Dear all readers,
I apologize for being a big slacker and not updating my blog for quite some time. If it means anything, my computer charger broke, and I was without a computer for about a week. But finally (thanks to the best parents in the world!) my computer is up and running again!
So, in the past few weeks nothing terribly exciting has happened. We had a Halloween party (I was dressed as a red m and m, and other costumes included Egyptian men from upper Egypt (galabiya, mustache and all), a cat, a ninja, 2 more m and ms, a 20's flapper, the Morton Salt Girl, etc.). I made banana bread, others made chili, caramel apples, and it was quite a night! We even watched a scary movie and I couldn't sleep for 2 nights because of it! Other celebrations included a Shabbat dinner where I baked my first challot and showed my fellow Flagshippers Shabbat.
So, because of my uneventful few weeks, I will take this time to give you a little picture about daily life in the Flagship program.
My day starts around 7:45 am. I eat a bowl of cereal and some nescafe and take a mashrua to school. We are currently taking 3 courses with just the other American students. Sundays and Tuesdays is Egyptian Colloquial Arabic with Ustatha Radwa. Mondays and Wednesdays is Modern Standard Arabic with Ustath Nour, and in the beginning of the year, we chose between Arabic literature and political issues in the Arab world, so Tuesdays is my lit class, also with Ustatha Radwa. Class ends around 1:30.
My afternoons are divided between a few different activities. On Sundays, I go to my direct enrollment class at the University of Alexandria. My professors arrive about 45 minutes late each class, so I get to spend some time with my academic partner, Sarah, and her friends. We play charades and talk a lot about the differences between Egypt and America.
Other days I go to my internship. I am currently interning at Nadi Sporting, playing sports with kids and young adults with special needs. Nadi Sporting is basically the Egyptian equivalent of a country club. The grounds are huge and they have a ton of different sports facilities including a pool, polo, golf course, track, full gym, karate and horseback riding. The club also has activities for children and adults and is a center for socializing among the upper class of Egyptian society. The club trains the Egyptian special olympics team in swimming, basketball, track and field, gymnastics, and table tennis. The teams are amazing! They have won gold and silver is several international competitions, including beating the US in the Beijing Olympics. The participants are extremely talented and it's just amazing to be able to watch the coaches interact with them and how the interact with each other. I'm really enjoying my time there, although I have just started this week!
Other days, I meet for 2 with my language partner. Her name is Chereen (Cherry), and she and Rwan, Katelyn's language partner, are best friends. The four of us go out together, go shopping, eat together, and have a great time!
Then, my evenings are filled with wageb (homework) and lots of it. Lots of reading, listening, writing, and conversation activities. Mae, Nada, and I sit around our dining room table drinking tea and learning new vocab. We have also become master chefs in our apartment, coming up with creative ways to use Egyptian ingredients. Our specialties: vegetable fried rice, pasta sauce (made from scratch from tomato paste and any vegetables we find lying around), chili, eggs, and pradas. Our future roommates: consider yourselves lucky because we will know how to make delicious food cheaply!
Our weekends go from Thursdays-Saturdays, although Thursday is usually spent at our internships. Fridays and Saturdays, we take advantage of being able to relax a little bit, explore the city, meet each others families and friends, and also spend a lot of time on our balcony listening to music, drinking some wine, and having fun with each other!
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Wednesday, November 10, 2010
Friday, October 29, 2010
The Mawled. The night of all nights.
I'm not sure how it happened. How we got there. Where we even were. The whole night is like a hazy blur in my memory. Were we really there? What did we see? What were we watching? And why!
The night began much like any other Thursday night- a little shisha and stellas on the balcony, listening to the mixes that we were preparing for the next big Mermaid night out. All was normal until Nada said to us, "hey, guys, I don't know if you heard but there's this Mawled that starts at midnight in Bahari. I don't really know what it is, something with Sufis- some sort of festival. You can buy lots of things and its supposed to be really cool."
Sweet. We'll meet you there, kiddo.
So Mae, Katelyn, Jordan, and I hop in the cab heading to Bahari, a neighborhood pretty close by that we're fairly familiar with. We ask the cab driver to take us to the Mawled, and he seems fairly confident that he knows where he is going. "Oh yeah," he says, "the Abu Abas mosque. Mesh mushkela (no problem)."
We arrived at the Abu Abas mosque at around 12:30 to what appeared to be a deserted carnival scene. It really was straight out of a horror movie- old amusement park rides with clowns painted on them rocking back and forth, crazy old men waddling over and staring, little children swinging on the old rides, and donkeys walking through the carnival pulling squeeky carts. We quickly realized that we were not at the right place and decided to get into a cab before this really turned into "Saw 4: Carny Carnage- Egyptian Style."
After getting the name of the real place from Nada, the cab starts driving. And driving. And driving. And driving. And the scene gets more and more Shaabi (authentically Egyptian, I guess. The word Shaab means people, and "shaabi" can mean popular or just referring to anything about real Egyptian people). The roads are less paved, buildings worn down, more men are walking around in very traditional clothing, the coffee shops are packed with men playing dominoes and smoking shisha, we see fewer and fewer women and we keep driving further and further. After about 20 minutes, we drive over a bridge with a river, and we all start to look at each other and wonder, "where is he taking us? could this possibly be right? where in the heck are we going!! when do we start getting concerned!!"
But finally, after about a half hour, the cab pulls up to a giant tent and we can hear music playing. As we get out of the cab, the driver tells us at least three times, "Watch out for yourselves. Be careful."
So at this point, I'm pretty nervous. I look up at the tent and ask my friends, "guys, should we go back?"
They all ignore me.
So we move on. And as we approach the tent, all I can hear is music blaring and all I see are men's heads, all turning to look at us. And we move closer and closer in until we finally walk through. And to our left is a stage with a man singing and in front of him is a crowd of 50 men, several of them twirling and turning and singing and dancing, all in a trance. And we move further and further in and we see crowds and crowds of people, all swaying their arms up in the air, twirling in circles. Some people are wearing festive party hats, like the kind you see on New Years Eve. But most people are wearing traditional galabiyas. Everyone turns and stares at us.
So we move our way through, push our way through the crowd and immediately spot our group of friends, and I sigh with relief. There are 8 of us Americans and 3 Sufi guides with them. They take us to a large tent adjacent to the one with the music and we all remove our shoes and separate boys and girls. A man brings us over tea, and we all start chatting.
We learn that a Mawled is a Sufi tradition (Sufi is a sect of Islam, different from Sunni and Shiite and are famous for practicing mysticism. I am not sure how many Sufis there are in Egypt, but I do know that many of their practices are not accepted by Sunni Muslims who make up the largest percentage of Egypt's population). The Mawled celebrates the lives of saints that have passed away. This particular Mawled was celebrating a Sheikh that was a very respected man in the community and who passed away in 1979. They have these celebrations fairly regularly with the largest one taking place in a town called Desuk in Kofr El-Sheikh (this happens to be the town that my former roommate Eman grew up in, and I cannot wait to ask her all about this!)
So we sit in the tent for about an hour, chatting with the people around us, trying to glean as much information as we can about this festival. In the meantime, children have taken to approaching us, shaking our hands, asking us our names, and men are whipping out their camera phones, photographing the Aganeb (foreigners). When the music started again, we left this little tent and moved onto the larger one.
This was really the incredible thing to watch.
First- the music: At the front of the tent on this same stage, this same man was singing. He had been singing for hours at this point and you could not hear a change in his voice. This music was meant to help the participants get into a trance. I don't know exactly how to describe this sound, but imagine one long, 4 hour song that sounds exactly the same throughout. But about every 20 minutes or so, there is a slight change in the beat, in the rhythm, and it seems like that little change helps build the momentum up more and more. So after an hour of listening, you feel your heart beating a little faster, and your nerves going a little stronger. And you could really feel that if you closed your eyes and concentrated on the music and on the rhythm, it would be so easy to slip into a trance like the rest of the people there.
Second- the dancing. Standing behind the singer was a man dressed in all green. He wore a green turban and a green outfit that was shaped something like the outfits in Aladdin. He even had his face and body painted green. And he stood behind the singer, and he blew a whistle to the beat of the music, and he twirled around and around and around. And all through the audience, people were lifting their arms are twirling and dancing. And at one point, I looked at a stern looking husband move to the center of the crowd, lift up his arms, smile, and twirl.
Third- the people. Or one man in particular. Sitting in front of us was a man with a white beard wearing a white turban and a gray galabeya. He sat with his legs crossed and alternated between shisha smoke and his prayer beads. One minute, his mouth was attached to his shisha, and it was just puff and blow and puff and blow for minutes straight without a break. And then he would pass the shisha to his friend and move onto his prayer beads. And he would push the prayer beads through his fingers, muttering prayers, and the amazing part was that he did this in perfect rhythm with the music. And as the music got faster, the beads would start flying. And at certain points, he would turn around and look at us and we saw that he wore dark black eye liner around his eyes. He was a figure straight out of folklore.
So we stood watching this scene for an hour, in awe at where we were, at what were we watching. We were struck with how little we actually understand about Egypt, about this culture. How, in reality, we will never understand this culture and these people and this place. We could live here for a year or 3 or 7 or 30 and still have no clue. And it dawned on us how difficult it would be to explain this event to ourselves and to our family, and how difficult it is in general to relate Egypt to those at home. We want to show you what we are doing here, what we are thinking about, how we see things. But at the same time, all of our blog posts and emails and facebook pictures tell more about us than the do about Egypt. And it is scary to think that people at home can read our writing and think both that we have a great understanding of this culture, and now too, just by reading Monica and Mae's blog, they understand Egypt. We don't get it and I don't think we will never get it. And the challenge of living here is diplomatically and fairly accurately depicting America to Egyptians and at the same time diplomatically and accurately reflecting Egypt to our friends and family back home. And how can you possibly represent these countries that are so diverse and whose interactions are so complex? And Egypt is one of the most complicated places I've ever encountered. I don't think I will ever have a handle on it.
Anyway, after standing and watching the dancing and singing for an hour, we went and walked around a bit and then sat further away from the speakers. Someone brought us sodas to drink and we again chatted with the people around us. One man started talking to Nada, Fatima, and I about Islam. It was basically a sermon about how our souls are the electricity of our bodies. Lamps cannot run without electricity, and our souls are our electricity, powered by God to help us get through our days. He asked us our impressions of Egypt, talked about Islam and Christianity, and explained that without this Mawled, we never would have met each other, so some things are obviously predestined by God to happen. This Mawled happened for a reason- to bring us all together to talk and exchange our world views.
After this chat, we realized how late it had actually gotten and that it was probably time to head home, considering that this Mawled was going to go until morning. So we said our goodbyes and thank yous, got in a cab and went home. And over a pizza at 4:30 am, we digested the evening's events, trying to piece together what we had seen and learned.
The night began much like any other Thursday night- a little shisha and stellas on the balcony, listening to the mixes that we were preparing for the next big Mermaid night out. All was normal until Nada said to us, "hey, guys, I don't know if you heard but there's this Mawled that starts at midnight in Bahari. I don't really know what it is, something with Sufis- some sort of festival. You can buy lots of things and its supposed to be really cool."
Sweet. We'll meet you there, kiddo.
So Mae, Katelyn, Jordan, and I hop in the cab heading to Bahari, a neighborhood pretty close by that we're fairly familiar with. We ask the cab driver to take us to the Mawled, and he seems fairly confident that he knows where he is going. "Oh yeah," he says, "the Abu Abas mosque. Mesh mushkela (no problem)."
We arrived at the Abu Abas mosque at around 12:30 to what appeared to be a deserted carnival scene. It really was straight out of a horror movie- old amusement park rides with clowns painted on them rocking back and forth, crazy old men waddling over and staring, little children swinging on the old rides, and donkeys walking through the carnival pulling squeeky carts. We quickly realized that we were not at the right place and decided to get into a cab before this really turned into "Saw 4: Carny Carnage- Egyptian Style."
After getting the name of the real place from Nada, the cab starts driving. And driving. And driving. And driving. And the scene gets more and more Shaabi (authentically Egyptian, I guess. The word Shaab means people, and "shaabi" can mean popular or just referring to anything about real Egyptian people). The roads are less paved, buildings worn down, more men are walking around in very traditional clothing, the coffee shops are packed with men playing dominoes and smoking shisha, we see fewer and fewer women and we keep driving further and further. After about 20 minutes, we drive over a bridge with a river, and we all start to look at each other and wonder, "where is he taking us? could this possibly be right? where in the heck are we going!! when do we start getting concerned!!"
But finally, after about a half hour, the cab pulls up to a giant tent and we can hear music playing. As we get out of the cab, the driver tells us at least three times, "Watch out for yourselves. Be careful."
So at this point, I'm pretty nervous. I look up at the tent and ask my friends, "guys, should we go back?"
They all ignore me.
So we move on. And as we approach the tent, all I can hear is music blaring and all I see are men's heads, all turning to look at us. And we move closer and closer in until we finally walk through. And to our left is a stage with a man singing and in front of him is a crowd of 50 men, several of them twirling and turning and singing and dancing, all in a trance. And we move further and further in and we see crowds and crowds of people, all swaying their arms up in the air, twirling in circles. Some people are wearing festive party hats, like the kind you see on New Years Eve. But most people are wearing traditional galabiyas. Everyone turns and stares at us.
So we move our way through, push our way through the crowd and immediately spot our group of friends, and I sigh with relief. There are 8 of us Americans and 3 Sufi guides with them. They take us to a large tent adjacent to the one with the music and we all remove our shoes and separate boys and girls. A man brings us over tea, and we all start chatting.
We learn that a Mawled is a Sufi tradition (Sufi is a sect of Islam, different from Sunni and Shiite and are famous for practicing mysticism. I am not sure how many Sufis there are in Egypt, but I do know that many of their practices are not accepted by Sunni Muslims who make up the largest percentage of Egypt's population). The Mawled celebrates the lives of saints that have passed away. This particular Mawled was celebrating a Sheikh that was a very respected man in the community and who passed away in 1979. They have these celebrations fairly regularly with the largest one taking place in a town called Desuk in Kofr El-Sheikh (this happens to be the town that my former roommate Eman grew up in, and I cannot wait to ask her all about this!)
So we sit in the tent for about an hour, chatting with the people around us, trying to glean as much information as we can about this festival. In the meantime, children have taken to approaching us, shaking our hands, asking us our names, and men are whipping out their camera phones, photographing the Aganeb (foreigners). When the music started again, we left this little tent and moved onto the larger one.
This was really the incredible thing to watch.
First- the music: At the front of the tent on this same stage, this same man was singing. He had been singing for hours at this point and you could not hear a change in his voice. This music was meant to help the participants get into a trance. I don't know exactly how to describe this sound, but imagine one long, 4 hour song that sounds exactly the same throughout. But about every 20 minutes or so, there is a slight change in the beat, in the rhythm, and it seems like that little change helps build the momentum up more and more. So after an hour of listening, you feel your heart beating a little faster, and your nerves going a little stronger. And you could really feel that if you closed your eyes and concentrated on the music and on the rhythm, it would be so easy to slip into a trance like the rest of the people there.
Second- the dancing. Standing behind the singer was a man dressed in all green. He wore a green turban and a green outfit that was shaped something like the outfits in Aladdin. He even had his face and body painted green. And he stood behind the singer, and he blew a whistle to the beat of the music, and he twirled around and around and around. And all through the audience, people were lifting their arms are twirling and dancing. And at one point, I looked at a stern looking husband move to the center of the crowd, lift up his arms, smile, and twirl.
Third- the people. Or one man in particular. Sitting in front of us was a man with a white beard wearing a white turban and a gray galabeya. He sat with his legs crossed and alternated between shisha smoke and his prayer beads. One minute, his mouth was attached to his shisha, and it was just puff and blow and puff and blow for minutes straight without a break. And then he would pass the shisha to his friend and move onto his prayer beads. And he would push the prayer beads through his fingers, muttering prayers, and the amazing part was that he did this in perfect rhythm with the music. And as the music got faster, the beads would start flying. And at certain points, he would turn around and look at us and we saw that he wore dark black eye liner around his eyes. He was a figure straight out of folklore.
So we stood watching this scene for an hour, in awe at where we were, at what were we watching. We were struck with how little we actually understand about Egypt, about this culture. How, in reality, we will never understand this culture and these people and this place. We could live here for a year or 3 or 7 or 30 and still have no clue. And it dawned on us how difficult it would be to explain this event to ourselves and to our family, and how difficult it is in general to relate Egypt to those at home. We want to show you what we are doing here, what we are thinking about, how we see things. But at the same time, all of our blog posts and emails and facebook pictures tell more about us than the do about Egypt. And it is scary to think that people at home can read our writing and think both that we have a great understanding of this culture, and now too, just by reading Monica and Mae's blog, they understand Egypt. We don't get it and I don't think we will never get it. And the challenge of living here is diplomatically and fairly accurately depicting America to Egyptians and at the same time diplomatically and accurately reflecting Egypt to our friends and family back home. And how can you possibly represent these countries that are so diverse and whose interactions are so complex? And Egypt is one of the most complicated places I've ever encountered. I don't think I will ever have a handle on it.
Anyway, after standing and watching the dancing and singing for an hour, we went and walked around a bit and then sat further away from the speakers. Someone brought us sodas to drink and we again chatted with the people around us. One man started talking to Nada, Fatima, and I about Islam. It was basically a sermon about how our souls are the electricity of our bodies. Lamps cannot run without electricity, and our souls are our electricity, powered by God to help us get through our days. He asked us our impressions of Egypt, talked about Islam and Christianity, and explained that without this Mawled, we never would have met each other, so some things are obviously predestined by God to happen. This Mawled happened for a reason- to bring us all together to talk and exchange our world views.
After this chat, we realized how late it had actually gotten and that it was probably time to head home, considering that this Mawled was going to go until morning. So we said our goodbyes and thank yous, got in a cab and went home. And over a pizza at 4:30 am, we digested the evening's events, trying to piece together what we had seen and learned.
Saturday, October 23, 2010
Family Breakfast
I know that I'm supposed to write about the Egyptian elections next, but I wanted to write a brief note about a neat Egyptian institution. (And I promise, all you political junkies, election news will be here shortly)
After a lovely little slumber party, Katelyn, Mae and I awoke on Friday morning itching for an Egyptian breakfast. Usually, this breakfast consists of some sort of combination of ful, falafel, bread, salads, and eggs, and although it would be easy to buy any of these ingredients from a restaurant, we decided we wanted to do it ourselves.
So, we leave the apartment and head to our favorite bakery (the one where they sell Balah el-Sham (a dessert called "dates of Lebanon/ Syria (referred to commonly as Belad Al Sham, or the nations of the Sham). The dessert is fried doughy goodness and when you take a bite, like a gusher, it bursts with a sweet syrupy liquid. They are just fabulous). But anyway, we went to this bakery to look for bread- specifically Egyptian bread- Eish Baladi. But, they only had Eish Shami- bread Shami style (Lebanon and Syria). This was not good enough for us. So we asked him to point us to the direction of the nearest Forn.
Now here's the crux of the blog post:
The Forn:
An Arabic word for oven, the forn is a bakery which serves government subsidized bread to the community. You might have heard about some protests a few years ago when the government wanted to stop subsidizing this bread, and the whole country erupted out of fury. The government caved, and the subsidized bread continues to exist- although there is a huge controversy surrounding this whole issue. To the best of my knowledge and understanding, although I'm certainly no economist, government subsidized food causes a whole slew of not so ideal consequences, and for these reasons, the UN tries to discourage government subsidized food. For instance, the system is really susceptible to corruption- bakers bribe their inspectors, bakers sell the cheap flour for higher prices etc, the subsidies make people reliant on the cheap bread which makes things more difficult in the long run, as the whole bread economy is reliant on the government to function. So, if the government wants to stop subsidizing and spend the money on other projects, and currently (according to a NYtimes article, the Egyptian government is spending more on bread subsidies than housing and education) they run into a ton of popular protest, as seen in 2008 (and 1977). There are also plenty of environmental consequences when farmers are given incentives to only grow wheat leading to the mass production of one product. On the other hand, with most Egyptian families surviving on $2 a day, 20 loaves of bread for 1 pound couldn't be more ideal. And, ala fikra (by the way), the word for bread in Egyptian Arabic, eish (as opposed to Khubz in Modern Standard) means "life" in Arabic- kind of giving you a sense of how important and central bread is to lives of Egyptians.
Bread from the forn is 5 piasteres (basically 5 pennies) and you can buy 10 loaves of bread for half a pound. Pretty great deal.
Anyway...
we arrive at the forn to see that it is basically a hole in the wall.
Luckily it was a Friday so everyone was at prayer and it wasn't too crowded, but usually you see lines and lines of people waiting for their bread.
When we reached the counter, we see that the bread is rolling straight from the oven onto the counter. You are supposed to bring your own bag in addition to something to lay the bread on to allow it time to cool. We had neither of these things, so we ran around a little bit looking for something. Finally, we buy a newspaper.
Ok, take 2.
We reach the counter again, give them half a pound and they give us 10 pita loaves.
They are smoking hot and difficult to touch, especially considering the only thing separating us from them is a measly copy of Al-Ahram!
So following the example of everyone else there, we lay our newspaper down on the sidewalk, put our bread on top, and allow it to cool for a minute (and also we got laughed at for taking pictures of this whole situation!)
Anyway, after picking up our bread and a few miscommunications with the falafel and ful guy (we asked for a carton of falafel and he gave us a carton of falafel mix), it was time to put our breakfast together.
Mae was in charge of the ful- we ordered ful with tahina, and she mashed and mixed it all up, added salt, pepper, cumin, and lemon juice, just like her grandfather taught her, Katelyn made cucumber, tomato, and onion salad, and I was in charge of coffee, tea, juice, and setting the table.
Tada! A perfect Egyptian breakfast.
P.S Only 3 people have responded to my poll. Now this may merely be a true reflection of my readership, in which case, thank you to my 3 loyal readers. But if not, if I do have more readers than just my parents, please respond! If only to make me feel good about figuring out how to put a poll a my blog!
After a lovely little slumber party, Katelyn, Mae and I awoke on Friday morning itching for an Egyptian breakfast. Usually, this breakfast consists of some sort of combination of ful, falafel, bread, salads, and eggs, and although it would be easy to buy any of these ingredients from a restaurant, we decided we wanted to do it ourselves.
So, we leave the apartment and head to our favorite bakery (the one where they sell Balah el-Sham (a dessert called "dates of Lebanon/ Syria (referred to commonly as Belad Al Sham, or the nations of the Sham). The dessert is fried doughy goodness and when you take a bite, like a gusher, it bursts with a sweet syrupy liquid. They are just fabulous). But anyway, we went to this bakery to look for bread- specifically Egyptian bread- Eish Baladi. But, they only had Eish Shami- bread Shami style (Lebanon and Syria). This was not good enough for us. So we asked him to point us to the direction of the nearest Forn.
Now here's the crux of the blog post:
The Forn:
An Arabic word for oven, the forn is a bakery which serves government subsidized bread to the community. You might have heard about some protests a few years ago when the government wanted to stop subsidizing this bread, and the whole country erupted out of fury. The government caved, and the subsidized bread continues to exist- although there is a huge controversy surrounding this whole issue. To the best of my knowledge and understanding, although I'm certainly no economist, government subsidized food causes a whole slew of not so ideal consequences, and for these reasons, the UN tries to discourage government subsidized food. For instance, the system is really susceptible to corruption- bakers bribe their inspectors, bakers sell the cheap flour for higher prices etc, the subsidies make people reliant on the cheap bread which makes things more difficult in the long run, as the whole bread economy is reliant on the government to function. So, if the government wants to stop subsidizing and spend the money on other projects, and currently (according to a NYtimes article, the Egyptian government is spending more on bread subsidies than housing and education) they run into a ton of popular protest, as seen in 2008 (and 1977). There are also plenty of environmental consequences when farmers are given incentives to only grow wheat leading to the mass production of one product. On the other hand, with most Egyptian families surviving on $2 a day, 20 loaves of bread for 1 pound couldn't be more ideal. And, ala fikra (by the way), the word for bread in Egyptian Arabic, eish (as opposed to Khubz in Modern Standard) means "life" in Arabic- kind of giving you a sense of how important and central bread is to lives of Egyptians.
Bread from the forn is 5 piasteres (basically 5 pennies) and you can buy 10 loaves of bread for half a pound. Pretty great deal.
Anyway...
we arrive at the forn to see that it is basically a hole in the wall.
Luckily it was a Friday so everyone was at prayer and it wasn't too crowded, but usually you see lines and lines of people waiting for their bread.
When we reached the counter, we see that the bread is rolling straight from the oven onto the counter. You are supposed to bring your own bag in addition to something to lay the bread on to allow it time to cool. We had neither of these things, so we ran around a little bit looking for something. Finally, we buy a newspaper.
Ok, take 2.
We reach the counter again, give them half a pound and they give us 10 pita loaves.
They are smoking hot and difficult to touch, especially considering the only thing separating us from them is a measly copy of Al-Ahram!
So following the example of everyone else there, we lay our newspaper down on the sidewalk, put our bread on top, and allow it to cool for a minute (and also we got laughed at for taking pictures of this whole situation!)
Anyway, after picking up our bread and a few miscommunications with the falafel and ful guy (we asked for a carton of falafel and he gave us a carton of falafel mix), it was time to put our breakfast together.
Mae was in charge of the ful- we ordered ful with tahina, and she mashed and mixed it all up, added salt, pepper, cumin, and lemon juice, just like her grandfather taught her, Katelyn made cucumber, tomato, and onion salad, and I was in charge of coffee, tea, juice, and setting the table.
Tada! A perfect Egyptian breakfast.
P.S Only 3 people have responded to my poll. Now this may merely be a true reflection of my readership, in which case, thank you to my 3 loyal readers. But if not, if I do have more readers than just my parents, please respond! If only to make me feel good about figuring out how to put a poll a my blog!
Thursday, October 21, 2010
My New Apartment!
Probably the biggest change that has taken place in the past 5 weeks has been my big move from my old apartment in Moharem Bek to my new one in Sporting!
My old apartment was a little too far from school and my friends, Mae and Nada, also had complicated living situations. So when they found this gorgeous three bedroom in Sporting, I decided to it was best to make the move with them! Mae is a good friend of mine from the program last summer and also from Maryland (we used to play guitar hero all the time and make tortellini, and she happened to be the one who showed me how to carve my first pumpkin for Halloween!). And Nada is my new friend from Michigan!
So, while we're on the subject of locations in Alex, I'll give you a little visual and show you where everything is here.
Here's a map of the western districts of Alex:
To the very left, you see the bay. That's where the citadel is (Fort Qaitbey) and a really great ice cream place. Now, follow the curve in the coast in the area of the bay, and about half way down the circle is Mohatet al-Raml- Alex's downtown (marked where it says, "Unknown soldier"). This is where are bars are (Mermaid and Spitfire), Mohamed Ahmed, lots of shopping, Halaweyat Masr (our dessert place), and just generally a fun area to hang out, walk around, and people watch. (This is also the area where the synagogue is).
Now keep following the coast until you see a place called Chatby (marked on the map by a little building with a dome). This is the area with the Library of Alexandria, Alexandria University, and the girls dorms (where I lived last summer). Now keep moving down the coast until you hit Ibrahimiya. This is where my gym is and Imbrahimiya is also a great food shopping area with lots of restaurants, street markets, and also good clothes shopping. And finally, follow the coast a little further until you hit Sporting and Cleopatra. That's where I live! Easy access to the tram, the Cornische and it's all within 10 minutes from school! Perfect.
While we have the map in front of us, if you look at the map for "Main Station" and "Roman Theater" (directly south of Mohatet Al-Raml) and then look south of that, close to the blue line- that's Moharem Bek, where my old apartment was.
Everything in this city pretty much takes place along that strip of coastline- on the Cornische, on Port Said Street, Abu Eer, and the street with the tram.
Another little factoid about my apartment: between Mae, Nada, and I, we represent the 3 major monotheistic religions. Mae is Catholic, Nada Muslim, and I am Jewish. Pluralism in action! And it's going great. Lot's of great discussions about feminism, religious identity, and generally how we each incorporate our different backgrounds into our every day lives. Also, Nada and Mae are both Egyptian- Mae's mother is Egyptian as are both of Nada's parents. So we have lots to talk about (and for me, lots of other peoples families to get to know and their food to eat!!)
P.S I pimped up my blog a little and now I'm going to be posted polls so I can get some feedback from you guys. Let me know what you like- what you don't like, what you want to learn more about or hear about. Maybe I'll even make a little trivia game for you all to enjoy!
My old apartment was a little too far from school and my friends, Mae and Nada, also had complicated living situations. So when they found this gorgeous three bedroom in Sporting, I decided to it was best to make the move with them! Mae is a good friend of mine from the program last summer and also from Maryland (we used to play guitar hero all the time and make tortellini, and she happened to be the one who showed me how to carve my first pumpkin for Halloween!). And Nada is my new friend from Michigan!
So, while we're on the subject of locations in Alex, I'll give you a little visual and show you where everything is here.
Here's a map of the western districts of Alex:
To the very left, you see the bay. That's where the citadel is (Fort Qaitbey) and a really great ice cream place. Now, follow the curve in the coast in the area of the bay, and about half way down the circle is Mohatet al-Raml- Alex's downtown (marked where it says, "Unknown soldier"). This is where are bars are (Mermaid and Spitfire), Mohamed Ahmed, lots of shopping, Halaweyat Masr (our dessert place), and just generally a fun area to hang out, walk around, and people watch. (This is also the area where the synagogue is).
Now keep following the coast until you see a place called Chatby (marked on the map by a little building with a dome). This is the area with the Library of Alexandria, Alexandria University, and the girls dorms (where I lived last summer). Now keep moving down the coast until you hit Ibrahimiya. This is where my gym is and Imbrahimiya is also a great food shopping area with lots of restaurants, street markets, and also good clothes shopping. And finally, follow the coast a little further until you hit Sporting and Cleopatra. That's where I live! Easy access to the tram, the Cornische and it's all within 10 minutes from school! Perfect.
While we have the map in front of us, if you look at the map for "Main Station" and "Roman Theater" (directly south of Mohatet Al-Raml) and then look south of that, close to the blue line- that's Moharem Bek, where my old apartment was.
Everything in this city pretty much takes place along that strip of coastline- on the Cornische, on Port Said Street, Abu Eer, and the street with the tram.
Another little factoid about my apartment: between Mae, Nada, and I, we represent the 3 major monotheistic religions. Mae is Catholic, Nada Muslim, and I am Jewish. Pluralism in action! And it's going great. Lot's of great discussions about feminism, religious identity, and generally how we each incorporate our different backgrounds into our every day lives. Also, Nada and Mae are both Egyptian- Mae's mother is Egyptian as are both of Nada's parents. So we have lots to talk about (and for me, lots of other peoples families to get to know and their food to eat!!)
P.S I pimped up my blog a little and now I'm going to be posted polls so I can get some feedback from you guys. Let me know what you like- what you don't like, what you want to learn more about or hear about. Maybe I'll even make a little trivia game for you all to enjoy!
Monday, October 18, 2010
Monica learns to cook and eat like an Egyptian (sort of)
As many of you can probably guess, being a vegetarian in Egypt is not easy. In fact, Al Masri El Yom, a leading Egyptian newspaper, published an article about being a vegetarian in Egypt.
http://www.almasryalyoum.com/en/news/world-vegetarian-day-eat-healthy
If you're not eating meat, you're eating bread and bread and rice and bread and pizza and bread and candy and bread and carb after carb after carb. Little to no protein sources. No big yummy salads. Needless to say, if you're not trying to gain 3000 pounds, it's a little tricky.
So, here's what I've learned.
1. Mohamed Ahmed.
A little restaurant in Mohatet al Raml (downtown) whose shakshuka makes me purr and my belly jump for joy! So far, it's the only shakshuka I've found in Alex (although I'm sure there's more) and it's a terrific break from bean/bread based dishes (although I tend to eat it with ful and hummous).
This time, we also tried ful besalsa (ful with kind of a spicy tomato sauce) and had some gebna maaliya (fried white cheese). It had kind of a grilled taste, very tasty.
2. Juice. Ahh, juice. Pomegranate juice, pomegranate and banana juice, pomegranate and orange (my favorite) juice. I was lucky enough to move into an apartment right next to this jewel of a juice stand: Aseer Meka (aseer means juice). Famous for it's boreo shakes, an Egyptian version of the oreo which is apparently packed with 600 calories per 6 cookies. Aseer Meka is known all around Alex for the place to go for juice. And that's saying a lot since there's a juice stand at every corner in this city. It has 2 locations, 1 next door to my apartment and one 2 blocks away. They make every kind of juice, smoothies with yogurt, and wear these awesome tshirts- I'm hoping by the end of the year to be good enough friends with them to get one for free. But with my 2 juices a day habit, I'm sure it won't be hard. Best part: pomegranate and orange juice is 2 and a half genay (around 45 cents)
3. Cooking. Last week, my (new) roommates Nada and Mae (more on our apartment in the next post) threw a potluck dinner party (note the spelling all of my friends back home) known as a "dish party" in Arabic. Katelyn and I took on the task of making Mahshi Warah Einab which are basically stuffed graped leaves. You can make Mahshi in grape leaves, peppers, or cabbage, with meat or without. We got the recipe from Nada and embarked upon what turned out to be a bumpy ride.
First, a bite of koshari at ana misho to work up our energy (and some chocolate fateer for dessert) (see what i mean about the carbs!! oh boy.)
Next, a trip to Fathalla super market to buy all of our ingredients (it took us about 15 minutes to find the salt).
Finally, we were ready to cook.
First, we cooked the rice (which apparently we were supposed to wash first) (and apparently was the wrong kind of rice).
Then, we start chopping some veggies, washing some grape leaves, making some sauce out of tomato paste. Everything's going fine until Mae's mom and our friend Aya came in, saw us cooking in horror and said "what are you doing!? You can't put the sauce on the rice! You can't put the Mahshi in the oven! You have to use chicken fat on the rice so that it will stick together! You needed to let them soak overnight! gaaaaaa!!!" (see, everything has chicken fat! even things I thought I could eat). So, we worked through all of our issues together. We put butter on the rice instead of chicken fat and mixed the rice with the veggies and some spices
stuffed the grape leaves and rolled them kind of like egg rolls (but it was cool because they are shaped like oak leaves and so you fold in all the different pieces. It was fun)
Then we put them in a pan, put them on the oven, and then threw the tomato sauce on top and let the grape leaves stew and cook.
In the end, they weren't the greatest grape leaves ever made, but our friends were very encouraging and we are looking forward to another try soon.
Also present at the dish party: Muluchia (a VERY Egyptian green veggie soupish thing, originally thought to be vegetarian but it contains chicken fat), Macaroni Bashamel (kind of like a hamburger helper mac and cheese), sambosas (both cheese and meat), a Lebanese yogurt dish, chicken and rice, filo dough and beef, koshari, boreo mud pie, boreo shakes, and delicious marble cake.
Also this week, in our Egyptian Colloquial class, our teacher, Ustatha Radwa, gave us a cooking class to help us learn all the words for cooking. We made Turli, a stew like dish with sausage, eggplant, zucchini, potatoes, peas, carrots, onions, peppers, cumin, cinnamon, salt, pepper, and rice. Rawda was very sweet and made me some without sausage :). We also make Gulash, a dessert very much like baklava with peanuts, coconut, raisons, filo dough, lots of butter, and a syrup/ sauce with water, half a cup of sugar, a little lemon juice, and some vanilla.
So though it's tricky, and I miss American food terribly, I'm getting through it!
http://www.almasryalyoum.com/en/news/world-vegetarian-day-eat-healthy
If you're not eating meat, you're eating bread and bread and rice and bread and pizza and bread and candy and bread and carb after carb after carb. Little to no protein sources. No big yummy salads. Needless to say, if you're not trying to gain 3000 pounds, it's a little tricky.
So, here's what I've learned.
1. Mohamed Ahmed.
A little restaurant in Mohatet al Raml (downtown) whose shakshuka makes me purr and my belly jump for joy! So far, it's the only shakshuka I've found in Alex (although I'm sure there's more) and it's a terrific break from bean/bread based dishes (although I tend to eat it with ful and hummous).
This time, we also tried ful besalsa (ful with kind of a spicy tomato sauce) and had some gebna maaliya (fried white cheese). It had kind of a grilled taste, very tasty.
2. Juice. Ahh, juice. Pomegranate juice, pomegranate and banana juice, pomegranate and orange (my favorite) juice. I was lucky enough to move into an apartment right next to this jewel of a juice stand: Aseer Meka (aseer means juice). Famous for it's boreo shakes, an Egyptian version of the oreo which is apparently packed with 600 calories per 6 cookies. Aseer Meka is known all around Alex for the place to go for juice. And that's saying a lot since there's a juice stand at every corner in this city. It has 2 locations, 1 next door to my apartment and one 2 blocks away. They make every kind of juice, smoothies with yogurt, and wear these awesome tshirts- I'm hoping by the end of the year to be good enough friends with them to get one for free. But with my 2 juices a day habit, I'm sure it won't be hard. Best part: pomegranate and orange juice is 2 and a half genay (around 45 cents)
3. Cooking. Last week, my (new) roommates Nada and Mae (more on our apartment in the next post) threw a potluck dinner party (note the spelling all of my friends back home) known as a "dish party" in Arabic. Katelyn and I took on the task of making Mahshi Warah Einab which are basically stuffed graped leaves. You can make Mahshi in grape leaves, peppers, or cabbage, with meat or without. We got the recipe from Nada and embarked upon what turned out to be a bumpy ride.
First, a bite of koshari at ana misho to work up our energy (and some chocolate fateer for dessert) (see what i mean about the carbs!! oh boy.)
Next, a trip to Fathalla super market to buy all of our ingredients (it took us about 15 minutes to find the salt).
Finally, we were ready to cook.
First, we cooked the rice (which apparently we were supposed to wash first) (and apparently was the wrong kind of rice).
Then, we start chopping some veggies, washing some grape leaves, making some sauce out of tomato paste. Everything's going fine until Mae's mom and our friend Aya came in, saw us cooking in horror and said "what are you doing!? You can't put the sauce on the rice! You can't put the Mahshi in the oven! You have to use chicken fat on the rice so that it will stick together! You needed to let them soak overnight! gaaaaaa!!!" (see, everything has chicken fat! even things I thought I could eat). So, we worked through all of our issues together. We put butter on the rice instead of chicken fat and mixed the rice with the veggies and some spices
stuffed the grape leaves and rolled them kind of like egg rolls (but it was cool because they are shaped like oak leaves and so you fold in all the different pieces. It was fun)
Then we put them in a pan, put them on the oven, and then threw the tomato sauce on top and let the grape leaves stew and cook.
In the end, they weren't the greatest grape leaves ever made, but our friends were very encouraging and we are looking forward to another try soon.
Also present at the dish party: Muluchia (a VERY Egyptian green veggie soupish thing, originally thought to be vegetarian but it contains chicken fat), Macaroni Bashamel (kind of like a hamburger helper mac and cheese), sambosas (both cheese and meat), a Lebanese yogurt dish, chicken and rice, filo dough and beef, koshari, boreo mud pie, boreo shakes, and delicious marble cake.
Also this week, in our Egyptian Colloquial class, our teacher, Ustatha Radwa, gave us a cooking class to help us learn all the words for cooking. We made Turli, a stew like dish with sausage, eggplant, zucchini, potatoes, peas, carrots, onions, peppers, cumin, cinnamon, salt, pepper, and rice. Rawda was very sweet and made me some without sausage :). We also make Gulash, a dessert very much like baklava with peanuts, coconut, raisons, filo dough, lots of butter, and a syrup/ sauce with water, half a cup of sugar, a little lemon juice, and some vanilla.
So though it's tricky, and I miss American food terribly, I'm getting through it!
Thursday, October 14, 2010
Beach Break
One of the best perks about living in Egypt is this:
Sinai. A peninsula filled with a traumatic political history, the burning bush, sand dunes, delicious sugary mint tea, and the best diving on this side of Africa/ Asia. So when Jordan, Charlie, Katelyn and I found out that we had a week off of school because of the national holiday for 6th of October (ironically enough, the day when Egyptians celebrate recapturing Sinai from Israel) and because our teachers were going to be occupied in a workshop, it was pretty much a no brainer. With our 75 genay bus ticket in hand and pb, j, and nutella in our packs, we were off!
Thursday night: an 11 hour night bus ride from Alexandria to Nuweiba. Several stops for cookies and other such halaweiat (dessert) including Turkish Delight. For those of you unfamiliar with this Egyptian delicacy imagine yourself eating gooey, lemoney soap. But don't let my description deter you. It's delicious.
Friday morning 5 am: We arrive in Nuweiba in time to drink some tea and watch the sunrise. At 6, we headed to the bus station to try and buy tickets back to Alex for Monday night.
Direct (translated) quote:
"Asalam Alekum, sir. Can we buy a bus ticket from Nuweiba to Alexandria for Monday night?"
"Monday night? People will be living, people will be dying. What do you need a ticket for Monday night for? What is the rush?"
"Uhhhhhhhhh."
So after gleaning as much information as we could from this helpful fellow, we decided to try and haggle with some taxi drivers and ended up finding one who would take us to Cairo for 50 genay. Terrific. In the meantime, a little early morning shisha never hurt anyone!
7:30 am: We depart from Nuweiba in a mashrua and drive up the coast about 30 km to a little place called Beer Suweir (if you look on the map, it's smack in between Nuweiba and Taba) (and if you ask how we heard about this little piece of paradise- we have Emma Weiss to thank, even though she didn't meet us there). As we are driving, we see that there are not really towns set up but just hotel after hotel, hostel after hostel, hut after hut lining the beach. To our left- mountains, to our right, beach.
8:15 am. We pull up to Al-Tarek camp. Al Tarek consists of a main hut/ cafeteria for eating and chilling, several small huts for sleeping, 2 more big huts for chilling, and some beds on the beach for relaxing.
We threw our stuff into our sleeping hut
And the next few days were spent between
sleeping
reading (or rereading East of Eden. Ugh, what a novel)
swimming
playing (poker, dominos)
wondering what they were doing across the sea over in the town of Hakel in Saudi Arabia
Watching sunsets
and sunrises
Activities which all make for this
A very happy Monica.
Unfortunately, all great things must come to an end, as they say, and Tuesday brought a 9 am class. So it's back to the grind and back to business.
Coming up:
-Watchout, Barefoot Contessa, Monica will be battling with you for your time slot on the food network, armed with Egyptian recipes
-A big move: saying goodbye to my apartment in Moharem Bek and saying hello to my new place in Sporting
-Parliamentary elections: myths, truths, and illegal protests
-Egyptian prisons. Uh oh.
Sinai. A peninsula filled with a traumatic political history, the burning bush, sand dunes, delicious sugary mint tea, and the best diving on this side of Africa/ Asia. So when Jordan, Charlie, Katelyn and I found out that we had a week off of school because of the national holiday for 6th of October (ironically enough, the day when Egyptians celebrate recapturing Sinai from Israel) and because our teachers were going to be occupied in a workshop, it was pretty much a no brainer. With our 75 genay bus ticket in hand and pb, j, and nutella in our packs, we were off!
Thursday night: an 11 hour night bus ride from Alexandria to Nuweiba. Several stops for cookies and other such halaweiat (dessert) including Turkish Delight. For those of you unfamiliar with this Egyptian delicacy imagine yourself eating gooey, lemoney soap. But don't let my description deter you. It's delicious.
Friday morning 5 am: We arrive in Nuweiba in time to drink some tea and watch the sunrise. At 6, we headed to the bus station to try and buy tickets back to Alex for Monday night.
Direct (translated) quote:
"Asalam Alekum, sir. Can we buy a bus ticket from Nuweiba to Alexandria for Monday night?"
"Monday night? People will be living, people will be dying. What do you need a ticket for Monday night for? What is the rush?"
"Uhhhhhhhhh."
So after gleaning as much information as we could from this helpful fellow, we decided to try and haggle with some taxi drivers and ended up finding one who would take us to Cairo for 50 genay. Terrific. In the meantime, a little early morning shisha never hurt anyone!
7:30 am: We depart from Nuweiba in a mashrua and drive up the coast about 30 km to a little place called Beer Suweir (if you look on the map, it's smack in between Nuweiba and Taba) (and if you ask how we heard about this little piece of paradise- we have Emma Weiss to thank, even though she didn't meet us there). As we are driving, we see that there are not really towns set up but just hotel after hotel, hostel after hostel, hut after hut lining the beach. To our left- mountains, to our right, beach.
8:15 am. We pull up to Al-Tarek camp. Al Tarek consists of a main hut/ cafeteria for eating and chilling, several small huts for sleeping, 2 more big huts for chilling, and some beds on the beach for relaxing.
We threw our stuff into our sleeping hut
And the next few days were spent between
sleeping
reading (or rereading East of Eden. Ugh, what a novel)
swimming
playing (poker, dominos)
wondering what they were doing across the sea over in the town of Hakel in Saudi Arabia
Watching sunsets
and sunrises
Activities which all make for this
A very happy Monica.
Unfortunately, all great things must come to an end, as they say, and Tuesday brought a 9 am class. So it's back to the grind and back to business.
Coming up:
-Watchout, Barefoot Contessa, Monica will be battling with you for your time slot on the food network, armed with Egyptian recipes
-A big move: saying goodbye to my apartment in Moharem Bek and saying hello to my new place in Sporting
-Parliamentary elections: myths, truths, and illegal protests
-Egyptian prisons. Uh oh.
Sunday, October 3, 2010
The Egyptian University
I'm fresh out of my first class at Alexandria University and I am itching to write about it.
Firstly, for all my friends at Maryland who sometimes get frustrated and frenzied when class registration comes along, who think Testudo can sometimes be disorganized and who wish the Maryland mail system was better, take heed. You don't even know what a jewel you have!
The Egyptian school system is COMPLETELY different than ours. Beginning at the end of sophomore year of high school, students are asked to pretty much chose what they want to be when they grow up. They chose a track- either science, premed, humanities, etc. and they start learning their specialties junior year. Come graduation, every Egyptian senior takes a test and what they get on this test determines the rest of their lives. Those who score highest enter the most elite and well respected fields- medicine and engineering. Business and science are somewhere in the middle with humanities and law at the bottom. If you wake up late the day of the test, wasn't feeling at the top of your game, or, like me, aren't a good test taker, too bad. What you get is what you get. No redos.
Once they enter college, the people in the same year in the same department take all of the same classes. It is all predetermined an prescribed. They take several more subjects than us per semester, and all of them know each other from year one until graduation.
Now, onto class selection:
If you are a foreigner, like me, just trying to take a class, there is no handy website to go to or even course manuel to peruse. Instead, you have to walk from department to department to look at a hand written schedule with class times and rooms. Unfortunately, these papers are usually posted about 100 feet high on the wall so little people like me struggle. But I guess that's why we have big and tall friends!
Anyway, after running around the college, talking to about 4000 different people to make sure that the class you have chosen is actually available and meeting at the prescribed times, it is time to brave up and head to class!
I chose a class in the sociology department called "Elm Igtimaa Al Reef" or "The Sociology of the Countryside/ Rural Sociology."
The schedule told me that the class meets on Sundays from 12-2 and 6-8 (there are 2 different teachers and it is very common for the class to be split up in such a way).
So 12 o'clock comes around and I head to class. Top floor of the building. All the way up those stairs in the heat. Only to find out that they changed rooms. So a hikin' I go. After searching about 3 different floors, I finally find the class in a completely different building than the one originally written. I walk into a room full of Egyptians, and the coordinator Heba, decides to demand the attention of the class, point out that I'm an American taking this class, and please be nice to me and watch out for me (thanks, Mom!) So about 200 people are looking at me at once. WOO!
Anyway, I take my seat next to my new friend, Wahaa, and class begins.
I have to say, I understand my Arab teachers at home much better now. The professor enters the room, sits at a desk, and lectures for the next x amount of time. Microphone in one hand, he uses his other hand to emphasize each of his points. He follows his tangents as he likes, and talks until he runs out of things to say. Students sit and take notes.
Needless to say, I understood about 10% of what was going on. Whether due to my poor Arabic or to the microphone's distortion of his voice, it was quite difficult.
I left class at 1:15 (1:15 is the new 2:00), a little dejected, I admit, but ready for the next class. However, to my surprise, I find out that the class starts at 4:30 not 6. And when I walked into the room at 4:20, I found out that the class starts at 4, not 4:30. This time we had a woman teacher and she had a little different teaching style. She basically read her notes slowly so that students would take notes. And I'm telling you, it was like watching people watch television. When she read notes, that was when the show was on. Every student in the room put his head down and diligently wrote every word. The minute the professor stopped reading and started her own explanation, it was as if the commercials came on and the chatter started up. I found this class much easier to understand.
Finally (as if this entire experience could get anymore Egyptian) our program assigns us an academic partner from our class to help us through it for obvious reasons. I now (literally) have 8 academic partners. First, there's Wahaa and her friend Asmaa who I sat with during the first class (we doodled together and made bored faces), then there's Sarah, my official language partner and her 3 friends who surrounded me enthusiastically after the second class and offered to help me with "eih haga" (anything). Then, the sociology department assigned me Hoda. Hoda took me by the arm and showed me around the university, explained everything that needed explaining to me, and even walked me to the tram when I left. Hoda also assigned me Ahmed, a 4th year student who promised to mess any dude up that looks at me the wrong way. They couldn't have been more friendly and more wonderful or more helpful.
Egypt!!
ps- how do you like the new look?
Firstly, for all my friends at Maryland who sometimes get frustrated and frenzied when class registration comes along, who think Testudo can sometimes be disorganized and who wish the Maryland mail system was better, take heed. You don't even know what a jewel you have!
The Egyptian school system is COMPLETELY different than ours. Beginning at the end of sophomore year of high school, students are asked to pretty much chose what they want to be when they grow up. They chose a track- either science, premed, humanities, etc. and they start learning their specialties junior year. Come graduation, every Egyptian senior takes a test and what they get on this test determines the rest of their lives. Those who score highest enter the most elite and well respected fields- medicine and engineering. Business and science are somewhere in the middle with humanities and law at the bottom. If you wake up late the day of the test, wasn't feeling at the top of your game, or, like me, aren't a good test taker, too bad. What you get is what you get. No redos.
Once they enter college, the people in the same year in the same department take all of the same classes. It is all predetermined an prescribed. They take several more subjects than us per semester, and all of them know each other from year one until graduation.
Now, onto class selection:
If you are a foreigner, like me, just trying to take a class, there is no handy website to go to or even course manuel to peruse. Instead, you have to walk from department to department to look at a hand written schedule with class times and rooms. Unfortunately, these papers are usually posted about 100 feet high on the wall so little people like me struggle. But I guess that's why we have big and tall friends!
Anyway, after running around the college, talking to about 4000 different people to make sure that the class you have chosen is actually available and meeting at the prescribed times, it is time to brave up and head to class!
I chose a class in the sociology department called "Elm Igtimaa Al Reef" or "The Sociology of the Countryside/ Rural Sociology."
The schedule told me that the class meets on Sundays from 12-2 and 6-8 (there are 2 different teachers and it is very common for the class to be split up in such a way).
So 12 o'clock comes around and I head to class. Top floor of the building. All the way up those stairs in the heat. Only to find out that they changed rooms. So a hikin' I go. After searching about 3 different floors, I finally find the class in a completely different building than the one originally written. I walk into a room full of Egyptians, and the coordinator Heba, decides to demand the attention of the class, point out that I'm an American taking this class, and please be nice to me and watch out for me (thanks, Mom!) So about 200 people are looking at me at once. WOO!
Anyway, I take my seat next to my new friend, Wahaa, and class begins.
I have to say, I understand my Arab teachers at home much better now. The professor enters the room, sits at a desk, and lectures for the next x amount of time. Microphone in one hand, he uses his other hand to emphasize each of his points. He follows his tangents as he likes, and talks until he runs out of things to say. Students sit and take notes.
Needless to say, I understood about 10% of what was going on. Whether due to my poor Arabic or to the microphone's distortion of his voice, it was quite difficult.
I left class at 1:15 (1:15 is the new 2:00), a little dejected, I admit, but ready for the next class. However, to my surprise, I find out that the class starts at 4:30 not 6. And when I walked into the room at 4:20, I found out that the class starts at 4, not 4:30. This time we had a woman teacher and she had a little different teaching style. She basically read her notes slowly so that students would take notes. And I'm telling you, it was like watching people watch television. When she read notes, that was when the show was on. Every student in the room put his head down and diligently wrote every word. The minute the professor stopped reading and started her own explanation, it was as if the commercials came on and the chatter started up. I found this class much easier to understand.
Finally (as if this entire experience could get anymore Egyptian) our program assigns us an academic partner from our class to help us through it for obvious reasons. I now (literally) have 8 academic partners. First, there's Wahaa and her friend Asmaa who I sat with during the first class (we doodled together and made bored faces), then there's Sarah, my official language partner and her 3 friends who surrounded me enthusiastically after the second class and offered to help me with "eih haga" (anything). Then, the sociology department assigned me Hoda. Hoda took me by the arm and showed me around the university, explained everything that needed explaining to me, and even walked me to the tram when I left. Hoda also assigned me Ahmed, a 4th year student who promised to mess any dude up that looks at me the wrong way. They couldn't have been more friendly and more wonderful or more helpful.
Egypt!!
ps- how do you like the new look?
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