Close Enough to Touch

Friday mornings in Cairo are truly blissful - as it is the holy day for Muslims, few people are on the roads and traffic (and thus honking) is at a minimum, and I have no class or work, so I can wake up leisurely late in the morning to the sound of the call to prayer. Though I eventually had to get down to laundry and homework (like any weekend day in college), in the afternoon I set off with the group to explore Coptic Cairo. As I said earlier, Copts are Christian Egyptians, and the majority of churches and Christian cemeteries are located in a particular part of town. We spent the afternoon walking around the shops and churches, particularly that of St. George, where people leave prayers and charity money in his crypt. The most interesting part of the trip to me, however, was the Coptic museum. While the ruins and artifacts were beautiful, the part of the museum that caught my attention was the structure of the museum itself. The building was overwhelmed with artifacts - pieces of paintings, pieces of tapestries, the capitals of columns, old books, pipes, lanterns, everything. A large portion of this historical stuff wasn't even encased behind glass or behind a velvet rope... it was just chilling in the middle of a big room. This utterly blew my mind - what was stopping me from touching this really ancient piece of stonework: absolutely nothing. I'm sure if someone saw me do it, I would have gotten in trouble, but that would have been after the fact. It would have been really easy to reach out and poke a Corinthian style column from the early monastic period. (And no, I didn't touch anything... let's be serious: I'm kind of a goody two-shoes when it comes to museum etiquette). Aside from the ease of touching things in the museum, there was little to no description of anything in the rooms. Not only were the plaques on individual pieces small and not very helpful, there were little to no signs of an overlapping theme for the room or an explanation of Coptic history. Of the few signs I saw, about half of them had exactly the same blurb (in English, Arabic, and French) about Coptic textile-production (mildly fascinating the first time, barely attention-grabbing the second, and it kept going down hill). As we left, thoroughly overwhelmed by the shear volume of stuff in the museum, we were chased down by a security guard who insisted on giving us a tour of one last room and then reminded us about 10 times that we had to tip security on our way out. To put the icing on the cake, later in the day I met some friends of our program director, one of whom knows an Egyptologist and informed me that all of the plaques in the Coptic museum are blatantly historically incorrect. Typical Cairo - so much to offer that in the end you wind up a bit confused.

Frustrations

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.

Lil Wayne Is Not Allowed to Teach English

So today was my first day of class... hooray! I know, it was supposed to be yesterday, however a massive power outage made my classroom unusable, so I had to postpone. Actually the process of spreading the word about the cancellation taught me an interesting lesson about Egypt: the infrastructure and information spreading mechanism is essentially non-existent. The whole question of whether we had class and whether our students knew was up in the air for an extended period of time. At one point I was on the phone with our community facilitator, who hadn't heard about the power outage, while my friend was on the phone with the program director, who said that the community facilitator was calling all the students. I think that this lack of structure and over organization that exists in my life at home is actually very descriptive of Egypt as a whole - the way that there is never one definite process of how to solve a problem (for example, why don't we have our own WiFi, even though we've called the company everyday), and the way that people always run late, and the fact that there aren't really crosswalks... the people and the cars just kind of flow together. Which sounds horrifyingly dangerous to my American view point, and it might be, but somehow it all just fits in Egypt - I think that living here in the Cairo heat without that kind of lax attitude would be miserable. But back to my teaching experience...

I was more than a tad nervous to start teaching these kids; although they all seem very sweet, making lesson plans is far more overwhelming than I had imagined. The class started out a little depressing - 15 minutes into the period only 4 students had shown up. However within the next 15, we had a full classroom. We got the kids started on some basic introductions ("Hi, my name is" and "Nice to meet you.") Even though I think most kids already knew these phrases, what they really need is practice and a chance to build confidence in their English speaking ability. We drilled these phrases again and again, and by the end I think most of the kids were a little bored with the subject matter, even if the activities were enjoyable. However there is one student who speaks almost no English, and he is one of the few students not from Eritrea in our group. That makes the class dynamic a little awkward - the students generally understand what we say, and then our community facilitator can translate the more complicated instructions into Tigrinya (their native language), but then he must explain the instructions again in Arabic to the one Sudanese student. However I think it'll all work out, and having one day of teaching under my belt makes me more comfortable planning lessons for the future. At the end of the class, we asked the students for their suggestions - anything they wanted to talk about in particular, places we could go on class trips, songs or TV shows that want to watch or understand better. The responses we got in regard to song requests were the following (in the order they were told to us): Eminem, Eminem, Eminem, Lil Wayne, Miley Cyrus, Hannah Montana (who is the same person as Miley Cyrus, but whatever), and Bryan Adams. Personally, I'm all for teaching pop culture to these kids, but under no circumstances will Lil Wayne teach anyone English - the hard-ass grammarian in me will not allow it. Maybe, just maybe, I will find a heavily edited version that lacks egregious grammatical mistakes, and we can sing a few lines, but I think that might be pushing it. "Summer of '69" it is... gotta run for now, I have to be up early and head to Ana Al-Misri. Masa al-khair!

Blood, Sweat, and Tears

Day Two of work at Ana Al-Misri. Though today was slightly more structured, it was still a bit of mayhem. I started the morning working in the computer lab, which honestly made me feel useless. There were only about 5 kids in there and far too many staff with me and another girl from my program, and most of the kids knew how to get to the games they wanted to play anyway. Then a bit of time in the art room, also not doing much with the kids but brainstorming possible projects we could do with them. Then came the true insanity - helping out in the nursery. They are almost finished constructing the room that will be their kindergarten, so until then the littlest children are stuck in one small room with almost nothing to do. I didn't really blame them for their rambunctious behavior, but most of it included them trying to escape the room, and unfortunately they usually succeeded. There was a door and a window accessible to them, neither of which locked, and they skillfully planned their jailbreaks to confuse the short-staffed room. There simply weren't enough people to guard the door and the window and go after the escapees all at once. I should mention that during all of this the kids would spontaneously beat up on each other at random, requiring some adult intervention to make them stop. Eventually we gave up keeping them in the room and took them out to the courtyard area, where each of us would be in charge of keeping our eyes on a few of the children. As soon as we got out there, I noticed that one boy had run out to a soccer field and through a door that turned out to lead out of the building entirely. I chased him down and carried him back, but of course he didn't give up that easily. He came back to try another escape multiple times, finally biting me in the leg (and, I noticed later, drawing blood through my pants) in his frustration. I was helped by another staff member, one of the many Brazilians working there, who took the child away for a stern talking to. Let me explain the Brazilian involvement - Ana AL-Misri's program is the first of its kind in Egypt, and therefore the organizers of the NGO were uncertain how to run a successful center for street children. However, they were able to contact an organization in Brazil with a similar mission, so these Brazilians all worked at this sister center and are here to develop the Egyptian model further. However, they are as of now unsure of exactly how to structure everything to fit into Egyptian culture, most noticeably when it comes to discipline. Once I understood that the organization lacked a specific disciplinary procedure, everything made much more sense, and I didn't feel so bad about not having real (or any) control over the kids. Hopefully I'll adjust as the organization itself grows and becomes more developed, and hopefully (or as they say in Egypt, "in sha Allah," by the grace of God) in the future not all of the blood, sweat, and tears from any given day will be mine (although there were no tears from me today, just from some of the kids; and sadly sweat is kind of unavoidable in the Egyptian heat).

Later in the afternoon, we had our registration session for our English class, which starts tomorrow. We had ten students come in today, who we successfully interviewed. It turns out that the Iraqi students won't be coming to our center after all, but I'm sure it will still be a very interesting and thought provoking experience. After registration, one of the other girls in our group, my teaching partner, and I met two other teachers at St. Andrews. These two women teach French, and were ecstatic to hear that we were from America, and immediately asked if we could meet and practice our English. Our community facilitator Jamal, who is always quick to recommend my Arabic abilities, said that we would meet with them only if we can practice our Arabic as well. I'm looking forward to setting up that meeting and getting to know some other people in Cairo.

On our way home, I stopped to get a sandwich, and the cook preparing my food asked me where I was from. When I said the US, he got very excited and started praising Obama, then looked at me very seriously and asked, "Bush or Obama?" When I told him I voted for Obama, he immediately perked up again and continued to talk about Obama and his quest for peace. Other students in my program have had similar experiences. One girl told some Egyptians she was working with that she was from Texas, and they immediately got suspicious and said, "You're from Bush country?!" They conferred quietly among themselves while she sat dumbfounded, until they turned back to her and one said, "Don't worry. You're with friends." I knew that Egyptians (as well as many Africans) love our president, but I didn't realize that these concerns about Bush would continue so far past the 2008 election!

Always Smile At a Man With a Gun

Today was slightly more relaxing than the past few have been, but I still had an Arabic lesson in the morning and attended a lecture at night. During the discussion part of our class, we got onto the topics of political correctness and swine flu. It was nearly impossible to describe political correctness in Arabic - it is so foreign to all other cultures and my Arabic vocabulary did not include words like "offend," so I'm not sure our teacher understood. Even Google Translate couldn't save us on this one, although our teacher tried looking up the term. Then we somehow got on the topic of swine flu. For those of you who don't know, following the swine flu epidemic of last winter, the Egyptian government chose to slaughter all of the pigs in Cairo in order to prevent spread of the disease. However, it is not possible to contract swine flu from pigs; the human disease is merely a mutation of a disease that used to affect pigs. Our teacher, who is neither uneducated nor unintelligent, did not actually believe us when we told her that you couldn't get swine flu from eating pork. Then we started (or attempted) a long biological explanation, which was less than successful.

Later in the afternoon, we drove an hour out of the city to the American University of Cairo for a lecture by Prof. Abdullah Schleifer, formerly a conflict reporter for various print and television media. He was self-admittedly a little crazy, but his lecture about the challenges of reporting on catastrophes was very interesting. He gave many anecdotes about shady meetings in Beirut, barely escaping death, and his many other life experiences. Even more intriguing were his allusions to an earlier stage of his life, when he may have been (if I read between the lines correctly) in the Cuban military fighting for the Communists. He told us that he only had one rule which had kept him alive all these years: "always smile at a man with a gun." Prof. Shleifer was by far one of the craziest individuals I've ever met, and his lecture certainly inspired me to pursue more adventures in my life.

Two Sides of a City

Over the last 24 hours, I've witnessed the two extreme living situations that exist in Cairo - the very wealthy and the very poor. The dichotomy is striking and actually a little scary. Don't get me wrong - I love Cairo for all its frustrations. Although sometimes the heat, the dust, the crowdedness, and the nonstop honking of the cars can get to me, I love this city: the friendliness of its people, its weirdly twisting and broken sidewalks, the breeze as you walk the bridge across the Nile, and the way the call to prayer echoes tinnily through the streets everyday. Regardless, I can't help but acknowledge the huge disparity in the circumstances of Cairo's people.

Last night, I went with the rest of the group to the Four Seasons Hotel located right on the Nile to watch the Uruguay-France soccer game. This place was incredible - we watched the game outside on a deck overlooking their pool (I think we were about 6 stories up) on two of at least 10 TVs lined up in the same area. We watched the game and ate their delicious food and drank fancy drinks on plush sofas. The whole experience was amazing in its luxury (although the game could have been better... it ended up a 0-0 draw).

Today was packed - 4 hours of class in the morning (actually discussing poverty and extravagance in Cairo, fittingly enough for the purposes of this post), then we left almost immediately for Ana Al-Misri (an NGO that I volunteer at). This was our first day of work there, where we will be playing with and interacting with children who used to live on the streets of Cairo. The place was about to explode with enthusiasm for our presence. As soon as I walked into the introduction/reception room where the kids were waiting, one bold girl named Khalud came up, took my hand, and led me to a seat next to her. As we walked to the arts and crafts room 20 minutes later, not only did Khalud have me by the hand, but so did another girl and a third was clutching my waist and steering me through the halls from behind. Though we were only at Ana Al-Misri for a few hours, we certainly felt as much love as we could take from these kids and left both exhausted and exhilarated. Afterward however, we started to realize the sadness of the situations that many of these children had come from as we shared stories from the day. We all received notes from the staff about children we shouldn't touch or carry because they had had negative experiences in the past with abuse, and we saw some children (new to the center) who grabbed 10 pieces of cake to hoard, because they were so used to the concept of meals being few and far between. The experience was certainly fun and exciting, but also very thought provoking, especially when compared to the lavish way I'd spent my evening yesterday. At this point, I certainly haven't come to any conclusions or insights about the intense class stratification in Cairo, and such probably won't come until later in the trip (or at least until I have caught up on sleep some).

The night ended with a few of us watching the US-England soccer game in a koosheri restaurant near our apartment, which was fun if a little awkward - the workers in the restaurant thought our cheering was hysterical and actually recorded us watching the game at one point. Most Egyptians root against America, but there is one country that all Egyptians are united against in terms of soccer - Algeria, so it will be very interesting to see who they support when the US plays Algeria in a few weeks!

All That Beef - Wrapped in Culture

Sorry about yesterday's lack of post! I had a bit of a late night, and I was just not up to the task. But as today will be spent lounging around the apartment doing laundry and homework (just like a Sunday back at school), I have plenty of time to fill you all in.

Yesterday morning we returned to St. Andrew's to observe some classes and work more on our lesson plans. The class I went to was absolutely adorable - they were studying parts of speech and doing an activity to sort words into their different categories. They argued animatedly over where each word went, and each possessed an enthusiasm for learning not found in the typical classroom. At one point, one student turned to me and said, "Excuse me what does SOOR (sour) mean?" I attempted to explain by talking about lemons and making a face. By the end of the class, all three of us observing were caught between a glowing kind of happiness and the urge to cry - these precious, excited kids don't have an easy road to travel, and many waste away their lives in Cairo dreaming of a resettlement that will never come. Realizing the state of these kids' lives hammered in the gravity of our task over the next 7 weeks and didn't really help with my anxiety over starting classes. However, a pep talk from Fiona, the director of our program at St. Andrew's, did much to calm my nerves - she told us that even if they don't learn a lick of English or Arabic, what we are bringing to them is a safe space where they can feel at home and form a community, which could radically change their lives in Cairo for the better. Though this task is just as huge, this emphasis certainly takes the pressure off my ability to write lesson plans.

After St. Andrew's, we stopped to grab lunch, and while looking at the menu an old woman in the street started talking to me in Arabic, patting my back, and gesturing to the sky. She was talking too fast for me to understand, and I immediately started panicking that I was doing something wrong - was my shirt too tight? Should I not be walking around with other guys from the program? Was she unhappy that my hair was uncovered? However, it turns out she was merely praying for me to find a good husband.

Later that night, I went out with two other girls from my program to grab dinner, and then meet an Egyptian friend of ours. We went to eat at McDonald's, which is pretty classy in comparison to Mickey D's back home. Their signature dish is the McArabia - 2 hamburger patties in a pita with some kind of yogurt sauce, lettuce, and tomato - which bears the slogan "all that beef wrapped in culture." It's alright (although some people on my program rave about it), but honestly I'd much rather stick to Egyptian street food - far more authentic and far cheaper. As we walked around waiting for our friend, we got an uncommon amount of stares. It is typical for men to call out to women here, but this amount of ogling and muttered discussion was out of the norm. We eventually realized that their interest was sparked from the diversity of our little group: one Arab girl who might or might not have been Egyptian (she's not, but most people couldn't tell), one black Muslim wearing a hijab, and me - obviously very white and western. The people we passed were all trying to figure us out: "How did they find each other? Is she Egyptian? But that one's definitely a foreigner..." etc. When we finally met our friend, we drove up to the Moatam, a mountain that overlooks the whole city. The view was spectacular, though unfortunately we couldn't make out the pyramids through the pollution. We spent the night chatting and laughing around a little plastic table in the breeze. We made it home as the sun was rising, and I slept all morning before waking up to work on my homework. Tonight, we're getting together as a group to watch some of the World Cup.. if only I can get my work done before then!