities. However all that seems to be in the distant future, and the practical stresses of this life have left all of us a little frustrated.
If it's any help at all, you should know that last summer in Kenya all of us went through a very similar thing. Everyone in our group - and from the sound of it, yours too - went in with certain expectations about what they were going to do but then quickly found that realities about Kenya and/or the program we were working in wouldn't allow it. I think a huge part of dealing with something like that is managing your own expectations about the products of your effort. One of the things that really helped me through this sort of issue was something that our site leader kept hammering into our heads - how can what you are doing be expanded upon by someone else after you leave? What fundamental (albeit incremental) change are you making? Even if you can't make the best lesson plans ever, if you record your thoughts, experiences, and ideas and make them available to others who might do the same thing, you will have done something powerful. Just my $0.02.
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