Cairo

It's been a couple days, which I've spent getting acclimated to our surroundings here in Cairo. Arabic class has continued to be a great experience, and I've slowly been able to practice my Arabic while out in the community; for instance, today we went on a search to find a new power cord for Brett's computer, and we were able to ask for and get directions in Arabic. Definitely a big step up from what I would have been able to do even a week ago.

Another thing that we've been working on is trying to put our service projects together. The original idea was that we'd be helping local businesses by creating websites for them, so that their products would be available to more people all across the globe. We've hit some snags, though; for instance, one of the sites we were supposed to help already has a website up and running. The other "snag" seems to be the issue of child labor associated with that same site, which is a carpet-making shop. My class was unfortunately unable to visit this site along with the rest of the group, so I didn't see what the conditions were like, but apparently some children are employed; as part of the deal, they go to school for 4 hours in the AM, get 2 meals a day, and work for a few hours, getting to keep wages too. I'll come back to this in a second.

The other place we might be working is called Stabl Antar. It's a poorer community set in the outskirts of greater Cairo. In a two minute drive, we went from seeing a Mazda M-3 to seeing dirt streets lined with trash, and bread lines (the pictures show scenes from the drive up). I have to say, and I don't mean to be callous in saying this, but I was expecting the community that we arrived in to be much worse off than it was in reality. I myself have seen people living in much, much worse conditions (one example- Batey Libertad was well off by the standard of bateys in DR, and it was worse than Stabl Antar).

Given all this, it was very interesting to listen to others speak at the debriefing meeting. I was very turned off by what seemed to be the majority opinion. Basically, everyone was saying how horrible it was and how they'd been turned off by the whole thing. The consensus seemed to be that although we might still work their, we'll more or less be judging them with our noses held high. I have several problems with this:

1- If your nose is in a perfumed hankie, you can't even smell the shit you're in, pardon the language. Let's tackle the full reality of the situation before we judge it.

2- These kids could have it so much worse. Like I said, I've seen worse myself. In many places all over the world, there are kids who don't even get the opportunity to go to school. Work is the only thing they know. And furthermore, they only get to eat if they can scrape together the money for a meal. I wish every kid in the world could enjoy the kind of childhood where they didn't have to worry about their next meal and if it would come, or where they could have fun and play in the yard instead of sewing carpets for hours. For those of you that know me, you know how much working at HSTF in the afterschool affected me. I love kids and I think that helping them is the best way to improve the future of the world. That said, these kids, while they still have far from an ideal upbringing, are still better off than many of their counterparts. In sum, I'm not saying we shouldn't help these kids or shop in which they work. What I object to is the attitude of the majority of this little American bubble- I understand that the group is concerned with the welfare of these kids, but to get to the heart of the matter, the imposition of our own values and judgments will not help us.

On to happier subjects, we experienced a (nearly) historical event here: RAIN! It was a very brief shower the other night, but I'm pretty sure it'll be the only time we see it on our trip.

We've been doing a bit of exploring every day that we're here; the other night we went to Mohandiseen (a neighborhood across the Nile) for dinner and walked home, and today we went to another spot in Mohandiseen in a futile attempt to find a computer cord for Brett. Along with all this exploring comes taxi rides. The picture here shows the six of us that went to dinner at Al-Omda the other night...yes, crammed into one taxi (if DR people are reading this...yes...exactly like a concho, only more expensive). Today's taxi ride, though, was ridiculous. First in a funny way, then in an I-fear-imminent-death way. Let's just say it involved driving backwards through many blocks as well as burning rubber and a near-incident with a Mercedes. I can safely say that although the cabby gave us his card, we will never be calling him.

Tomorrow's (today's now that I'm posting this) schedule includes a 6 hour tour of Islamic Cairo; it's for the Arabic 2 kids (my class) as well as a few Arabic 1 kids that want to hear some more Arabic spoken (the majority of the tour is still in English though). After the tour, we are going to a feast at Abduh and Hayaam's (I'm so excited, since I was sick the first time). I think today we did some good preparation for the tour; a few of us sat in the El-Sawy Cultural Center here on Zamalek between 11-2, which is when everyone goes to mosque (Friday is the holy day in the Islamic religion). The Cultural Center is right next to a mosque, so we could hear the sermon and the prayers (the picture shows a night shot of the Arabic script on the side of the mosque). I have no idea what was being said, but the sounds alone are beautiful and invoke a state of meditation within me. I'm sure that me not understanding it is in big part why I think it's beautiful (in addition to the fact that it is more musical than prayers in Christianity). A few of us were talking about the negative reactions we'd have if local churches started broadcasting their sermons for all and sundry to hear. It's really a remark on the cultural differences between our country and Egypt; here's it's just the culture that religion, which we consider part of private life, is really part of the public sphere. Anyway, I was also able to get a sound recording (the best that I've taken to date), and as long as I can edit out the bit of talking at the beginning, I will post here shortly.

On a last note, mosquitos suck.