hello from cairo, egypt! i am here for a semester doing the middle east studies program (mesp), a study abroad program run by the council for christian colleges and universities. the program focuses on arabic language, islam, the politics and culture of the middle east, particularly egypt, and the israeli-palestinian conflict. so it should be an amazing semester!
upon arrival we were met by the program staff at the airport, and then we took a bus to our neighborhood, which is called gouza. it is quite a nice neighborhood comparatively to some others in cairo, but it is still quite poor. there are many homeless people in the streets at all hours, and markets all around. there are many flies and cats, so many cats. interestingly there are very few dogs because they are seen as dirty but lots of cats because the egyptians have extra respect for them ever since ancient times. some of the shops are nice, and we are expected to get everything we need on our own from these shops in the area. agouza is just to the west of the nile river, and our flats are just a few blocks from the nile. we live on the seventh floor of our building. there are two flats for the girls in out program, and two flats for the guys, as well also a program villa with some classrooms and a nice open air roof. all of these are within a couple blocks of each other.
no one speaks english in the area and there are no foreigners so needless to say we get stared at a lot. it is nice to know a few arabic words to say to people, which makes them happy. everyone in the neighborhood is quite friendly most of the time. the other students on the program are really nice and we are all getting to be good friends. the first night we went to the program director’s house for some dinner. he and his wife live in the building that i live in. there are also two interns for the program who are recent college graduates which is really nice because they have lots of advice and are fluent in arabic. they have been showing us around a lot. the second day we went on a tour of cairo which is an amazing, complex city, with a huge amount of disparity. it is extremely hot and one becomes very sweaty after just a couple minutes.
we saw the pyramids from a distance and stopped in some different areas of the city. we then went to a market in an area called giza and the girls all bought hijabs which are the head coverings. the markets are great because there are all these narrow little alleys with all kinds of things for sale and they stretch for blocks. they are very crowded and extra hot in the middle of the day. we also had a beginning arabic class with the male intern barrett, and a bunch of us guys went to a coffee shop until about 1:30 am. people don’t seem to go to sleep at night here. everything is just as busy if not busier in the middle of the night as during the day. the traffic is out of control. drivers don’t stay in their lanes; they sometimes fit four wide into two lanes. i have already seen a couple people get hit by cars, including one girl from our group. thankfully she is ok. also, the pollution is quite bad, and there is a constant haze in the air. cairo is worse than beijing in this regard apparently. i did some laundry in a very small washing machine we have in our apartment and then hung it out to dry on our patio. but it immediately gets a black coating on it from the pollution.
we went to a local mosque which was a great experience. we sat at the back and obviously stuck out like a sore thumb but they seemed to tolerate us being there. we had to move out of the way a couple times when they brought coffins into the mosque. everyone takes off their shoes and bows in a certain way. ramadan is starting soon which will be interesting because no one eats during the day so all the food establishments will be closed so we will have few options for food. we also went on a boat (called a felucca) ride on the nile river in the evening which was very nice. later we went to a huge, famous market called khan el khalili and we were able to smoke some hookah if we wanted for the cultural experience. we explored the market for a while, and there are some tourists there so people knew some english phrases and of course everyone was trying to get us to buy their stuff which isn’t usually the case in other less-touristed parts of cairo.
the next day we played a game that was like an obstacle course in our neighborhood of agouza, and we had a bunch of things we needed to find. i was partnered with my friend kaeli and we almost won. it basically took all day. oh yeah – we also have devotions every morning on the roof of the program’s villa which is nice. the following day we went to a huge passport office in downtown cairo to get our visas renewed. everything in egypt is very bureaucratic and takes a long time to process so we waited there for quite some time. afterward, we went to a bookstore at the american university of cairo because we each needed to get an egyptian-authored novel to read for an assignment.
we then divided into small groups to explore the reaches of the cairo metro for the rest of the day. it is a very nice metro for cairo, but it is extremely hot down underground, and extremely crowded. getting on the train was an experience because when the doors open hundreds of people push their way out and there isn’t enough time for everyone who wants to get on before the doors close again. people are yelling at each other and pushing each other onto the ground and stuff. we went a couple stops and got off at a random stop, which we later learned wasn’t the greatest part of town. dirt roads, a lot more animals, etc. for example there were a bunch of cows being raised and milked as if on a farm, except this was occurirng on an urban sidewalk. there are donkeys walking down the road all over the city. and lots of big piles of garbage all over the city too, including outside our flat. we walked around the area near another metro station as well, ust to get a sense of the city.
on the way back to our flat i became really sick. i think it may have something to do with my appendix still (i had an appendectomy that subsequently became infected just days before leaving for egypt). i haven’t really had much time to rest or anything. anyway, i had the sudden onset of explosive diarrhea and there aren’t very many restrooms in downtown cairo, so lets just say it was just a bad experience all around. we found some lunch and then eventually took a cab home which was tough because they were all full and we were looking for a cab for probably an hour before being able to flag one down for our sorry selves. and then of course the cab wants twice as much as the trip is worth and we have to argue him out of it even though we don’t know arabic. that evening we went for a nice dinner at a local restaurant in smaller groups which was fun. so overall things are going great for the most part except for some sickness, but that could be expected, i guess.
