Experiences in Egypt - Yasmina Chergui

I started off today by heading out to AWTAD, one of our community partners, in Maadi. I took a cab over with Shama and Dawa, and unlike the normal exchange between us and our cab driver, after asking our cab driver how much it would cost, he responded, “you pay however much you want to pay.” I’ve really enjoyed being able to use the Egyptian colloquial that I know, during everyday routines, such as getting a cab, ordering food at a restaurant, conversing with people on the metro, just to name a few. For the most part, cab drivers have been friendly, except for the few that get angry when we don’t know the exact location of the place we are heading to. One thing’s for sure, most cab drivers either listen to the Qur’an, Um Kalthoum, or Abdel-Halim Hafiz. At least, that has been my experience.


When we got to AWTAD, which is both an acronym for the Association for Women’s Total Advancement and Development and the phonetic spelling of the Arabic word for “pegs”, we were kindly greeted by the organization’s director, Shereen. I really like AWTAD’s office so far- the staff is really nice and it has a very cozy and warm feel to it. We proceeded to the conference room, where Shereen asked us about our specific interests. She also gave another brief synopsis of AWTAD and what it does. As stated in AWTAD’s mission, the organization strives to “empower and engage the community, to mobilize the role of women as nucleolus development agents, through effectively leveraging Egypt’s social and human capital.” I indicated that I wanted to focus on AWTAD’s women empowerment component, so Shereen instructed me to work with Heba Ali, one of the organization’s staff members, on their mentoring program named, “Steps Into the Future.” Heba is a recent college graduate from the German University in Cairo, and she learned about AWTAD from her college counselors. Steps Into the Future (SIF) is a mentorship program that involves one-on-one training between a recent college graduate (or senior in college) and a highly experienced professional in their field of interest. The mentee, the college graduates, meet weekly with their mentors for a number of things including: coaching, role modeling, advice, support, and encouragement, in an effort to provide the mentee with a valuable learning experience. The program sounds great, and is still new (this will be its second year). According to Heba, there are a few things that need to be improved in the program, and she wants me to work with her on fine tuning the program. For example, there were instances last year where female mentees stopped showing up for sessions with their mentors because they got engaged and their mentors were males. Some of the girls felt uncomfortable meeting with someone of the opposite sex once they were engaged. Today, I started reading through the mentor and mentee packets, to get a better sense of the application process and the expectations from mentors of mentees and vice-versa.


The remainder of the day consisted of a trip to one of my favorite restaurants so far, Taboula, which serves Lebanese food. After lunch, we all came back to the apartment and rested before class. Though I am not entirely fond of having a three hour class from 6-9, overall, I enjoy studying Arabic while here. I like that the primary focus of class is on discussion because it’s really improving my speaking skills and I feel like I’m expanding my vocabulary. It’s also been interesting because the first unit we covered focused on poverty, and it taught me a lot of practical vocabulary for the work we’re doing in Egypt. At the same time, our discussions on poverty have brought my attention to poverty in Egypt and things I’ve noticed. As with most Middle Eastern countries, there doesn’t seem to be a middle class in Egypt. There are the extremely wealthy that drive nice cars, live in Giza, Nasr City, or Zamalek, own houses through out Egypt, send their children to the American University in Cairo, and only shop from designer stores. At the same time, every time I get inside of a cab, I can’t help but feel sorry for the cab driver when I realize that he’s most likely a father working hard to support his family. Cab drivers don’t even make that much, and yet they work most of the day and night. The other day, I actually saw a family living inside of a shack and that was really saddening to see. It’s also been very difficult for me to see children working at restaurants as water boys or servers, and not feel sorrow. I’ve also been comparing the standard of living here to that in the United States. It’s amazing to me that I can get a complete, delicious meal for under $5 here. In some cases, there are restaurants that serve traditional Egyptian dishes that cost under $1! As Prof. Lo was telling us, most security guards make around a couple hundred pounds a month (that’s equivalent to $40).