I the Egyptian Video

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

On The Way Out

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

I Believe I Can Fly Video

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

Come One, Come All

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

A Line or Two on America

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

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

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

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

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

Don't Know French? That Makes Two of Us

Hey everyone,

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

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In Cairo, Somali Children Start a New Life

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

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

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

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

The American Dream is still popular

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

- Nina Hubinet, in Cairo

Bienvenue aux lecteurs du journal La Croix!

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

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

A Global Discussion on Global Issues

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

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

There Will Be Time, There Will Be Time

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

Why we are here?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Faluca Inspiration

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

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

-Nusaibah Kofar-Naisa

Arts and crafts at an orphanage in Cairo

Another Place to Belong

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

Kids Hit You With The Darndest Things

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

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

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

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

Hay el-Ashr!

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

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

"Malesh" by Andi and Hillary

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A Sudden Burst of Energy

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

A Little Fresh Perspective

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

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

Beyond

Dear Faithful Readership,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I guess you'd call that a small victory.

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

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

Pictures!

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

Reflection on Reflections

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

To Tourist? Or Not To Tourist?

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

The Luxury of Theory

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

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

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

Today's Tidbits - June 28

Today's Titles:

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

Songs of the Day:

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

Quotes of the Day:

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

Favorite Moments:

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

Week 4: Max's Reflection

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Faluka Ride With AUC Students

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

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

This Week's Tidbits - June 21

This Week’s Titles:

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

Songs of the Week:

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

Quotes of the Week:

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

Favorite Moments of the Week:

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

Reflection - June 20

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

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

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

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

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

And that, at least to me, is frustrating.