Dialogues and Dervishes

Monday we experienced our second dialogue at the Fulbright Commission. I have to say, I enjoyed it much more this time. We were grouped with the same people as last week, and I can only guess that the dynamic in our room changed because the conference table was taken away- it’s amazing how much better the conversation flowed once that symbol of formality was gone. We ranged from religion (again) to drugs in both societies, but spending the majority of time comparing the school systems in both countries…it honestly sounds like the Egyptian system might be better. Tuition here is only 300 pounds a year...this translates to $60 American. Insane. After our dialogue session, everyone had dinner together. Then the majority of us, both Americans and Egyptians, headed down to the Nile for a nighttime felucca ride. I definitely lucked out on boat choice; we were on the party boat. The Egyptian guys had brought a tabla, a type of drum, and we were all singing and dancing out on the Nile. It was such a relaxed setting and it made it easy to get to know people. One of the girls is a dancer, and she does a lot of Latin-Arabic fusion stuff, so Rebecca and I are excited about going out with her some weekend here.

The excitement didn’t end there. A few of us went with the guys to ride horsese to the pyramids at midnight. The few glimpses that we saw of the pyramids indicated that it would have been a beautiful sight…if we weren’t riding the craziest horses in the world. Less than 5 minutes into our ride, Katharine’s horse attacked mine, and they were both bucking around for a while. (Note- Don’t wear flip-slops (shibshib, in Arabic) to ride horses…). Our guide said our horses didn’t like each other. So when we calmed down, we tried to continue. Only a few seconds later, a bunch of the horses started going crazy and biting each other, bucking around, and generally scaring the shit out of me. A few of us lost our nerve at that point, and we ended up walking back to the stables in defeat. Still worth the experience, and I was glad that the guys with us were so understanding about everything.

I’ve been in classes since then, and tonight we spiced it up by going to see a performance by the Whirling Dervishes. The Dervishes are a sect of Sufi Muslims, and the whole idea is that their dancing brings them closer to Allah. Gotta say, I’m a fan of any religion that involves dancing to experience union with the divine, and I don’t mean that sarcastically. It was an incredible show that we saw tonight, and I would recommend it to anyone. The musical accompaniment was equally as stunning as the dancing itself. Since it’s now going on 1:30 AM, I’ll leave you with this video to enjoy!

Weekend of Adventures

Thursday night was chock-full of diplomatic missions, beginning with our time at the American Embassy. Immediately, we had to surrender any electronic devices before going through a metal detector. We were then escorted in to a library. For the next hour and a half, we met with three employees, who gave us what felt like the typical line- “represent America abroad, pride in serving your nation”, etc. I’m not opposed to the Foreign Services, but I think that the jobs these people had were very ironic- all of their positions revolved around the fostering of cultural understanding. For me, serving this administration (or many American administrations of the past) would basically be a sell-out of many values that I hold important. Also due to the fact that the people with whom we met were employed in the Cultural Affairs section, we didn’t have a whole lot of luck engaging them in political discussions of substance. Most of us were much more interested in getting some dinner before heading to our second engagement.

The Arab was much more interesting, if this picture of me at the Iraqi ambassador's desk tells you anything. Although our partner in discussion, the Cabinet Chief for the Secretary-General of the Arab League, got off to a slow start, the insightful questions from our group quickly brought fire and passion to his speech. His thoughtful and detailed answers really helped give us context to each situation that he described. The best part is that unlike other places (hmm), he didn’t try to evade questions. On most issues, he seemed very reasonable. For instance, when discussing Israel and Palestine, he said that the Arab League does not support Hamas’ terrorist actions, but that at the same time Israel must desist from aggressive actions. At the same time, I felt that the Arab League’s position on conditions for a successful two state settlement was not quite realistic: specifically, one of the three conditions was that Israel would give back the land won during the War of 1967 (?). At this point, Israel has enjoyed the backing of the United States on everything, and they’ve settled those areas, and there’s not much incentive to give back the land. On the other hand, perhaps if peace and an undisturbed existence could be guaranteed in exchange for this, it might be a pragmatic decision to make. I can’t say that I know enough about the history in the region to pass judgment on it, but it was definitely a beneficial experience to hear the Arab perspective on the issue.

Friday also proved to be quite full of adventure. Instead of having Arabic class, our awesome professor Nermine took us on a field trip from end to end of Cairo, literally and figuratively. From a church to a garbage village to a traditional bazaar to a ridiculous mall…well, it was a whirlwind through Cairo past and present, and left me with many thoughts, to be worked out in a subsequent blog. In order to get to our first site of the day, which is a Coptic church set into the mountain, we first had to drive through a slum called Muqattam. It is a garbage village, meaning that trash from all over Cairo is brought to this place. Its inhabitants work to separate out the garbage between recyclable materials, other valuables that can be used/sold, and rubbish of no value. We could feel the heat of the sun through the van’s windows as our van wound its way higher and higher up the mountain through narrow streets lined with enormous trash bags.

Although our windows were shut tight to keep in the precious air conditioning, the unmistakable scent of garbage permeated the van and all the surrounding areas; once inside the compound of the church, we were not entirely free from this phenomenon.


The church, however, was beautiful enough to distract our attentions. Basically, this enormous stadium for 2000 people was set into the mountainside, and down in the front and center was
the altar and the icons. The surrounding mountainsides also had gorgeous and elaborate scences cut into its walls. Also, the whole area was supposedly formed thanks to a miracle of God (he lifted up and set back down the mountain). My favorite part about the church at Muqattam, though, had nothing to do with the actual church or the beautiful surroundings. It was the sense of community that was very obvious, all around us. For instance, children were allowed to run around inside the church, they didn’t have to be hushed and silent. It wasn’t as cold as the churches that I’ve been to seem; thanks to the kids as well as conversations between adults within the church it seemed so much more like a place to live and enjoy and celebrate life. Also, out on the street in front of the church, but still very much inside the religious compound, some adult men were playing soccer with younger boys. It struck me as so important that this area wasn’t meant for people just to be untouched by others and unlinked to their community.

Our next stop was the biggest and oldest bazaar here in Cairo, the Khan Al-Khalili. We didn’t have a lot of time to shop around, but I’m pretty sure we didn’t even see a tenth of the shops there. Although I hated being part of a large group of Americans constantly blocking the path, I was fascinated by all the people and everything they were selling. Nermine helped us to get great bargains on our purchases, and I’m definitely looking forward to going back to the Khan before we’re done in Cairo.

Needless to say, going from this extremely traditional setting to the ultra-modern City Stars mall was a shock. I pretty much couldn’t afford anything there, but it was nice to walk around in the air conditioning and pick Mary’s brain about Egypt. It’s a little overwhelming thinking about the great gap between the rich and the poor and how closely they co-exist all in this one city.

Saturday, we spent a day at the beach, called Ein Sokhna. Although the fish restaurant had no fish (or any other food), it was great to relax and get out of Cairo for the day. The best part of the day was definitely watching dolphins out in the water; unfortunately this was followed by some of the rankest bathrooms I’ve ever seen.

Finally, Sunday was sort of a lazy day spent around Zamalek, although Katharine and I did check out two bookstores. I’m gearing up for another full week; it’s our second-to-last in Cairo already :(, so in addition to planned group activities like another dialogue tonight and a trip to Alexandria over the weekend, I definitely want to do some more exploring in the downtown area.

Islamic Cairo, Service Learning, and More

Hi all,
It's been a few days, and so much has gone on. Last Saturday, those of us in the Arabic 2 class, as well as a few of our more adventurous compatriots from the Arabic 1 classes, took a tour of Islamic Cairo (PLEASE visit my photo site in a day or two to see a ton of pictures with my detailed explanations of their significance...some of the architecture we saw was really gorgeous and worth seeing). We were led around by an Egyptian-American woman who is an expert on Islamic Art and Architecture, and she works under Zahi Hawass himself. She was a great leader, and really kept us on our toes with questions. During the day, we visited three mosques and a sabil-kuttub. The sabil-kuttub was a style of building that involved a public well on the botton, with a Quaranic boys' school on the upstairs floors. The whole idea for this was kind of cool; these buildings sprung up from a quote of the Prophet Mohammed, which said something to the effect of "The two best things you can do are provide water for the thirsty and education for the poor". So in effect, they were really important buildings in the community and were created in order to help the less fortunate members of society.

The mosques we saw were all stunning in their own way. My favorite by far, though, had to be the first, the Mosque of Ibn Tulun. I liked it for its lack of ostentation; you can see the difference between the very plain picture on the left and the elaborate mosque in the Citadel on the right. If people weren't even supposed to display pictures of animals or humans in mosques because they were too distracting, why make mosques that are so ornate as to inspire awe and divert the worshipper's attention to more earthly matters? Our guide, Iman, replied to this question from me by saying that the second two mosques we visited were built for rulers, not commoners. The mosques would have been used not only for worship but as a means of impressing both the people of Egypt as well as foreign leaders. I, however, then have to doubt the true piety of such leaders. Palaces are for impressing foreign leaders, not the place where you are supposed to worship your god. So the Mosque of Ibn Tulun appealed to me the most because its austerity revealed a place more worthy of contemplation and true spirituality. Unrelated to its status as my favorite mosque, we were able to climb the minaret of Ibn Tulun; check out the amazing cityscape of Cairo behind me (the smile was plastered on my face, since I was not a fan of the heights as we climbed the outside staircase). Also, it was very powerful to see the multitud of minarets soaring into the sky. The view from the Citadel was also amazing, but the pictures were terrible by comparison.

After Islamic Cairo, our entire NU group went to dinner at the home of Abduh and Hayyam, Prof. Sullivan's friends. Hayyam's cooking was kwayyisa owee, or really good. I finally had the chance to try koshary, a savory Egyptian staple composed of rice and noodles, topped with tomato sauce. Simple, yet delicious, as Brett says. After that kind of meal, we were pretty much done for the night.

Sunday, our Arabic 2 group had off of class unlike everyone else, so we went down to the American University at Cairo, practiced our Arabic with Navenka, Prof. Sullivan's counterpart here in Egypt, and visited the Yacoubian Building, a residential building which inspired a recent blockbuster novel by the same name (incidentally, this was our pre-Egypt reading assignment, and we may be able to meet the author during our stay here). Following this little jaunt, a few of us grabbed some DELICIOUS shwarma near the campus, and set off on a futile search for a computer cord for Brett. This was followed. for some of us, by a stop in a shisha den. This was an awesome, authentic place down near the Midan Tahrir in Cairo. I'm pretty sure that they must not get too many female customers, because Julia and I were the recipients of a good many stares. But it was just a great place to sit around and talk to people.

Monday was pretty much jam-packed; maybe not time-wise, but in terms of all the reflecting that I've been doing since then. In the morning, we fanned out through the Greater Cairo area to begin (and for the most part, complete 50% of the work for) our service projects. I chose to go to the Kattan Carpet Training School, which had been the place under suspicion of being a child labor site (after all the stink that people had raised about it before, there was no other place I could choose). Even now, after a few days of mulling things over, I'm not quite sure how to articulate all of my thoughts on the idea. More or less, this hand-woven carpet business has been in place since the later 1800's, and just within the past year they've begun a program with kids in a local area (a very poor local area). The place is called Stabl Antar, and the deal for these kids that are chosen is that 5 days a week, from 9-5, they are bussed to the "carpet training school", where they receive instruction and practice in this handicraft. On Thursdays, they have the choice of going to school, and Fridays they have off, as it's the holy day in Islam. The kids also receive meals- sometimes koshary or fuul, or occasionally meat.

Like I've said before, I would wish for any kid that they'd have the luxury of growing up without having to work, instead of pulling a full time job when they're 10. On the other hand, the kids legitimately seemed to be enjoying their work here. We had the opportunity to talk to two of the children there, siblings names Aiya and Hamaada (aren't they adorable?), and both of them actually seemed very eager to be done talking with us in order to get back to work (the cynic in me says that this is because they get paid to work, not to talk to us, but according to one of the women in charge at the factory, they get paid by the day and a slight decline in productivity for 15 minutes wouldn't affect their salary). As you can tell from that parenthetical aside, I definitely haven't resolved my own thoughts and feelings on the issues. I guess what sketched me out the worst was actually the woman that we spent a majority of the time talking to, the granddaughter of the man who began this enterprise over a hundred years ago. She came across as very defensive although she wasn't being attacked, which made me feel that she had something to hide. Furthermore, she was making a distinction to us between the fact that they run a "government registered carpet training school" and a place of "child labor". The idea is that, because the kids are working on artistic products, and receiving career training at the same time, this doesn't fall under the auspices of child labor. Again, my cynical side wants to come out, because a big part of me says this: 1) Kids are working. 2) These children are getting paid. 3) They are working a full 40 hours a week. I would still call that child labor- regardless of the fact that this very well might be the best possible option for these kids. I'm not trying to downplay the fact that these kids very might well be on the street if it weren't for this training school. But let's call a spade a spade. Anyway, the rest of our project is to do a write-up on them, which will then be uploaded to the web in order to give this company more of an online presence.

Monday night we experienced our first actual "Dialogue"; we met with a group of Fulbright Scholars here in Cairo, and split into four groups of about 15 people to discuss whatever it was that came to light. Although I felt that our fifteen-person group was a bit too unwieldly, I really enjoyed the dialogue experience. One of the most interesting parts of my group dialogue was actually the thoughts that my fellow Americans have on the United States. Now, all of you reading this know how I feel about our President, and some parts of the American culture/attitude, but I still love our country for many things. One of these things happens to be capitalism (I don't like when the desire for profit leads to exploitation, but that's a whole other story...). So somehow, at this dialogue, we got into a discussion about American media; for instance, we were asked why it was so biased, etc. I responded to that question by saying that as a country, a lot of us realize that every outlet will put their own spin on things, but that's why those Americans who want to full story also look to other sources, like the BBC or Al-Jazeera, in order to get a more rounded version of the story. Then, others in my group responded and started going on about how media companies are controlled by rich corporations and rich people, and that explains both media bias as well as the fact that Britney Spears can be found in media sources as often as something actually worth reading. Let's wait and look at this for real, though, America. The reason such stupid topics are so widespread in the media is because, for reasons unfathomable to me, a large segment of the American population actually wants to read that drivel. The news sources that publish articles about useless celebrities are supplying the demand- study economics with D. Voigt someday. If we as a nation wised up and stopped caring about this crap, the media might respond to that and give us real, carefully investigated news instead. Again, I'm not always a fan of the media or rich corporations, but if you have a problem with it, DON'T FEED INTO IT.

Since last Monday, we've had another week of class, seen the movie "Yacoubian Building", and I've been up to some other adventures, most interestingly our time at the U.S. Embassy and the Arab League (diplomacy centrals...?), so stay tuned for more updates!

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.

Settling in at the Longchamps Hotel

Here in Cairo, I’m in my new home, the Longchamps Hotel. It’s awesome, there’s no other way to say it. We have free internet, balconies, nice rooms, and friendly staff. Plus, you can do so much with the name (breakfast of longCHAMPIONS, anyone?). The 9 students in Arabic 2 plus Oscar are staying here, and our class is also in the breakfast nook. Hooray for waking up at 9 AM. The other 25 students here in Cairo are staying at a slightly less awesome hotel, and have to travel to AUC every day for class. Admittedly, their situation does have some advantages, like being forced to get out in the city more often. But I’m not too worried, as I want to go exploring anyway. This picture above shows me, Brett, and Katharine figuring out a cheap authentic place to eat dinner tonight! Al-Omda, here we come.

Monday was our first Arabic class, and I loved it. Our teacher, Nermine, is intense but a sweetheart at the same time. She’s doing a good job of picking up the pace where Dominic left off, and I think I’ll learn a lot this semester (aka for the next 4 weeks).

We also had a meeting down at AUC (American University at Cairo) about the expectations for the service work we will be doing this semester. Things still don’t seem to be hammered out too finely, so who knows yet exactly what I’ll be doing. Wednesday after class we are going to see one of the sites where I might end up working. A lot of people from the group are really angry about the changes that are taking place, like the hotel switches and the undefined service projects. It’s just one of the lessons of working and living in a developing nation, I think- you need to go with the flow and make the best of things, and it will all work out in the end. There’s no use in complaining, so just do what you can. I think a lot of the complaining also stems from the fact that many of the students in the group are either young or haven’t travelled much. That’s all fine and well, and this will be a great experience to open their eyes. After my experiences in DR, though, it’s a little different- I especially miss my group there, because everyone from the get-go was really eager to dive into the culture and enjoy each experience for the lessons that they taught us. I am glad that I have a little core group of my own forming and that we can go and do our own thing and make the most of our time here.

On a final note, I had dinner Monday for under $3 American. It was a delicious pasta dish with cooked vegetables and spicy tomato sauce, and it probably would have sold in the North End for at least $15. My level of excitement was pretty high. Next thing on the list? Going with Oscar to the shwarma place he discovered downtown and getting a crazy sandwich for L.E. 8 (~ $1.60 American). MMM. Also, because we are trying to save a little cash now that we’re back in Cairo, making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches has become an integral part of the day. This is my roommate Katharine working on our daily sustenance.

Today (Tuesday), Arabic class was awesome again- I feel challenged, yet not to the point of frustration. Also, after class a few of us went to drop off our laundry (what we didn’t wash in the tub, at least…)at a nearby place and wander around a bit, and we were able to practice a little speaking with the locals. It was a thrilling moment when I was able to ask “Where are the children’s books in Arabic?”