The answer to my question is at best unresolved. Right now, I find it necessary to write about what has happened recently, and so I think I will just let the ideas pour out. Perhaps because it is towards the end, I have been reflecting a lot lately on how this experience has changed me and how I have changed the environment around me. Any such reflection is not one easily thought out, so I apologize now if any of the following is disjointed!
To best describe what has been an amazing experience here in Cairo requires the following recognition: I find myself doing things I would not have imagined I was capable of doing before coming here. I have always read the sappy pieces of literature on how engaging in community service makes you feel good and how it changes you and so forth. Now, I am not saying their message is bad at all. It just seems silly to simply describe what a civic engagement experience is really like. Unfortunately, I may be committing the same folly here, but again forgive me. As of now, I felt I have truly connected with my students to the point where their failure is my failure. This may be what every teacher would go through, but with my students I truly feel that they have become part of me. I still cannot even begin to comprehend what they have gone through, but I never thought I could so quickly connect so deeply and become friends with my students in the way that I have during this program (not even freshman orientation at school can compare!).
Yet, my students are not the only people I have forged connections with. As of this writing, I feel that I have made real inroads with local Egyptians. Of course I can still and always be recognized as a foreigner, but this has not made it impossible for me to be accepted by Egyptians. Two days ago, I attended a gathering of intellectuals discussing the issue of the full veiling of Egyptian women’s faces with others on the program and our professor. I was trying my best to grasp the gist of the conversation, as it was in Arabic, and for the most part I could grasp a few words. While at this debate, I met an Egyptian writer of children’s books, who immediately took an interest in my friends and I. What was so interesting about our meeting was that it was fully in Arabic; it was a challenge for me to sustain a dialogue in Arabic for over an hour. Nevertheless, it greatly pleased me to find that I was able to speak and understand most of what he was saying.
Our conversation quickly turned political, which instantly made me recoil. Talking about politics openly, with not only foreigners but Americans as well is something that I know does not always lead to something positive. This time, however, it did. Before I knew it, this author, who I will refer to as Amir, was insisting on taking us out to a local café so that we could experience the “real” Egypt. He also wanted to take us on a tour of his own neighborhood. Naturally, I immediately became tense and uncomfortable. Although I had been in Cairo for almost two months at that point, my deeply ingrained sense of not trusting strangers was telling me that this could never be.
Nonetheless, I, along with two of my friends on the program, Dan and Atif, agreed, with the urging of our professor, to having Amir taking us out to a café two days later. When he met us then, he had brought along his young daughter to meet us as well. Without wasting any time, and with a spring in his step, he eagerly led us to a local café in his neighborhood where we drank tea. He pointed out all of the local buildings and described their architecture to us. All of this, of course, was conducted in Arabic.
For me, this was a challenge. I was excited to find out that I understood what he was saying. Granted, he was speaking slower and was obliging us by speaking in Modern Standard Arabic, or Fushaa, but I was still happy that my years of studying Arabic are starting to pay off. Yet, an unforeseen challenge was that I found myself confronted with the position of being an impromptu translator. My friends who were with me are certainly some of the best students in the Arabic program at Duke, but I had forgotten that they were still a year behind me in their studies. Translating Amir’s comments for them, and then translating their questions for Amir into Arabic, was rather difficult because our conversation was once again about politics. As such, the concepts we were discussing were dense and like most discussions about politics seemed to lead to always-arguable conclusions and a thirst for expounding more upon them. I had to be flexible and come up with ways to translate my friends’ questions into terms that I was familiar with while at the same time ensuring that the meaning of their questions was not skewed. Hopefully, I was successful!
In the end, our conversation was indeed difficult, but it was an illuminating one as well. The problem that we found is that Amir was telling us that the best way for foreigners to help the Egyptian people is to help them directly. He told us that money is not important; education and total advancement were what he claimed Egyptians wanted most from the outside world. This admission hit me square in the face. The way he said it made it sound so simple and uncomplicated, yet I knew that this could not be. Political conventions and practicality all stand in the way. But, this truly showed me how important it is to remember that volunteer work is not something you just do. When you volunteer, those you help expect actual direct help. Indirect help and a lack of personal contact frustrate those in need. On the one hand, this may be an unfair expectation for someone who volunteers; they too have their lives and daily problems. Sometimes those that need help have been suffering for so long that this recognition is one that may be unfair to expect from them. As such, I felt at that moment that I truly learned that any volunteer role requires thinking and doing things for those you are helping to be your number one priority. I hope this is the message my students at St Andrews are receiving.
Our adventure into the streets of Cairo and its daily life did not end at the café. What happened next is definitely something I never thought I would do: my friends and I accepted an invitation to Amir’s house. Before I go on, I must say that I am still ever distrustful of strangers, but in Cairo my expectations for Egyptian behavior cannot be the same for American behavior. I am not saying Egyptians and Americans are inherently different and incompatible (that would be far from truth!), I am just saying the cultural standards of what is considered normal and mundane is different.
On the way to Amir’s place, we found ourselves in the shadow of the famous Ibn Tulun Mosque, which is constructed from mud-brick and sports one of only two remaining minarets in the world that have a spiral staircase running along its exterior. Amir was demonstrating to us that Egyptian daily life was always in the shadow of its rich past, much as how the winding streets of his neighborhood would always be in shadow of that famous mosque and its minaret.
Amir’s apartment was located at the uppermost floors of a high-rise, and he led us to the rooftop. Before our eyes was the most amazing view of Cairo I have had the whole time since I have been here. All of Islamic Cairo was unfolded before our eyes: the Citadel, Sultan Hassan Mosque, and the Ibn Tulun Mosque were all there. At the moment, I realized my camera was not with me, and I wanted to kick myself. My camera was my documentary tool, and my opportunity was lost, or so I thought. While on the rooftop, Amir insisted on us playing simple children’s games with him and his family and friends. Many of us certainly were too old for these games, but there we were. We were Americans and Egyptians, no people, enjoying each other’s company by playing simple games on a rooftop overlooking all of Cairo. It was something out of a dream, something that erased any distinction of tourist, foreigner, or local. At that moment I realized this was it, this was Egypt. No camera was needed to document such a realization.
Unfortunately, we could not spend as much time with Amir and his family as we would have liked. We had Arabic class that night, but of course we left later than we intended, as we could not refuse Amir’s wife’s kindly invitations to drink some soda. I realized that we had given Amir and his family a chance to enjoy themselves in a way that perhaps they have never before or only have done once in a great while. They loved being our hosts and enjoying simple games to convey their overly kind hospitality to us all. This experience was one that I thought I could never be capable of having, and I realize now it could not have happened unless I bended the boundaries of my own comfort levels.
I hope that this experience will live with me forever, as I know my time here in Egypt will. It is sad for me to be writing this now. I know I am ready to go back home to the United States and be with my family and friends, but I do not think I will ever be ready to leave Cairo. Egypt has become a home to me, and it fills me with pleasure at the thought that I can return here in the future and have people eager to see me again. I could not think of a better thought on my imminent departure from here. Ma’salaama.
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