First Impressions - Shama Milon

Although it is not my first time coming to Egypt, my experience in the past two weeks has been completely different than my one-week trip to Cairo last year Not only is my purpose in coming here totally different, but also I have seen an entirely different Egypt. For instance, in my last visit I was shocked to find most women heavily veiled and men so disrespectful on the streets. I was also shocked by how dirty and old everything seemed. It seemed to me, that most people I saw on the streets were either very poor or American tourists. When I first stepped off the plane, I was ready to feel the heat and see the old and derelict terminal that I remembered all too well. What I saw was a new, shiny, marble-lined terminal it was completely unfamiliar. When we left the airport the heat did not bore down on me the way I thought it would. It was hot, but much more bearable than the humid Floridian summer weather I had just left. As we drove to our apartment, the run-down apartment buildings and intense traffic seemed normal and just like I expected, but I also noticed more luxury cars and passed by neighborhoods reminiscent of home. As we settled in and started to explore the area, I notice many women dressed much less conservatively than I had imagined. The men on the streets were also not as bothersome as they had been the last time I had visited. One of the most striking things to me on my last visit was how conservatively the women were dressed, for some reason it really bothered me. But being here almost two weeks, I’ve noticed that Egyptian women have a very distinct way of dressing themselves. Also, I though I’d be used to the fact that Egypt is a poor country and therefore there are huge inequalities between classes and socio-economic status. The most difficult way to come to terms with this was through our daily routine on one random day. It was our first day of work at St. Andrews and we went to lunch at a koshari place near by. After we had ordered, the bus boy came to clean our table. The boy was maybe seven years old. I almost cried when I saw him working. This was not the first time I had seen a child working, but it was the first time something like this had shocked me so much. When we left I gave the boy a ten- pound note, which to me was nothing, but to him so much more. Now I go to that koshari place everyday and eat there and everyday he’s working there. Seeing the boy, made me realize how much inequality and injustice there is in the world. I also realized that no matter what I did I could never reach everyone who needs help. It made me appreciate my life and the opportunities I had been given, but it made me realize how wrong it was that people like him can’t go to school and have to work and earn a living, where as I see people literally throw opportunities away everyday and can never appreciate what they have going for them. As cliché as it seems, living in Cairo has taught me to see my life in a new light and has helped me take more initiative in my work I’m doing here. Doing the little I can do will maybe make a difference in one other person’s life, and that is to help one or two students learn better English so they can achieve more than what there status has to offer them in this country, and that’s my objective for the next six weeks.