I Don't Know That I Could Ever Teach, But Shop I Could Do Anywhere, Anytime!

This past week at school was fairly uneventful. Our first Arabic tests were graded and handed back to us, and I took my first Colloquial Arabic test and a midterm in my Intro to Development class. Overall, I think I'm doing OK. The Arabic tests here are harder than they are at home, but I think that's a good thing. This week, I have a midterm in my Comparative Politics of the Middle East class. I'm hoping it won't be too terrible because I also have my next Arabic test on the same day. After getting through this week, I'm pretty much done with tests and assignments until my term papers are due (one is due in mid-November, one is due in December, and one is due on a sort of influx date that no one is really sure about...T.I.E...if you've been reading you know what that means) and my final exams begin (in the second/third week of December. This week I will also be starting the other part of my internship with Nahdet El-Mahrousa, with the CEDO. I will explain more about it on my internship blog after I have my first day on Tuesday. It's going to be a busy week, but it's followed by Halloween (which I may or may not have a morning make-up class on; it would be for the same class that has arbitrary due dates, so it's not something I'm overly stressed about). Halloween is more celebrated here than I would have expected, which is a good thing. There's apparently an American Embassy party and a few other parties going on. I think it will be fun to dress up and have an American holiday. I just have to make it through the week first!

The most challenging part of my week last week, even all tests considered, I think was teaching English for the third time on Monday night. We had nine students this week! It doesn't sound like a lot, but considering we've only ever had three and four before, it was definitely something new. We had been operating on a kind of individual attention sort of basis, which I thought was working well, but it's next to impossible to do that when there's three teachers and nine students. I know it doesn't sound that hard, but it's definitely one of those things that is easier said than done. We decided to start by reading from "Matilda." We figured we could assess everyone's level this way because although they're all technically at the same level, there's differences in their abilities. We read for about an hour, and it seemed like everyone was understanding, at least to some degree. We would stop every once in a while and check to make sure everyone knew what was going on in the story.

It's a fun story to read, but there's parts of it that make it difficult to teach with. Roald Dahl, the author, is British, so there's some British slang in the book, "telly" instead of "television" for example that makes it tough to explain. It's also written in a different way than we, as Americans, are used to speaking. This is not really noticeable when you simply read the book, but when you are trying to teach it or teach through it, you pick up on things like, 'I would have never phrased that that way.' Also, a lot of slang, not necessarily British slang, is used. Annoying children are described as 'scabs,' 'grubs,' and 'blisters.' These words are tough to explain as it is, but to explain them in the context Dahl is using them adds even a more difficult element to teaching.

We were ready to move on after an hour, but one student asked about the meaning of a word that he had underlined in his text. This was a watershed event, as then everyone began to ask about every word that they did not understand. So we spent over a half hour walking around the room defining words for everyone, which looking back on it, was a good thing to do. We hadn't even though that they would have so many questions simply about word meaning. It was a difficult thing to do. Having to define words forces you to think differently, especially when the people you are working with have a somewhat limited vocabulary as it is. It was challenging, but I actually liked doing it. It also led us to the conclusion that we need to approach the story differently. For example, we are going to go through the chapters we're planning to read each week and make vocab lists. A dictionary should be able to define things better than I can, especially thinking on my feet, and I also think this will save a lot of time.

After we finished going over words, we started with the grammar lesson. We were doing prepositional phrases. In and of themselves, they're not difficult, however there was more trouble with them than we anticipated. We started with a list of prepositions. They get prepositions and they can identify them in sentences. It was the phrases that gave them trouble. Describing what a prepositional phrase is is not easy. We said it was a phrase, or a part of a sentence, that began with a preposition and then described something usually ending with a noun. For example, 'the boy went with his mother.' With is the preposition. 'With his mother' is the prepositional phrase because it describes who the boy went with. ('Mother' is a noun.) This took a lot more practice than we anticipated. It was most challenging for them to recognize that the preposition was part of the prepositional phrase. They kept thinking it was just the part after the preposition. I kept saying again and again, 'it BEGINS WITH, it STARTS WITH, it HAS TO HAVE the preposition. Prepositional phrases MUST have prepositions as part of them.' It was frustrating that they couldn't understand this and I didn't know how else to explain it. Slowly, through a lot of practice and some individual attention, I think everyone at least began to get it.

We were supposed to teach the difference between an adjectival prepositional phrase (it describes a noun, for example, 'the boy with his mother is young' has the preposition 'with' and the prepositional phrase 'with his mother.' The prepositional phrase is describing the boy, a noun, so it is adjectival) and an adverbial prepositional phrase (it describes a verb, for example, 'the boy went with him mother' has the preposition 'with' and the prepositional phrase 'with his mother.' The prepositional phrase is adverbial because it describes the way in which or how the boy went, his action). This is very complicated. I even got more than half the examples wrong. Considering how difficult prepositional phrases were we decided not to even go into this topic and I do not know if we will even attempt to go back to it. In my opinion, it's really just a grammar nuance that there's no reason to be hung up on. One student asked about this because he had read ahead before class. He's probably out most advanced student. I explained it to him and we went through a few examples, and I think he understood it for the most part, which was great and really encouraging. We finished class with some more reading. That was an encouraging way to end class because it was a funny section of the story and it seemed that everyone understood that.

I am always exhausted after teaching, and I have a new respect for teachers. I don't think I could ever do it. Teaching adults is especially difficult. I want so much for them to understand, so I speak slowly and I use a lot of hand gestures and I speak in as simple terms as I possibly can. I feel so condescending doing this, and I really hope they don't mind and that it is the right strategy to use. It's also a little stressful this year because for the first time the final exam will count for something (whether a student can move on to the next level) so I feel like I have the responsibility to prepare my students for the test. Thankfully, STAR recognizes that this is a difficult thing, especially given the nature of the classes, so my teaching partners and I will have a lot of say about what exactly our students are tested on. I know this seems like a way to let everyone pass, and maybe it is, but these people deserve to pass. They're really working hard and the environment they have to learn in is not the greatest. They only have class once a week for three hours and it's with college age students, most of whom have never taught before. On top of that I don't know nor do I want to even imagine some of the circumstances some of these people come from. Everyone's just doing the best they can. And like I have said before, the drive of these people to learn is incredible. Several of them have told us they want to have the class more than once a week. I think this would be a great thing. Learning something on a week to week basis is far too difficult. You forget too much. I can't imagine only having Arabic once a week. I'd never learn anything. It's really incredible that these people have come as far as they have with English and I think they should be rewarded for their hard work.

Even though teaching is difficult and stressful, I like that I am involved in it. Even despite having so much going on in class, we always have some interesting cultural discussions. This week a man from Sudan and a woman from Egypt talked with Jacque and I about Egypt. The man said he did not like Egypt. He liked Egyptians, just not Egypt. The woman said she loved Egypt. Jacque tried to explain that it was OK for them to have differing opinions but the woman was convinced that the man didn't like her for having the opinion that Egypt was a wonderful country. We explained that it was possible for a person to like another person, but not to like their opinion and that this should in no way be an affront to the latter person. She had trouble with this concept and seemed offended that he didn't like her opinion. By the end of the conversation, she had agreed that he had his opinion and she had hers and this was fine. It wasn't exactly a resolution, but I think it could be called progress. It was an interesting exchange and I was proud that the woman, the only woman in class, was speaking up, even if what she was saying seemed a bit misguided. It was a nice thing to see.

Another man in the class from Saudi Arabia who also does not like Egypt invited us to have tea with him and his family, saying that was the only way we would learn Arabic. He's apparently been going to some other level classes (these people just want to learn so much) and has also invited some of our friends to tea. A small group of us may go if tea is later in the day after school. At first we were a bit apprehensive, but I think it's just a cultural difference that we would think such a request would be inappropriate. Even if we don't go, I think it's good that we now recognize that things have different meanings in different cultures. You always need to be careful, but as long as you are safe (such as never going anywhere alone), you should be open minded about things.

Though teaching is something I don't know if I will ever do again, both here and in the US, I can and always will be up for a good mall trip anywhere, anytime, which is exactly what we took today. We went to City Stars, which is a mall about halfway between here and school. It's a huge building in the middle of the desert. It has over 600 stores, probably close to 100 restaurants and cafes, two 'amusement parks' which I think are mostly for children, and a movie theater. It's very, very Americanized. It was a nice break for everything today. We didn't buy much. We just walked around and we planned a dinner/movie trip back sometime in the near future. While it was a great day, and just what we all needed, thinking back on it, I'm a little struck by it all. There's so much of a divide in Egypt. There's extreme poverty and not in a very small amount by any means either, yet there's a mall easily ten times the size of my mall at home and countless other construction projects going on. I'm not saying this is wrong. I think it's important for development, but I wish there could also be progress made on the human development front. I don't think building malls and luxury hotels should be denied, I just think it should be accompanied by programs for extending jobs or something like that. It's a tough problem that's discussed again and again in my development classes and I definitely don't have the answer, but I think it's good that I am getting first hand experience with it and at least thinking about it in contexts outside of articles in textbooks and lectures in the classroom.

Taking away this serious commentary on the day, it was a very nice time and a frustration-free day, which is what we need sometimes and is so refreshing to have. If I can have at least one day like that per weekend, I'll be able to make it through week to week, handling anything and everything AUC and Egypt may have in store for me.

Football (of several types).

Last Friday, October 16th, we had the unique opportunity of attending the FIFA U-20 World Cup Final game. The tournament was held in Cairo this year from September 24th until October 16th. I am not sure exactly how it worked. I think it may have been a double elimination tournament because I know the US played twice and I think they lost both of their games. The early rounds of the tournament were played in five different cities relatively close to Cairo. The US was playing in either Port Said or Suez (I can't remember which it was right now). In any case, we were planning to attend at least one of their games, but then it so happened that their games fell while we were on our extended break, so we were unable to attend. By the time we returned from our trip, the US had been eliminated. It would have been nice to see them play. I know that there was at least one player from ND playing of the team. It's a shame we didn't make it to one of their games.

The tournament was not talked about very much in Cairo until the very end. Many AUC students took the opportunity to attend the final between Brazil and Ghana (and also the consolation game held immediately before the game between Costa Rica and Hungary. Hungary won that game in penalty kick's. Overtime was not played before PK's however because the final game between Brazil and Ghana needed to start on schedule. We did not go to the Costa Rica v. Hungary game, but it was apparently a very good game).

We began our adventure into sports in Cairo with a cab ride to Cairo International Stadium. It was about twenty minutes away from our dorms, about half way between the dorms and school. Cairo International Stadium is very nice. I didn't realize it at the time, but when they announced the attendance at the game of over 67,000 people, I realized that it is about the size of (or maybe a little smaller than) Notre Dame's Stadium, which holds about 80,000.

Entering the Stadium was a much different experience than in the US for several reasons. First of all, you need to choose before you enter what side you want to sit on, Brazil or Ghana. We chose Ghana. I'm not sure if this is an Egyptian thing or a soccer thing (because we all know soccer games can get ugly as far as crazy fans are concerned). After passing through some metal detectors we were approached by some Egyptian men seemingly doing some sort of car promotion out of a booth by the stadium entrance. We weren't quite sure what they were doing, but a part of their gimmick was a game where if you kicked a soccer ball though the window of a cardboard car cutout, you won a free hat. (I tried and my kick was a good height, but a little to the left). One of the boys we were with was successful in doing this. You would have thought he had just cured cancer or solved the problem of world hunger. The Egyptians freaked out. They started yelling and passed out hats to all of us, made us put them on, gathered us in a group, and took at least 5 pictures of us (both by ourselves and with them) on all of our cameras and a camera of their own. They took even more pictures when we told them we were rooting for Ghana. That seemed to be the general sentiment in Egypt. African unity, I assume. They made us hold our fists in the air for these pro-Ghana pictures. It was all very exciting!

Finally we entered the Stadium. Seat assignment was not really an issue, at least we don't think, but we probably were supposed to sit in the correct level. However, we didn't understand out tickets, so we sat in the lower level, where tickets should have been more expensive. No one reprimanded us for this. Come to think of it, no one checked our tickets at all. This could have been because the Stadium was not full. The fact that we were American probably had a lot to do with it also. That's something we're still getting used to. You would think it would be flattering, and it is and it also has it's benefits clearly, but it also makes you feel awkward sometimes. It's interesting.

At first we choose to sit in one section of seats. Behind a sort of fence close to these seats, a few thousand men in various neon colored jump suits and identical shoes were seated. This was quite a sight. They stared at us as we came in, and we were clearly staring at them. Not thinking, I took a picture of them, just because all the neon suits together looked cool. This really sent them over the edge and they started calling to us and making kissing faces and noises. After this, we jumped to the conclusion that they were probably prisoners, and we became a little uneasy about our predicament. We ended up moving seats, not far, just over a little so that we were a bit removed from them. Our safety was obviously never in jeopardy. Again, we are American and we were a group of girls and boys. And, here's the really kind of funny part, it turns out that they were the military, not prisoners. It was not smart for us to think that they would be prisoners. First of all, Egypt does not have enough laws to have that many people in prison. (I'm joking...kind of). Secondly, and seriously, I don't know why we thought all these prisoners would be brought to a soccer game and left to sit there, in about an entire quarter of the stadium, unpoliced. Either way, it was relieving to find out that they were military and not prisoners, though it didn't make it any more comfortable that they stared at us the entire game. I think they were confused by a group of American guys and girls sitting in the middle of the Ghana section.

The Ghana section was the right choice as far as the crowd goes. The Brazil section across the way waved a lot of flags, but the Ghana section had some incredible cheers and further down in our section they even had a band of sorts with several drums and instruments. It was a fun to just watch the crowd sometimes.

As for the game itself, it turned out to be amazing. The game itself was a little boring. Everyone was expecting Brazil to win, and it was clear that they were in dominant team within the first ten minutes. Everyone definitely thought it was over for Ghana when, after about the first twenty or so minutes, one of their players was given a red card, meaning he was ejected and Ghana would have to finish the game playing one man down. The player slide tacked from behind. From where we sat, behind the play, I didn't think it warranted any kind of penalty, well, maybe a whistle and free kick/inbounds? (I'm actually not sure of the proper procedure and/or terminology in soccer. In field hockey, a similar infraction would have warranted a free hit at the spot where the infraction on the field occurred). Some of the boys we were with said they saw it as a yellow card-able offense, but everyone agreed the red card was going to far. Though there was not much argument from the Ghana coach. I guess this is because there's a general idea in FIFA that it's wise not to let these games get out of hand. And with such young kids playing, I can see the logic in that.

In any event, this forced Ghana to play a defense only, or definitely a defense first kind of game. They obviously didn't have many scoring opportunities, but they did have a few surprising drives. And Brazil surprisingly didn't have as many drives as might have been expected. The high point of the game was when the Brazil coach, mad about something (I'm not sure if it was officiating or his players or a combination of the two) angrily kicked a cup of water in the direction of the Ghana bench. The Ghana coach took some offense, and the ref keeping time (I know he has a special name, but I don't know what it is) had to come over and make the Brazil coach apologize to the Ghana coach, which he did. I really don't think he meant anything by it. It was pretty funny though. Also, it was interesting that the Egyptian announcers though it was completely appropriate to announce the attendance record (which was confusing in itself because it was a record for the whole tournament, not just that night's game) with about two minutes left in regulation. It was clearly not the time to do something like that, but it was a great reminder that, yes, even though we were having the luxury of being at an internationally run event (where things started on time and had a basic general idea and order to them), we were still in Egypt. We were saying to each other that the FIFA administration is probably giving themselves a HUGE and well deserved pat on the back for having pulled this tournament off in Egypt!

The game went into double overtime. I felt bad for all the players. They were exhausted after 90 minutes. Double overtime was a lot like the game, except slower. All the players were dead. By the end of the overtime period, all their skills and finesse had gone out the window and they were basically just lobbing the ball at each other. So after the overtimes, it went into PK. Each team would take 5 or less than five if that could determine a clear winner. Brazil would go first. After 10 penalty kicks, the score was tied 3-3. There was one point where it seemed like Ghana was done for, but miraculously, Brazil missed and then Ghana made its next kick. So the game went into sudden death PKs. (I think this was what happened. After the attendance record announcement faux pax, the Egyptian announcers either didn't know what was going on (my guess) or decided what was going on was not an important thing to let the crowd know (honestly, they told us about the attendance record, what more could we want?)). Brazil missed and Ghana made their kick! GHANA WON! The Ghana team, tired as they were, went running all over the field and track! It was great to see an underdog victory like that, and it's a great thing for their country. The team and the fans seemed so happy. And it was a great experience watching one of them running with the flag. I've been to one other national sporting event in my life (US v. England Women's Field Hockey) but I have never been to such a high stakes game. It was overwhelming to think that these kids were representing their country. It was a great thing to witness. There was A LOT of high pitched whistling from the fans, which is a very popular form of cheering/crowd noise. The awards ceremony, including Hungary, Brazil and Ghana followed the game, as did fireworks, which were very cool and something we had hoped for earlier in the game but didn't think would be an actual possibility. So that was exciting.

It was great also to be at a sporting event. I miss sports a lot. I was especially missing them on the weekend of the game because that was the weekend that ND played USC at home. I have been waiting for that game since 2005 when I first saw ND play USC. I remember sitting with my family at the end of the game and looking across to the student section and thinking, "in 4 years I want to be sitting over there watching ND finally getting revenge for what just happened." (I'll be honest, I had written off 2007 even then). Not being able to go to the USC game this year was one of my biggest disappointments related to studying abroad. I was especially disappointed because my Mom and Dad were visiting for the game, and I love it when our family is together at ND. I called them while they were tailgating and some of my friends stopped by the tailgate too, which was really nice of them. My parent loved that. It seemed like the atmosphere was great on campus.

We were fortunate enough to watch the game. NBC, for the first time ever, was live-streaming it, and we found a cafe with great internet access. So the five of us and a former ND student who had studied in Cairo in 2005 and who we randomly met because he was back in Zamalek for a few days before finishing up a six month, multi-country research trip in Nigeria and happened to comment on one of our ND t-shirts, watched the game together. (It was great meeting this guy. It was a great affirmation of the ND network that I am so grateful I'll be a part of for the rest of my life). Around the beginning of the fourth quarter, it was starting to get late, we went down by three touchdowns, and our computers ran out of battery, so we headed back to the dorms thinking we had put up a valiant effort but were clearly no match for Southern Cal (they hate it when we call them that). After going up to my room and changing for bed, I got a text message from one of the guys that asked if I had plugged my computer in and was I watching? I said no, why? He called me and said there were four seconds left and we were on the four yard line down by sever points! WHAT? I ran into the hallway and told him to stay on the phone and give me the play by play because Zamalek's boy/girl rules may be even stricter than ND's and I couldn't go watch the end with the rest of the guys. He said, "Ok here's the snap..." then nothing for while, so I said, "What, what?" I was answered by an expletive from several people on the other end of the line. I said, "No, we lost?" They said, "No the internet froze and then disconnected right as the ball was about to be snapped." THANKS EGYPT. So the game ended, or it went into overtime, or we won (we would have never won, no one, not even Charlie Weis, in his right mind would have gone for 2), and we had no idea what happened. So, we did the logical thing and rushed into the dorm computer lab like lunatics in varying degrees of nighttime undress. We effectively terrified the Egyptians in there (who don't sleep, ever it seems) with this move before logging on to ESPN.com to find out that we did in fact lose. On the play we were trying to watch and then another play with one second left on the clock. Oh well. It was a hard fought battle and it was lot of fun to be able to watch (kind of). It's frustrating that we came so close and still lost, but I'll take it. There's always next year and more and more I'm considering Thanksgiving 2010 on the beach in Southern California, if everyone knows what I mean?!

So as the length of this blog shows, I am clearly sports starved! This is compacted by the fact that I am missing the baseball playoffs. As I write this the Phillies are in the World Series and awaiting the winner of the Yankees and Angels, which will hopefully be decided in favor of the Yankees as soon as possible (should have been last night, NY). If possible, and if the Yanks make it (don't want to jinx them by assuming they'll be in), I hope to stay up some night or get up really early one morning to try to catch a game, or at least some of it. There's a good possibility we can find Fox somewhere around here. If not, I guess I'll have to settle for the Egypt v. Algeria World Cup qualifier in mid-November, which we are planning to attend. It's not exactly Fighting Irish football or the fall classic, but it'll be undoubtedly exciting and something I will certainly be able to live with!

Week Two: Punctuation

The first week back to classes was exhausting, but is was good to get it over with and begin to redevelop some sort of routine. As I have said, being so busy is actually making the time pass unbelievably fast.

Jacque and I taught again on Monday night, this time with a third teaching partner named Taylor. She is also an American but she is a freshman and is at AUC as an undergrad. I couldn't imagine coming to AUC for college at the age of 18. I barely made it out to South Bend! But she wants to study Arabic and Middle Eastern Studies so this is a great place for her and I give her a lot of credit.

This week we had three students, only one of whom was in our class the first week. (We have heard that the administration is going to have a meeting to discuss poor attendance at the classes because this is a common problem at every location and at every level). We had one student join our class who we were not sure was competent to be learning at the level we were teaching. When we talked to him about this, he became upset that we were going to make him leave. We told him we were not going to make him leave. We just needed to be sure he was in the appropriate level. At the same time the other two students in the class were asking him in Arabic the same questions about his competence. They told us, in English, that they didn't want him to hold them back. As I said the will and desire of these people to learn is truly unbelievable and something that will make me think twice before I complain again about the burden of school and homework. Education is something too many people take for granted. It something not everyone is lucky enough to have and something for which we should be thankful.

We began the class teaching in the way we had last week, but after a while we partnered off and taught individually. My partner was Umar, who is from Nigeria. He is the only student that has been present in our class both weeks and he is one of the more advanced students. Because we finished the punctuation drills quickly, we spent some time talking. At first I felt guilty about talking with him and not proceeding with the lesson, but then I thought being able to communicate is just as important to learning English, if not more important than, learning the difference between a semi-colon and a colon. Umar is from the North of Nigeria. He has been in Cairo for 4 years (since 2005). His first language is the tribal language of Northern Nigeria. When he came to Cairo, he studied Arabic at Al-Azhar University. Now, he is doing his masters in Arabic at Cairo University. English is his third language. This was truly amazing to me. When I told him I was studying Arabic he asked me to speak to him in classical Arabic, which is the Arabic I have been learning for two years. It was nice to be able to use this Arabic again, as I have been having to use Egyptian colloquial Arabic, which I am not as proficient in nor do I like as much.

He was also very interested in America and what part of the country the three of us (Jacque, Taylor, and I) were from. I pretended the desk was America and answered his questions by pointing things out. I also pointed out where most of the farming in the country was done (the Mid-West and the West). He was also interested in the population of America and was surprised to find out it was not bigger than it was. He thinks of America as a huge nation. This is interesting. I think his idea about the size of America has more to do with the way the US is portrayed abroad and its international leadership than it does with the actual physical size of America.

After our talk, it was time to do some more punctuation drills before beginning the most fun part of our class, reading Matilda. Each level is reading a book, with the first level reading the Cat in the Hat and our level, one of the most advanced, reading Matilda. I love this book and am very excited to get to read it again. We think we are going to try to prepare vocabulary lists as we read. This should be a nice break from grammar. When we first started reading, I read to the class. I then asked one of the students to read a few paragraphs. He did and he did very well. I then asked Umar to read a few paragraphs. He read about 4 pages! It was amazing. He is really very, very intelligent and I hope we help him a lot in this class. As I have said, he truly wants to learn. Even Abdullah, the student we were not sure was in the right level class, managed to read through a page or so. This was encouraging. So was the fact that when we ended class, he talked with us for a little. He is from Saudi Arabia and he has been in Cairo for a year. He does not like Egypt and he had no qualms about telling us that. We didn't go into detail with him (partially because his English was limited and we couldn't) but this was pretty funny. It's nice to know it's not only Americans who can become frustrated with Cairo and Egyptian disorganization in general.

I think all of us, having just finished our second week of classes after the extended break (ironically amid somewhat of an outbreak of flu-like illness and even several cases of swine flu among students and faculty that helped to spread the rumor of a quarantine of the dorms and/or permanent shut down of the University, neither of which I think will actually happen), are coming to that point every study abroad student comes to where the fascination with the country wears off and the culture shock starts to become frustrating and annoying.

We complain and generalize about the Egyptians in our classes far too often and we know this isn't right. The lack of vigor in study, the disorganization, and the inability and/or disregard and/or aversion to the concept of forming a line is simply frustrating to us. As is the cat that seems to live in the dorm cafeteria, fighting with another cat that comes into the dorm from time to time and jumping onto the cafeteria tables at which we eat, as he is doing as I am typing this. As is the fact that the Internet has started to work in the dorms only at certain places and at certain times. As is the Egyptian custom of staying up until 4AM or 5AM every night, eating dinner at 1AM and washing dishes and leaving disgusting messes in the bathroom sinks. (There was actually a girls' dorm meeting about this, which I did not attend because, as I expected it was basically Americans complaining because they didn't quite realize that Egypt would not be exactly like home. This is frustrating too. Everyone is annoyed by certain cultural differences. But we commiserate with each other and suck it up and life goes on. We know that calling out the Egyptians will not change their ways. We also know that complaining to the RA's will do nothing either. The culture of a society cannot be something for which we hold a group of RA's responsible. Most Americans realize these things. Some do not, and this makes the situation even more frustrating)!

So as not to end this blog on a negative note, I think I will say that I have heard that this stage of culture shock is just a phase and we will overcome it in the next few weeks. I certainly hope this is true and I think it will be, though I do not doubt that there will be days when, as is becoming a common phrase with the Americans here, "I want to kill an Egyptian!" I think I need to think about my experience here as a whole, and though not all parts of it are perfect or necessarily enjoyable, they are all integral to making the experience what it is, and down the line I think, as I have said again and again, this will be an experience that I will remember and be thankful for for the rest of my life! (And that statement, to relate back to the title of the post, is one that definitely deserves to be ended with an exclamation point.) :-)

My First Internship

I never thought I'd have my first internship in Egypt, but as I mentioned before, an internship at an Egyptian NGO is a requirement for one of my classes, Intro to Development. I will be working with Nahdet El-Mahrousa, and I will be performing two functions. First, I will be doing some research for Ana Masry. Also, I will be working once a week at the Career and Entrepreneurship Office aiding young Egyptians seeking jobs and internships and writing resumes with their communication and language skills.

Part of the class requirement is a blog about out internship experience, so after this I will mostly post on that blog about my work with the NGO. I have met once with Mirahan Farag, the Manager of Operations of Ana Masry. It was mostly an informational and brainstorming meeting. I included a detailed description of it in my first blog post. I also spoke about the functions of NM as an NGO. I will begin to work each Tuesday with CEDO after October 27th (when my Tuesday make-up classes come to an end). I will be posting about my experiences with NM as I encounter them. The name of that Blog is POLS310 NM. I did not make the blog; another student working with the same NGO made it and then added the rest of us who would be working with NM as authors. So, if you read the blog, you will be able to read all of our posts about our experiences with NM; we will all be working with a different part of the NGO and I think each of us will have an interesting experience. I am excited to being my involvement with both Ana Masry and CEDO. The fact that these programs are different but a part of the same NGO I think will teach me a lot about the NGO NM specifically and about the functions of NGOs in general. It is an experience I am looking forward to.

Appositives?

The first day back to classes was an exhausting whirlwind. There was tons of confusion about what had been assigned, what had been done, what was supposed to have been done, and seemingly a million other thing in each and every class. I figured that if, by the end of the week, I had a handle on at least what I needed to have done in the coming two weeks or so, I was in good shape. (Whether or not I met this goal, as our second week back to classes ended today, is still up for debate).

Things were complicated by the fact that on our second day back to classes, Monday, October 5th, I began working with the STAR program. STAR is a program that teaches English to refugees (and anyone else wanting to learn English) living in Cairo. STAR has several locations throughout the city, and it relies on students and other volunteers to teach its varying levels of English. Teachers are in pairs. I am working with my roommate, Jacque. I really owe her a lot of credit for getting me involved with STAR. I had originally missed the deadline to become involved with the program, but as luck would have it, Jacque's teaching partner realized at the last minute that she had a conflict on Monday nights from 6PM to 9PM when the classes she was supposed to be teaching were held. Jacque asked me if I'd be interested in filling in for her, and I said I definitely was. I had missed the orientation, but Jacque had extra materials and she filled me in on the other important details. She said the most interesting thing discussed this year at the orientation was STAR's effort this year to become a legitimate Egyptian NGO. Jacque and I agreed that it was nice to see something in Egypt being taken so seriously and we felt lucky to be a part of it.

Although it is refreshing that STAR seems to be a well-run program, by its nature, it is obviously not without its problems. Most of the classes are rarely full because it is difficult for the students to come all the time and on time. It is also difficult to transport us from AUC to Ain Shams, our teaching location. Both times we have taught so far, we have been almost a half hour late because our bus ride has taken close to an hour and a half in Cairo's rush hour traffic.

Jacque and I are teaching level 4B, which is one of the higher levels. This has its benefits and its downfalls. As far as benefits are concerned, all of our students are at a basic level in English conversation, so Jacque and I need to speak very little, if any at all, Arabic to them. However, the material we need to cover is somewhat more complicated and drier than the material some of our friends are teaching. The first day we started out with review which consisted of functions of the noun, parts of speech, and sentences. I will admit that I only knew most of the things I was teaching (such as what an appositive is: it's a renaming of the subject in a sentence; for example: My father, Gene... in case anyone was particularly interested) because I read their description along with the students. Some grammar concepts are incredibly difficult to convey, especially to students with minimal command of the language. Explaining direct objects involved a lot of gesturing and action on my part!

On the first day of class (we will have 10 classes total between now and early December), four students attended our class, even though there were sixteen listed on our class roster. One was an Egyptian woman in her forties who was there simply because she loved English and wanted to learn the language. There was another younger Egyptian man and two Nigerian men in the class also. In the other levels scheduled at out location during out time slot, some of the students were Sudanese from Darfur. This was the first time for all of us that a human context was given to that conflict, and it was definitely daunting and humbling. Darfur and the refugee situation it has been creating over the years was for the first time for all of us actually REAL. Because of the background of the students, we had been instructed to proceed with caution in what we spoke about. For example, a 'tell us your name, where you're from, and about your family' type introduction was out of the question as such questions have the potential to produce painful answers from refugees from Sudan and Iraq.

Our students were quiet when class first began, but as we did more activities and drills, they opened up considerably. The last conversation we had actually had nothing to do with what we were studying, but about how to appropriately tell time in English (there was confusion about 'quarter after and quarter until.' When Jacque and I explained it and it was not clear, we told them these expressions were not necessary to know, as 15 and 45 were perfectly fine to say. They told us enthusiastically that this was what was important for them to know because they wanted to be able to communicate in and understand common English dialogue, so we spent some time drawing a clock on the board. It was interesting that the most important thing to them was something I don't think we'll ever find in the manuel.

It was great to see the drive these students had to learn English and it was definitely rewarding to see how thankful they were for our help. Many of them, our students and students of other classes, thanked us and shook our hands. The woman in our class asked Jacque and me if there was anything we wanted when she was leaving. These people have such difficult backgrounds, but they are so willing to learn and so thankful for anyone that will teach them. It's definitely a much different part of Egyptian society than the one we see when we are in Zamalek on at AUC, and it is an important one for us to be exposed to. I think teaching English in Egypt is the most worthwhile thing I have done while in Egypt and also the most worthwhile thing I have done in my life. It is an experience I feel truly blessed to have.

But speaking of experiencing different parts of Egyptian society, Ain Shams is definitely not Zamalek or AUC. Jacque and I agreed it was the first time we felt objectified as women. We weren't scared and we didn't feel as if we were in danger, but for the first time we were understanding the harassment we had been warned about before we arrived here. We also experienced another interesting part of Egyptian society when we took the Metro (Egyptian public subway) from the Ain Shams station to the Sadat Station, from where we can take a quick cab ride to the dorms. (Unfortunately, this was not my first experience with Egyptian public transportation, as I have been lucky enough to take an hour long public mini-bus ride. It's a long story which involves a package, customs fees, Ramadan hours, tears, and possibly the nicest man I have ever met in my life and, in my opinion, a prime candidate for FedEx employee of the year, but it is a long and horrific story that I to this day have not re-told in full detail except for once in a long message to my sister immediately after I survived the ordeal). Anyway, there are four of us who will be taking the Metro every Monday, and hopefully we'll get better at it with practice. Our slip-ups included taking the Metro for several stops in the wrong direction and then being confused about which trains ran in what directions and on what tracks. We now have all that sorted out.

Taking the Metro may have been one of the funnier experiences I have had in Cairo as well. The four of us (three girls and a boy) were literally the main attraction on the train. We were THE only Americans and we were considered in the mixed gender car with the highest degree of scrutiny and amusement. Several Egyptians both on the train and in the stations spoke to us in Arabic, and we think they wanted us to speak to their children who were learning English at school. It was interesting that most people that spoke with us (most only spoke about us, laughing with each other), spoke with Logan, the boy we were with. Even the man at Sadat Station who wanted the three girls to speak with his daughter approached and spoke with Logan. That was a interesting picture of social norms in Islamic society, and after the harassment we had experienced in Ain Shams, it was comforting and welcome.

After getting off the train, we needed to take a cab back to the dorms and we did this without any problems (unless you count traffic). Teaching had been exhausting, and I think it will be every week, but it will be an amazing experience and well worth every minute of it.

Back to Reality...Well, Egyptian Reality At Least

Classes began again at AUC on October 4^th not surprisingly amid much, much confusion. The online homework system is not quite up to par and each class faced the first few classes back with questions about what had been assigned, what was due, and what needed to be done. This actually wasn’t a problem for most of us studying abroad because we had largely decided to simply do next to nothing while we were traveling. This ended up working out somewhat in our favor because the confusion caused most assignments to have to be reassigned anyway. Though that didn’t mean that we didn’t have a lot of catching up to do. As I am writing this, on October 14^th, I still am not completely caught up!

There has also been a lot of question about how the lost class time will be made up. The university made a schedule to make up classes on all Tuesdays (when we usually did not have any classes) until November, but each class is sort of deciding for itself how, when, and how much it will make up.

My Arabic class is lengthening the time of class on Mondays and Thursdays to make up the hours. My colloquial Arabic class is meeting several times during the hour lunch break. My Comparative Politics class is proceeding with the syllabus and will determine if we need to have make-up classes as we get further along in the semester. My Development Studies class cannot meet on Tuesdays because of a conflict the professor has (he teaches at another university), so we were supposed to think about a solution, but nothing further has been mentioned. I’m fine with this because the only mentioned solution involved classes on Saturday, which some classes are doing and which I definitely do not want to do. My Intro to Development class met this Tuesday for two hours to catch up and we will have our midterm next Tuesday. So as of now I will only have two Tuesday classes total, which is perfectly fine with me. I was getting used to having Tuesdays off, and it is very, very nice.

Getting back into school-mode has been an adjustment. I don’t know if I was ever in it to begin with. As I said, I am catching up on my work. I have also written several papers and taken two tests, which has forced me into school mode. Just today, at my make-up class did I feel like I was finally back into the routine of school and I liked it. I have also started some other scheduled activities, which I will write about in my next post that have helped me to develop into a routine. I am becoming very busy, but I like it that way. One thing is for sure, my time here is definitely flying by!

The Last Traveling I'll Be Doing for a While

The next morning we were up and out early to catch a 7AM bus from Jerusalem to Eilat. The bus was crowded this time, but we managed to get all of us and all of our luggage onto it (thankfully, we had bought roundtrip tickets when we left from Eilat three days earlier). We also managed to meet up with another guy from AUC who we adopted as our eighth traveling companion. The bus ride went well (we even stopped at a convenience store and for the last in a while time bought food that was not pita and hummas) and was just under five hours, allowing us to quickly cross the border in Eilat and arrive at the border to cross into Taba, Egypt around 12:30PM.

As we should have expected by now, there were of course problems crossing into Egypt. Not serious problems, but “This is Egypt” type problems. We were traveling on a Friday and Friday at noon (Friday noontime prayer) is the holiest time for a Muslim. All the employees at the border were praying when we arrived, effectively shutting down the border for approximately thirty minutes. The religiousness of Egypt as a nation and the Middle East as a region in general is a phenomenon. In some ways it is refreshing to see a culture so dedicated to religious values. In other ways, it can be frightening (it shut a border down). I think it is just foreign to us because we are so used to a separation of Church and state in America. Honestly, I am a little surprised when I hear announcements in the Chicago airport around the holidays about non-denominational services.

After prayer ended, we were ushered through the border without a problem and were successfully back in Egypt. As luck would have it (and yes you do learn to celebrate the small victories, especially at the end of twelve days of traveling), there was a mini-bus waiting to take the eight of us back to Cairo. The driver of the mini-bus was holding a sign that said ‘Victoria Braga’ in a graphic, word-art font (because I had given him my name by e-mail). This was a little embarrassing, and I think the drivers found it a little funny that an American female’s name had been used as the group name, but it was helpful in getting us back to Cairo, and at that point that is all the eight of us really cared about.

The drive from Taba to Cairo is about five hours long. It took us about five and a half because our drivers stopped for dinner. They didn’t tell us we were stopping for dinner. They simply stopped, went into a restaurant, and left us to ‘talk among ourselves’ for about a half hour. This had happened to us before on our trip to Dahab. It’s definitely an interesting customer service feature here. In any event, we arrived back in Cairo just before 7PM. Upon entering the city, we were greeted by the traffic and the pollution, which looks the worst just when the sun is setting. Possibly because we had only entered Cairo one other time and because this was when we first arrived in Egypt after a 12 hour flight, there were things we had not noticed about it. For example, I now know what everyone who has been here meant when they say the entire city is dirty. I was shocked by the layer of dirt on all the buildings. Pollution here is really awful, and coming from Israel, the level of pollution is Cairo was painfully obvious. When we got back to the dorm, we had dinner before unpacking and, for the first time in almost two weeks, taking real showers and sleeping in our own, real beds. We needed a good night’s sleep because the next day, Saturday, October 3^rd, was the final day of what all AUC students, particularly Americans, have taken to calling ‘Swine Break ’09 (or if we’re feeling particularly ambitions, Aid Al-Swine, which literally means Holiday of Swine in Arabic). It had been a long trip, but each moment had been incredible and looking back, I would not have changed a thing about it. It is something I am so glad that I did. It will definitely be a trip I remember for the rest of my life.

Jerusalem: Day Two

On our second day in Jerusalem, we got up early to be at the entrance to the Dome of the Rock as early as possible. The Dome of the Rock is one of the most sacred places in Islam. It stands on the sight where the Prophet Muhammad rose up to heaven on a magical horse. This is a famous story in Islam.

The public is not permitted to enter Dome of the Rock (and I am not sure if services are ever held there because there is another operating mosque just off the grounds), but you can get to the grounds by a passageway over the Western Wall. We walked this pathway and arrived at the entrance. Here, we were stopped because my dress, which fell to just above my knees, was too short. I was told that I needed to buy a scarf to cover my knees. At first, this seemed to me like a gimmick to make money (and it partially could have been), but there were also serious implications. I had to walk about 100 yards away from the group to buy the scarf and after I had bought it and began to take it out of its packaging, I stepped onto the grounds of the mosque. A guard told me sternly that I needed to remain off the grounds (meaning I needed to take two steps back) until I was appropriately covered. I was a little bit alarmed by this, but I stepped back and then because I was flustered by what had happened, I had trouble getting the scarf around myself while holding the plastic packaging. I noticed that there was a trashcan, but it was on the grounds of the mosque. I timidly asked a guard if I could step onto the grounds to throw the packaging away. I think he realized that I was somewhat frightened by what was happening, so he took the plastic for me and then when I had the scarf securely wrapped around myself, he smiled and told me it looked great and I was let finally let onto the grounds to rejoin my group. It was definitely a culturally shocking experience, and although I was flustered I was not angry. I think it is important to learn what is culturally acceptable here and this was definitely a good lesson in that.

The Dome of the Rock is beautiful. The artwork on the building is unbelievable. And the view of the city from it is also breathtaking. You can see clearly the tomb of Mary Magdalene, which looks somewhat Islamic in art form and has several golden domes. From afar, I would say it was one of the prettiest sights we had seen in Jerusalem.

After leaving the Dome of the Rock, we decided to walk around the Mount of Olives a little. This was easier said than done, as it is definitely a mount. Near the base is the Garden of Gethsemane, which is beautiful. We were lucky enough to witness part of a mass at the Grotto there. It was a small mass and it was being said in either Latin or Italian, but it was nice to be able to experience mass in that setting. (The day before we had seen chanting at one of the chapels we visited along the path of the Stations. That was also a very peaceful and faith-affirming experience that I enjoyed very much). After walking around the Garden (you cannot enter it) and looking at the bell tower, which I liked very much, we continued up the hill. When we finally reached the top, we briefly took pictures at the Church of the Ascension of Mary. We then took in the view of the whole of Jerusalem. It was a beautiful place to view the entire city from. The religious sights could clearly be made out, as could an Israeli flag. I thought this was an interesting mix of state and religion (and possibly politics and religion. On that note, I was also surprised to find while in Jerusalem that Jerusalem has its own flag).

After descending from the Dome of the Rock, we went to the same café that we had gone to the day before for breakfast. While we were finishing our breakfast, we saw two of our friends from AUC, who sat down with us. They had just arrived from Jordan and were planning to stay in the hostel where we were staying. We were tired and wanted to have a relaxing day (which, of course had it’s not so relaxing part during which we spent on the phone with the Egyptian transportation company that we hoped would be picking us up at the Taba border the next day. There were several phone conversations, some in English and some in Arabic (because our hostel manager was nice enough to act as the go between after it was clear that there were some communication problems), and a few e-mails (some to incorrect addresses that had been given over the phone) exchanged before we were fairly confident that someone and some sort of vehicle would be waiting for us at 1PM at the border the following day). Some of us planned to visit the markets. Some of us wanted to do the gate tour. (Jerusalem, or at least the old city, is a gated city. This means it is basically a walled-in city. The gates are never locked; they are more figurative than they are for a purpose today, and they are mostly used in describing location. For example, our hostel was just through the Jaffa Gate. There is also a Lion’s Gate, where bullet marks from 1948 are still visible. I am not sure how many gates there are or the significance of each one, but this is definitely something that is very interesting to me. I don’t think I got the full impact of it until we were leaving Jerusalem by bus the next morning and from afar, the fact that the old city was enclosed by walls was distinguishable).

Anyway, the two guys we had met up with only had a day in the city so they wanted to begin touring the city right away. We planned to meet up with them later at the hostel for dinner. It was strange to be so far from AUC and to see people we knew, but it was something that happened to us at every place we went actually and it was always a great surprise.

That night we had dinner at a nice restaurant near Ben Yehuda Street and then went to another bar for a while before turning in early for the last full day of travel that lay ahead of us.

Jerusalem

On our first full day in Jerusalem, we went to a nice cafe for breakfast and discussed what we wanted to see. We all agreed that we definitely wanted to see the Dome of the Rock, the Western Wall (also called the Wailing Wall), the Dome of the Rock, and the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. We also wanted to visit the Mount of Olives and King David's Tomb, which is in the same place as the establishment thought to have hosted the Last Supper.

We began at the Western Wall. Men and women are separated to observe and pray at the wall. We were there early in the morning, so neither the men's side or the women's side was very crowded. It was interesting to watch the Jewish women praying at the wall. We watched them for a while and then wrote prayers on small pieces of paper that we put in the wall. The Jewish women who were praying at the wall backed away from it in a way so as to not turn their backs on the wall. We were not sure if this was something only Jewish people were supposed to do, so we too backed away from the wall. We may have looked silly, but if nothing else, it was a sign of respect. Our visit to the wall was powerful. While there, I think we all had the shocking realization about how important Jerusalem is to history and to religion. It was definitely a humbling moment.

After spending some time at the wall, we walked into a marketplace, where some of us bought some Rosary Beads. It is still unbelievable to me that I can say I have Rosaries from Jerusalem (and that these Rosaries traveled with me around the Stations of the Cross (Via Dolorosa) and into the Church of the Holy Sepulcher). Unfortunately, after we bought out Rosaries, the entrance to the Dome of the Rock was closed and we were informed that it would not be opening until the next day, so we planned to do that as our first priority the next day.

At this point we decided to walk the Via Dolorosa path, which eventually leads to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. The stations start at a place where there are two chapels. Both were beautiful. The first station is inside a contemporary Muslim school, so there's not much commemoration of the station, but is was interesting to enter the school and look around a little. The building was very old and the rooms seemed very small. On a positive note however, it seemed that every classroom was packed with students, as we saw them leaving for the day. The next stations are found along the marketplace. At first, I was confused because as we got to each new station, there was a circular black stone on the wall with the appropriate Roman numeral inside. I have only done the stations of the cross several times before, and each time, each station has had a pictorial representation. I guess this is what I was expecting, so when I questioned where these were and someone told me there were not going to be any, I was a little taken aback. I was even more taken aback when I realized that there was no need for pictures representing the stations because the markers were marking the places where the actual events had happened. This was an incredible realization. I still get chills thinking about it.

There are several chapels along the path of the stations, and we visited these as we made our way along. We also visited the Prison of the Christ, which was very interesting. After station IX, we arrived at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. It's a gorgeous Church outside and inside. The first thing you see upon entering the Church is the Anointing Stone, where Jesus was laid when he was taken down from the cross. Behind this is a huge picture of the last supper, which was beautiful. After viewing this, we headed upstairs and eventually made our way to the place where Jesus was crucified. There is a Crucifix there and an alter, under which you can pray. Each of us said a short prayer there. It was a vert moving experience. Back downstairs, we say the place where the base of the cross stood. It was a huge cross, which makes the story of Jesus carrying it along the Via Dolorosa (which we had just walked ourselves) even more incredible, humbling, and heart-breaking, all at the same time. We also saw but did not enter the Tomb of the Christ, which is also downstairs in the Church. On our way out of the Church, we stopped again at the Anointing Stone and laid our Rosaries on it.

It had been an incredible but fairly draining day by the time we left the Church, so we walked to the Tomb of King David and stayed for a while in the room where the Last Supper was held. Both of these were also amazing sights.

After our full day of touring, we headed to Ben Yehuda street, where we had a very nice dinner. (All of us loved the food in Jerusalem and also the atmosphere. There's a lot of great restaurants and stores on Ben Yehuda street and it is a great place to walk around at night). After dinner (and after a stop for ice cream actually), we sat for a while in another bar/restaurant. It was a great day and night and we were glad that we also had the next day to see the sights. There is just so much to see, it's unbelievable! We headed back relatively early to the hostel because we were planning to get up early to see the Dome of the Rock as soon as we possibly could. Majoring in Arabic and taking classes for the past two years in Middle Eastern Studies, I had learned about the Dome of the Rock numerous times. Seeing it from a distance as we toured this day was exciting. I couldn't wait to actually put the famous and revered place to the name. Like everything else, it would definitely be an unforgettable experience.

Road to Jerusalem: The Border, The Embassy, and An Interesting Welcome

We crossed the border from Acqaba to Eilat on foot without serious problems, and all of us who hadn't been stamped thus far managed to get through without stamps again. (The agent who questioned me at the Israeli border asked me, no doubt because I was wearing a neon orange shirt (thank you Lewis Hall 3 South West shirt) repeatedly what Church group I was a part of. Apparently, neon shirts are a common thing for large groups to wear. Thank goodness I had my backpack on. The "Dangerous Levels of Fun" quote on the back of my neon orange shirt probably would have brought on even more questioning)!

We then continued to the Egyptian Embassy in Eilat to get our visa situation sorted out, and of course we had problems there ("This is Egypt," abbreviated T.I.E. is a phrase all the study abroad students have adopted and say to each other often when things run less than smoothly because of Egyptian disorganization). First, there was confusion about what exactly the three of us who needed new visas needed. Then, because the rest of us thought it would be smart to check on the status of our visas while we were there (rather than run into an ugly problem at a border), there was immense confusion about what we were asking and what the visa procedure was (although you would kind of expect that to be common knowledge at an embassy). The whole thing was compacted by the fact that in the middle of all the confusion, it was apparently tea time, so with about 10 Americans waiting in a lobby area (with a clear view of the office area) all the employees of the Embassy took a leisurely break and had tea. After tea, everything was finally sorted out. Those who needed new visas got them, those who did not (the other four of us) were informed that our visas were valid and would be successful at getting us back into Cairo. However, one of the four of us was told that because his visa lacked a stamp from the NY consulate his visa had never been valid, he should not have been let into Egypt, and no there was absolutely nothing that could be done about this because only the NY consulate had the authority to use this stamp. This was a bit daunting, but we figured since there was nothing we could do and because he had obviously been let into Egypt before (when we first arrived), it was something that probably would not be a problem and, if it was, we would deal with it when it happened. (It ended up not being an issue at any border.)

After the exasperating experience at the embassy, which made us glad we still had a few days away from Egypt, we took a taxi to the bus station and bought out tickets for the 2:15PM bus to Jerusalem. We were pleased with the non-pita selection of food in the bus station (and this would only get better as we spent more time in Israel). We arrived to Jerusalem on schedule and took a taxi to the Old City, where we planned to find a hostel. We looked at a few of them before settling on the Youth Citadel Hostel, which was very nice, probably the nicest hostel we stayed in. It resembled a cave somewhat, as the rooms walls and ceiling were made of stone, but it had a very nice, comfortable feeling. The three girls had one room and the four boys had another.

We dropped off our bags in our rooms and headed to a small pizza restaurant in the Old City, called Jacob's pizza. The pizza was very good and we were lucky enough to speak with the owner Jacob, who was a very opinionated and enlightening Israeli in his early thirties. He told us about mandatory service in the Israeli military for 18 months between the ages of 17 and 22, which he had been jailed for avoiding/escaping from. From what he said, it seems most offenses in Israel are punishable by jail time. It's definitely a very justice and military driven society. He also told us a little about Israel's politics, or at least his version of Israel's politics. He said Israelis hated Palestinians. He also said the whole of the Middle East hated Egyptians. He said Israelis hated Lebanese, but that the two groups were similar by the fact that they were hardworking, so their societies respected each other. The same went for Syria. It was interesting that he was so open and definite in what he said. It was eye-opening that political opinions penetrate society so heavily and are expressed by citizens not as politics but as fact. At the same time, Jacob did tell us that he thought, despite what he said, what he believed to be the facts he had said, that each person has the right to be evaluated on an individual level. This seemed somewhat contradictory, but it was encouraging to hear.

After our long day of travel and our interesting exchange with Jacob, we were very tired and decided to head back to our hostel to shower (which we had not done since our last night in Petra, as there was not much of an opportunity to shower in the desert) and go to bed early. The next day we planned to wake up early, have a nice pita-free breakfast, and spend the full day sight-seeing in Jerusalem.

Sleeping in the Desert

The next day, we woke up early to catch a 6:30AM bus to Wadi Rum, where we planned to spend the day and the night in a Beduin camp. We arrived at base camp around 8:00AM and were set out on our jeep tour of the desert by 10:00AM.

Wadi Rum is famous as being a place Lawrence of Arabia visited. During out tour, we saw the Lawrence spring, a stream of running water high in a mountain (which we climbed) and the Lawrence House, where Lawrence was said to have lived. We also saw various other structures and formations (an arch, a canyon), etc, most of which we climbed. (At least today I was in sneakers and shorts. I had more than learned my lesson from Petra!)

Our tour of the desert ended at the Beduin camp where we would sleep. The camp was about 10 kilometers from base camp, so we had been instructed to bring with us everything we would need. It was recommended to us to bring warm clothes because it does actually get cold in the desert at night. We arrived to the Beduin camp at around 3:00PM and we given some time to lounge in the shade (where we, being very, very American at this point and not really caring, played hearts with a deck of cards one of us had brought. It was my first time playing, and I didn't lose. We played so that the first person to 100 points ended the game, and then obviously the person with the lowest score was the winner. So I didn't win, but I didn't lose. That should make my Dad proud because apparently Hearts is a lot like Spades, his most favorite game of all time, I think. See Dad, it only took me being stuck in the Jordanian desert with nothing to do to learn Hearts/Spades)! We watched the sun set over the mountains around 6:30PM, and it was breath-taking. (This trip was amazing in many ways, but I think I will remember most of the places I went by the sunsets I saw there).

We then had dinner, which was chicken, vegetables, and potatoes cooked using the traditional Bedouin method of cooking underground. It was a good meal. After dinner, we played some drums and other Beduin instruments, danced a little with out Bedouin guides, and then turned in for the night. And by turned in, I mean we drug out mattresses and blankets and pillows out of our tents and slept under the stars in the desert. It was chilly, but it was definitely worth it. The stars are actually their brightest in the early hours of the morning. For once, I was glad that I woke up several times during the night and was able to look at the stars.

The sun rose around 6:00AM and by 6:30AM we were having breakfast, pita (which we had been eating non-stop since arriving in Jordan), cheese, jam, honey, a peanut-butter-like substance and some type of cookies, and of course tea, which was sweetened and very good (we had it several times while we were in Jordan). We made it back to base camp by 8AM, and loaded ourselves and our bags into two taxis headed to Acqaba, about an hour away. There, the plan was to re-cross the border into Eilat, Israel, sort out our visa issues at the Egyptian Embassy there, and then board a bus for Jerusalem at 2:15PM. If all went according to plan (and again, thank goodness it did) we were scheduled to be in Jerusalem by around 7:00PM on the night of September 29th. We would be there until October 2nd, when we would travel back to Cairo. Most of us would have preferred to spend more time in Jerusalem (we only had two full days), but because Yom Kippur began on the evening of the 27th and ended the evening of the 28th, we knew we would run into some problems with both borders and sights being closed and we preferred not to risk it. That meant we knew we had two very busy and very full days of sight-seeing ahead of us!

I Now Understand Why Indiana Jones Did Not Wear Flip Flops and a Skirt

Our first and full day in Jordan, we spent at Petra which is an ancient city built into a mountain and filled with tomb after tomb after tomb. It was made famous by one of the Indiana Jones movies.

Before going to Petra, I knew very little about it and was not aware that it was an ancient city in a mountain. I thought it was just an ancient city, so I deemed flip flops and a skirt an appropriate exploring outfit. So keep my attire in mind as I describe our day (from 9AM to 6PM) in Petra.

Petra is entered by walking through a sort of canyon. At the end of the canyon, there is a structure built into the rock. It is massive and magnificent, and it is a common misconception that this is all there is to see of Petra. There is actually so, so much more. We spent most of the morning hiking up to what we thought was the top of the mountain and then back down again, exploring and climbing on various tombs and structures as we went along. When we reached the bottom of the mountain after a full day of climbing, we were informed that we hadn't technically made it to the top of Petra or to see the Petra chapel, which is very near to the top. We decided we couldn't pass up these opportunities, so we set out again. After seeing the chapel, we hiked to the highest point and relaxed there for a bit before finally heading down a final time to catch a bus back to the Valentine Inn.

The fact that Petra is so vast is amazing. It cannot have been easy to build, yet each structure and tomb is magnificent and there is such a abundance of them. It goes on forever. We spent a nine hour day there, and I would guess that we only saw about 70% percent of the city. The structures are also interesting because of the Byzantine influence. One of the tombs is actually called the Tomb of the Roman soldier.

Two funny things worth mentioning happened while hiking through Petra (and I am not referring to the several hundred times I almost fell, only during one of which did I actually almost, ALMOST fall, as in down, on my face). The first happened at a small shop on one of our trips down the mountain. There were many of these shops selling jewelry, pottery, etc. The woman running this shop was an older Jordanian. As we approached her, she came up to me and began to fix my shirt. I was wearing a tank top and a three-quarter length sleeve V-neck sweater, which I thought, given the extreme heat was definitely appropriate by cultural standards. Throughout climbing, I guess my tank top was a little low on my chest and the V in my sweater had fallen open a little. The woman pulled up my tank top and pulled closed my sweater. I was a little embarrassed and apologized to her, but I came to realize that she was not offended, but was only trying to be helpful to me. She said something about it being hot, and then showed me all the clothing she was wearing. She had on pants, a long sleeve shirt, a dress to below her knees and then a black robe covering her whole body and head. We agreed with her about how hot it must have been for her and I thanked her for her help. We talked a little more with her about it getting cooler when the sun went down and assured her that the day was almost over. I am glad we met this woman. The way she treated me was almost motherly and it was an interesting and enlightening experience, as we don't feel much of the cultural stigmatism that Muslim societies place on women in Cairo. It was definitely something I am glad I experienced first hand. It was also a funny foreshadowing to something that would happen in Jerusalem, but I'll describe that in another post.

The other incident was not as much educational as just solely funny, and it is possible that it was so funny just because it happened at the end of the day and we were utterly exhausted at that point. On our final trip down the mountain, we saw a donkey running down ahead of us with a Jordanian running after him. This was a bit odd. We had seen donkeys and camels (and even a herd of goats, which actually do make the exact noise 'Baaa') all day being offered to climbers, but none had been leading the men with them on any kind of chase. When we reached the bottom of the mountain, we saw that the donkey had been caught by the man chasing him. This man was now standing on a ledge above the donkey holding a large rock. The three of us walking together at this point were alarmed and stopped to tell the man not to hit the donkey. He told us he would not, but we were skeptical at best of his answer considering that he watched us until we were out of his view. A little further along the path, we saw some other men with donkeys and we told them the story and asked whether the man had hit the donkey with the rock. The answer was an absolute yes. One of the men provided some more enlightening information when he told us, direct quote, "Sometimes donkey doesn't walk. Then you will hit it in head. Then it walk." That's sad and awful I know, but at that point I could not help but become hysterical. As I said, most of that was probably related to exhaustion, or heat exhaustion, or a combination of the two. The other man then began to explain in half-English, half-Arabic something about feeding the donkeys. We didn't know if he was angry about tourists feeding the donkeys or if he was advocating withholding food from the donkeys for their misbehavior. Considering what we had just witnessed and heard, we figured it was anyone's guess.

After all the excitement, it was definitely nice to be back to the Valentine Inn for dinner and a good night sleep before the Bedouin adventure we had planned in Wadi Rum the following day!

Travel Day: From Egypt to Jordan By Way of Israel

We were all a little sad to leave the beach at Dahab, especially considering before we did anything else we had a long day of traveling ahead of us. The next stop on our trip was Petra, an ancient town in Jordan, and it is apparently easily accessible from the Sinai by a ferry from Nuweiba across the Red Sea. However, we heard horror stories about the ferry. Not about the actual ride itself, because it is apparently a very nice, large ferry that makes the trip quickly, but about the waiting at the points of embarkation and debarkation. Apparently, what should be about an hour ride can take up to eight hours. Not wanting to lose time in this way, we decided we would bypass the ferry. The only way to do this is to travel from Dahab to Taba (about a two hour drive north) and then cross the border on foot between Taba and Eilat, a city in Israel. After arriving in Eilat, we planned to take a Taxi to the border between Eilat and Acqaba, Jordan. Then a taxi ride for Acqaba to the town just outside Petra is another hour and a half to two hours.

I'm happy to say our plan went off with only some minor glitches, which actually turned out to be for the better. When leaving from Taba, there was some confusion about visas. Egypt does not issue a student visa, and all of us are in the process of getting our visas validated through AUC. Up until the point we were leaving Egypt, our visas were valid for six months but only good for a one month stay in Egypt. For those of us with multiple entry visas, this was fine because it meant that even though our duration of stay was technically expiring, we were leaving and re-entering the country within the granted two week grace period. We would simply have to be sure to continue with the renewal process once we were back in Cairo. For those of us with single entry visas, there was a bigger problem. Even if the visa was changed from a single to a multiple entry visa at Taba (where they offer that service), the new visa granted would only be good to enter the Sinai, of which Cairo is not a part. They recommended to everyone with us with a single entry visa that we go to the Egyptian embassy in Eilat to have new visas issued. Of course, it was a Friday, so the Egyptian embassy in Eilat was closed. This was not a problem because we would be crossing back into Eilat on September 29, and we were assured the embassy would be open then. So we had added another task to our list of things to do on the trip!

Crossing into Israel gave us less problems than expected, though two people with us were submitted to fairly rigorous security checks. And most of us were successful in receiving stamps on separate sheets of paper. In my passport, there is actually no record of my leaving of Egypt. It probably would not have been a problem if there were because I do not plan to go to Lebanon or Syria before I return home, but for those who do it is important to not have any record of being in Israel, as Lebanon in particular reserves the right to ban you from entering the country with such documentation in your passport. After successfully crossing the border and not so successfully trying to pay a visit to the Egyptian embassy, we were successful again in crossing into Jordan (where again most of us did not receive stamps on our passport).

In Acqaba, the seven of us loaded into two taxis for the two hour ride to just outside of Petra. Our cab driver was one of the most interesting and helpful people we met on our trip. We told him what hostel we were planning to use and he said alright but then brought us to a different hostel, telling us it was cheaper and better. We never saw the other hostel, but the Valentine Inn (where he brought us) was very nice. For nineteen Jordanian pounds (which translates to about thirty US dollars, we stayed for two nights and received four meals, two of which were excellent dinner buffets. The exchange rate in Jordan was definitely an adjustment after being so used to the unbelievably good exchange rate in Egypt. Thank goodness we would only be in Jordan for three days before heading back to Israel where the exchange rate is almost as good as it is in Egypt (though the cost of things is somewhat higher).

At the Valentine Inn, we stayed in dorm style rooms, so we were sleeping in seven beds in a fourteen bed room. That was definitely a little weird, but the beds were comfortable, the bathrooms and showers (two for the fourteen of us) were decent, and our dorm mates seemed nice. It was a bit odd that the man who slept underneath my top bunk on the second night was burning incense from a stick that he lodged into the bed, but it did make the room smell nice, so no one complained. And we really didn't spend too much time in the room. We basically only slept there, and not for very long periods of time on either night. Our first night in Jordan, we went to sleep early after dinner because we had had a long day traveling and we wanted to be up and out early because we heard Petra was definitely worth exploring for an entire day!

"And he probably wasn't wearing shoes!"

The ride to Dahab was about 7 and a half hours long (and it was quite a ride through the winding mountains of the desert), so we arrived at our hostel, Seven Heaven at around 8AM. Well, most of us did. Because we had overbooked the mini-bus, we called another at the last minute, and as luck would have it, that bus ran out of gas about an hour outside of Dahab (where there is literally nothing but desert). I was not on that bus, thank goodness. Our bus debated turning around to pick up the people from that bus, but after driving a few miles and not finding the broken down bus, it was decided that we should just continue onto Dahab because we, too, were starting to run low on gas.

Everyone arrived by 10AM and we had a nice breakfast in the semi-outdoor lobby of our hostel, which was only interrupted by wild cats (a common thing in Egypt) a few times. After that, those that we becoming SCUBA certified needed to immediately begin their class. I and five others were not becoming SCUBA certified, so we had some free time, during which we took nice, long naps. We didn't go to sleep however before we decided that that night was our only chance to climb Mt. Sinai, which is about a two hour trip from Dahab. St. Katherine's Monastery at the base of the mountain is only open on certain mornings, so unless you climb on specific nights, you will not be able to visit the monastery, which was something we all wanted to do. And the way our schedule was planned, unless we climbed that night, the monastery would be closed.

So we had dinner on the boardwalk overlooking the ocean and then, at 11PM we met downstairs and began out two hour drive to Mt. Sinai. The drive seemed short in comparison to the trip to Dahab, but it was made interesting by a woman who yelled at our driver about how fast he was driving and, we think possibly to make herself feel safer, decided to wear a plastic bag on her head over her hat for the majority of the drive. This, of course, led to us calling her "Bag Lady" for the remainder of the night and next morning.

We arrived to Mt. Sinai a little after 1AM and began climbing at 1:30AM. Mt. Sinai is climbed at night for two reasons. First, if you climb at night, you see the sunset at the summit. And also, climbing during the day, especially now, would be entirely too hot.

The climb was harder than we had expected. The first part was mostly paths, but the incline was steep and because everyone climbs together at first, there are men selling camel rides everywhere. This makes things crowded and more complicated in the dark. After a certain point, camel-riders must remain on one path up the mountain, and those climbing on foot can take a different route (this is about mid-way up the mountain). It was nice to get away from the camels, but our route because a little more rocky at this point. The last fourth or so of the climb has everyone converging again to walk up the last 350 steps. These steps were steep and rocky and definitely the hardest part of the climb. Because we really hadn't planned much for the trip, none of us had lights and we resorted to using out Vodafone lights to see the steps. We also resorted to telling people after the climb that because of this Vodafone had saved our lives! We reached the top at around 4:30AM (ahead of the rest of our group, under the command of our guide, Tiger. We decided to leave the group behind when, early in the hike, Bag Lady began complaining to Tiger that he was going to fast and allowing himself to be pushed faster by 'these young people.' I don't know if Bag Lady made it up the last 350 steps. That would have been quite a feat. Though she did have a walking stick...)

The sun rose at around 5:30AM, and it was one of the most amazing things I have ever seen. We stayed at the summit taking pictures, observing (many groups have prayer sessions at the top, which is very interesting. I think we saw a Korean group and also an African (Kenyan?) group singing and praying) and talking (all of us felt a little giddy from the high altitude, although it was only about 2200 meters. What can I say, I'm a sea level kind of girl!) The summit was cold, so we were sitting on camel blankets that we had rented, and I, of course had my pink blanket with me. We began hiking down a little after 6AM, and we decided to take the step route down. This route is not recommended for the climb up because even on the way down it is very difficult, as the steps are uneven and rocky. They are called the Steps of Repentance because they were built by a monk in repentance. We were surprised about how difficult the climb both up and down was. We actually wondered how Moses did it, considering, as one of my friends pointed out, "he probably wasn't even wearing shoes!"

We arrived at the bottom a little after 8AM, shopped around at some of the shops at the base of the mountain, and then went into the monastery when it opens at 9AM. The monastery is the oldest operating monastery in the world. I think it is home to 20 or so monks. It also holds over 2,000 icons. We were able to see some of these in the chapel there. We also saw the Burning Bush. It's not the actual bush, but it is from the same roots/seeds. It was almost surreal that we were seeing such historical things that are so central to our faith. It was definitely a worthwhile trip and hike that I will remember for the rest of my life.

By noon, we were back in Dahab. We had breakfast and slept for a while before going to the beach to watch the sun set over the water. That was gorgeous. Sunrise at Mt. Sinai. Sunset on the Red Sea. You really can't beat that. We then had dinner and walked around the boardwalk a bit (which can be annoying between all the vendors and restaurant owners trying to sell their products). The next day, we went snorkeling (when I say we I mean the non-divers. Those getting certified were busy with dives and classes all day, every day) at Blue Hole, an area of the Red Sea. It was beautiful! The reef was amazing and there were so many fish! Also, the color of the water is just unbelievable. It is so clean and so bright and very, very blue. It is also incredibly salty. When we returned to Seven Heaven, we took showers, which were also interestingly salty (but that opens up a whole other discussion on hostel quality, which I may get into in another post), had dinner, and then went to another restaurant for drinks. It was a really nice night and all of us, divers and non-divers, had a very nice time in Dahab overall.

Seven of us left the next morning to continue on with the next leg of our trip (which was still mostly in the stages of being planned as we went). It was a long and interesting travel day, which I will talk about in my next post, but it was well worth it. By that evening, the evening of September 26th, we were staying at a nice hostel in a town outside Petra, Jordan, where we planned to explore the next day!

Where to Begin?

Really, I'm not sure how to begin to describe what I have been doing for the last three weeks. The last time I posted, AUC had canceled classes for two and a half weeks, and we were about to embark on a previously scheduled Nile cruise to Luxor and Aswan before attempting to make good use of our previously unscheduled time off.

I will dedicate this post to the cruise, and then continue from there because it was quite a trip.

The Nile cruise started off in a typical Egyptian fashion. Our flight from Cairo to Luxor was at 5:20AM, but because there were students from both campuses going, they scheduled a bus leaving from Zamalek (my campus) at 2:00AM. The bus went to New Campus to pick up the students there and then continued onto the airport, which is, in a way (a very liberal way) on the way to the airport. Needless to say, transportation took longer than expected and the 60-70 of us arrived to the airport around 4:45AM. We had missed our boarding time, needed to be "checked in as a group" (which I think is something that only occurs in Egyptian airports) and then minimally if at all scanned at security before we boarded our flights. (I was on the 5:20AM flight. There was another flight at 5:25AM and another at 6:45AM. Although all the planes were large, it was apparently not possible to book all of us on the same flight). Of course, I was on the flight that lost power immediately before take-off. Thank goodness I was seated in the back of the plane and did not, when this happened, witness the pilot run from the cock-pit wildly waving his arms in a "what is going on" manner. Power eventually came back on and an announcement was made that there was a problem loading baggage, so we would be delayed. Because I was so tired (we decided it wasn't worth sleeping before leaving at 2:00AM), I just took this to be the truth. The rest of the 40 minute flight was fine and we were in Luxor (after the 5:25AM flight had landed ahead of us) about a half hour before the 6:45AM flight landed. When it did, we were taken by bus to our cruise ship, the MS Miss World. This is where Day One really started to get interesting.

We were seated in a lounge on the ship for about an hour. Most of us wanted to either eat or sleep, or some combination of the two and we were waiting for instructions about how to do this when we were informed at around 9:15AM that we were beginning our tour of Luxor at 9:30AM. With our guide, Muhammad English-speaking tour guide #1 (as he introduced himself) we toured the Tombs of Ramses IV, VII, and IX, the Temple of Queen Hatshepsut (the only female pharaoh), a local market, and the Statues of Mennon. All were interesting, particularly the Temple, but being outside in 100+ degree desert heat having not eaten, drank, or slept was probably not the greatest planning. In any case, we arrived back to the ship at 3:30PM, had a nice buffet lunch, spent some time sleeping on deck by the on-board pool, and then had dinner at 8:00PM.

We were docked all night, and left from Luxor the next afternoon. From Luxor we sailed to Kom Ombo, where we toured temples the next day. From there, we sailed to Esna, where we passed a lock. That was very interesting actually. We then went onto Edfu, where we again toured temples. Upon arriving in Edfu, we went into the town for a bit because it was Eid El-Fitr (or the holiday at the end of Ramadan). There were huge parties in the streets, and it was an interesting sight. It definitely was different than Cairo though. There were not any women in the streets and there were comments made by the men that would not have been made in Cairo, especially not Zamalek. It actually made me appreciate how advanced Cairo is in that respect. After touring Edfu, we sailed to Aswan. We spent the next morning touring a temple, which was on a small island, so we had to take a boat to it, and then visiting the High Dam, which was huge and also interesting.

For our flight home, we made it to the airport with a little more time to spare. Unfortunately, the hour flight from Aswan was a bit more nerve-wrecking because I was seated in the emergency exit row next to the boy from the cruise who had been hospitalized earlier that morning with food poisoning. All thing considered, I was very glad when the plane touched down in Cairo, though I experienced first hand the truth to the statement, "flying is safer than driving" when our cab from the airport got into an accident-not a big one, there was no stopping or exchanging of information-but there was definite contact between the cars, which is more rare than one would think considering the traffic and traffic patterns, or lack there-of, in Cairo.

In an case, we made it back to the dormitory. We had about 6 hours to unpack and re-pack for our next trip. So we threw in some laundry and ran some errands before boarding a bus at midnight for Dahab, a coastal city in the Sinai. If all went according to plan, we should have been in Dahab by the next morning, the morning of September 23, and so would begin our ten day tour of the Middle East, which I will write about in great detail in the next few entries. (As you read these entries, it might be helpful to keep in mind that, despite what I am describing, I am now safe and sound back in Cairo)!