DukeEngage Cairo 2010

I the Egyptian Video

2010-08-11T22:06:00.002+02:00

The following video was made for the NGO "I the Egyptian" that we worked with while in Cairo.

On The Way Out

2010-07-29T11:32:00.001+03:00

I haven't had enough; I will not let this be my last trip to the Middle East. Thank you DukeEngage.

I Believe I Can Fly Video

2010-07-25T23:13:00.003+03:00

Hey everyone,
This is the video we created for the DukeEngage: Cultural Crossroads night. Pictures will be added soon, so please check back again in the morning.

Come One, Come All

2010-07-25T12:38:00.002+03:00

Tonight- and tonight only- DukeEngage Cairo will be hosting an art and photography exhibit at the Townhouse Gallery of Contemporary Art. Our students from the St. Andrew's sites have been working hard on this project, so please be sure to stop by tonight at 8pm if you can. The flyer posted below has more information on the project, the exhibition, etc.

A Line or Two on America

2010-07-25T00:04:00.000+03:00

The one thing I was repeatedly told about going to Egypt was, don’t have any expectations. Thus I, and I think my peers did the same, put myself in a mindset to be ready for surprises. I figured I’d probably learn a thing or two about Egyptian culture and society along the way; what I didn’t anticipate is how much it would tell me about my own. When I’m put into a new situation or something unexpected happens, I am usually not surprised. No big deal, that’s what’s supposed to happen when you interact with a new culture. In an earlier blog post I think I interpreted this as being unfazed by my interactions in Cairo. But the truth is that I am fazed, and the effect lies in the fact that something was unexpected in the first place. Instead of getting a better understanding of Egyptians, I think I’ve ended up learning more, through contrast, about Americans.

One of the main insights I feel like I’ve gained, and the one that’s been most on my mind lately, is that we Americans are obsessed with lines. Yes, lines. All types of them. In the metro, when there are massive mobs trying to get in and out of the same door of a car at the same time, or trying to buy tickets, it’s a bit foreign. I suppose earlier I dismissively thought (quite pompous in hindsight) that this had something to do with civility. But the truth is Egyptians are no less civil than the people I’ve been surrounded by for most of my life. My fellow Americans are just absolutely infatuated with organization, often for no real purpose other than to subdue their unyielding (and perhaps more unnatural than I thought?) fear of chaos. Our reaction to the mobs at the metro is just the surface of some sort of new metaphorical insight I feel like I’ve gained about the American and perhaps Western mindset.

And that’s not the only kind of line. The American is proud of nothing more than he is his open-mindedness and acceptance of others. Yet perhaps exactly that idea can limit his outlook, which sounds paradoxical and probably is. Whatever. Most of my Arabic class here is discussion based, so we often end up talking about important and usually sensitive issues in America and Egypt with our teacher. Our teacher would ask us how Americans viewed something or what the tradition was for something and we very quickly learned the word for “it depends on…” Within the first week it became absolutely necessary to explain to our teacher the concept of “politically correct.” In being so constantly preoccupied with not hurting anyone’s feelings or not generalizing, we were drawing another line- a boundary. A limit. And lots of them at that. I’d realized a while ago that Americans hate to generalize or offend people (yes, I know what I just did there. Clever, right?), but once we had to talk about something in a foreign language, without the ability to say things exactly right, I really saw just how stunting it could be for communication. Every society has boundaries about what can and cannot be done, but ours is an intellectual boundary and seems to be a lot more apologetic. Our group knows each others’ values and backgrounds; why, then, is there still this constant trepidation to say something that may, theoretically, have offended some person from some family in some random area of the country? Why do we get so uncomfortable when an Egyptian in a coffee shop asks us about our religion and feel the need to constantly repeat the fact that this is only one opinion and not everyone believes this way? Of course it’s your opinion- you’re the one who said it; it’s not about clarifying that. It’s about that historically deep-rooted, socially promoted discomfort- not with being wrong, but with being perceived as ignorant or closed-minded.

There is another line still, though it’s very similar to the former. A few days ago I was in a largely Christian area in a church with a few friends on a mountain called Moqattum (an experience that really deserves its own post, though the chances of that happening are pretty slim). We were discussing the relationship between Muslims and Christians in Egypt and one of my friends said something that struck me. He knows the country much better than I do and was telling us how he’d seen Muslim women come to the church we were sitting in and ask the patron saint for protection. He then related that followers of each religion have parades for their respective saints and how sometimes they attend each other’s parades. My friend prefaced this with the observation that the relationship between Muslims and Christians in this area was “pretty odd.” I immediately thought of Islam and Hinduism in pre-colonial India. First of all, I don’t think Hinduism even had a name at that point. People just believed in their gods. If one of those gods had a prophet by the name of Muhammed, then so be it. And if one of the Muslim prophets was a Hindu god named Ram, that’s cool. It was all very… natural. When the British came and went, they left lines. Not just boundaries like the one between Pakistan and India, but categorical lines. People were asked if they were Muslim or Hindu and were then filed in one drawer or another. I’m not arguing that partitions didn’t exist before the evil Western man came in and created them, not at all. But I’ve heard too many stories about people who had no idea if they were Muslim or Hindu, or what the differences were between the two, or even that there were any differences, before British occupation. I think that developed countries in the west, more than any other countries, feel some need to categorize things. It’s no surprise that taxonomy was invented by a Roman. For something to exist, there must be distinctions between it and something else. It goes back to the western preoccupation with organization.

Now don’t get me wrong- my friend isn’t some dumb American who’s completely unaware of the fact that societies have different religious and cultural norms. I, as primarily a westerner, also found the information he shared strange. I think I’m guilty of drawing all of these types of lines. I’m not even so sure if that’s a bad thing. I really don’t think I would have been able to fully appreciate it without the contrast of Cairo though. It’s definitely not the only thing that being here has taught me about Americans and probably won’t be the last; I’m curious to see if I’ll find even more biases once I go home.

Don't Know French? That Makes Two of Us

2010-07-21T14:55:00.006+03:00

Hey everyone,

In case you are like me and therefore don't know French, the wonderful Hillary Walker has translated the article for us. I have copied her translation below. She gets the DukeEngage Award of the Day for this, if I do say so myself.

In Cairo, Somali Children Start a New Life

Thiis summer, young African refugees living in Cairo are attending English, computer and Arabic classes in a school financed by the Red Cross. Some of them live on their own in Egypt, without their family.

On the third floor of a run-down building, some snippets of English escape through the open door. "Hello, my name is Degaa. I am 18 years old. I was born in Mogadishu; I arrived in Egypt in 2001." One by one, each student stands and introduces him/herself. Their voices drown out the noise from the street where the tuk-tuks – motorized rickshaws – zigzag among the passer-bys, bread deliverers on bike, and hookah smokers. A sizeable Somali community lives here, in Ardilewa, a disadvantaged neighborhood in Southwest Cairo.

This Tuesday, there are twenty boys and girls attending an English class in a Somali community center. Focused, their eyes are riveted on Lindsey and Fernando, two American students from Duke University in North Carolina; all the teachers – volunteers – come from Duke. Despite their focus, the students readily giggle at their trip-ups when counting backwards in English.

For seven weeks, a hundred African refugees, aged 12-21, are participating in this summer school financed by the Red Cross and organized by NGOs that provide aid for refugees in Cairo. Grouped together by nationalities, young Somalis, Sudanese, Eritreans or Ethiopians mainly take English courses, but also have computer and Arabic classes. They attend information sessions on the rights of refugees, health and nutrition. Excursions on felucca rides, visits to the National Cairo Museum or a day in the park are also in the program.

The American Dream is still popular

"I want to discover a new culture through English", attests Ifrah, a shy young 17 year old girl, veiled, who sits up straight in her long black robe. During the year, she attends a public Egyptian school.

Her sister Fartoum, 12, is also present in the class. They arrived from Somalia in 2006, with their uncle, himself the father of seven children. Ifrah says she has no memory of her parents. "Later, I would like to go the United States and become a doctor," she adds The American dream is still popular among the Somali youth.

The program is primarily aimed at unaccompanied minors who live on their own in Egypt. This is the case of Osmane, a slender 17-year-old who arrived in Cairo one year ago. "I live in an apartment with three other Somalis. I would like to learn a job. Maybe a mechanic, I would like that." As for his family, he does not draw out the topic: his parents are dead and he has lost all contact with his sister.

We're better off in Egypt than in Somalia: here, there is peace

Among the hundreds of thousands on African refugees who live in Egypt, there are some hundreds of unaccompanied minors. "The majority arrive in Egypt alone. Their parents have disappeared or can no longer care for them," explains Chantal Hudson, an official in the Department for Minors of the British NGO AMERA (Africa and Middle East Refugee Assistance) – an NGO that furnishes legal aid to African refugees in Cairo.

"Once they are registered with the United Nations High Commissioner on Refugees (UNHCR), the minors receive 400 pounds a month (55€ / $70), free medical care and legal protection." As Egyptian policemen regularly stop African migrants, this protection is precious: it can save a refugee from being sent back to their country of origin.

Life in Cairo, where racism against blacks is common, is far from idyllic for these teens. "One time, someone insulted me in the street because I am black," testifies Zeinab, 18 years old. "But often, the people are nice. In any case, we're better off in Egypt than we are in Somalia: here, there is peace," she concludes, before hitting the books again.

- Nina Hubinet, in Cairo

Bienvenue aux lecteurs du journal La Croix!

2010-07-20T19:09:00.004+03:00

DukeEngage Cairo was featured yesterday in an article in the French-language newspaper La Croix. For those, like myself, who pretend to remember high school French, here is the link to the the article.

La Croix was also kind enough to link to our blog, so I wanted to welcome any of its readers who followed the link here. A special merci beaucoup goes out to Nina Hubinet, the author of this fantastic piece.

A Global Discussion on Global Issues

2010-07-19T00:13:00.006+03:00

I know, I just posted, but you get to hear from me again!

One of the facets of our week is our weekly lecture series, consisting of Professor Lo finding someone to talk with us about various issues relevant to the Middle East in general, or Cairo in particular, or whatever other topic which could intrigue as students linked by our interest in Arabic and its culture. I know we've mentioned these lectures, and blogged about them (or, occasionally, forgotten to blog about them), but I want to say again that each one is different - on a different topic, by different kinds of people, in different places throughout Cairo.
Today, we ventured across the Nile to Giza, to the Arab & African Research Center, where various people associated with the center gathered to talk with us about how American politics are understood and portrayed in Africa and the Middle East.
Yeah, a heavy topic. But one which prompted some interesting questions and points of view on a broad range of related subjects. We moved from a discussion on America's involvement in the Middle East in the past which arguably prompted the problems of today to a discussion on how American politics work and how we view our current president to how to solve some of the major flaws in the Egyptian government and so much more beyond.
I can definitely say that at least some of these topics interested everyone attending - it's hard to take Arabic and not be curious about the Middle East. And, though there were practical problems during the talk, like people not remembering to speak into the microphone or the low whine occasionally emitted by said microphone, I think we all came away with a slightly heightened awareness of how exactly globalization and international politics affect other parts of the world. America really does have a special place on the global stage, whether it wants that place or not, and I think it was good to be reminded of this fact and to reawaken our awareness of how we are perceived not only as foreigners and Westerners but also as Americans.
I, of course, am overgeneralizing a bit - the students on this program are just too diverse for me to be able to speak for all of us, and I am just not able to condense the 3 pages of notes I took from this lecture into this blog post. But our meeting with the center prompted interesting discussion, both while we were there and afterward - which ultimately has been the goal of this lecture series.
And, personally, I enjoyed the discussion, as it bridged a lot of very relevant topics dealing with America and foreign relations in this region of the world as well as allowing us to get a different perspective on Egypt politically and globally. And it left me excited to see what next week (our last lecture!) will bring!

There Will Be Time, There Will Be Time

2010-07-18T14:02:00.003+03:00

Allow me to again voice the disbelief that many of us feel at the moment: we have less than two weeks left in Egypt.
Really? I can hardly believe it. It seems like just yesterday we were stepping out of the plane, marveling at the dust storm, worrying over a lost bag, discovering the absence of things we were totally sure we'd packed. So recently we were stressing over the lack of structure to be found in our organizations, the magnitude of work before us, the sleepless nights we were sure awaited us. We were overwhelmed by the noise, the dust, the heat, the traffic, the strangers on the street at all hours just waiting to call out to you or stare as you pass.
And yeah, we've had some bad experiences. We've been sick and we've been tired. There were mornings when class was just not tempting enough to pull us from our beds. There were nights when we didn't do all of our homework or didn't lesson plan or didn't blog. There were times when we chose a football match, or sleep, or some other tempting experience over those responsibilities which seem, on paper, to be more important. We've been frustrated and lost our tempers and wanted to go home.
But oh, how I know I'll miss this place. I'll miss the smiles on my students faces when I climb my way into my St. Andrews' center. I'll miss the genuinely friendly and welcoming comments from absolute strangers, concerned that I am lost or just curious about who I am. I'll miss the cats in the trash stairwell, eagerly awaiting my arrival as I get around to taking the trash out of our kitchen. I'll miss ful, and tamaya, and the bread, and fresh fruit juice. I'll miss the excited smile of our bawab as we turn the corner or emerge from the elevator. I'll miss this time with my fellow DukeEngagers.
For now, I have 12 more days with which to content myself. There's still a lot I want to do: a diner in Maadi to be tried, shops along the route to Ard il-Lewa to be explored, Islamic Cairo to venture around (إن شاء الله), gifts to be bought and places to which I'd like to return. I hope I'll have time left to wander a little, to get lost and just enjoy whatever part of Cairo I find. And I hope I'll be able to make this experience worthwhile and meaningful for my students, and for the kids at Ana el-Misri. And, eventually, I hope to actually remember some of the deluge of new vocabulary from my classes - I just can't seem to remember the word for vegetables (حضروات), or laughter (الضحك), or to try (حاول), or many others which would be absurdly practical but I just don't use enough to actually remember.
So, my motto for the next 12 days? Do better, try harder. I mean, I try to make this my motto most of the time, but sometimes it's easy to lose track. But I've only got 12 days left, and hopefully this time crunch will help me get out there and keep making the most of this last little piece of Cairo. I have such good ideas for my classes and my adventures - I only hope that there will be time enough!

Why we are here?

2010-07-13T14:41:00.006+03:00

Yesterday I re-read the initial executive summary we were given by St. Andrew's Refugee Ministry, the organization under whose auspices we work teaching English. The project descriptor lists five goals for our "English lessons". None of these goals have anything to do with English. The summary is blunt on this point: the goals are to provide life skills, information about organizations and resources available to refugees in Cairo, and conversational Arabic to non-Arabic speaking populations. In the words of the descriptor itself, though, "it is much easier to attract students to English class." The English component is the teaser, intended really only to attract students. Furthermore, the executive summary cautions us that we may not even be around to see the significant impacts of our program. "One of the main ways we have seen impacts from the summer school programmes have been a higher enrollment in St. Andrew's Adult Education programme by minors who have not previously been able/willing to access education."

To be honest, when I applied for Duke Engage, I wasn't exactly sure what I was going to be doing. I came into the program hoping to gain greater exposure to Egyptian culture, improve my Arabic, and some vaguely defined third goal. Stateside, when people asked me what the purpose of Duke Engage Cairo was, I'd often give obfuscating and unclear answers. "Working with refugees," was a non-answer I'd often use. Gradually I embraced the massive oversimplification of "teaching English to refugees." As I grew more and more accustomed to this half-truth, it became the reality in my brain, so when I got here, I envisioned English lessons as Duke Engage Cairo's raison d'etre.

While English lessons are an important part of our work with St. Andrew's, the reality is far more complex. The Duke Engage Cairo program reflects Professor Lo's philosophy on Duke Engage. Rather than orchestrating DukeEngage Cairo as a sort of "service vacation", where we can show up, do work, and go home satisfied, Professor Lo makes us do the hardest work.

Picture a soup kitchen. You can show up and work for a few hours - which is a very noble and charitable thing to do. But showing up and working, while a great means of civic engagement, cannot match the degree of engagement that the person who actually made the soup kitchen experienced. When we showed up here, I expected the soup kitchen to be ready. I expected there to be ingredients in the kitchen, ladles and bowls sitting in cabinets, and people lining up outside. Six weeks have impressed upon me that this is rarely the reality. The comforting "warm glow" of donating to a well-run, organized NGO is the result of countless hours of backbreaking and frustrating labor on the part of the NGO. While we see the finished organizational model and marvel at the results it is able to achieve, the hardest work has already been accomplished at this point - buying the silverware and convincing people to show up.

What does this mean for Duke Engage? It means that when we showed up, our partner organizations didn't do the "work" for us. I said it in my last post and I'll repeat it here: we aren't interns. Professor Lo mentioned at one point that in an ideal world, one in which we had more than two months to work here in Egypt, he would bring us here without any plans. Rather than working with existing NGOs, he would have us create our own projects based on our desires and the percieved needs of the community. Obviously, the short timespan of DukeEngage makes this an impossibility, but we are still given massive amounts of freedom. No one assigns us tasks or monitors their completion. We have opportunities - i.e. 9 hours a week teaching refugees - but what we do with these opportunities are up to us. And throughout this experience, its been the preparation thats been truly difficult. The hardest part of the trip has not been the three or four-hour periods we spend "in the field", but rather the countless hours of discussion, frustration, and arguments as we try to figure out the key questions of civic engagement: Why are we here? What are we doing? Are we achieving results? Does what we are doing matter?

With regard to that last question, let me quote Professor Lo: "... measuring the impact of DukeEngage is a difficult undertaking," he writes, "but its hallmarks include a lasting experience for the DukeEngager, a deeper bond with fellow students and faculty, and an entrepreneurial approach towards societal causes..." Duke Engage is a long term investment. Our success here is measured not by the improvement in our students' English. Although it may sound selfish, our success has far more to do with our personal gain that it does with the benefits to the communities in which we serve. As amazing as the members of this group are, none of us are teachers. None of us are fluent in Arabic. For the cost of sending 13 Duke students to Egypt (not to mention housing, food, insurance, and recreation, all of which DukeEngage generously compensates us for), Duke could probably hire about 40 competent local teachers. But DukeEngage isn't about short-term results.

Perhaps it's just me, but in my mind this is a receipe for guilt. Duke is spending a small fortune to send us here - our plane tickets, our insurance, our ridiculously posh accomodations, our unnecessarily large food stipends, my 3-student private language class, our beach vacation at Sharm al-Sheikh. Not that I don't enjoy these things immensely. I love being able to eat well without having to agonize over every Egyptian pound, and after seven weeks in the dust and pollution of Cairo, I'm tremendously excited for our trip to the Red Sea. But at the same time, I have a very hard time coming to terms with the fact that Duke is spending this money on my personal growth and "capacity building", and not in the way that would most benefit the people we are "supposed to help". (I should also point out that Duke itself gains immensely from funding DukeEngage - something like 12% of all applicants for the Class of 2014 cited DukeEngage on their application as their reason for applying to Duke, even more than Duke basketball.) I feel guilty. Every time I'm 5 minutes late to work, or skip a problem on my Arabic homework because I'm too tired or would rather go watch world cup matches at a cafe, I go through my head and think about the money and time the DukeEngage staff put in to our experience here, and try to calculate what fraction I just "wasted".

This guilt keeps me honest. Yet while I feel it in my heart, my brain tells me that the money isn't being wasted. My brain tells me that DukeEngage exists not to provide immediate gains in communities around the world, but rather to instill in Duke students a love of service and skill sets that they would never be able to attain inside the classroom. This experience is only wasted if I return home without having changed, without having learned, without having experienced anything. While this DukeEngage program lasts only eight weeks, the engagement DukeEngage exists to foster is meant to last a lifetime. DukeEngage is just the beginning. I'll let Professor Lo have the last word:

DukeEngage, as I understand it, is an investment in the human self, the human capacity and ability to do good, regardless of the constraints of lack of experience and the challenges of time-limits. It is a manner of helping students transit from the legally segregated classrooms to the chaos of the hierarchical, politically divided outside world, where they can witness the myriad problems that confront humanity across the globe.

Faluca Inspiration

2010-07-13T00:07:00.002+03:00

We've hit the mark in our trip where we legitimately start counting down the days until we leave. Thus far we've had many experiences where we've been very happy with our time here in Cairo and many more times where frustration makes us go back and question the initial reason for us coming halfway around the world, unsure even of how efficiently we'll make changes in the lives of the people we're helping. One thing that has stuck with me since our first reflection dinner was Dr. Lo's insightful comment that this trip will be entirely what we make it. By this, I initially thought he meant only that we will reap what we sow, the more we put into our community projects the more success we will see. However, the past few weeks have shown me that there is something much more profound to his comment. I have come to see that by throwing myself completely into my surroundings, I will begin to change in ways I may at first be unaware of.

A couple of weeks back, the group went to the U.S. Embassy to listen to workers speak about their experiences working for the Embassy in Cairo. The speakers were very down to Earth and entertaining during our informal meeting with them. As comforting as it was to be in the all too familiar position of a tidy air-conditioned room, American accents, and people speaking to us about future career options, there was a part of me that did feel disconnectd from the vibes I picked up at the Embassy. I soon realized that the disconnect was a result of the distance I felt from the Egyptian atmosphere I had grown accustomed to and the Amerian environment I was suddenly thrown into. This prompted me to ask the panel just how much they felt they were actually engaged within Egyptian society; to me, it was as if in entering through the gates of the embassy, each person sort of left Egypt behind and stepped into a little piece of the U.S., very isolated from the happenings right outside its wall. My impression was soon reconfirmed when, a couple of days ago, I went along with other DukeEngagers on a faluca ride with interns from the Embassy. They told us about all the precautions they'd been instructed to take, how they didnt use public transportation, eat local foods, or do typical Egyptian things. To our surprise, the DukeEngagers went on rambling about all our crazy stories: of us discovering a new Koshary shop, navigating metros and microbuses, working in the poorest areas of the city, meeting the funniest people. The interns seemed shocked at how much we've done, but I think we were even more surprised as to how much we'd built a new home within Egypt. Sometimes in the busy hustle of long days with many challenges and failures, it becomes so easy to complain and dream about going home to the U.S.; but in fact, by putting ourselves into those situations where we can claim complaining rights, we are proving just how wrapped up we actually are within our new environment. By taking the time out to step back and observe this (as we did on the faluca ride), we see that we have indeed made this experience into a great one. We have stories to tell, memories to relive, and knowledge we can take back home with us. Reflecting back on Dr.Lo's words, many times the hardest part for me hasn't been putting my full effort into something to see just how much I will reap from it, rather my biggest challenge has been learning how to step back and see that we truly are learning and changing from this experience in ways we oftentimes easily overlook.

-Nusaibah Kofar-Naisa

Arts and crafts at an orphanage in Cairo

2010-07-12T13:50:00.000+03:00

Another Place to Belong

2010-07-12T09:05:00.004+03:00

If there is one place I can say that has become more familiar than our apartment and its surroundings, it would have to be Hay el Ashr- which is the St Andrews site where Zuri, Ruba, Max and I work at. For one, I realized that we had a class where students showed up consistently and I knew all their names and this was a great moment- especially given the challenges we had initially faced in trying to find students to attend classes. I thought back to the days where we had only 2 students one time, or another day when we had started teaching a group of school-going children who came to learn at our site because their parents were watching a world cup game and needed their children to be pre-occupied for that duration. I also felt that the past week had been one of the best teaching experiences for me personally- finally understanding how to teach a group that was largely illiterate in English, some of whom had never heard the language before, and overcoming the idea of 'What is the point of teaching them if they can't read or write and therefore effectively retain the information?' Max and I tried our best with repeating words and phrases constantly for this week's topic- body parts and sickness- trying to come up with activities that would both engage the students and help them learn. At the end of each day, it was unbelievably satisfying when each one left with having learnt maybe two or three words after every class but what was most surprising was when half left with having learnt almost all the phrases relating to the body by the end of Wednesday's class. This was something that I would never have imagined and it has forced me to think about expectations of service projects. Even before my application for this program was accepted, I thought I was being incredibly mature by taking the perspective that two months of a service project in a foreign country could not yield great results and therefore I should be realistic, which for me translated to having almost no expectations of what my service project could achieve. This past week at Hay el Ashr has changed this mindset completely. There are many people who are enthusiastic about trying to bring change and that is an extreme, but I realized that the way I was thinking was not the right way to look at this issue either. Sure, being realistic may evade the frustration and anguish that comes along with disappointment, but at the same time the joy that accompanies small successes such as this week, are multiplied when you have believed and had faith that your efforts will yield fruit and I hope to keep this in mind for the last three weeks here.

Kids Hit You With The Darndest Things

2010-07-12T01:25:00.002+03:00

There are many things in Cairo that can hurt you. A rogue McDonald’s delivery scooter zipping along the road can clip you on your way to class. AC condensation has this nasty habit of dripping and pooling on extremely smooth parts of the sidewalk, creating a hazard for those of us wearing worn out Rainbow sandals. You could be waylaid by a pack of mangy cats on the way to buy much-needed supplies and if you somehow manage to limp away from the attack the rabies will do you in. I came into this trip knowing that dangers such as these would be possible and although you cannot “expect” such things I at least accept them as part of living here. One would think that after a few weeks here I would be prepare for any danger, but I was not even close to being mentally prepared to cope with being attacked by the children with whom I am working.

In America, children are normally such sweet things. They are full of joy and laughter and they are generally a source of happiness for us Big People. I came into this program expecting Egyptian children to be the same and I am happy to report that deep down they are, but a dark film of “Street” covers this bright inner child. They have a wild air about them, and they respond to pretty much anything with violence. I knew these children had rough lives, but I guess I was just ignorant about how such a life can affect a person. I realize now that my life experiences up until this point had just not exposed me to poverty of this magnitude. Sure, I have worked in food banks and with homeless shelters in America, but that only acclimated me with the American Poor. Some say that we in America have the richest poor in the world, and Egypt has proven this to be true. The Egyptian poor have lived lives that I had only previously encountered in Children’s Fund commercials that try to get you to sponsor a child. Let’s just say that I have a far greater appreciation for the Children’s Fund.

In the same way that it is painfully obvious to you that you are drowning I knew I was way in over my head with these kids. We are punched, kicked, jumped on, bitten, hit with wooden boards, and flogged with pieces of rubber from God knows what that they found God knows where. Most of the Duke Students find the biting to be the worst abuse, but my vote is with the rubber whips. On a pain scale of 1 to Child Birth, these whips fall right below 3rd degree burn. Anyway, as this was going on I kept thinking that I just had to show these kids some politeness and respect and they would change. This train of thought came from what I consider now a very ignorant Western upbringing. Politeness and manners were not things that these kids needed to survive in the street, so why should they respond to these? I was exasperated by my ineffectiveness until one day I received a revelation.

Sayed is one of the older boys at Ana Al-Misri and likes to tease us. One day he was really pestering me. He pretended to steal my iPod and kept pretending to steal my bag of stuff. Right before we left, he grabbed Lindsey’s water bottle and began to play keep-away with her. Though her P-Wild fitness and training is formidable, she could not keep up with her agile street-tested opponent. I saw this happening and I am a sucker for a damsel in distress so I pulled off a successful sneak attack on Sayed and wrested the water bottle away from him. He was really angry and jumped me. We fell to the ground together and as we fell I launched the water bottle away from his grasp towards Lindsey, securing my victory. After Sayed got off of me and we stood up, the strangest thing happened: he stuck out his hand and gave me bro hug. I have not had serious trouble with Sayed since then, and now I understand why. These kids grew up in a harsh environment where survival of the fittest reigns and strength is the only attribute that is respected. Once I realized this, I started thinking like another street dweller: a dog. If you wanted to command the respect of a pack member, you have to be the Alpha Male, and that means you have to show them that you are stronger and worthy of their respect. Yes, my real goal is to teach them politeness and manners but I realized that I could not achieve this until I showed them that I was an authority figure in a language that they understand. Now whenever I’m attacked, instead of passively defending and waiting for them to get bored and leave, I grab them, immobilize them, and then ask them to say that they are sorry until they apologize. For the little ones I just hold on to their hands until they submit. With the older boys I have found that grabbing them, gently forcing them to the ground, and pinning them until they submit works the best. It may seem a little rough, but I am careful not to hurt them, it produces results, and since some of the staff at Ana Al-Misri tends to just smack the children and yell at them, I find my methods far more humane. In fact, most of the friendships that I have made with these kids have been a result of me showing them up in a tussle. It has taken awhile for me to overcome this violent situation, but I am happy to report that this top dog is seeing a vast improvement.

Hay el-Ashr!

2010-07-12T00:44:00.003+03:00

Working at Hay el-Ashr with my partner Ruba has been one of the most fulfilling experiences of this trip. We have learned a great deal about ourselves and about teaching others. Three times a week we travel to this site to teach refugees, mainly Sudanese, English. We have built a connection with our students over the past few weeks. Once a week we have an outing with the class. This past week we got pizza and went to a nearby park. The park was perfect for playing games, talking, practicing new vocab, and getting to know each other. Each week our students open up more and more and there's definitely an improvement in the classroom because of this. In the picture above we are at the park, just finishing up our last game.

In this picture we are playing the game "Sparkle". We usually play this game after learning new vocabulary and for reviewing old vocabulary. The students form a line and spell a word in the order that they are standing. If someone misses a letter, they are out of the game. It is an excellent spelling game to play because it works well as an ice-breaker and they pick-up the spelling much faster. We also have them say the meaning of the word in Arabic after successfully spelling the word in the line. Our students get pretty competitive during the game, so it is fun to watch.

"Malesh" by Andi and Hillary

2010-07-12T00:35:00.004+03:00

Chaos. If we had to describe Cairo in a phrase, it would be ubiquitous chaos. And, while this makes for a very interesting and enjoyable cultural experience, it also means that in order for most things to work out the way you want them to, it usually takes an act of God. Consequently, we quickly made the acquaintance of our good friends “malesh” and “insh’allah”.

“Malesh” is a much-used Egyptian phrase that translates as “no problem”. Closely linked to malesh, is the Muslim phrase “Insh’allah” which means “God-willing”. These two phrases are heard everywhere in Egypt. We began using the phrase “malesh culture” to describe Egyptian culture because daily hiccups in plans are inevitable in the chaos of Cairo.

An example of this would be the first Wednesday of classes when we had planned (and been clearly told that it would be possible) to watch the US-Algeria World Cup match on the community center’s TV with our students and to have the other Downtown site over. However, ten minutes before the match we discovered that the center did not get the channel with the game and all of our plans were shot. Our community facilitator Muhammad then jumped in, and we all followed him around Cairo in hopes of finding a coffee shop that could accommodate seventeen people. As usual, everything worked out wonderfully and our students enjoyed watching the game with a pack of fifty Egyptians at an outdoor café.

After this very malesh incident, we realized that we were the only people who had been bothered by this unexpected chain of events. The “can do” Western attitude with which we had grown up is at complete odds with the malesh culture. In the West, we want to be able to control and predicate every moment instead of just letting things flow. We are scared of being wrong, messing up, getting sick because we believe that those things get in the way of our lives. In actuality, that fear-inducing mentality gets in the way of living.

This prompted Andi to remark that she had read that language reflects the culture around it. She admitted that since the first day of Arabic 1, she had been perplexed with the popularity of the phrase Insh’allah because to her Western mind it always seemed a rather fatalistic statement. For example, why couldn’t a simple question like “Do you want to go to the movies tomorrow?” by sufficiently answered with yes or no. Andi’s remarks also reflected my previous mindset. After that conversation, we made a decision to let the Western impediments melt away and since then, slowly, we have found ourselves adapting to and even enjoying the malesh culture.

So, we were prepared for our next malesh moment. It was a week later and we had spent the hour before stressing about readying materials for class (the printer ran out of ink). Four p.m. rolled around, and we began to wonder where the man with the key to our classroom was. We continued waiting until 4:15, when we finally ended up calling him. At 4:30, he returned the call and finally let us know - half an hour after class was supposed to start - that he wouldn’t be coming in with the key.

For a brief second, our Western selves panicked. “What to do?” our minds screamed. Then, the malesh set in and we decided to take an impromptu felucca ride with the class. The hiccups that followed seemed negligible. We had to lead a class of about sixteen refugees through the congestion known as Tahrir Square to the Nile. Malesh. When we arrived, the felucca driver told us he could only fit twelve people on a boat. Malesh, we got all twenty plus the driver on it. Ten minutes later, we were sailing along the Nile, dangerously low to the water. Malesh. Instead of stressing, we all found ourselves enjoying the situation.

Now, when mysterious air conditioning fuel drips on us or when we unknowingly buy and eat liver from a street vendor, we find ourselves saying “Malesh” and truly meaning it. We have fully adjusted to this Egyptian mentality, at least we hope so. Insh’allah

A Sudden Burst of Energy

2010-07-11T17:08:00.004+03:00

On Saturday July 3rd, we went Ana El-Masry at our scheduled time. When we arrived to the complex, to our surprise it was extremely quiet. The complex was lacking the incredible energy and the loud voices of the children. We looked for a staff member to figure out what was going on. We were, then, informed that the older kids from ages 9-16 had been sent to a three day camp, and that the only children in the complex were the nursery kids. The staff member led us to the TV room, where before we entered the kids were quietly and orderly playing and watching TV. As soon as they felt our presence, chaos broke loose. The kids suddenly acquired a burst of energy. They were so happy to see us. Immediately, kids wanted to play Ms. Mary Mack, Jacks or just sit on us and talk to us. The kids fought for our attention. They all wanted to sit on us, hold our hands, or play with us. Some kids created trouble just to get attention. However, slowly the kids began to fall asleep. The sudden burst of energy was only temporary, and their little bodies could not fight sleep anymore. After the 3 hours that we were there, most of the kids were asleep on the floor or on couches. I took the opportunity to take these pictures, for this would probably never occur again.

A Little Fresh Perspective

2010-07-11T16:26:00.000+03:00

Through a trip with the Arab Academy, some of my peers and I met a girl named Rachel who seemed very interested in our work with St. Andrews and the refugees and asked me if she could come visit our site one day. I told her what channels to go through to get permission, she did so, and the next thing I knew she was sitting on the metro with me on Wednesday heading to Ain Shams. As we approached the site, she confessed to me that she knew nearly nothing about the situation of refugees here or what’s going on in Sudan. I assured her that I, too, knew very little about the subject. Yet I went on to explain to her that northern Sudan is Muslim and that southern Sudan is Christian and where Darfour falls in all this. I explained how you can tell from looking at my students that most of them are either Darfourian or northern Sudanese but not southern. We finally made it to class and during the break halfway through, as she was getting to know some of the students, the subject of gangs somehow came up and I expressed my surprise at her not knowing about the gang violence that has arisen from the uprooted Sudanese youth. I immediately checked myself and realized that there was no reason she would know. There was no way she’d have learned about any of this from just living in Cairo. I was actually caught pretty off guard by how much I did know- while I’ve been enjoying my work, I hadn’t really taken notice of how much experiential learning I’ve been doing in the process.

It’s not just about Sudan or refugees either. As I was walking Rachel back to the metro after class, she told me I should really consider being a teacher. I would have normally replied with a polite thank you and awkwardly changed the subject, but she said it so genuinely that I asked her why she’d made the comment. She explained that when she observed Brendan and me in class, it seemed like we knew the strengths and weaknesses of our students so well and like we knew exactly what was appropriate in what situations. I was not only flattered by what she said, but also began to see how naturally someone learns things like that. The process was so gradual that I needed another westerner to be dropped in midway through to give me a point of reference. The whole experience got me excited about what else I’m going to discover I’ve learned once I get home and encounter an even starker contrast.

Beyond

2010-07-11T16:19:00.006+03:00

Dear Faithful Readership,

I'm back. It's been far too long. I've been trying to give other DukeEngagers a chance to reflect on the blog...that, and I have been too exhausted to write anything coherent. With a light weekend fading behind me, and a two-hour nap tucked in there today, I now write to you.

The Zohan has asked us to either post pictures and describe them or write about something that surprised us in our week this week. I'll top that. I'll do both. But first, let me describe the title of this post. A few weeks ago- I think it was about the same time that Hannah and Hillary posted about the Luxury of Theory- I was going to write something titled "To Ambivalence and Beyond." A reference to Toy Story 3, which came out that weekend, it was about how I'd moved past my frustration that I described in my previous posts and how I had come to "embrace the chaos" of Cairo (thank The Great Andrew Simon for that nugget of goodness).

Essentially, I discovered that people like myself are products hearing "Can't Isn't In My Vocabulary" too many times. Our successes so far in life have been spawned by the positive self-image that President Obama so eloquently picked up on in his 2008 campaign: the "Yes We Can" philosophy. Our votes matter; our voices matter; our abilities can indeed bring about change. However, I had to shed myself of all these ideas that I could instigate change or success, instead hugging tight the pessimistic notion that I could not succeed whatsoever. This way, every little thing seems like a victory. It is a hyper-cynical concept- one very foreign to me, and I find myself to be quite a cynic in the first place- and I don't think it's a good life philosophy, but it works for NGO work in Cairo. Once you can put forth an attitude of ambivalence towards the obstacles you face here, everything immediately brightens up. I call it my “Small Victories” philosophy.

Thus, we get to the "beyond" part. Now weeks after changing my mindset, I feel better. I have not had difficulty in dealing with the world around me, save nearly being mauled by the clowder of feral cats a few nights ago as I emptied the trash. I have enjoyed teaching more, enjoyed my NGO work more, and have enjoyed this experience more once I took a step back and realized that I might not be able to have the same profound effect I expected to have.

Having caught you up to speed, what was it, then, that surprised me this week? How my beautiful patience has been worn so thin. I genuinely am marveled by how patient and outgoing I have been over the past three weeks. Sure, I complain about things just as much as the next guy (if not more) but I still keep my nose to the grindstone. But eventually the grindstone, well, grinds you down. This week, after one of the worst days ever (the kids at I the Egyptian were truly too much for me to bear; I decided that if Dante wrote the Inferno about DukeEngage Cairo, I'd be put in the circle with hundreds of uncontrollable 2-9 year olds), I snapped at my students in English class.

Let me lay it out for you: we were playing a game where they split into two teams, and they decided not to listen to me when I split the teams. This is a usual occurrence, so no big deal, right? Wrong. That day they decided to pick on the adorable, socially-awkward six-year-old. The boys on either team kept shouting at each other and at him about how he was on the other team; eventually, the boys started pushing the poor kid to either side like neither of the teams wanted him. I didn't tolerate it. I didn't tolerate it because 1) I identify with little kids that get made fun of and there just ain't no way I'm going to let it happen to someone else, 2) I was a socially-awkward kid (and I guess I still am), 3) because this boy is particularly sweet to me, 4) because I couldn't muster up enough patience to deal with it any other way. In beautifully correct Arabic, I told them to sit down and that he is on Team 2. When one of my students decided to mock Team 2, I spun around and told him to "Sit! Here!" and there was immediate action followed by immediate silence. Of course, I didn't yell or do anything wrong; I merely used a surprisingly stern voice and all of my 6'5" frame. Plus, I did the right thing. Rule #1: No picking on kids in my classroom.

But I was still surprised. Where had this come from? I love teaching these kids. In the Ain Shams Dynamic Duo, I am the carrot and Maheen is the whip. How had I transformed? Had I assimilated into the Egyptian culture, where arguing and shouting is a daily occurrence, or had a part of the American get-worn-down-and-finally-explode culture somehow eked through? Did the Small Victories Philosophy fail me, or was it a natural reaction that anyone would have had?

Alas, I will never know. What happened happened, and I did the right thing. I had ventured into the beyond weeks ago and this is simply part of exploring that grey, misty world. My students finished the game and enjoyed the rest of the day. No residual feelings. Teacher and students still get along. My patience repaired the hole in its wall. Discipline was properly disseminated.

I guess you'd call that a small victory.

Here is a picture of some of the kids in the nursery at Ana Al-Masri. Don't be mistaken by how calm they look. At least four sets of hands were grabbing my camera as I took this. Half of my pictures from that day have fingers in the frame.

This is Andi playing with some of the kids. She is awesome. Everyone ought to know that Andi is quite possibly amazing in every regard, particularly at playing Miss Mary Mack.

Pictures!

2010-07-05T15:01:00.003+03:00

These are some pictures of us working with the three different NGOs. The first picture is from the day when we observed the classrooms at St. Andrews. We were able to see how the teachers worked with the students and gain strategies for our classes. The second picture is of Ruba and me with our students in Hay el-Ashr. We had a social outing that day at a nearby pizza place. Our rule for the dinner was that everyone had to speak in as much English as possible. We played word games and "I Spy", which they enjoyed very much. The picture below (top left) is of Nusaibah, Maheen and Moana teaching at Al-Kayan. Six of us work with Al-Kayan three times a week. On Saturdays we teach the staff English. We always have a lot of fun with the students there. The last two pictures are of Hillary and Max playing with some of the students at Ana el-Misry. Seven of us go to Ana el-Misry three times a week as well. It's been a great first half!

Reflection on Reflections

2010-07-04T18:24:00.005+03:00

This weeks’ reflection dinner marked our first month in Cairo. As we shared our stories of our most recent experience with our St. Andrew students- taking our students on an outing- I realized just how much exposure we had had to Egyptian society in the past month. We discussed the problems that some of us encountered when we took our refugee students to the Egyptian museum or cinema, and our conversation, which touched on issues of race and poverty, forced me to think about how the service-learning purpose of our trip influences the way in which we interact with society around us. When I think back to the past four weeks, I realize how Cairo had started to grow on me. I was surprised by how quickly we had adjusted to the way of living here, the work ethic, the culture- all just in under a month. Our work at the two community project sites has enabled me to come into contact with Egyptians from all walks of life in a way and become both a part of as well as an outside observer of Egyptian society- where I can both appreciate and critique my experience and purpose here. When we shared our observations of attitudes towards our refugee students, I noticed how we appeared to have taken their treatment personally, feeling frustrated and upset over the treatment of our students in a way that even the students themselves did not seem to feel. This, to me, was one of the greatest indications of how closely we had started to build connections with the population we were serving, making their pain our own, and to me, this has been the most rewarding aspect of the time we have spent here so far. I can already tell that returning home after 3 weeks, is going to take longer than an 11 hour plane ride.

To Tourist? Or Not To Tourist?

2010-07-03T23:39:00.007+03:00

As we passed the halfway mark, meaning a whole month had elapsed already, very little changed in terms of our daily lives. I can speak Arabic a little better, and I know my way around now, and haggling comes a lot easier. But few other changes can be found between now and our first week, really. It's been like a major birthday, where you know you're supposed to feel older, but you really don't.
The frustrating part of this? I still get looked at as another American tourist. Trust me, I stick out in a crowd here, and it's a little disheartening to know that I could live here for years and still get the "Welcome to Egypt" greeting from strangers on the street who just want to interact with a foreigner. By this point, the impulse I have to restrain is the desire to turn to them and tell them off in Arabic, proving I'm not just some tourist and explaining to them that I live here.
But what makes me not a tourist? Just because I'm here for two whole months, or I live in an apartment, or because I take classes and teach and volunteer? So what? Two months is a seriously short amount of time, and, as our Pyramid tour yesterday proves, we still want to go around and do all of the sight-seeing and get all the obligatory Cairo pictures we think we need. Where's the distinction?
The unfortunate truth is that I don't think there's much of one. Yeah, we might be slightly more conscious of our dress (especially compared to some of the scandalous outfits I found on people yesterday in the Pyramids area...), but I know I still show my ankles most of the time - something you just don't see on most of the female residents here, even those women who don't veil. And my Arabic isn't that great, especially not my Amiya (colloquial, spoken Arabic).
The big difference, in my mind? What we'll eventually take from the whole experience. Yeah, we'll bring home the pictures, and the souvenirs, and we'll have been to many of those "you've got to go" places. But how many tourists have our microbus stories? Or will remember the contented looks on a bunch of street kids' faces as you let them rest on you to watch a subtitled 'Sword and the Stone?' While we're here, they seem like such little things, lost in the daily bustle as we rush from place to place, from experience to experience. But I have a feeling that, when we go home, it's gonna be Mustafa's smile as he rests his head on my arm, or the kid running up to the microbus' driver seat and stealing the keys, which stick in my mind a lot better than the crowded Pyramids area or whatever other obligatory "Cairo" feature.
Unfortunately, this knowledge does little to curb the comments I get walking down the street, but at least it helps me curb my temper.

The Luxury of Theory

2010-06-30T01:26:00.001+03:00

Today at each of our sites, we welcomed a speaker who discussed refugee determination procedures and the UNHCR (Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees). As we listened to her speak, both of us were struck by how utterly Western were the concepts guiding this process. The overarching theme we found is that often governments fail to live up to the theoretical guidelines mandated by the UNHCR. For starters, most of these refugees are living in Cairo “temporarily,” meaning that the Egyptian government cannot send them back to their home country. Yet in reality, few will ever be resettled in Egypt or elsewhere, and thus will never receive full citizens’ rights. A particularly telling quote from the lecture: “You [refugees] have rights, but they often aren’t carried out in practice.”

In the West we have the luxury of believing that all the agreements we make and treaties we sign will become reality, and that our humanitarian efforts will be fulfilled. Thus we have the luxury of theory – debating the finer points of wording while ignoring the failures and imperfections in implementation. But how do theoretical rights, agreed to on paper but not respected or adhered to in real life, help our students who suffer on a daily basis? Today we heard about our students’ first hand experiences in Cairo: being hit on the shoulder by an Egyptian and being unable to respond, being disgustingly overcharged while buying juice in a market, and having to pay the police in order to avoid arbitrary arrest.

We are not intending to diminish the efforts of the UNHCR, or our guest speaker, or AMERA (Africa and Middle East Refugee Assistance), an NGO with which we work closely. Today’s lecture simply made us realize the gap between Western ideals and the true refugee experience. The language of UNHCR policies is laden with ‘maybe’s and ‘might’s and ‘probably’s and ‘possibly’s, but this legal jargon does not account for the real lives of our students. Successful theory, that which on paper solves problems and grants rights, does not necessitate happy and healthy lives. These policies certainly are the jumping off point for a solution to the suffering of refugees, yet they need to be tweaked to suit the infrastructure of the non-Western world. Trusting in theory – pretty pieces of paper that hypothetically eliminate injustice – is a luxury that we never knew we had.

Today's Tidbits - June 28

2010-06-28T22:21:00.006+03:00

Today's Titles:

The Group Vs. The Fender-Bender
Brendan Gets Bit on the Butt
The Spit-On-Andi Game
John Starts a Barbershop Quartet
Arab Academy vs. Going to the Cinema
Rho Phi Gamma
Fernando and the Giggles

Songs of the Day:

"I'll Make A Man Out of You" -from Mulan
"Girlfriend" by Avril Lavigne

Quotes of the Day:

"Fi Amreeka naqul DUH." Translation: In America, we say DUH. -Ruba
"Hatha explains katheer." Translation: That explains a lot. -Andi
"Ya'll.....ya'll......ya'll......" -John teaching "ya'll" to his students
"Ah Nusaibah, it's your birthday." -Professor Lo
"Maheen, I thought your birthday was yesterday." -Professor Lo once again

Favorite Moments:

Nusaibah's Birthday (and all THREE cakes)
Lindsey and Fernando get documented by a random guy
Robert Doyle's President Broadhead Impersonation
Our security detail scaring off street salesman
The Ain Shams kids singing "I Believe I Can Fly"
Seeing the Mediterranean
John Making Popcorn

Week 4: Max's Reflection

2010-06-28T14:34:00.006+03:00

Walking through Tahrir Square, one is struck by the massive presence of the Mogamma, the headquarters of the Egyptian bureaucracy. Tahrir Square is a giant crossroads located near the Nile, filled with western fast food chains and ringed by hotels and tour agencies. The Mogamma sits incongruously on one side, with a small courtyard accenting its utilitarian facade. It sits there as a rather ugly landmark. Sometimes I see people doing their laundry on the roof.

According to its Wikipedia page (in English), there are fourteen stories and 18,000 Egyptian employees work there. I've never been inside it, but if I needed to renew a visa or get an Egyptian drivers' license I'd need to go there and likely waste a few hours waiting in line. It would be an inconvenience.

Walking back the other day, I reflected on how casually I dismiss the Mogamma as simply another unattractive presence in a city not known for its aesthetic appeal. For the refugees we work with - and for the average Egyptian - the Mogamma is the manifestation of the inefficiencies of the Egyptian state and the difficulties of life here.

I first heard of the Mogamma in my Arabic class, where we watched the video Al-Irhab wa al-Kebab (Terrorism and Kebab). (Arabic classes, especially those at Duke, place a huge emphasis on teaching cultural proficiency as well as language. The first vocabulary word in our Arabic textbook is "the United Nations".) In the film, an Egyptian everyman becomes so frustrated by the bureaucracy that he ends up taking over the building. He is labeled a terrorist by security forces outside, but becomes a hero to the disillusioned "hostages" inside. Whenever I see the Mogamma, I am reminded of the film's satirical analysis of Egyptian society.

I don't know a whole lot about the refugee status determination process, and what I do know is from hopelessly academic sources. I imagine having to wait in line for hours to plead my case to an overworked, underpaid Egyptian employee. I imagine being intimidated by the crowds and inhumanity of the process. If I were from Eritrea, Ethiopia, or Somalia, as many refugees here are, I might not even speak Arabic well enough to understand what was going on.

I can't even begin to imagine how scary the Egyptian state can seem to someone without a foreign passport and an embassy to advocate for your rights. While we were in Alexandria we saw dozens of armored cars and surrounded by riot policemen - apparently in response to protests related to the death of a teenager at the hands of policemen. That's all I've heard and that's all I know about the situation, although I believe it was covered in at least some Western media. (EDIT: for a great analysis and description of the events related to the death of Khalid Said, I refer you to the amazing Andrew Simon. Andrew just graduated from Duke and has a fellowship to spend a year studying Arabic in Cairo.)

Foreigners must content some governmental unpleasantries as well: foreign women will often find themselves stared at by bored policemen with guns; security forces will go out of their way to escort western tourists with the tacit understanding that they will be given compensation for their troubles; there are security checkpoints on the highways where passports are inspected; foreign tourists must pay many times the Egyptian price to visit museums and historical sights. These minor annoyances aside, Egypt pretty much bends over backwards for tourists. This isn't just the cold economics of tourism - Egyptians seem to genuinely love hospitality and their charm in receiving guests is remarkable.

Anyways, I started out hoping to write about the teaching process but once again I've found it far easier to write about buildings than to write about people. I know a lot of our readers (both of them probably!) are curious about what we're doing. I'd like to explain this, but it's difficult. I'm not exactly sure where or how to begin. Before arriving in Egypt, I had sort of implicitly assumed that our role would be more along the lines of an internship, where would be given a role and expected to fulfill the duties of the job. While we have partners here we work with, it's not the same thing as having a "job". Any job requirements we have are our own creations. We have immense flexibility, but this incredible freedom is, at least for me, extremely challenging. Far from the instant gratification of receiving a letter grade at the end of the term or a paycheck every second Friday, we have to come up with our methods, our own goals, and our own ways of measuring success.

I'm probably rambling somewhat, but I think the point I want to make is this: the question "what does Duke Engage Cairo do?" is a question that has 13 different answers. Everyone one of us has, after nearly a month, begun to realize the needs of the communities we are working with and our ability and capacity to engage. We are all developing our own curricula for teaching and making our own choices about how we can best spend the brief time that Duke Engage provides us. Hopefully some of us can begin to define our personal answers on this blog over the next month, and I'm going to make it one of my goals to provide one answer to this question - I think I owe it to Duke Engage and to our readers. I hope to write another post again soon.

Faluka Ride With AUC Students

2010-06-26T01:26:00.000+03:00

I’m sure one of my peers has mentioned it on this blog already, but in case they haven’t- a faluka ride is one of the most serene experiences in Cairo. Any boat ride is calming, a respite that can be hard to find in this city, but the fact that this specific boat ride is on the river we’ve grown up reading about and that people have been in awe of for generations, it just never gets old. It kind of reminds you of your presence there, something like the opposite of an out-of-body experience. I’m not entirely sure if that makes sense.

DukeEngage has a strong relationship with the American University of Cairo, particularly with a professor named Brooke. She’s already had us over to her apartment twice now for various lectures and invited us to this particular faluka ride, our 3^rd, to meet some of her summer students. I have heard some pretty accusatory stereotypes about AUC students and I don’t feel particularly inclined to take them at face value, but one thing is for sure- they’re not your everyday Egyptians. The fact of the matter is that in this country you have to be wealthy to go to AUC. I’ve heard things like the Egyptians students there don’t really live in Egypt or have a completely sheltered and unrealistic understanding of what the country is like. Honestly, I never really asked them what they think about President Mubarak or how to solve poverty in Egypt; we stuck to more kosher (or should I say halaal?) subjects like music and school. So I really couldn’t tell you how grounded they are. They were obviously more well-off than most Egyptians we have encountered so far, but they also seemed like intelligent and capable students. I think a fortunate background is no reason to harbor animosity towards or lay blame on someone, which I suspect is a strong influence on the development of the stereotypes I’ve mentioned. The group was very friendly and we’ve planned to meet up again sometime soon for dinner. I intend to have more substantial conversations with them then and I hope that they will, insha’allah, show me a different AUC student from the one I have been hesitant to accept.

This Week's Tidbits - June 21

2010-06-21T23:23:00.002+03:00

This Week’s Titles:

Teaching Troubles
Crying and Smiling Children
Journey to the Center of Hai al-Asher
Homework Vs. Lesson Planning Vs. Sleep
Professor Lo and the Eternal Battle For Interwebs
The Birthday Party
Street Fighter: The Victorious
The Twilight Saga: Cairo (cause the kids at I the Egyptian are routinely getting bitten)

Songs of the Week:

“Hot ‘n Cold” by Katy Perry
“Down” by Jay Sean
“Jump On It” by Apache

Quotes of the Week:

“What do you mean by Hello Kitty drugs?” –Zuri, befuddled by her teacher’s story
“Where’d the blondes go?” “Where the pigs went.” –John, on how beautiful blondes like Andy aren’t seen around here because they continually stop traffic
“Don’t lose your stuff, or else it will end up on some old man’s Christmas tree,” –Hannah, on the moral of story she read in her Arabic class
“I freakin’ love unicorns…I probably shouldn’t have admitted that…It’s like 10 Galleons a hair.” –Brendan
“Pregnant is just a dot away from being camel.” –John, on spelling Arabic words
John’s Vader Voice, in Arabic: “Luke, I am your father.”

Favorite Moments of the Week:

Street Fight in Khan el-Halili
Zuri Eating in Class
Moana Caking
Zoe’s Birthday
Working at the NGOs
Coptic Cairo
Lecture with Raymond
Teaching Time to St. Andrew's Students
Teaching "Ninja" to the Kids at I the Egyptian

Reflection - June 20

2010-06-20T23:28:00.000+03:00

In case you are one of the loyal followers who stuck with us even though we haven't posted this week, I send you my thanks. It's been a tough week for all of us- each with his or her own difficulties- so hopefully I can post a few updates later tonight about what's been happening in The Victorious (the meaning of "Cairo"). We have been saving up some things for Today’s Tidbits, so be on the lookout for them.

Before I write anything, though, I will say that my opinion does not represent everyone in the group; it is my opinion, and others may agree or disagree at various points. As much as I might want to see the world in black and white, I realize that there are indeed shades of grey. But I digress...

If I could encapsulate this week in one word, that word would be "frustration". Earlier on in the trip I wanted to try to explain how Cairo is an organic force directly intertwined with our work and our lives. This is not Durham, where you make your own fate. This is Cairo, where things don't ever happen the way you expect and there's no way to change it. Someone is late? It's Cairo. Your class is full of students you didn't expect? That's Cairo too. Constantly changing your lesson plans? Definitely Cairo.

My personal problem dealing with this frustration is that I can't fix it. I am not a control freak, but I like having control over my little kingdom. Cairo wants to teach me spontaneity and I am not an eager pupil. How can you tell if your students are learning? How do you deal with them when they don’t want to learn what you feel they need to learn? How about when you think they don’t need what you originally thought they needed? How should we discipline kids when we don’t have the linguistic and cultural capability of how to do so? Should our goal be to break up every fight and attempt to affect every kid in at least a small way, or skim over the whole bunch and invest in a few shining stars? How do you judge being a good cultural ambassador and is it okay if being one is our only goal?

These are the answerless questions that have been rattling around my head this week during the treks to I the Egyptian and Ain Shams. I do realize that I skipped discussing the bright spots in the week- how Maheen and I are the Batman and Robin of teaching English, or how I met one boy who wants to learn English as much as I do Arabic- but warm fuzzies don’t sell newspapers (or attract blog readership). I battle against Cairo with an open mind and a newfound patience, and in that I am quite impressed with myself. That being said, I currently feel unable to deal with the fact that tangible goals are- in all likelihood- unattainable. There is no way to measure- to touch, to taste, to smell, to see- success here. There is no way to say, “Look, here is what I am accomplishing.”

And that, at least to me, is frustrating.

Always Something New

2010-06-20T21:52:00.005+03:00

Every day in Cairo is a little bit different. There are new adventures to be had, a new bawab guarding the entrance to our apartment building (a bawab is like a doorman or bellhop, and they chill on the ground floor and open doors for us), new bug bites to be futilely ignored, new types of street food to be attempted, and new places to explore.

When Fernando and I go to Ardilewa (or, Ard al-Liwa), our new adventure is the trip over. The metro ride is pretty standard, give or take the different looks and/or comments I receive, but the microbus ride is always something special. Our first real microbus ride was on the way over, just the two of us, with no one to explain as everyone in the bus began to pass money to a random passenger on the bus. At first, I didn't notice. I was too busy looking out the window, worrying that we were going to miss where we were supposed to get off, and ignoring the man who would not stop staring at the arm I was using to brace myself. Note that we were in the front of a quite crowded bus, facing the rest of the passengers, in an area where very few foreigners venture and certainly, if they do, they don't take the minibus. When I eventually realized that money was going around the bus and I had no idea why, I gave Fernando a panicked look. Did he actually work for the bus driver, but just sit in the back? Was it a low-key holdup that none of the Egyptians cared about but was going to rob us of all of our money? Was I missing some vital, culturally significant activity?

Turns out, it's just easier for everyone on the bus to pass their money forward to someone close enough to pass money to the driver, so my initial fears were unwarranted. But every day on the microbus presents some kind of new puzzle, whether it's how to get the driver to stop, whether or not we should just jump off, how to get around the fold-down seats full of people blocking our exit, or discovering which microbus we should actually get on.

The microbus isn't the end of our adventure, although the market area through which we weave in order to find the correct alleyway down which we meander in order to arrive at the building containing our site is actually usually less exciting, despite its overflow of people, vehicles, animals, goods, and food. But, all in all, pushing through all this is more than made up for by our students, because they are more than worth it!

June 13 - by Andi

2010-06-15T21:32:00.000+03:00

Today, after our customary four hours of Arabic class, we returned to the apartments for a much-needed nap before setting off for the American University of Cairo.

After a rough wake up call, we all piled into the van for the hour-long ride to AUC (the University was moved to “New Cairo”, a developing residential area, a few years ago to escape the overpopulation and chaos found in downtown Cairo).

When we finally reached the university, we were in awe of the campus’s beauty. The calmness of the university starkly contrasted the hustle and bustle of downtown Cairo, and the buildings combined elements of both Mexican and Islamic architecture. Picturesque fountains and minarets dotted the campus.

After passing the student center, we found Mark Schleifer (also know as Abdullah Schliefer) for a lecture on his experiences as a foreign correspondent. In the past, Schliefer worked in various Middle Eastern countries and was employed by NBC and the New York times, among other news agencies. Many students were especially excited to meet Schleifer as he was mentioned in the book The Looming Towers, which was required reading for Professor Lo’s class on Al-Qaeda and terrorism.

From the beginning of the lecture, Schleifer’s charisma and anecdotes captured our attention. By telling stories from his personal experience as a reporter, Schleifer was able to explain what factors affect the media’s coverage of the Middle East and how this coverage in turn affects our perception of Middle Eastern society. According to Schleifer, the main factor in the public’s perception of a nation is whether or not a country receives general coverage or catastrophe coverage. Generally, only countries that are world powers or are perceived as such receive consistent coverage, or “general” coverage, by the media.

All other countries are only mentioned when catastrophes occur, which negatively colors our opinions of these societies. For example, although the Luxor terrorist attacks occurred about the same time as a terrorist attack in London, Egyptian tourism suffered a much heavier a blow because the story about the attack was the only story run on Egypt that week. On the other hand, England received general media coverage and thus various other stories were run on England that week. Consequently, tourists were less hesitant to travel there as the negativity of the attack was countered by stories with a more positive spin. In fact, the contrast between the reactions to the two attacks was so drastic that President Mubarak actually thought the media was conspiring against Egypt.

Apart from catastrophe coverage, Schleifer also described how denial of media access, violence, and logistical issues that arise while working in certain areas of the Middle East often negatively affect coverage. To illustrate his point, he shared various stories from the field, including the time an armed guard stuck a loaded weapon in Schleifer’s mouth after he violated his cardinal rule of Middle Eastern journalism: “Always smile at a man with a gun.”

By the end of the end of the hour and a half, we were all sad to see Schleifer run to his next engagement. Inshahallah, his advice and experiences on working in and understanding the Middle East will serve us well in our endeavors in Cairo.

Today's Tidbits - June 13 and Beyond

2010-06-13T22:11:00.011+03:00

Today's Titles

The Group Gets Busy
There's A Bat In The Air Conditioner -or- Night Bird In The Air Machine
Brendan vs. Getting Knee Capped, Dance Moves And His Shirt
Pecos Bill : Tornado :: Yasin : Taxi Cab
George vs. The Nail
It's About To Get Crazy

Quotes of the Day

"Zoe, you know the direction?" - Prof. Lo, after all of us were already in the van
Wild Zubat appeared! -- Air Conditioner used Fan Blades! -- It's super effective! -- Wild Zubat fainted!
"Always smile at a man with a gun." - Mark Schleifer
"Power is an aphrodisiac." - Henry Kissinger

Songs of the Day

"Easy Love," by MSTRKRFT
"Buy You A Drink," by T-Pain

Favorite Moments

The group learning how to Apache
Watching World Cup games at the Four Seasons and the koosheri place
Zoe explaining how to learn languages
The Arab Academy group discussing swine flu in Arabic
Floating on the Nile, reflecting back on our week
Mark Abdullah Schleifer illustrates the reasons behind and consequences of conflict coverage in journalism
Visiting and observing classes at St. Andrew's

DukeEngager of the Day: John, for his heroic patience with children

Observing the Classroom

2010-06-12T00:46:00.004+03:00

Yesterday morning the group went to the St. Andrews site to observe some of the teachers and students in their classrooms. We've had a full week of getting to know St. Andrews as a community partner, learning what their vision is and how they see this program. This coming week, we start teaching! I think most of us are nervous, but excited. Although we can see that we're going to have our hands full for the next 7 weeks, I think it will be very rewarding throughout the process. St. Andrews is allowing us to make this project our own. My group has been brainstorming the lesson plans, ideas for projects, teaching methods, etc., but I feel that we're most anxious to finally meet the students we'll be teaching.

Observing the classroom yesterday was extremely helpful. I learned a lot of methods which worked and didn't work. Patience is definitely key. The teacher explained to us that patience is something we'll have to put into practice. One thing I noticed was that the girls were much more eager to answer questions than the guys. The teacher constantly had the students talking, which is excellent I think, especially for language classes. There is only so much we can do before meeting the students and getting to know what they would like to learn until we meet them. Wish us luck!

St. Andrews Community Centers

2010-06-11T15:38:00.003+03:00

Unlike the past two years that St. Andrews and DukeEngage have been working together, this year the organizations are trying something quite different. Instead of all of the refugee children going to the main St. Andrews site in Cairo, the DukeEngagers will be splitting up into groups of two or three students and going to centers in the local refugee communities to make the instruction more accessible. Someone from each site wrote up a little blurb about their community center and their first experience – these blurbs are combined here.

Ain Shams Group:
Brendan and I (Maheen) were paired together to go to the community center in an area called Ain Shams, conveniently located right off one of the metro stops but three stops away from the end of the line. The first thing that both of us thought as we left the station (after taking in the odd combination of smells, both sweet and, uh, not-so-sweet) was that this is what we thought Cairo would look like. Perhaps we had an ignorant or backwards notion of what a city in a developing country would look like, but Ain Shams is more of the Cairo we imagined than anything we’ve seen in the past week. There is one thing we noticed, though. As we walked by the street vendors selling fresh fruit and a donkey cart pulling hand-made vases, we found that no one was staring at us. We’ve kind of gotten used to getting a deluge of odd glances as we walk by any street in Cairo, both because I’m a woman and Brendan happens to be a 6’4 white kid. This we’ve just learned to accept as the culture. We felt oddly much less out of place in this conservative area- one that sees many fewer foreigners. We’re really looking forward to working with Adam, our community facilitator, in this area starting next week.

St. Andrews Group:
While most of the DukeEngagers were out on their volunteer site visits today, my (Hannah’s) day was a bit more relaxed, as we were already in my future classroom! I have the pleasure of working with Nusaibah and Hillary at the St. Andrew's center downtown, the same location where we had the beginning of our orientation today and yesterday. Although we got to see the St. Andrew's school in action, we have not yet met any of our students. Our program is geared towards unaccompanied minors who are not enrolled in school, specifically targeting those who work during the day. Our students will be primarily Eritrean and Ethiopian, with about four Iraqi refugees in the mix. I'm interested to see the differences between the circumstances of the various nationalities. The chances of resettlement are much higher for refugees from Iraq than for those from Africa, so there might be a difference in outlook between the different populations. The three of us will be working with a wonderful community facilitator named Jamal, who is Eritrean. He filled us in on the current situation in Eritrea: the country is highly militarized, and soldiers have made a habit of entering schools, measuring all the students, and, if a student reaches a certain height, immediately enlisting him into the military. Thus, there is a high percentage of students who flee to Egypt before they can be enlisted. He also said that many of the Eritrean students speak some English, but are anxious to improve. Although this could make our task a lot easier, I'm a little anxious that the skill levels of the group will be extremely diverse. However, with some creativity on our part, we should be able to accommodate all skill levels. We won't begin teaching until next Monday, but we're very excited to work more with Jamal and write lesson plans until then!

Hayd Ashr Group:
Despite a structured, planned schedule, life in Cairo is really never what you expect it to be. Perhaps the real adventure of our trip to Hayd Ashr, the site where Max, Ruba, Zuri and I (Moana) will be teaching, was our mode of transportation to get there – the microbus.
The microbus ride in itself was fairly comfortable. A microbus is essentially a mini-van seating a maximum 10 people. I got to sit next at the back next to the window and embrace the dusty yet breezy Cairo air as we sped along unfamiliar roads out of the city and I became oblivious to our infrequent stops and people getting on and off, looking outside in awe of the city’s traffic. It was not until we were deliberating how to get back did I realize that microbuses do not have an actual stops – people are allowed to get on and off at the whim of the driver. The bus waits for no one; if you are lucky, you can get on and off when the vehicle is not in motion.
Then we were there. I had only imagined a place like Hayd Ashr but never actually seen something like it before. As soon as we walked into the compound, I was reminded of India briefly – mostly in terms of the communal feel of the place: children playing in the open space, small shops, a pharmacy, a butcher and an outdoor community space for residents to socialize. It felt like its own little world within this incredible city. The residents are primarily Somali and Sudanese refugees and we saw the large indoor community center space and nursery where we will teach starting next week.
I have never taught before and furthermore, our teaching sites are far from anything like a classroom environment and so I am nervous yet excited about the prospect of meeting the 40-45 children next week and getting to know them, building their trust and, hopefully, impacting their lives in some way.

Ard al-Liwa Group:
Fernando and I (Lindsey) had no idea what to expect as we followed our community facilitator, Abdullahi, out of St. Andrews and down the street. After a failed attempt to hop on a microbus, we ended up taking a taxi to Ard al-Liwa, a neighborhood near Sudan Street in Giza where many Somali refugees reside. Abdullahi is great, and has been wonderful in answering our questions and making us feel welcome at the center in Ard al-Liwa, but as he walked through the market towards the community center we had to race to keep up with him, dodging not only people and goods but also cars, motorcycles and the occasional donkey, because Abdullahi stops for no one and rarely looks back to see if his two wayward American coworkers are keeping up.
But we made it to the center perfectly safe, and chatted over Fanta in the small room where we’ll be teaching 20 Somali refugees – 11 girls, 9 boys, ranging in age from 14 to 19. We discussed what we should teach, what should be less emphasized and the probable skill levels of our students (little Arabic or English, little literacy). It was awesome to be able to finally see this place we keep talking about, and it really started to make our project a lot more real for us as we began planning in our actual teaching space.
Then, we were off back towards home – Abdullahi led us to where we could hop on a bus, and waved us off as we began our journey to the metro station. We were a little worried at first, since we really had no idea where we were or where we were going, but I think both of us are glad that we’re finally out of the hand-holding stage of living in Cairo. We made it back without getting lost, and, if we can learn a little bit of determination from Abdullahi, we think we’ll be able to teach without getting lost as well.

Reflection: June 11

2010-06-11T13:37:00.001+03:00

Yesterday, I started scratching the back of my head. I had this little feeling- a sharp, soft pinprick, more like it- somewhere on my head. A mosquito bite? No. A tick? Can’t be. Then, slowly throughout the day, the feeling spread: down the back of my neck, into my arms and fingers, through my chest and to my stomach, where it circled like a hawk overhead before spiraling into a heavy mass. This daunting weight sat in my stomach all day as I watched the child refugees at St. Andrew’s and as I planned my attack on how to better serve them.

We began our morning by observing various classes at St. Andrew’s and luckily I was put into an English class. The children were learning about parts of speech- nouns, verbs, adverbs, adjectives and all the wonderful things that I love to study in linguistics-, so needless to say I in exactly the right place. Along with Hannah and Lindsey, I had the opportunity to see these eager young kids figure their eager young ways through the English language. I’ve never seen so many smiling faces in a single classroom. Every time the teacher asked a question, at least half the class shot an index finger into the air- their equivalent of raising your hand- and shouted out, “Miss! Miss!” in hopes of answering it.

Chances are that these kids have no chance. They are refugees in a country that either doesn’t want them or doesn’t want to deal with them, or both. Maybe I’m not giving Egypt a fair shake, and the fact of the matter might actually be that Egypt is unequipped to deal with them, but these kids nonetheless have the deck stacked against them. Chances are these kids will have a brutal, challenging existence on this planet. Watching their eyes moon over prepositions was like seeing a beautiful flower that doesn’t recognize the winter two steps away from setting in. It was simultaneously soaring joy and crashing sadness. There was a kind of glorious innocence about it all that I wish I could capture in words or pictures or film. But I can’t. It was the most natural, most basic human reaction, the product of thousands of years of human experience programmed into my DNA. It transcended paternal instinct; it was a moment when you realize what makes you human.

It is our job to fight against all the forces soon to embitter these children’s lives- the government, xenophobia, fear, self-doubt- and to shield them from the coming storm. In all likelihood, our eight weeks probably won’t change things. We may teach 80 kids, but there thousands of others out there. But that’s not the point now, is it? The point is to try to affect them, no, to incite them to change their own lives. We are not teaching them English or Arabic, but rather we are teaching them the tools necessary to empower themselves. If even just one student goes on to lead a better life than they would have without us, then we’ve succeeded. Or, at least, that’s the goal.

Time to go do it.

Week 1: The City of Cairo

2010-06-10T19:44:00.003+03:00

I heard the other day that architects have the highest suicide rate in Egypt. I’m not sure if that’s true or just a colorful rumor, but it certainly makes sense. Navigating Cairo is hard – the buildings here tend to run together into a brown blur. There’s been a trend in recent years where the wealthy move outside the city, escaping the noise and squalor of downtown in favor of mini-cities that spring up in the desert. Yet while the dirty, decaying facades of downtown have character, these new cities seem soulless and utilitarian. The rows of identical block housing and the Lada taxis filling the streets call to mind the ghosts of Egypt’s socialist past.

I’m not sure if Arabic has a word for “urban planner”, but I’m sure they must share in architects’ frustration. Cairo has virtually no public spaces. The sidewalks are littered with construction debris and the streets are cluttered with cars. Double parking is the norm, and I’ve even seen triple parking in some places. At night, people congregate on the Nile bridges, enjoying the breeze as well as some of Cairo’s only decent sidewalks.

The population is growing, but I’m not sure how Cairo will cope. Professor Lo told me he thought that in twenty years the government is going to have to start tearing down buildings. If I had to guess, though, I’d predict that affairs will continue in the unpredictable, laissez-faire fashion they do now. Many things about the city of Cairo don’t make sense, but Egyptians are resilient. They find ways to rejoice in the Kafka-like absurdities of Cairo. I love Cairo and I love the Egyptian people, but this is an extremely difficult city to live in. For those who relish constant challenge, Cairo is an amazing adventure. For those who want things to just make sense, this is not the country for you.

This post started because I wanted to write about running. Running is never something I’ve liked doing, and I’ve always nursed a secret jealousy for the motivated few who have the persistence to go running every day. I had wanted to join a gym, but after Gold’s Gym told me a two-month membership would be about $300 US, I was forced to change my allegiance. I’ve become one of them, getting up at 6:15 AM four or five days a week to go running. I love it.

Cairo is beautiful in the early morning, before it gets hot and the traffic becomes so thick you can’t walk between the idling cars. Crossing the Nile every morning is simply awe-inspiring. Yes, the pollution is bad and the heat is deadly, but in the early morning neither is insurmountable. From the apartment, I cross the bridge unto Zamalek Island and run to the Gezira Club, which has a giant running track. The dirt track is narrow, uneven, and covered with horse crap, but it’s better than the sidewalks. I’d guess the track is maybe a mile and half around, but I really have no idea. I’m not sure exactly if you need a membership or not to use the track, but I just do what Professor Lo showed me and give £E 5 ($0.90 US) to the guard at the side gate. I’m not sure whether I’m just paying the cost of admittance or bribing the guy, but it works without fail. Interestingly though, £E 5 seems to work regardless of how many people I have running with me…

Running in Cairo is also amusing because of the reactions you get. The bored policemen with AK-47s hanging loosely off their backs stare at you as your run by. Sometimes I get honks and thumbs-ups from taxi drivers. When I finally make it back to the apartment, the bawwab (custodian) sitting in the lobby gives me a standing ovation while I drag my sweaty body to the elevator. They think my mediocre jogging means I’m some sort of amazing sportsman – no one runs here. Greater Cairo has a population of perhaps 15 million people, but I’ve only seen about 3 other people running.

Today's Tidbits - June 8

2010-06-08T23:02:00.002+03:00

Today’s Titles:

FDOC
Zuri Vs. The World, Part Ten(Thousand)
The Girl’s Apartment Conquers the Stove
Max, Ruba, Moana, and Zuri Vs. The Minibus
Community Facilitators, Orientation, and Other Wonderful Things

Songs of the Day:

“Pokemon Theme Song” in Arabic
“Make It Through” by Sherwood

Quotes of the Day:

“Don’t drive with Hannah. She’s a terrible taxi driver.” -Ingie, the Arab Academy teacher during a taxi-cab, role-playing game.
“Legiternet” and “sly-fi” –John’s terms for “legitimate internet” connections and “possibly unsafe” ones

Favorite Moments:

First Day of Classes
Animal Toss Game at Orientation
Minibuses
We gave in…and went to McDonald’s

DukeEngager of the Day: Fernando, future bodyguard

June 8 - The Group Vs. FDOC

2010-06-08T22:48:00.001+03:00

I thought jet lag was bad…until we started our first day of Arabic classes (FDOC = first day of classes) today. It is a four-hour mental marathon that is both something completely identical to and completely unlike physical exhaustion. Imagine your brain simultaneously understanding but not processing everything that is going on around you. John says it is like going to the gym for the first time in a while and finding out that your Arabic muscles aren’t as strong as you thought they were.

Our teachers at Al-Diwan were excellent, never switching to English to give us an easy way out. While I can’t speak for the rest of the group, I think I understood about 60-75% of what our teacher was saying at any given moment- and that’s a pretty good number. Max, Nusaibah, and I pushed our way through Chapter 15 in our book while also picking up a lot of new material (i.e. we discovered there are dual forms for pronouns aka pronouns for groups of two people). While I can’t say I was too excited about doing homework during my sacred summer months, I do indeed look forward to having class again tomorrow morning.

After a quick cab ride to St. Andrew’s- the primary NGO we will be working with- we had a second day of orientation activities. Today we learned about the services that AMERA (the African and Middle Eastern Refugee Assistance) can provide to refugees, such as legal and document services, psycho-social aid, protection, and sexual/gender based violence help. The presenter told us that her individual team works on about 8 cases every month, so we hope we can increase that number over the next few weeks by connecting refugees to the services that can help make their lives better. After a teaching and lesson-planning workshop, we split up and headed off to the sites we’ll be working at (look for another blog post from each group tonight about their individual sites).

Today's Tidbits - June 7

2010-06-07T23:05:00.004+03:00

Today's Titles:

Life Is So Much Better On A Boat
Zuri Vs. Allergic Reactions
Zuri Vs. Everything
Crazy Taxi: Cairo

Songs of the Day:

"How Bizarre" by O.M.C.
"Come Together" by the Beatles

Quotes of the Day:

"I don't know what you want, but I have what you need."
"How can I take your money?"
"It's kind of like a piggy-back ride." - Max

Favorite Moments:

Fiona assuaging our anxiety
Orientation at St. Andrew's
Boat Ride on the Nile
Mango Juice
Dinner with Amr

DukeEngager of the Day: Zuri (she gets it two days in a row for her EXTREME patience and dedication)

Reflection: Week One

2010-06-07T22:22:00.001+03:00

Before I get into my reflections and ponderings and whatnot, I feel like I need to give the background to how I reached them. It started last night when Professor Lo talked to me about the blog, specifically about how to make it less “touristy”. At first, I reacted a little defensively about how much fun everyone has had writing it but then I started to think a little more about what tourism meant. And, as usual, Professor Lo’s small statements opened up a world of introspective insights.

What is tourism? Is it spending 8 weeks in a foreign country? Is it exploring Cairo? What makes this blog “touristy”- is it our casual tone or our comparisons between home and here? If comparing the US and Cairo is touristy, then what is less touristy? Is there some deep insight that we (that I?) are overlooking? In a sense, we are actually tourists to Cairo. Eight weeks is not nearly enough time to make us natives of, or experts on, Cairo. So what is the difference between tourism and immersion – because, after all, this is an immersion program. Tourism is physically exploring a place but never becoming part of it. Immersion is exploring a place, in terms of its physicality, its culture, and its personality.

Circling back to the start of this entry, how has this physical, cultural, and personal immersion affected me so far? I don’t know. It’s hard to get perspective on something while you’re actually there, while you’re actually doing it, especially after just one week. What I can say for sure, though, is that DukeEngage has opened my eyes to a part of the world I would never have otherwise seen. Sure, I could have visited Cairo and the pyramids and the museums, but DukeEngage has opened me up to the people and individuals that enliven Cairo. Instead of hearing about poverty or imagining what street children look like, I can now say that the wool over my eyes has been pulled back.

As President Broadhead described in his address to the DukeEngage students, this service-learning project is a unique form of education. Personally, I’ve always found learning to be something you need to experience. I have trouble comprehending or understanding or believing something unless I witness it first-hand. Now I can say that I have done just that: I have seen Cairo. While there is a lot left to learn, and seven more weeks worth of experiences to have, I can see the problems that affect Cairo and I know my place in how to better serve the community. I guess I have just begun to see things in a different light.

Today's Tidbits - June 6

2010-06-07T00:15:00.008+03:00

Today's Titles:

Everyone Delivers
Arabic 2 vs. the Placement Exam
Andi vs. Invalid Wells Fargo Phone Numbers
Nusaibah vs. The Stationary Store
Fernando and Moana's Embassy Adventure

Songs of the Day:

"We Didn't Start the Fire" by Billy Joel
"Apache" by Sugar Hill Gang

Anonymous Quotes of the Day:

"What's the news, Fat-mah?"
"You're lucky not to be a refugee."
"I bet your father is part of the NRA."

Favorite Moments:

Receiving the magic coffee wand (and the coffee with it!) at Arab Academy
Meeting a soon-to-be-Dukie (who was way too nice to us!)
Comparing ICS Majors to car dealerships ("Everything's pre-approved!" - John)
Fry sandwiches
Crown pizza (Pizza Hut + Cream Cheese)

DukeEngager of the Day: Zuri (who hopefully is feeling much better now)

Trip to the Tower - June 5

2010-06-06T15:13:00.002+03:00

Andi, Brendan, Hannah, and Lindsey try to trek to the Cairo Tower but inadvertently end up wandering around Zamalek instead.

June 5: Crosses, Icons and Graves

2010-06-06T01:24:00.004+03:00

Today, Hillary and I decided to go on an adventure and visit Coptic Cairo. We rode the metro four stops south to Mar Girgis. Coptic Cairo was there, immediately outside of the station with beautiful Byzantine-like churches all around. The Coptic Museum was closing in 2 hours so we stopped by there first. We were amazed by the beauty of the wall paintings, the column capitals, friezes and mosaics - all from old Egyptian Coptic monasteries. Also, there were gorgeous illuminated copies of the gospels in both Arabic and Coptic.

After leaving the museum, we explored the Church of St. George, who is known for his slaying of the dragon, and the Church of the Virgin Mary, which was built at the spot where she supposedly drank water from a well during her visit to Egypt. Within the Church of St. George, there were signs on which people wrote their names or prayers and icons of St. George that people touched, hoping for a blessing. Located in the middle of an immense cemetery, the Church of the Virgin Mary houses a well from which the faithful drink to obtain blessings or physical healing.

After leaving the churches, we continued our adventure by descending down steps – guarded by a very bored Egyptian tourist police officer - to a sub-alley. Here, Hillary and I entered a nunnery that was being remodeled, encountered our first beggar, and visited a souvenir shop, where we befriended one of the shop-keepers (Marian). After chatting (in English) with her for a good 45 minutes, we exchanged email addresses in hopes of meeting up with our friends and her friends later this summer. Our visit to Coptic Cairo was definitely a wonderful adventure and opportunity to use our Arabic to get around. We can’t wait to take everyone else back.

The Food (So Far)

2010-06-05T23:58:00.005+03:00

I knew Cairo would be a taste-bud-opening experience but I really underestimated how good the food would be here. I pictured beans being used like peanut butter and random types of meat being served to me in strange forms. Although I do not mind beans and strange meat, the fare here has been a happy surprise. All of it has been good, but the Koosheri, the hole-in-the-wall chicken shop's chicken, and the sugar cane juice stand out.

Koosheri can be best described as Ramen fit for a king. It only costs three pounds and it fully satisfies our hunger. It consists of hearty macaroni, fried onions, rice, lentils, and chick peas. It also comes with a bowl of tasty tomato sauce and a bowl of extremely hot pepper sauce. Travelers beware: do not imitate me and slosh the hot sauce on your Koosheri in attempt to seem cool. The experience that my mouth endured was far from cool.

At Max's suggestion, we went to a tiny street chicken vendor for dinner. Max asked the kind shop owner for a chicken roasting on the rotisserie and the shop owner proceeded to chop it in half, put it on a plate with delicious rice and pita, and serve it to us. If you are into greasy, finger-lickin' good chicken like me, you would love this pleasing poultry. My father always said that the hole-in-the wall joints were the best and after tasting this chicken I agree with him.

There is a juicer shop nearby that takes various local fruits and, you guessed it, juices them. It only costs a pound for a glass and it's delicious. I have only tried the juiced sugar cane but intend to sample their entire menu, starting with the mango juice. The shop owners are quite friendly gentlemen and we had a fun time talking with them as I sipped my juice.

Speaking of shop owners, I am very pleased by how nice every shopkeeper has treated us so far. It is really fun trying out my Arabic with them and when I fail to remember how to communicate something it is entertaining listening to them trying to speak Arabic. Perhaps it is their attitude that makes their food taste so good.

Today's Tidbits - June 5

2010-06-05T23:44:00.003+03:00

Today’s Title:

Professor Lo Vs. Punctuality
Get Lost…In Cairo
Explorers!
First Day on the Job

Songs of the Day:

“Show Me The Meaning” by the Backstreet Boys

Quote of the Day:

John: “I saw a zoological garden on the map. Should we go?”
Ellah: “You mean a zoo?”
John: “Yeah. Yeah, is it good?”
Ellah: “No.”

Favorite Moments:

Meeting the Wonderful Staff at Al-Diwan
Making Friends in Coptic Cairo
Exploring Zamalek and Cairo Tower
First Day at Al-Kayan!
Playing Backgammon with Hussein
Experimenting with New Metro Stations
Eating Chicken and Drinking Juice from Random Shops
Eating at Taboula

DukeEngager of the Day: Andi

Back to Day 1: The Video

2010-06-05T16:30:00.002+03:00

Sorry this took so long to get up, but here it is: moving into the apartments and a few stories about our first two days in Cairo. Thanks to Mr. Magdy for all his help in getting this online!

Today's Tidbits - June 4

2010-06-05T01:14:00.001+03:00

Today’s Title:

The Group Vs. Taxis
Darn Those Apricots!
Rap Like An Egyptian
The Battle Against Jet Lag
Vodaphone!
There’s A First Time For Everything: Street Food

Songs of the Day:

“Every Day I See My Dream” by LMFAO
“I Want To Get Married But I Don’t Have Money” by the 3 Egyptian Rappers at the Concert

Quotes of the Today:

“You Arab?” to Fernando by Mall Security Guard
“You have the worst Arabic I’ve ever heard!” to Ruba, by Native Speaker
“I just don’t understand you Egyptians” by Ruba, as a response to Native Speaker

Favorite Moments:

Wust El Balad Concert
Taxi Rides (on our own!)
Street Food Adventures
Sleeping, then Napping

(Former) DukeEngagers of the Day: Cosette and Andrew

Wust El Balad

2010-06-05T00:58:00.005+03:00

The DukeEngage Cairo 2010 group has officially sampled the night life of Cairo! After meeting up with some Duke alum, who are here taking classes, we found out about a concert down at El Sawy Cultural Circle in Zamalek. We all, of course, jumped on the opportunity to wander around and see more of the city, so we braved taxis and found ourselves getting a glimpse of Cairo at night. We couldn't stop talking about how beautiful it all was, with the Nile right beside us and all the buildings and boats lit up in a variety of colors. People were everywhere and the city seemed even more full of life - if that's even possible.

Wust El Balad, the band, was amazing. They were fun to listen and dance to, and everyone around us knew all the words, showing how popular they are. We tried our best to understand what they were singing, with mixed results, and the people of Cairo once again proved how nice they are with how we were treated at the concert!

Afterwards, we all broke off, some back to the apartment (with only marginal difficulties with the taxi) and some to find a midnight snack (including some delicious chocolate crepes!). But we can't wait to continue exploring Cairo!

A Handful of Pictures

2010-06-04T00:09:00.002+03:00

Click here to view these pictures larger

Today's Tidbits - June 3

2010-06-03T23:58:00.002+03:00

Today’s Title:

Hillary Vs. the Arm-Wrestler
Professor Lo Vs. Directions, Part Two
Orientation Day
Professor Lo Does the Sorority Squat

Song of the Day: “Carry On My Wayward Son” by Kansas

Favorite Moments:

Max and Ahmed wrestling
Hillary arm-wrestling
Witnessing our first traffic accident (which is shocking in that we didn’t see one sooner)
Eating at an Italian restaurant in Cairo that played 80’s jams
Meeting the three NGOs
Riding the subway
Ordering Pizza

Quote of the Day:

“Is Andi okay?” – to Andi, by Prof. Lo
“Oh Look, Those Are Pyramids. No big deal.” – Anon.
“I Don’t Ride Elevators That Don’t Have A Picture Of Cherie Berry” – Max
“Do you speak al-Engleezee? [Pause] Ah sweet.” – John

DukeEngager of the Day: Moo-see-bah, err, Nusaibah…

This post is brought to you by Mohamed Magdy, even though he doesn’t know it.

The Orientation Marathon

2010-06-03T23:48:00.007+03:00

Ana Al-Misri, or I the Egyptian, is an organization that takes care of children ages 2-16 that would otherwise live on the street. They come in with various backgrounds and needs, and it is up to the very capable staff of Ana Al-Misri to work with these children at a personal level, address their needs, and prepare them for a successful future.

The children have varying backgrounds, so the staff put the children into different categories when they are first interviewed to join the program. Stage 1 the lowest level, where children are behind in their education if it exists at all and may suffer from physical and psychological maladies that are a result of their life on the streets of Cairo. Though they often do not encounter problems like gun violence and drug use that are found in most other countries, these children sadly often have a background of neglect and abuse that leaves them emotionally damaged and with trust issues. Stage 2 children are more adapted to society and are current with their education. They are your average curious, energetic, and joyful kids. The last stage is where they are prepared with enough skills to live on their own, the goal of Ana Al-Misri.

Ana Al-Misri looks at three different levels of society when trying to help and understand the children. At the first level they look at a child’s personal development both emotionally and physically. The second level contains the children’s immediate culture and environment and tries to understand how the child fits into these social structures. The third level focuses on how the children fit into a global society at a macro level.

AWTAD was our second stop, an organization which focuses on a wide variety of cultural needs. Their main focus is on the mentoring of women entrepreneurs, fostering self confidence and facilitating the implementation of their business plans. One facet of this is entitled Anamel Misria, "Egyptian Fingers," which focuses on training artisans so that they can use their trade as a reliable source of income.

AWTAD is also acting to promote women's health within Egypt. They began by attempting to spread awareness about breast cancer, but ran into cultural issues and had trouble garnering public support. But they switched their focus to women's health in general, and work to spread awareness of basic health issues and disease prevention measures.

The friendly and engaging staff plan to give volunteers a lot of freedom with their responsibilities, so we will be able to choose our own ways of contributing. AWTAD seems to have a far-reaching influence in a variety of areas, so volunteers will be able to work directly within a specific branch, or work in a more administrative position as they brainstorm ideas.

The last of stop on today's orientation marathon was Al-Kayan, a center that works with disabled children in Cairo. In addition to running after school programs and daytime programs, the center also works to change the image of the disabled in Cairo to a more positive one. Although we were exhausted by the time we arrived, we were all impressed by the clarity of their presentation.

Our responsibility at Al-Kayan for the summer is two-fold: to increase the size of their English network, including updating their website with English articles and links and contact similar NGOs in Europe and America, and to teach their staff English. The Al-Kayan directors outlined these expectations clearly, including specific suggestions on vocabulary selections and a comprehensive schedule.

By the end of Al-Kayan's presentation, we were left with very few questions, and we paused only to take a brief tour of the facility and some group pictures before heading back to Garden City to relax.

By: John, Lindsey, and Hannah

Today’s Tidbits – June 1 and 2

2010-06-03T23:28:00.004+03:00

I’m not sure how well this idea will play out, but bear with me: I want to try and keep the blog fresh by adding a little special something everyday. That special something is the new section titled “Today’s Tidbits” (sorry but I love alliteration). I want to have little things that will define our day in ways pictures, videos, and postings won’t. That being said, I now present you with the maiden voyage of “Today’s Tidbits”.

If today had a title, it would be:

Professor Lo Vs. The One-Way Streets
“Just Push It”
It Wasn’t Me

Song of the Day:

“It Wasn’t Me” by Shaggy
“Sandstorm” by Darud

Favorite Moments of the Day:

Getting lost going from the airport to the apartment
Learning that when you park in Cairo, you should leave your car in neutral so people can push it if it is blocking the street
Arriving safely.

Toughest Cross-Cultural Interaction:

Buying fruit
Crossing the street

Day 1: Wheels on the Ground

2010-06-03T21:25:00.006+03:00

After months of preparation, we’ve arrived in Egypt. I stepped off the plane groggy and stiff from the 12 hour flight. From my window seat, the blurry tan of the desert below blurred into the clouds. It seemed unreal when the wheels of the 777 calmly hit the tarmac and slid to a halt.

It wasn’t until we actually left the airport that it hit me – we’re in Egypt now.

On hand to meet us was our beloved Arabic instructor Professor Lo. With him was Zoe, a Duke alum who works in Cairo and who will be serving as our on-the-ground coordinator. They ushered us outside into the heat and unto a microbus, which ferried us through meandering one-way streets until we reached our apartments. DukeEngage provided us with two apartments located in Garden City a district adjacent to the Nile. All we knew about the apartments was that there were two of them (one for boys and one for girls), they had formerly been American University in Cairo dorms, and that they were “nice”. “Nice,” though, may have been the understatement of the century, and can’t even begin to encapsulate how beautiful and spacious our accommodations are. If you’re curious, you can check out my video tour of the guys’ apartment. [Note: actually, you can't yet. We're having some technical difficulties getting internet so it'll probably just be text updates for the near future.] Suffice it to say that we’re all incredibly relieved, excited, and grateful about our living situation.

Our orientation starts tomorrow. For now, we’re just relaxing, unpacking, and getting ourselves mentally prepared for the next two months. Past participants in this program have told me that it constituted the hardest two months of their lives, but I’m sure it will prove to be the most rewarding as well.

Many thanks for reading, and please feel free to write us with any questions you might have! We’ll try to keep the blog updated as often as feasible –we don’t have internet in the apartments right now, but we hope to get wireless within a week or so.
- Max

Welcome!

2010-05-27T05:25:00.002+03:00

Welcome to the DukeEngage in Cairo Blog 2010! This is the place to go for updates, videos, pictures, and stories concerning our foray(s) into cross-cultural service in Egypt.

Look for new posts starting next week!