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!!