Who Really Decides What's Right?

Earlier this week I went to a contemporary dance show at the Alexandria Library. It was a group from Cairo and very different from any performances I had seen yet in Egypt. I enjoyed the entire show, but there was one dance in particular that resonated powerfully with my experiences abroad. The number featured a large tank of water and completely submerged in the tank sat a cross-legged dancer. He breathed through a tube, motionlessly staring straight ahead. The water was still and beautiful, bending the murky stage light and throwing it back out into the audience. A second dancer was moving outside of the tank, and one of his first gestureswas to pull the breathing tube away from the man in the water. As the water dancer writhed about in confusion, searching for air, the second man glided around the tank, peering into its depths.The water itself erupted with waves and bubbles, instantly unrecognizable from the stillness moments prior.

The water dancer became more and more desperate, slamming his body into the side of the tank in an attempt to reach the air that the second dancer was breathing. He at last found the surface, but was confused by the sensation of the exposure and continued to thrash about in the water alternately surfacing for the necessary air. The air dancer meanwhile had been venturing closer and closer to the water’s surface and finally attempted to submerge his head, only to come up seconds later coughing and sputtering. As the dance progressed the air dancer climbed onto the edge of the tank and lowered himself cautiously into the water, shivering with the change temperature. The two moved around in the water, in a confused battle-like dance, until the air dancer pulled himself from the tank and returned to the ground. Back on firm land, however, he slid and slipped on the wet floor, unable to balance on the water that had infiltrated his environment. Eventually he returned to the water, whereupon the two dancers emerged together. The water dancer clung to the back of the air dancer, terrified at first to touch the stage, but eventually lowered himself, and the two glided around the wet stage, balancing themselves with the side of the tank.

I found the dance reminiscent not only of my semester in Egypt, but also of my time spent in Kenya before college. I’m sure the dance could be applied to many of the thousands of traditional cultures that have faced Western infiltration. Of course, this is a very romanticized analogy. I don’t by any means think that all traditional cultures of the past were beautiful, isolated pockets of harmony. The splendor of still water in the dance represented the power and order of tradition. The water dancer sat motionlessly staring straight ahead, content in his world, because he had no other options. His needs were met so variation was not necessary. Before globalization and awareness of faraway cultures, tradition ran day to day life in many parts of the world. Cultures mixed and influenced one another, but not on the level that the West is currently permeating traditional lifestyles around the globe. When colonists ripped the breathing tube out of much of Africa and South America, the people in those areas were forever robbed of the ability to breath under water. As that first TV in every village conveys the amenities and glamour of the West, the viewers will likely want to breathe that same air.

The Westerner, attempting to curiously venture into the unknown, receives quite a shock to the system as well. Study all the theory you want, but you can’t learn how to swim from a book. You’ll study the physics of each movement and then you’ll jump into the water and try to breath. You’ll be so overwhelmed by the foreign, fluidity of the water that you’ll forget all you read and you’ll drown. You can’t possibly understand a foreign culture until you experience it firsthand and chances are you won’t fully understand it even then.To come at all close to comprehending another culture, requires stepping out of your comfort zone and fully submerging yourself. If you try to stick your head in the water while keeping your feet firmly planted on the ground you will come out with a chaotic and muddled experience. It is only when you let go of all of your precious assumptions and suppositions that you might begin to see.Truly seeing involves respecting that which you observe, which in turn requires the humility to look outside of yourself. It is too easy to see things for what we want them to be or what we think they should be—or to see things for what they are not. Seeing takes a radical acceptance that other people might not share your deepest values.

As I have expressed in earlier blog posts, variance in value-sets has been one of the most emotionally wearing challenges I have faced during my time in Egypt. For much of the time I have struggled with gender politics and religion and last night I had my first serious discussion with Egyptians on the topic of Israel. While I had skirted the topic with some of the Americans on my program, I had previously been doing my utmost to avoid it. It is one of the most complicated debates in existence and I honestly don’t know what I feel about it. Last night however, one of the Egyptians in my dorm commented that Gaza is not so different from the Holocaust and my dam broke. This was the second time I had heard this claim made in two days and I couldn’t help but respond.

Of course responding only led to a fruitless argument that left a heavy damper in the air. Many of the Egyptians (including the woman with whom I was discussing) have lost family members in Gaza. I know Israelis who have lost family members as well, but when you compare it just comes down to a tat for tat of emotional losses from two groups of extremely similar people. I think the most important distinctions are that are too often ignored are those between Hamas and the Palestinian people and between the Israel government and the Israeli people.  

I’m getting sidetracked though. I really had no intention of bringing up Israeli-Palestinian politics at all. The point I originally hoped to make was that sometimes people’s beliefs are so deeply engrained that they cannot be shaken. And sometimes those beliefs are the exact opposite from those of someone with equally steadfastprinciples. That does not mean, however, that those people shouldn’t talk or that they can’t form relationships. One my best friends in high school and someone I still highly respect today could not have ranged farther from me on the political spectrum, but she is incredibly smart and fun to be around. So many different factors weave together to make up person’s beliefs, but those views don’t define the person. Aside from political and religious outlooks and separate from national and sexual orientation, a person has her preferences in sports and art. People have hobbies and senses of humor. There are food preferences and clothingpreferences. You can completely disagree with someone’s viewpoint on one topic and still find a great deal in common with her.

Rather than focusing on changing the differences, why not focus on the similarities that do exist? Judaism and Islam have more in common than in variance. I find it highly ironic that the two groups are fighting over a piece of land for religious reasons in the first place. And for the differences that do exist, why can we not celebrate them? A person learns most from things that are new and diverse. Differentiation is what opens a person’s perspective. I can’t imagine how blinded my views would be if I hadn’t had conservative friends in high school pushing me to explain why exactly I encompassed those views. There is a definite melancholy in the idea of cultures around the world losing their individuality. But there is also a beauty in the mixing of peoples and the sharing of ideas and traditions. The key component in that beauty, however, is that there is equal sharing and not an imposition of beliefs from one side. As Western culture spreads across the world it is the responsibility of Westerners to become educated and cultured. This does mean touristy safaris and cruises or reading National Geographic. This means talking to people and openly listening to outside perspectives

Listening without imposing can be far more challenging than one would think. It is one thing for me to accept that people have differing views on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. But it is more difficult to accept that people might have differing views on women’s and gay rights or domestic violence. I see these differences I am not sure that it is morally acceptable for me to sit back and observe a culture or to take part in a culture that promotes these practices. I have realized though, that all of these issues are far more intricate and multi-faceted than I can comprehend. Women wear the Hijaab and the Nicab, for example, for all sorts of reasons. Some might feel outside pressure to wear it, but for me to assert that all women are forced and that the Hijaab is sexist would be vast simplification on the complexity of the tradition. I have my values and I don’t need to bend them, but I also must remember that none of us have the answer in life. Maybe there is a greater power out there who knows what truly is right and wrong, but as far as I’m concerned no one here on earth has access to that scripture.

Had I come into Egypt raging for women’s rights and the abolishment of religious law, I would have first been vastly disliked, second sorely disappointed, and third incredibly naïve. I would have missed out on the opportunity to understand why people here do what they do. I would not have had my eyes opened to the number of challenges and hypocrisies that America still comprises. It would have been like trying to breath in a tank of water and I would have choked. Then I would have left in frustration, returning to the country I thought had all the answers only to find that it had been dampened by what I had seen outside. All I can do as a foreigner—and all I ever really should do anywhere I go is present myself for who I am. Then others around me can choose whether or not my traditions and values are worthy of replicating.

I feel like this blog post came off a bit idealistic with my vague and flowery approaches, but before you disregard it just take a moment and think it through. Then take a look at how things are playing out in the world today and let me know if you have any better solutions. Really, tell me—I want to hear. Because the way I see it, Westernization is currently being met with anti-American sentiments and resistance efforts that are almost leading to more othering and stereotyping than existed prior to globalization. The only solution I see is for people to mix at the civilian level and listen to one another. Groups like Encounter (an organization that brings together Palestinian and Israeli teens for intercultural dialogue) are a wonderful start and should be replicated. It is only once we can learn to celebrate differences and learn how to truly listen that we will ever come close to peace in the Middle East and in our own lives, but that really is not so hard when you get down to it.

Beginning to Understand

Last week I enjoyed my first ever cruise as my program travelled to Luxor and Aswan, along the Nile. We spent the majority of the trip touring temples and tombs, but there was also ample time left to dine luxuriously and relax on the rooftop of the ship in the warm sun. It was really exactly what I needed in every way. I normally become quickly bored with touristy sights and was worried after the first temple that all of the historical attractions would converge in my diminutive attention span and memory into one big, ancient, crumbling, vestige. On the contrary, I found myself continually awed by the subtle beauty of each sight. As I walked through the tomb of King Tutankhamen and the Temple of Hatshepsut, wisps of knowledge came floating back from my early years of home schooling. I still don’t think I have fully wrapped my mind around the fact that I actually touched the legendary marvels I have been hearing about for my entire life.

                Perhaps more influential than seeing some of the oldest manmade edifices on the face of the earth, was getting to know the Egyptian guys that accompanied us on the cruise. While I have spent a good deal of time with Egyptian women, I had only briefly met the Egyptian guys that are affiliated with the Middlebury program. My interactions with Egyptian men outside of the program had been less than positive, to say the least. I have been living in a small bubble of the dorms and classes, so my main associations with men have been strangers harassing me. A few days ago, for example, three young boys followed me down the street for two blocks calling out all sorts of obscenities. After yelling at them proved futile, I crossed the street only to have a car full of older men swerve at me as one of them screamed “Hey baby.” This past weekend, at the Citadel, a child through a rock at my head from a bridge thirty feet above me (totally unprovoked) and then later that day I was groped by a little boy at the train station. Then of course there is the usual hissing and kissing sounds that follow me everywhere I go.

The guys that joined us for the cruise, however, we’re some of the sweetest people I have met in this country. They were quiet and reserved and treated me with the utmost respect. They spoke with terrifying rapidity and used more slang than actual words, so I was terrified to talk to them at first. But they were patient and non-judgmental and by the end of the trip I was relatively comfortable chatting with them (or at least attempting). Aside from doing wonders for my Arabic and my confidence, meeting respectable Egyptian guys stirred a fresh hope within me that maybe I had been too harsh in my first assessment of Egyptian culture. It’s dangerously easy to generalize. Yes, there are deep-seeded problems in this region in terms of gender equality and I have been observing that firsthand. But my longwinded point is that there are men here who respect women and seeing them, even just three of them, reopened my entire perspective.

                No doubt due to my mind-opening encounter with the guys, I found myself viewing the women here in a new light as well. We lead exceptionally different lives, Egyptian women and I, and I knew coming here that this would be the case. I just didn’t realize the extent to which I would feel that women here live in a way that is at odds with my deepest values and ethics. Many women here truly believe they are inferior to men and deserve to be beaten. To varying degrees, women conceal every indication of their femininity as if the mere idea of being female is indecent or lewd. In my first few months here I felt self-righteously offended by the lack of respect and appreciation for feminine beauty and the absence of pride among women. I have recently started to realize, however, that I was again too harsh and quick to judge.

                For every birthday, engagement, or celebration of any kind, a seemingly spontaneous party forms in the dorms, complete with music, dancing, and food. My roommate’s birthday was last week and as she and her friends danced I was struck by how differently women entertain themselves in our respective countries. As the Egyptians attempted to pull the Americans into the center of the dance circle I joked to one of my American friends about the idea of American 18-22 year olds having a sober, single-sex dance party. It’s a sad truth that most Americans are too self-conscious to dance without the assistance of a few beers. The Egyptian girls put on a guise of reluctance sufficient to remain self-effacing. But let me tell you, there was not the slightest sign of insecurity when any of them stepped into the clapping circle and shook their hips in ways I did not know were possible.

                Call me a raging feminist, but there is absolutely sexism remaining in the US. Its reticent nature almost makes it more threatening in that it’s harder to oppose. Internalization of sexism further complicates the picture. I consider myself a strong woman, yet I find myself becoming self-conscious any time I am physically larger or stronger than a guy. Of course this isn’t true of all women, but I think many American women seek masculine approval in most areas of life—be it in the way they dress or in feeling inadequate without a boyfriend. Similarly to the idea of a sober dance party, I can’t imagine a group of women my age getting dressed up and putting on make-up for a party at which no men will be present. Without men to impress we wouldn’t try. It is truly beautiful the way Egyptian women to value each other’s opinions and enjoy each other’s company. In that respect that are ahead of many American women on the road to internal and external equality.

                The prevailing sexism in the US is deeper and more damaging than a simple inequality between sexes. While the LGBTQ movement is gaining strength in the US, societal gender roles exclude a significant percentage of the population. As if society can’t handle that people are complex and individual beings we force labels and dichotomies. A person must claim male or female, gay or straight, and with the claim comes a set of associations that person is then expected to encompass. The US has taken great strides in terms of human equality and I don’t mean to undermine those by any means. I have simply realized that I shouldn’t be too self-righteous about my values and ethics when to some degree I am still violating them myself.

                As I learn to understand and appreciate Egypt’s culture, I am gaining a new (or maybe revived) love of the Arabic language. An Egyptian idea I have learned to value is the word “m3lesh” (3 is a guttural throat sound called ayin). “M3lesh” essentially means “oh well”. For the first two months of this program I hated the word, because the majority of the time I encountered it, I did not feel that the situation was “m3lesh” at all. After some misfortune had just befallen me, or worse when I was actively trying to fix a problem, the response I would get was “m3lesh.” I came to associate “m3lesh” with insensitivity and indifference. Fitting in with the theme of this blog post, of course, I was wrong. People here use the word “m3lesh” as a way of maintaining cheer in the face of an endless stream of challenges. While I spent my first two months complaining about heat, crowdedness, honking horns, and harassment, Egyptians said “m3lesh” and moved on with their lives. The word represents a sort of patience and acceptance that I, and many Americans, could stand to practice a bit more in our lives.

All languages are more than words. Each holds ideas about the culture to which it belongs. But Arabic, more so than any other language I have experienced, is a one of culture. Because Egypt is a religious country, there are very strict social standards and expectations by which families and individuals are expected to abide. Unlike the US, where everyone strives to be an individual, Egypt values norms and compliance. Despite what individuals might do in their private lives, there is a common consensus on what “Egyptians do.” Similarly to the culture, Arabic holds a propensity toward phrases that follows a certain predestined cadence. Two people can (and often do) have an entire conversation consisting purely of idioms. There are a variety of expressions for every holiday, for birthdays, for when someone gets engaged, and for when someone dies. There are phrases for when you eat at someone’s house, when you get a haircut, and when you sneeze. For each and every one of these phrases there is a set response. Of course, most languages have common phrases and responses for given situations, but the prevalence of phraseology in Arabic is on a different level, which I think directly correlates to Egyptian society.

                On a final note, someone on my program made a beautiful point about Arabic that I thought might be interesting to people who have not studied the language. He said that similarly to Mandarin, Arabic is a language of pictures rather than of words like English. Arabic is composed of a long list of roots, most of which are three letters. Each root holds a general idea, which branches off into several words all connected in some way to the theme. The root د ر س (d r s) has to do with learning. Darasa means he studied. Darrasa means he taught. Maderes means office and madrasa means library. I had always loved the idea of words connecting to each other through root meanings, but I had never thought about roots as a pictures or ideas. Just an interesting tidbit…

Alright, that’s enough for now. Thanks for reading!

Culture

It’s been a while! I have a lot to say, but I’ll do my best to be concise…  

We spent the weekend before last in Cairo. On Friday half of the group went to Islamic Cairo, but I chose to go with the other half to an area called Zebaleen. Zabela translates into trash and this “Trash City” is the part of Cairo where all of the garbage collectors and their families live. Unlike in America, trash collectors are paid by private recycling companies to separate out various materials from the trash. People specialize in certain materials, so when we viewed the area from the roof of a building we saw some rooftops overflowing with plastic bottles and others with cardboard boxes. At the ground level, on the other hand, there was trash everywhere. Garbage spilling out doors and windows. Precipices of waste lining alleyways just wide enough for the careening garbage trucks.

The hardest part to comprehend, however, were the people. Women sitting on the mountains of the trash. Children running through the narrow streets, accompanied by enormous rats and rabid dogs. The small shops and restaurants nestled inconspicuously amongst the trash dens stood as chilling proof that people really do spend their lives there. For me it was just one afternoon in the rancid reek, but most of the people I saw there will never leave. If they don’t die young due to the germs and the filth or become infected by the medical waste that is mixed in with the trash in Egypt, they’ll grow old there and die knowing nothing else. And yet somehow this area is not common knowledge among Egyptians. My roommate had never even heard of it! It makes me wonder what ghastly places exist in the US that I don’t know about.

On a happier note I saw the pyramids the next day, which was exciting and surpassed my expectations. I got to go in one and, aside from the aggressive and incredibly annoying the camel ride vendors, the place was less touristy and structured than I had expected.

Last weekend I had another positive cultural experience, this time in Alexandria. We went to a concert Friday night by a group called Tareq Abdullah. It’s this folksy group of spirited old men with great voices and pretty baller dance moves. The music was catchy and fun and they kept pulling people up on stage to dance (even a few people from my program). It was exactly what I needed. I have been so wrapped up in the language pledge, homework, and the more touristy sights, that I haven’t gotten out and explored the local culture as much as I would have liked. After seeing the grueling physical work life of Alexandrians day after day, I finally got to see how they get out and have a good time. It opened up a new perspective on the culture. Seeing men and women there together, laughing and dancing, gave me hope that maybe I had judged the gender segregation and boundaries too harshly.

Unfortunately, the following night shook my newfound optimism. I went to an Egyptian movie called Seah wa Nusf (An Hour and Half), which despite the title actually lasted closer to two and a half hours. It featured a train and followed the lives of several passengers, along with a group of men stealing the railroad ties from the track of the train. The film had some great cinematography, but my positive assessment stops there. Several scenes involved men beating women, each of which, without fail, caused the entire theater to erupt with laughter. I’m not sure if it was the movie itself or the response of the audience that made me more nauseous, but I actually had to leave the movie at intermission because I thought I was either going to be sick or cry. Of course the depiction of Americans in the film was less then friendly. This didn’t surprise me (and was actually kind of funny at a few points), but the raucous response to the anti-American jokes, did not exactly leave me feeling warm and fuzzy.

I want to be happy here. I know I need to find the parts of the culture that I love and appreciate, because they do exist. The concert was truly wonderful and my professors are some of the most amazing people I have ever met. I think the issue is that it’s harder to see the individual positive aspects, when the overriding culture embraces a value system that is so at odds with my own. As someone who has always been a strong feminist and valued equality it is hard to be in a place where men hold all the rights, but all responsibility and accountability falls on the women. If a man assaults a woman here, she probably should have been wearing more clothing. I mean he’s only human, right? Everything is “haram” (inappropriate or shameful) here. And yes, the repression is frustrating for me personally, but the part that is unbearable is that so many women live their lives this way. In much of the world women are raised to instinctively believe that they are inferior human beings and should therefore be beaten and suppressed. It is also so deeply instilled in many cultures that it’s overwhelming to even think about trying to change it.

On a more personal and much less important note, I’m still hobbling along through the language pledge (except for talking to people from home, probably more than necessary… and these infrequent blog posts). My list of issues and challenges with Arabic could take up an entire blog of their own, but I don’t want to bore you, so I try to just give a quick snap shot of what has been especially hard. I obviously knew coming into the program that colloquial Arabic is spoken in Egypt rather than formal Arabic. We read a story that incorporated some colloquial dialogue in my Arabic class and it hadn’t seemed too bad. I knew that a few letters were pronounced differently and I vaguely remembered something about a different form of negation. But as I confidently blathered to all who would listen prior to my trip, I was sure it couldn’t be too bad. I was wrong.

As it turns out, five letters are pronounced differently. Take a moment and imagine that T is pronounced as S, G as A (yes A, a vowel), Y as E, J as G, and V as Z (or sometimes as D!). Now read this sentence out loud: I go the store every Saturday to buy juice (I ao so she ssore ezere saserdae so bue guice). Kind of sounds like I did something to make a girl sore, so I’m going to buy her a goose, right? Now imagine that “so” is another word entirely (maybe gamper) and so is “buy” (horph?). I au gamper she ssore ezere saserdae gamper horph giuce. Pretty different from the original sentence. Now if someone were to say this sentence to you at full speed in a heavy accent, how helpful would your knowledge of the English language be? That’s essentially how I feel about my formal Arabic at this point. In addition to the entirely different pronunciation of several letters, the majority of words I knew in formal Arabic, as well as the forms of negation and conjugation, are different in colloquial. Oh and they add a B at the beginning of present tense words and an H at the front of future tense words.

They warned us that the language pledge would be a roller coaster, but for some crazy reason I took that to mean a fun and thrilling challenge. Gripping on for dear life as we lurched into motion the first day of pledge, I could only wonder desperately why I chose the roller coaster over the Farris Wheel, or the better yet the doughnut stand. I silently despised the students ahead of me, all of whom appeared to be shrieking gleefully, hands raised high in the air, as the roller coaster rounded perilous turns and plummeted down treacherous declines. I’ve realized though, after several group wide breakdowns, that perception is a strange and powerful sense. The way a person defines a situation can entirely determine her experience. Additionally, no two people share exactly the same interpretation of a situation.

At the beginning of the trip I decided that I was the worst person at Arabic on the program and that I would be struggling and unhappy the entire semester because of this. I told myself that I just wasn’t strong enough to stomach the same thrilling ride as my classmates. I’ve realized though, that I’m not even on the same ride as the other people on my program—or anyone else in the world for that matter. It sounds corny, but we are all made up of our past experiences. The way we learn and perceive life today is due to what we have faced previously. Nobody else has traveled down the tracks of my life so nobody can possibly be experiencing this ride in the exact same way that I am. Not only is life a complex and personal journey, but language learning is equally multi-tiered. There are so many aspects to learning and utilizing a language, that everyone is bound to find parts of it difficult and parts relatively easy. It has been shocking to discover as I talk to some of the people in the highest classes and hear that they are feeling some of the same frustrations that I am. I am learning and I will return home knowing far more than I knew when I left, and that truly is what matters.

Thanks again to everyone for all the support. It has made all the difference!!

Culture

It’s been a while! I have a lot to say, but I’ll do my best to be concise…  

We spent the weekend before last in Cairo. On Friday half of the group went to Islamic Cairo, but I chose to go with the other half to an area called Zebaleen. Zabela translates into trash and this “Trash City” is the part of Cairo where all of the garbage collectors and their families live. Unlike in America, trash collectors are paid by private recycling companies to separate out various materials from the trash. People specialize in certain materials, so when we viewed the area from the roof of a building we saw some rooftops overflowing with plastic bottles and others with cardboard boxes. At the ground level, on the other hand, there was trash everywhere. Garbage spilling out doors and windows. Precipices of waste lining alleyways just wide enough for the careening garbage trucks.

The hardest part to comprehend, however, were the people. Women sitting on the mountains of the trash. Children running through the narrow streets, accompanied by enormous rats and rabid dogs. The small shops and restaurants nestled inconspicuously amongst the trash dens stood as chilling proof that people really do spend their lives there. For me it was just one afternoon in the rancid reek, but most of the people I saw there will never leave. If they don’t die young due to the germs and the filth or become infected by the medical waste that is mixed in with the trash in Egypt, they’ll grow old there and die knowing nothing else. And yet somehow this area is not common knowledge among Egyptians. My roommate had never even heard of it! It makes me wonder what ghastly places exist in the US that I don’t know about.

On a happier note I saw the pyramids the next day, which was exciting and surpassed my expectations. I got to go in one and, aside from the aggressive and incredibly annoying the camel ride vendors, the place was less touristy and structured than I had expected.

Last weekend I had another positive cultural experience, this time in Alexandria. We went to a concert Friday night by a group called Tareq Abdullah. It’s this folksy group of spirited old men with great voices and pretty baller dance moves. The music was catchy and fun and they kept pulling people up on stage to dance (even a few people from my program). It was exactly what I needed. I have been so wrapped up in the language pledge, homework, and the more touristy sights, that I haven’t gotten out and explored the local culture as much as I would have liked. After seeing the grueling physical work life of Alexandrians day after day, I finally got to see how they get out and have a good time. It opened up a new perspective on the culture. Seeing men and women there together, laughing and dancing, gave me hope that maybe I had judged the gender segregation and boundaries too harshly.

Unfortunately, the following night shook my newfound optimism. I went to an Egyptian movie called Seah wa Nusf (An Hour and Half), which despite the title actually lasted closer to two and a half hours. It featured a train and followed the lives of several passengers, along with a group of men stealing the railroad ties from the track of the train. The film had some great cinematography, but my positive assessment stops there. Several scenes involved men beating women, each of which, without fail, caused the entire theater to erupt with laughter. I’m not sure if it was the movie itself or the response of the audience that made me more nauseous, but I actually had to leave the movie at intermission because I thought I was either going to be sick or cry. Of course the depiction of Americans in the film was less then friendly. This didn’t surprise me (and was actually kind of funny at a few points), but the raucous response to the anti-American jokes, did not exactly leave me feeling warm and fuzzy.

I want to be happy here. I know I need to find the parts of the culture that I love and appreciate, because they do exist. The concert was truly wonderful and my professors are some of the most amazing people I have ever met. I think the issue is that it’s harder to see the individual positive aspects, when the overriding culture embraces a value system that is so at odds with my own. As someone who has always been a strong feminist and valued equality it is hard to be in a place where men hold all the rights, but all responsibility and accountability falls on the women. If a man assaults a woman here, she probably should have been wearing more clothing. I mean he’s only human, right? Everything is “haram” (inappropriate or shameful) here. And yes, the repression is frustrating for me personally, but the part that is unbearable is that so many women live their lives this way. In much of the world women are raised to instinctively believe that they are inferior human beings and should therefore be beaten and suppressed. It is also so deeply instilled in many cultures that it’s overwhelming to even think about trying to change it.

On a more personal and much less important note, I’m still hobbling along through the language pledge (except for talking to people from home, probably more than necessary… and these infrequent blog posts). My list of issues and challenges with Arabic could take up an entire blog of their own, but I don’t want to bore you, so I try to just give a quick snap shot of what has been especially hard. I obviously knew coming into the program that colloquial Arabic is spoken in Egypt rather than formal Arabic. We read a story that incorporated some colloquial dialogue in my Arabic class and it hadn’t seemed too bad. I knew that a few letters were pronounced differently and I vaguely remembered something about a different form of negation. But as I confidently blathered to all who would listen prior to my trip, I was sure it couldn’t be too bad. I was wrong.

As it turns out, five letters are pronounced differently. Take a moment and imagine that T is pronounced as S, G as A (yes A, a vowel), Y as E, J as G, and V as Z (or sometimes as D!). Now read this sentence out loud: I go the store every Saturday to buy juice (I ao so she ssore ezere saserdae so bue guice). Kind of sounds like I did something to make a girl sore, so I’m going to buy her a goose, right? Now imagine that “so” is another word entirely (maybe gamper) and so is “buy” (horph?). I au gamper she ssore ezere saserdae gamper horph giuce. Pretty different from the original sentence. Now if someone were to say this sentence to you at full speed in a heavy accent, how helpful would your knowledge of the English language be? That’s essentially how I feel about my formal Arabic at this point. In addition to the entirely different pronunciation of several letters, the majority of words I knew in formal Arabic, as well as the forms of negation and conjugation, are different in colloquial. Oh and they add a B at the beginning of present tense words and an H at the front of future tense words.

They warned us that the language pledge would be a roller coaster, but for some crazy reason I took that to mean a fun and thrilling challenge. Gripping on for dear life as we lurched into motion the first day of pledge, I could only wonder desperately why I chose the roller coaster over the Farris Wheel, or the better yet the doughnut stand. I silently despised the students ahead of me, all of whom appeared to be shrieking gleefully, hands raised high in the air, as the roller coaster rounded perilous turns and plummeted down treacherous declines. I’ve realized though, after several group wide breakdowns, that perception is a strange and powerful sense. The way a person defines a situation can entirely determine her experience. Additionally, no two people share exactly the same interpretation of a situation.

At the beginning of the trip I decided that I was the worst person at Arabic on the program and that I would be struggling and unhappy the entire semester because of this. I told myself that I just wasn’t strong enough to stomach the same thrilling ride as my classmates. I’ve realized though, that I’m not even on the same ride as the other people on my program—or anyone else in the world for that matter. It sounds corny, but we are all made up of our past experiences. The way we learn and perceive life today is due to what we have faced previously. Nobody else has travelled down the tracks of my life so nobody can possibly be experiencing this ride in the exact same way that I am. Not only is life a complex and personal journey, but language learning is equally multi-tiered. There are so many aspects to learning and utilizing a language, that everyone is bound to find parts of it difficult and parts relatively easy. It has been shocking to discover as I talk to some of the people in the highest classes and hear that they are feeling some of the same frustrations that I am. I am learning and I will return home knowing far more than I knew when I left, and that truly is what matters.

Thanks again to everyone for all the support. It has made all the difference!!

      

It’s been a while! I have a lot to say, but I’ll do my best to be concise…  

We spent the weekend before last in Cairo. On Friday half of the group went to Islamic Cairo, but I chose to go with the other half to an area called Zebaleen. Zabela translates into trash and this “Trash City” is the part of Cairo where all of the garbage collectors and their families live. Unlike in America, trash collectors are paid by private recycling companies to separate out various materials from the trash. People specialize in certain materials, so when we viewed the area from the roof of a building we saw some rooftops overflowing with plastic bottles and others with cardboard boxes. At the ground level, on the other hand, there was trash everywhere. Garbage spilling out doors and windows. Precipices of waste lining alleyways just wide enough for the careening garbage trucks.

The hardest part to comprehend, however, were the people. Women sitting on the mountains of the trash. Children running through the narrow streets, accompanied by enormous rats and rabid dogs. The small shops and restaurants nestled inconspicuously amongst the trash dens stood as chilling proof that people really do spend their lives there. For me it was just one afternoon in the rancid reek, but most of the people I saw there will never leave. If they don’t die young due to the germs and the filth or become infected by the medical waste that is mixed in with the trash in Egypt, they’ll grow old there and die knowing nothing else. And yet somehow this area is not common knowledge among Egyptians. My roommate had never even heard of it! It makes me wonder what ghastly places exist in the US that I don’t know about.

On a happier note I saw the pyramids the next day, which was exciting and surpassed my expectations. I got to go in one and, aside from the aggressive and incredibly annoying the camel ride vendors, the place was less touristy and structured than I had expected.

Last weekend I had another positive cultural experience, this time in Alexandria. We went to a concert Friday night by a group called Tareq Abdullah. It’s this folksy group of spirited old men with great voices and pretty baller dance moves. The music was catchy and fun and they kept pulling people up on stage to dance (even a few people from my program). It was exactly what I needed. I have been so wrapped up in the language pledge, homework, and the more touristy sights, that I haven’t gotten out and explored the local culture as much as I would have liked. After seeing the grueling physical work life of Alexandrians day after day, I finally got to see how they get out and have a good time. It opened up a new perspective on the culture. Seeing men and women there together, laughing and dancing, gave me hope that maybe I had judged the gender segregation and boundaries too harshly.

Unfortunately, the following night shook my newfound optimism. I went to an Egyptian movie called Seah wa Nusf (An Hour and Half), which despite the title actually lasted closer to two and a half hours. It featured a train and followed the lives of several passengers, along with a group of men stealing the railroad ties from the track of the train. The film had some great cinematography, but my positive assessment stops there. Several scenes involved men beating women, each of which, without fail, caused the entire theater to erupt with laughter. I’m not sure if it was the movie itself or the response of the audience that made me more nauseous, but I actually had to leave the movie at intermission because I thought I was either going to be sick or cry. Of course the depiction of Americans in the film was less then friendly. This didn’t surprise me (and was actually kind of funny at a few points), but the raucous response to the anti-American jokes, did not exactly leave me feeling warm and fuzzy.

I want to be happy here. I know I need to find the parts of the culture that I love and appreciate, because they do exist. The concert was truly wonderful and my professors are some of the most amazing people I have ever met. I think the issue is that it’s harder to see the individual positive aspects, when the overriding culture embraces a value system that is so at odds with my own. As someone who has always been a strong feminist and valued equality it is hard to be in a place where men hold all the rights, but all responsibility and accountability falls on the women. If a man assaults a woman here, she probably should have been wearing more clothing. I mean he’s only human, right? Everything is “haram” (inappropriate or shameful) here. And yes, the repression is frustrating for me personally, but the part that is unbearable is that so many women live their lives this way. In much of the world women are raised to instinctively believe that they are inferior human beings and should therefore be beaten and suppressed. It is also so deeply instilled in many cultures that it’s overwhelming to even think about trying to change it.

On a more personal and much less important note, I’m still hobbling along through the language pledge (except for talking to people from home, probably more than necessary… and these infrequent blog posts). My list of issues and challenges with Arabic could take up an entire blog of their own, but I don’t want to bore you, so I try to just give a quick snap shot of what has been especially hard. I obviously knew coming into the program that colloquial Arabic is spoken in Egypt rather than formal Arabic. We read a story that incorporated some colloquial dialogue in my Arabic class and it hadn’t seemed too bad. I knew that a few letters were pronounced differently and I vaguely remembered something about a different form of negation. But as I confidently blathered to all who would listen prior to my trip, I was sure it couldn’t be too bad. I was wrong.

As it turns out, five letters are pronounced differently. Take a moment and imagine that T is pronounced as S, G as A (yes A, a vowel), Y as E, J as G, and V as Z (or sometimes as D!). Now read this sentence out loud: I go the store every Saturday to buy juice (I ao so she ssore ezere saserdae so bue guice). Kind of sounds like I did something to make a girl sore, so I’m going to buy her a goose, right? Now imagine that “so” is another word entirely (maybe gamper) and so is “buy” (horph?). I au gamper she ssore ezere saserdae gamper horph giuce. Pretty different from the original sentence. Now if someone were to say this sentence to you at full speed in a heavy accent, how helpful would your knowledge of the English language be? That’s essentially how I feel about my formal Arabic at this point. In addition to the entirely different pronunciation of several letters, the majority of words I knew in formal Arabic, as well as the forms of negation and conjugation, are different in colloquial. Oh and they add a B at the beginning of present tense words and an H at the front of future tense words.

They warned us that the language pledge would be a roller coaster, but for some crazy reason I took that to mean a fun and thrilling challenge. Gripping on for dear life as we lurched into motion the first day of pledge, I could only wonder desperately why I chose the roller coaster over the Farris Wheel, or the better yet the doughnut stand. I silently despised the students ahead of me, all of whom appeared to be shrieking gleefully, hands raised high in the air, as the roller coaster rounded perilous turns and plummeted down treacherous declines. I’ve realized though, after several group wide breakdowns, that perception is a strange and powerful sense. The way a person defines a situation can entirely determine her experience. Additionally, no two people share exactly the same interpretation of a situation.

At the beginning of the trip I decided that I was the worst person at Arabic on the program and that I would be struggling and unhappy the entire semester because of this. I told myself that I just wasn’t strong enough to stomach the same thrilling ride as my classmates. I’ve realized though, that I’m not even on the same ride as the other people on my program—or anyone else in the world for that matter. It sounds corny, but we are all made up of our past experiences. The way we learn and perceive life today is due to what we have faced previously. Nobody else has traveled down the tracks of my life so nobody can possibly be experiencing this ride in the exact same way that I am. Not only is life a complex and personal journey, but language learning is equally multi-tiered. There are so many aspects to learning and utilizing a language, that everyone is bound to find parts of it difficult and parts relatively easy. It has been shocking to discover as I talk to some of the people in the highest classes and hear that they are feeling some of the same frustrations that I am. I am learning and I will return home knowing far more than I knew when I left, and that truly is what matters.

Thanks again to everyone for all the support. It has made all the difference!!