Hates and Loves

Dear readers,

This post began as an excuse to rant, but it became a list of positives and negatives of the basic facts of life in Alexandria. Hence, "hates and loves", not just hates.

#1:
I hate:

- All the stomach problems. I've become constantly vigilant regarding the condition of my stomach, since I've been here, and there's good reason for that, as many of us have already gotten "Pharaoh's Revenge", myself included. I'm being careful (i.e. by avoiding salads, only drinking bottled water, washing my hands a lot, and self-medicating by taking a Vitamin C pill every day and eating Activia every day), but I was careful before I got sick, too, and it's frustrating that even three weeks in, I have to be this careful.

But I love: 

- The food (which I have already discussed in great detail)! So even though I'm hyper-aware about the potential dangers of the food I'm eating, I love that food. Like Anthony Bourdain says, the worst that can happen is that you get food poisoning and are very uncomfortable for a day or so. It's worth it even if I do get sick!
On a related note, one of the items on my bucket list is to take a foodie road trip through the Middle East and South Asia -- preferably with my dad because he loves new and interesting food as much as I do (or even more). Being in Egypt has not only cemented that bucket list item in my mind, but has also made it one of the highest-priority items on the list.

#2
I hate:

- How freaking hard our textbook is. Those of you who have taken Arabic in school are all too familiar with the Al-Kitaab series, but you may not know that the differences between Al-Kitaabs 2 and 3 are IMMENSE. We've been reading college-level articles (on heavy subjects like American media bias, and Saudi economic power), and memorizing 5 pages of vocab every two days. It's literally impossible; no one in my class can do it, and most of us have given up on trying. And the professors hate it too.

But I love:

- The format of the school day! Every day we get to class at a reasonable hour (9am), have two half-hour-long breaks for coffee and for lunch, and get out of class at 3pm. And now, thanks to the program coordinator and some squeaky wheels in the class, we have optional office hours every day of the school week, not two days of the week like with the first years and second years. And those office hours are fantastic and EXTREMELY helpful, entirely because of:

- The professors! We have two professors in advanced-level Arabic here: Ustaz Ala' and Ustaza Iman. They could not be more different -- Ala' is a goofy prankster who sprinkles his classroom Arabic with dialect and constantly jokes about throwing the textbook (which he hates) out the window, and Iman is a subdued, schoolmarm-ish type who is very detail-oriented and thorough -- but I love them both and they both have helped to increase my Arabic listening and speaking abilities immensely. For example: Ustaza Iman refuses to speak English EVER, even when we ask what an Arabic word means (in which case she will explain using similar Arabic words, or using the word in the sentence to help us figure it out). None of us understand 100% of what she says, but our comprehension has really increased since she started teaching us. (I, for one, have moved from understanding 30% of what she says, to about 70%.)

#3:
I hate:

- Egyptian trolls. For those of you not in the know, a "troll" (on the internet and in real life) is someone who provokes and annoys people for his or her own entertainment. Trolling by young men and boys in Egypt seems to be pretty much accepted societally, with a "boys will be boys" attitude. Almost everyone in our group has been trolled at some point, with varying methods:

1) Many of the guys in our group have been homosexually flirted with by straight Egyptian men, because they know that it makes them uncomfortable. (A war veteran in our program told us that Iraqi civilians did the same thing to American troops.) Example: One student was ordering ice cream, and the young guy at the counter asked him his name, then when he found out, repeated the student's name back to him and made kissy noises at him.

2) Every single one of the girls in our program has been sexually solicited at some point, or at least flirted with or cat-called. (Most common: "Hello, what is your name?", "Ya mozza! (Hey, sexy!)") A guy followed me for about half a block, once, saying "Hello how are you? What is your name? You are much beautiful!", but he stopped following me when I started walking next to one of the men in our group. (They only seek out girls when they're alone, or traveling only with other girls. If there's a guy next to them, they'll back off.) Three other girls have, on separate occasions, had a young guy follow them for more than a block, going "Hello, will you please fuck me?"
(I absolutely loathe this, because it happens every day. The girls have it worst, on this trip; we may have all come to Egypt with full knowledge that it would be like this, but it starts to get to you after a while.)

3) Those of us in the group who aren't white are trolled differently -- with the exception of the Indian (female) student in our group, who has been trolled the same way as the white girls because guys assume that she's a wannabe-Americanized Egyptian who is as slutty as American girls; they'll flirt with her just as much, but speak to her in very fast colloquial Arabic, assuming that she can understand. But it's been a bit different with the others: a Thai student in our group has had people cat-call him for being "Chinese", and had people yell "Ni hao!" at him. And an African-American student with long braids has had a guy yell at her "Hey Asian, nice hair!" (Stranger than fiction, that!)

My point is: Every one of us has reason to avoid traveling alone. We know that the chance of anything happening besides verbal harassment is low, but it drives us crazy anyways. Like I said before, the girls are probably the most bugged by it, because for us, it's every single day, sometimes more than once. And another factor that really frustrates me is that sometimes it's preteen boys, not young men. Maybe it's cultural, but I see that sort of thing and my first thought is "parenting failure". (Case in point: At a Coptic Catholic church service today, I saw a guy holding his three-year-old son for most of the service, and the kid was pretty rowdy, which was normal... but then I saw the kid slap his dad in the face. Twice. The dad didn't even react, and just kept doing what he was doing. No punishment, no taking the kid out of the room, nothing.) That behavior should be nipped in the bud early on -- especially in a society that is known, in every other regard, for its respect for guests and for women (even if that respect is of the condescending variety, much like in some parts of America).


But I love:

- Hospitality here! Everyone who isn't a troll (or selling something) is really friendly, and legitimately interested in where we're from, who we are, etc. It's been much easier for me to be motivated to communicate with Egyptians outside of the classroom, because they've been so nice most of the time.


Inshallah, I'll be able to focus entirely on the positives in the near future :) and not so much the negatives.

More later, and sorry for the long breaks in between posts!

- Beth C-C