Carl in Cairo

2011-01-27T00:40:00.001+02:00

We are all Khaled Said gives reports on torture and killings in the wake of protests in Egypt against the Mubarak régime

Carl in Kosovo

2010-03-02T16:09:00.005+02:00

I've had the burning desire to start blogging again as my travels to Madagascar, France and Belgium, and the Balkans (including dynamic and vibrant Kosovo) leave me with much to marvel at and to meditate on. Alas, I'm not sure the rather specialized Carl in Cairo's the spot. I'll link all two and a half of my readers (hi, mom!) to any new blog I find the time and energy to create.

In the meantime, I really miss Egypt. Depending on which of my posts you've read here, that may be entirely expected or supremely shocking. I realize, though, that I grew use to it. I had my favorite haunts and my favorite people and I'm really missing them lately. I could go for some Yemeni food followed by an evening at the Habib residence in Doqqi and maybe a festive evening at Annie and Kelsy's. And, I know I'm a nerd, but I'd love to sit in on the classes this semester that I'd have taken would I have stuck around--classes on the securitization of migration taught by Agnes Czajka and on gender and migration, co-taught by Ray Jureidini and Martina Rieker. Alas. Instead, I am in Peoria with visions of traveling fresh in my head.

And next? A job! I've begun applying, but will do so more in earnest, probably in proportion to how acutely I feel the cornfields closing in on me here. As for now, I'm already enjoying the warmth of home and the promise of family, fun, and friends.

For old time's sake...

News and Issues:

Egypt

Elswhere

French FM says that independence of Kosovo is irreversible
Kosovo's PR campaign, "Kosovo: The Young Europeans"
Congrats to my former classmates and fellow Shattuck alums on their Olympic hockey performances

2009-12-16T01:23:00.004+02:00

My humblest apologies for failing in my blogging duties for the last couple of weeks. Things have gotten crazy, but simultaneously have gone really well. Despite my nervousness and stumbling through the presentation portion, my thesis defense went really well. I got lots of positive feedback and, perhaps even more importantly, had my thesis approved. Today I worked my last shift at the writing center and attended my last AUC graduate class. One final paper stands between me and the end of my master's degree. It's so surreal.
I can't begin to catalogue the list of things I've learned while here or the ways I've grown. My time in Egypt has changed me for the better. I went from skepticism and tentativeness a few months ago (and downright anxiety and bitterness at times about a half a year ago) to deeply appreciating what Egypt has come to mean to me. I have no doubt in my mind that this experience--living in this country and going through this master's program--was the right decision.
As for my blog, I hope to continue sharing my thoughts and observations, perhaps not only about Egypt but my travels in general. We'll see what I end up with time for. Thanks to all of you who have followed my ramblings about my year and a third as an AUC grad student and my time in Masr. My sincerest thanks again to the Rotary Foundation and to the districts, clubs, and individual rotarians who made my first year possible, and to AUC and the Writing Center for funding my final semester.

2009-12-06T12:55:00.007+02:00

I'm here, I'm here! I submitted my thesis (which I'll defend on the 14th) and am now down to tidying up a group project and writing a 10-page and a 20-page final paper for my two courses. I have been busy waxing sentimental about Egypt and realizing how much I love about living here. I've been spending every chance I get with friends, wandering my neighborhood, and Christmas shopping when I can find time to step away from schoolwork.
The Egypt-Algeria row has long since settled down and some really great (and I don't mean it sarcastically) PSA's have popped up about Egyptian dignity and unity.

مصر

...مش مهم كاس العام

.المهم شكلنا قصاد العالم

This one, in Tahrir Square, says (more or less) "Egypt. It's not important, the World Cup. What's important is how we appear before the world." There's another across the Nile with a minaret and a steeple together, but I haven't managed to snap a photo of it yet.

Well, that's me checking in. I leave in less than two weeks and it seems harder and harder to do so the closer I get to that day.

News & Issues:

2009-11-27T13:46:00.003+02:00

You may have surmised by the dearth of my entries that I finally got serious about my thesis. Kind of. I'm still not all the way finished, but recapping Thanksgiving and 'Aid are worth a few moments.
Yesterday, Marise, Phil, Erin, Cynthia and I went to Lucille's for Thanksgiving dinner. There was turkey with gravy and stuffing for the carnivores, and sweet potatoes with marshmallows, corn, carrots, green beans, cranberry sauce, and mashed potatoes for everybody except for Cyn who opted for a south of the border Thanksgiving and ordered nachos. For dessert was some very respectable pumpkin pie. While we laughed off the cheesiness of going around the table and each reporting what we were most thankful for this holiday, I think we were each cognizant of how much we had come to mean to one another in the three semesters. It was great to be with the people I've become closest to in Egypt even though it made me all the more conscious we only have a couple more weeks living in proximity, bumming around at each others apartments, and eating out like it's going out of style.
Today, Phil (never the early riser) woke me up and demanded I follow through on our plans to go see what was afoot for 'Aid al-Adha in the nearby neighborhoods. Last year, I saw little more than a puddle of blood and a detached hoof in the street. This year, Phil and I stumbled upon a whole crowd observing and participating in the ritual sacrifice of several cows. The men and boys welcomed, asked our names, explained what was going on, and asked what we thought of Algeria and the recent soccer match. We snapped lots of photos. Yesterday, on the way to Thanksgiving dinner, we'd seen a lot of livestock--one sheep was squirming in the trunk of a white taxi. Today we saw what was to befall all the transiting animals. I'd never seen a cow slaughtered before. I imagine that the three of my grandparents who grew up on farms would be more inured to the process, but my relationship with farm animals has been limited mostly to petting zoos and steak restaurants. There was something almost serene about the process. People watched intently as a whole team of men calmed each animal, set it on its side, and dispatched it swiftly. It didn't die right away, and that was perhaps the hardest part to deal with it. I won't explain all the details out of deference to more squeamish readers. But the best part was watching people's reactions. The little kids were more fascinated than scared and for other people, it was routine--just another 'Aid. We bid the kids we'd been talking to goodbye and returned home. I wondered how people back home would treat a couple of Arabs wandering into a celebration. I'd like to hope we'd be as welcoming.
Back to my thesis! 'Aid mubarak!

2009-11-21T18:25:00.003+02:00

Things seem to have settled down here in Cairo. There're no new reports of chanting mobs. I was chatting with Marise about the whole debacle last night and we concluded that, with pieces like the one in the New York Times by Michael Slackman misrepresenting the source of many Egyptians' outrage, Egypt was in some small way, not getting a fair shake. While some of the protesters were without a doubt mere soccer hooligans, other people who have protested more civilly truly believed that Egyptians were being harmed abroad. The Egyptian media, Facebookers, and YouTubers exaggerated accounts of violence against Egyptians in Sudan and Algeria and convinced Egyptians moreover that the Sudanese and Algerian governments were complicit or at best, not doing enough to protect Egyptian nationals. That claims of serious injury have not been substantiated is immaterial. The fact is, Egyptians were led to believe that their conationals were being harmed and left unprotected by governments with whom Egypt has complex and sometimes troubled relations. This isn't just about people whining over a soccer match, at least not for everyone.
Still others (and perhaps this group includes the soccer hooligans) have turned this into an issue of honor. According to the BBC, the Egyptian president said "Egypt does not tolerate those who hurt the dignity of its sons" while his normally media-shy son Ala' said in an interview that "When you insult my dignity ... I will beat you on the head". While I can appreciate protesting civily in solidarity with physically wounded fellow citizens, the concept of protesting against violations of your honor (like the YouTube videos Algerians have made insulting Egyptians) is totally alien to me. Not coming from an "honor culture", bravado and reputation-preserving violence and boycotts make me cringe. A Facebook group called "ACT TO END RELATIONS BETWEEN EGYPT & ALGERIA" that, as of now, has nearly 5,000 members maligns (in all caps, annoyingly) Algerians and paints ending diplomatic relations between the two countries as a religious duty. Meanwhile, some 5000+ Facebook users are fans of a page called "Si tes [sic] ALGERIENS et tu F**k l'égypte pour notre drapeau qu'ils ont brulés [sic]" (If you're Algerians and you f**k Egypt for our flag that they burnt). Absurdity. This certainly shatters the façade of Arab unity.

2009-11-20T19:37:00.007+02:00

I hear from friends in Zamalek that it looks like a war zone in the area where the "protesters" were. I failed to understand how translating a beef with another country's soccer team (or even a beef with the fact that your conationals are being attacked in foreign countries) into destroying the property of your countrymen is productive. Non-Egyptians have had to show their passports to get places within Zamalek itself and roads are blocked off. The Subway deliveryman made it here to bring Phil a sandwich though. Twitter's been abuzz with accurate and not-so-accurate reports about riots, mobs, and other collectivities chanting, protesting, rock and Molotov cocktail-throwing, Central Security arresting people, cameras confiscated from the media, and so forth. I'd heard there was a disturbance in Tahrir, but when Phil and I ventured out in the late afternoon, we saw only touts and families and lost-looking tourists—the usual. Who knows what will happen. Meanwhile, I'm hard at work finishing the conclusions section of my thesis!

Ben Wedeman with CNN published this story, reportedly after having his camera confiscated.
Sarah Carr published these photos to Flickr and wrote this article in Daily News Egypt.
"'Thousands 'besiege' Algerian embassy in Cairo" from Monsters and Critics
Weighing in on the row with Algeria, President Mubarak's oldest son says "When you insult my dignity ... I will beat you on the head"
Infotainment channel FOX News asks the sensational question, "Could a soccer match spark the next Mideast war?" I think it's equally likely that FOX News will start the next Mideast war.
Cairo ripe with denial in wake of "demonstrations"

Meanwhile...

Midwest meets Middle East:
I read a review of the movie Amreeka in Daily News Egypt and now I'm really curious to see it. It's apparently about a Palestinian family that moves to small town Illinois. Check out the trailer here.

2009-11-20T01:30:00.003+02:00

I'm just now back from a wee adventure in Zamalek. Erin persuaded Marise and me to indulge her craving for Indian. I ignore my lingering flu symptoms and, after a double class, joined the two of them as well as Phil and two other friends for dinner in an Indian restaurant on one of the riverboats on the east side of Zamalek. Dinner was delicious and the conversation was good and it seemed like I'd have time to spare for my thesis. Then, however, a few of us decided to stop by the grocery store. Erin was trying to make her way home in the same general direction. Our whole party got in two cabs and headed north only to find several streets blocked off because masses of young Egyptians were "protesting" outside the Algerian embassy and for blocks around. Our cabdriver flicked on his lighter and told us that's what the shabab (youth) were trying to do to the Al-Gaza'air (Algeria) embassy. Erin and the other friend that went with her didn't even make it to their part of the island, but rather ended up all the way back in front of the riverboat. Meanwhile, we were shopping at Alfa, enjoying the tacky Christmas decorations for sale, and snapping forbidden photos of the live sheep in a makeshift pen at the intersection of the holiday section and the meat counter where they await their demise for 'Aid.
Erin got a hold of us and asked us to walk her home. We met up with her outside the grocery store and walked her to the line of riot police blocking off the road that led to the embassy whence she was able to quietly head up her street to her place. Oh, soccer and nationalism. Phil, our other friend Camilla, and I found our way to a cab, seeing improvised torches (hair spray or pesticide plus a lighter) in the distance, and returned downtown. Now there's shouting and the occasional little mob parading toward Zamalek. I'm keeping up to date here. In related news:

Other news and issues:

2009-11-18T18:33:00.005+02:00

I'd planned to see one of my professors lecture at the weekly CMRS seminar, but am instead at home in my apartment curled up with my old friends thesis and fever. My throat is no longer sore, but my head kills. Happily, it isn't the sort of headache exacerbated by honking, drumming, cheering, or chanting, all of which are filling the air in Cairo tonight ahead of the Egypt-Algeria playoff in Sudan. Hopefully no one's killed in whatever happens when the game is won and lost.

Meanwhile, an undergraduate AUCian was diagnosed with H1N1. Though this is likely another nail in the coffin of resuming a normal class schedule, the university claims that it will "close for the Thanksgiving and Eid holidays as announced on the academic calendar. The Eid break will not be extended and classes will resume on December 1st".

News & Issues

2009-11-17T15:15:00.003+02:00

I've had my own mini-plagues of Egypt experiences recently--after managing to avoid stomach troubles for months, I've been afflicted for a week, my throat mysteriously also has begun hurting (coinciding with a delightful post-nasal drip), and some mysterious creatures (not mosquitoes this time) have been nibbling away at me during my sleep. Pharaoh, let my people go. And write the rest of my thesis for me while you're at it.
After a night of stomach problem-generated sleeplessness, I walked to the shuttle, zombified. Everything seemed particularly surreal along my route because of the sleepiness, but a taxidermied fox, frozen forever mid-growl suddenly appeared on one of the streetcorners I pass. Suddenly in the sense that it wasn't there before, not in the sense that I was hallucinating stuffed creatures promenading around Cairo.
New campus had its share of interesting sights too--a Model United Nations poster with George W. Bush flanked by Hitler and Stalin. The text asked what they had in common. The answer? That none of them had Model UN in school. Never mind that Bush went to Harvard in the 1970s, a school whose MUN program began in the 1950s. To be fair, I don't suppose it's something an MBA student would've taken an interest in.
There's also a big poster depicting a friendly, fluffy sheep asking something like "Can you imagine an Eid without meat?" Given the cuddliness of the spokesheep, I had thought it was some kind of social awareness campaign about the social and environmental impacts of meat consumption (or perhaps even a PETA-style appeal). Nope. The cuddly sheep wants you to donate money to supply animals for poor people to slaughter during 'Aid al-Adha. Oh well.

News & Issues

2009-11-15T22:31:00.003+02:00

Today's the day my "final" thesis draft is due...better keep writing it! This entry's just to say, Egypt beat Algeria 2-0 and so survived at least until the next game. Nothing particularly violent happened a a result, al-hamdulilla (at least nothing directly related to the match, though a young activist was kidnapped and beaten while Egypt's eyes were on the field and the screen). Instead, the streets were abuzz with celebrating fans shouting, drumming, and carrying on for hours. Fun times all around, I hear.

News & Issues

2009-11-14T11:51:00.003+02:00

After spending the day in my apartment writing, reading, revising, reading, taking breaks to eat, watch an episode of The Office and part of a documentary on Obama with Phil, reading some more, and writing some more, I ended up in a long e-conversation with an Egyptian acquaintance about sexual harassment here. He was discouraged by what he perceived as the recurrent negativity in my portrayals of Egypt, my focusing on the social ills. This was the same person that, when Marise and I met up with him insisted that she wouldn't be sexually harassed if the three of us walked Qasr al-Nil bridge together. He reiterated in a Facebook comment that this was a minor problem and so I went into the conversation guns blazing.
He vacillated between saying his religious sister's in the countryside didn't experience the problem and that none of his other foreign friend's had experienced the level of sexual harassment I described to saying he felt deep shame and explaining to me how he believed unemployment, the proscription of premarital sex, drugs, paternal verbal abuse, and pornography combined to create the phenomenon. I conceded that education played some role as I didn't see the same behavior perpetrated by AUCians or the well-to-do Rotarians and Rotaractors I've met.
As Egyptians are wont to do, my acquaintance told me that Egypt was a great country. When that sort of thing I said, I think it's more for the benefit of the speaker, as if pronouncing it makes it so. I told him that I wasn't arguing that Egypt was fundamentally bad (or good), that there were things about America I complain about too. After that remark, though, and as we amicably closed our conversation, I did think about my knee-jerk critical approach to life in Egypt. As I've mentioned before, I think it has to do with the fact that my impression of Egypt is colored far more by the people on the streets of downtown, by the cabdrivers and waiters, than by the students at AUC or the people I met through Rotary.
I began feeling disappointed again that I didn't get to know more Egyptians whom the language barrier wouldn't prevent me getting to know, to try to understand Egypt a bit more deeply, and to give myself the opportunity to see a sunnier side of things. When that sentiment has welled up in the past, I've tried to come up with rather abstract positives to blog about—the premium placed on family togetherness, the "flexibility", the late hours of shops and restaurants. I still agree with most of what I wrote in that entry, especially about disentangling Egypt itself from all of the frustrations and recognizing that this culture and society encompasses much more than my narrow window into it. Now, however, I don't feel like I'm grasping at straws trying to come up with something to make myself sound well-adjusted and cross-culturally savvy.
What I love about Egypt, in fact, are my Egyptian friends, classmates, and acquaintances. I love the environment that exists here that draw the sorts of often fascinating and quirky people that've stretched how I think. I treasure seeing Egypt through the eyes of friends like Marise who, accepting its failings, manages to see the best and to maintain faith in its potential. I am thankful to see Islam through the pure faith of acquaintances like Omar and Sayed who have, in their overtures of friendship and our open discussions, provided a counterbalance to both negative media portrayals of Islam and the intolerance I have encountered in other Muslims.
Egypt, like life, is a mixed bag. It includes ups and downs, hardships and celebrations, vexations and delights. So why do I still wrestle with the question of whether I like Egypt some fourteen months after I moved here? I don't like or dislike Egypt, but rather I would answer that I like living in Egypt in the same way I would say I liked being alive if you asked me if I liked life.

News & Issues

2009-11-12T23:42:00.003+02:00

Forgive my e-slacking, but I've nothing much new to say. Thesis, thesis, thesis. Both of my classes this week involved coming up with contingency plans for the inevitable extension of the 'Aid al-Adha recess. Some are even suggesting classes might be canceled altogether for the rest of the semester. We came up with some suitable solutions tonight after discussing Cosmopolitanism, but insha'Allah, we won't miss too many sessions. After class, I had a fantastic dinner with a CMRS colleague and our professor. Yes, we spent part of our Thursday evening (the equivalent of Friday evening's here in the Muslim world) discussing critical theory and academia and that is what I love about grad. school. Don't worry, Annie and I went to Horaya later on too and chatted and played games like normal people too.
Aside from that, I read Derrida for class and got a hold of AirFrance iron out my tickets to Madagascar. Seems that everything's booked. Without further ado, let's move on from my unremarkable prose to some...

News & Issues:
Indiana Jones thinks Beyoncé is stupid
Tomorrow's Algeria-Egypt football (soccer) match already causing violence
Clashes between security forces and smugglers on Egyptian border with Palestine
Egyptian teens in court to try and have religious beliefs recognized in official documents
Egyptian Christian banned by Egypt from seeking asylum abroad

2009-11-10T13:56:00.008+02:00

Thesis progress has come at the expense of regular blogging, but I though I'd check in. A new print edition of AUC's Caravan is out, slightly better than the last. Their feature is an attempt at investigative journalism that reveals that several of the donors who have departments and rooms named in their honor may not be the most ethically upstanding. They took issue with a room being dedicated to the memory of Dr Mine Ener.
Ener was a professor at Villanova University and author of Managing Egypt's Poor and the Politics of Benevolence, 1890-1952. In 2003, Ener gave birth to a baby girl with Down's syndrome a fact that appeared to have caused Ener to sink further into postpartum depression. Tragedy struck when, gripped by mental illness, Ener killed her child and later, after being incarcerated, committed suicide. Villanova took down a plaque erected to her memory and instead held a symposium on postpartum depression and psychosis to memorialize her. The Caravan's choice of title for the story, "This Room is Dedicated to a Murderer. Who Else Has AUC Accepted Money From?" is sensational and doesn't take it account the role mental illness played. I won't add further commentary to the sanity and misdeeds of others whom the named spaces honor, but you can checked them out and draw your own conclusions.
Other topics covered in the Caravan included an article and a cartoon about the challenges faced by female students interested in student body politics. Charming quotes like "girls are unable to handle the kind of commitment and campaigning it takes to win a competitive election" and alleged threats to the reputations of women who decide to run for office come from male students, showing that for all it's progressive shine, the situation at AUC smacks of the rest of Egypt's pervasive sexism. The Muslim Brotherhood offer us another example, promising to suspend members who requested positions for women in the party's guidance bureau. "Not all jobs are appropriate for women," wisely asserts a member. This of course is not to suggest that the rough gender equality in the US is anything close to perfect.
The online version of the student paper euphemistically refers to the strongly possible canceling of post-'Aid classes as another "H1N1 Break". According to NPR, Egypt's PM has already declared that the four-day 'Aid al-Adha vacation will be extended a further six days for all government-run schools and universities. It's only a matter of time before they demand AUC shutter for this second "swine flu" vacay. The logic for such a class suspension escapes me, yet again.

Other News & Issues

2009-11-07T13:58:00.007+02:00

Lonely Planet will inform you in the online version of its guide to Egypt that

The incidence of crime, violent or otherwise, in Egypt is negligible compared with most Western countries. Most visitors and residents would agree that Egyptian towns and cities are safe to walk around in during the day or night. Unfortunately, the hassle factor often means that this isn’t quite the case for an unaccompanied foreign woman.

Indeed, it is common for many of us in the foreign student community here to marvel that we can walk around at 3 AM without fear either of theft or violent crime. We all too often paint Egypt as a place where sleazy but ultimately harmless men are but an inconvenience to foreign and Egyptian women alike. The stark and disgusting reality is that marginalized women don't experience this reality. Domestic workers and refugees are On top of this, gender-based violence victims have little access to services here.
Two friends of mine and I were discussing, yesterday, the stories of women they knew in Cairo. One, a veiled Muslim mother of six children whose husband had disappeared following poplution displacements in Eritrea had been repeatedly sexually assaulted by an Egyptian employer. Another, a 17-year-old girl without legal status had been raped several times, the last time brutally with a glass bottle that broke off inside of her body. She was left by the man to bleed out and her family, afraid of being deported because of their status, refused to take her to a hospital. My friend and his flatmate had to go and find and pay a doctor to come to the girl's home. Domestic workers from the Horn of Africa who have to take cabs home from their place of employment are sometimes not dropped off at their destination, but told by the driver's that they'll pay them for the services because "they know it's what they do".
While abuse of domestic workers and irregular migrants happens all over the world, I think the intersection of the general disregard for women in Egypt with the mistreatment of marginalized people is an especially insidious combination.
Not only are migrant women at risk, but Egyptian women as well. Marital rape, as in many other Middle Eastern countries, is not a crime in Egypt. Moreover, for more than 90 years (until 1999), there was a law on the books here that absolved rapists if they later married their victims. A similar law still existed as of last year in Lebanon.
And yet, this flagrant disregard for the dignity of women regardless of their background is minimized, even ignored and denied. The entire spectrum from verbal sexual harassment to rape is often dismissed. A male Egyptian friend couldn't understand why I didn't want to go for a walk downtown with a female friend of mine. I told him the kinds of disgusting things I'd heard with my own ears said to her in the past and he laughed it off and repeatedly told me that sort of thing didn't happen. In the wake of attacks on women by some 150 in downtown Cairo in 2006, the president's wife maintained, in an interview on Al-Arabiya, that "Egyptian men always respect Egyptian women".
Faced with these facts and figures and with the personal anecdotes that I hear all too often, I'm frustrated with my own helplessness to make a difference. While I'm in class reading theory or at some restaurant half the population can't afford, all of this is going on. I really wish I knew what I could do. I can say, though, I won't be complicit anymore in blithely describing Egypt as "safe" while wives and domestic workers are raped with relative impunity. In the end, this is an Egyptian problem that must be solved by Egyptians. Many of them are in the habit of minimizing the problems of their country to outsiders as a matter of pride, but recognize among themselves what's really going on. Perhaps change can come from this kind "internal dialogue". For a society so concerned with honor, one would think that this stain in Egypt's image would be of urgent importance.

Related

For more on the vulnerability of Eritreans and Ethiopians in Cairo see: "The Insecurity of Eritreans and Ethiopians in Cairo" in the International Journal of Refugee Law. A preview is available here.

Other News & Issues

2009-11-06T13:11:00.006+02:00

In my Migration & Refugees in International Relations class, we discuss citizenship, in-groups, and out-groups a lot in the context of migration. For yesterday's class we read a chapter from political theorist Bonnie Honig's book Democracy and the Foreigner. The chapter dealt with the love-hate relationship Americans have with immigrants. On the one hand, we have the myth of an America founded on the sheer grit and virtue of immigrants and on the other, we have the view of an "invasion" of "illegals" who steal jobs, form isolated enclaves where "un-American" ideals are fostered, and generally ruin the country for the native-born. Immigrants are seen as both integral to the greatness of America and as a possible force for its undoing. When this tension between xenophilia and xenophobia tilts in the latter direction, as happens during times of economic hardships and war, the "natives" of a country come more rigidly to draw the line between "us" and "them" even when "they" are native-born or have been in the country for years. In circling the wagons, people draw dangerously on insufficient or flawed understandings of that "other" that fuel hatred.
Place into this context the massacre at Fort Hood yesterday by Virginia native, Nidal Malik Hasan. The news is still fresh, and the facts are unclear, but there is much speculation about Hasan's religion. This is certainly the case in the comments on an AP article published in the online edition of my local newspaper, the Peoria Journal Star. As a student of migration and refugees whose living in the Middle East, I am inevitably drawn to what the PJStar's comment sections following articles about Islam or Arabs reveal about my fellow Peorians' attitudes toward the kinds of people that not only live here, but who are also part of the patchwork of the American citizenry. So how does Islamophobia play in Peoria? I realize that those who choose to comment on articles don't necessarily proportionally represent the populace, but they provide interesting insight nonetheless.
The first comment to introduce the idea of foreignness read,

This exemplifies why American troops should be natural born citizens. Allowing other nationalities to enlist in the United States military is detrimental to the safety and integrity of America.

"Common Tater"'s first mistake was that he conflated nationality with being born in a given country. Millions of American nationals were born outside of the US and, in many situations (take the Turks in Germany, for example), people who were born in a country and lived there their entire lives may not be nationals. In Honig's book, she mentions the myriad of ethnic group contingents that fought in the American Civil War displaying a patriotism just as zealous as those "natural-born citizens" they fought alongside. But, perhaps more importantly, what Common Tater failed to appreciate was that Hasan is a natural-born citizen.

"slick06" is less polished in his or her arguments:

He was a Muslim that's why this happened!!! The Muslims are waging a hold war on us at we let them into the armed forces????

Even if Hasan's break-down and subsequent act of violence was related to his religious beliefs, it is a question of religious extremism, not something unique to or inherent in Islam. In that case, it would be appropriate to say "he was a violent religious extremist, that's why this happened". Just as the supposedly-Christian abortion clinic-bombers don't represent all of us, neither do suicide bombers or rampaging gunmen represent all Muslims. "The Muslims" slick06 refers to are a diverse people socioeconomically, linguistically, ethnically, politically, ideologically, and so forth. If they were all united in waging a war on us by now, I'm sure I'd have been felled by my landlord, a taxi driver, a waiter at one of the restaurants I frequent, a policeman, the woman that begs for food down my street, one of my professors, the Rotarians who hosted me last year, or any other of the tens of millions of Muslims in this country. Furthermore, there are thousands of Muslims in our armed forces and there have been for years. Muslim Americans fight alongside other Americans in Iraq and Afghanistan and there were Muslims in the Allied Forces in World War II. Islam does not detract from a person's service in the military of a non-Muslim country, it is rather a question of ideology and extremism.
Thankfully, I'm not the only Peorian who thinks this way. Says "nothingshocking":

common tater-i didn't read anywhere in the article that the gunman was not a natural born citizen. since when does one have to be a foreigner in order to convert to islam? timothy mcveigh was a natural born citizen and was capable of blowing up a building filled with his fellow americans. crazy is crazy-regardless of creed, religion, or race.

Still, "Pancho" brings us this lovely reminder that ignorance is rampant:

slick06 nailed it, and yeah, part of this IS Obamas fault. His way of thinking assists people like this to prosper in OUR country. OUR country is full is trash that want to bring us down. What a shame it has come to this.

Whatever you think of the president, Pancho's comment has little to do with politics, but rather those fundamental questions of "us" and "them". Who is the "us" to whom the country belongs in Pancho's statement? And who, in fact, is the trash? Many of us in Central Illinois have German and Irish roots. These ethnic groups, now an indistinguishable part of "White America", were vilified and demonized just as much as Muslim Americans are now. German-Americans were associated with Nazis, the Irish were considered job-stealing scum, etc. etc. I would put to Pancho that this "us" is comprised of the descendants of the "trash" of past generations.
The rest of the comments were divided between reasoned expressions of concern over the stress of war, impending deployment and multiple tours of duty and more ignorant comments about Muslims and Islam. While I understand the fears associated with the unfamiliar, I really hope that those in my hometown who struggle with how to fit those who are different from themselves (especially Muslims) into their idea of America will think deeply and rationally about it.

News & Issues

2009-11-04T17:48:00.003+02:00

This morning, I rode the bus with a fellow blogger. As we passed the Ministry for Social Solidarity, the Ministry for Tunnels, the Potato Grower's Cooperative, and the sea of McMansions, we chatted about Egypt (what else?). We bonded over our predilection for sarcasm, a feature that permeated our conversation all the way to campus where I saw, behind the monstrous tentlike structure that's blocking out the sun from the main quadrangle, two Egyptians dressed like Fonzie from happy days.
The Writing Center was busy and full of interesting characters and even more interesting papers. One of them extolled the virtues of Michael Jackson, endearingly referring to him as "Mike" throughout. Another complained that the garbage problem in Cairo was an affront to his "social status". My favorite moment came when a young woman burst in and loudly interrupted two tutoring sessions to announce herself. I motioned her to sit down at which point she told me I looked really young. I suggested it might be because I am, in fact, young. She then added that I "looked too young to be a professor". I informed her that I was not a professor. After being handed an essay dripping with sarcasm, ellipses, and exclamation points that read like an instant message, I explained the need for formality in academic writing. After half-listening to my comments, she asked if she too could "get a job" at the Writing Center. Unfortunately for her and for everyone else, she can't. Ma3lesh, ma3lesh.
The growing urgency to take more notice of my surroundings as I realize how short my time left in Egypt is has pressed me to have my camera on hand more often. When I wasn't sleeping in the bus stuck in traffic, I was doing my best to be surreptitiously snap photos of "the street". Maybe I'll upload some when I get time (next century, after my thesis is finished).

News & Issues

2009-11-02T23:45:00.002+02:00

Today, walking down the street, I ran into a lovely new scam. I was ignoring the world with the aid of my headphones and a man came up beside me and shouted "welcome" until I finally took one earbud out. He walked alongside me, realizing I wasn't about to stop, and engaged me in conversation about where I was from. He asked me about the cost of living in Cairo, whether I didn't think it was cheaper than the US an Europe and it didn't take me long to realize what he was getting at. He claimed to be a Palestinian that had been in Egypt for 20 days, that his wife and four kids were killed in an Israeli attack on Gaza, and then he'd found the Egyptians to be terribly inhospitable and unwelcoming. He then told me that an old man in Dubai had been paying his way at the hostel for these 20 days, but that he had stopped and now had nowhere to stay. Without bringing up the fact that the Palestinian border wasn't opened 20 days ago, I politely told him we didn't have any extra beds in our apartment. He told me he only need me to go with him to the hostel to pay $7 which "wasn't much". He backpedaled and said, "well, it is a lot for me". He proceeded to tell me that he hadn't eaten in 20 hours (20 being his favorite number, apparently). I told him I didn't feel comfortable giving him money but would be glad to buy him a meal at the restaurant right across the street from where we were. His hunger magically vanished, he shook my hand, and disappeared into the crowd.
That was but one interesting conversation I managed to have today, but I'm getting up in the early hours tomorrow to be able to catch the bus to new campus, so those are stories better saved for another time. In the meantime, enjoy the news:

News & Issues

Egypt
23-year-old woman from Giza sixth H1N1 death
Center for Contemporary Sudan Studies spotlights mistreatment of Sudanese in detention
Mubarak Jr. vows to respond to opposition attacks

2009-11-02T01:10:00.004+02:00

The ol' thesis is due in two weeks, at least in theory. Forgive the sparser and sparser entries and, with the advent of nice weather, my sappy comments about gentle breezes and mild temperatures.

News & Issues

Egypt
Documentary chronicles the lives of Egyptian garbage-collectors
Migration to Italy drives up land prices in one of Egypt's poorest governorates
9-year-old dies of H1N1, first school-aged child to die of the illness in Egypt
British ambassadors wades into niqab debate to the ire of Muslim bloggers
Elsewhere in the Middle East
US caves on illegal Israeli settlements , Egypt unimpressed
Web addresses available in Arabic for the first time starting 16 November

2009-10-31T11:47:00.005+02:00

I forgot to mention that yesterday, when I was typing away at my computer, I heard water being dumped outside my window. Curious to know who was doing such a thing, I opened my window and shutters for the first time since I've been back. Lo and behold, it was actually raining; raining audibly and copiously, at least for a brief time. Happily, upon opening my room to the outside world, I found a brilliant blue sky, a rare sight since the black cloud has been blanketing the city in a grey haze. Today, the weather was even better. Late October in Cairo!
Though it's Halloween today, I got all of my Halloweening over with last night. The party was fun and some of us there, like the giant nerds we are, ended up talking about migration. I know, I know. Anyway, my life of leisure has not boded well for my thesis, so I can't do much more than include some interesting news tidbits. Oh, and this: El Koshary Today, Egypt's answer to The Onion.

News & Issues
Egypt

Migration & Refugees

2009-10-30T11:40:00.005+02:00

I've been spending more time in the CMRS office lately. In addition to the congenial atmosphere, the downtown department digs have professors of whom I can ask questions while I'm working on my thesis or work for their classes and faster internet. But also, it's a great forum for some really interesting discussions.
The class I raved about, Migration and Refugees in International Relations, used to meet on the main downtown campus in a room with awful fluorescent lighting and even worse acoustics. We ended up migrating to the library at the CMRS office one week when that classroom was unavailable for a make-up class and have met there ever since. The readings are the sort that you'd want to undertake even if they weren't assigned for a course. They've certainly stretched my understandings and assumptions about concepts like the nation-state, ethnicity, and culture. as well as about international relations both theoretically and practically. The professor's lectures, which are incorporated into rich discussion of the topics, are the kind that illuminate the readings, rather than summarize.
Yesterday, for instance, we talked about in-groups and out-groups and the idea of a culture as fixed. We interrogated the justness of assimilation and assumptions about the fixity and monolithism of culture. We briefly also considered the idea of dying for one's country, asking ourselves whether we had that kind of commitment to an idea of Canada or the US or Uganda or Egypt or Norway (our countries of citizenship). Instead of sharing my answer, I encourage you to really think about it, about what connects you to the nation and also about your connections and obligations to people outside of the boundaries of whatever country you live in.
Even outside of classtime, the CMRS library is fertile ground for dialog and the tweaking of ideas. Before class, Annie and I had an interesting discussion about sexuality and gender norms in Uganda with our Ugandan classmate after I explained to her my thesis topic. And, while I'd like to think I'm open-minded, I'll admit I have a certain amount of prejudice in terms of my assumptions about the rigidity of post-colonial African societies' ideas about sexuality. (Especially given the story about recently-proposed Ugandan legislation I linked to in the new & issues section before.) And yet, Amoding spoke frankly about the Western gender binaries and how they just didn't fit in Ugandan society. It was these expectations about masculinity and femininity and their relation to sexuality that she found too rigid. The conversation would continue and broaden over Yemeni food after class. (Which in turn was followed by a visit to a party shop selling Halloween costumes, a hysterical place to visit in Egypt.)
Annie and I also got to chat with our professor about class discussion, expectations, and academia. We talked to her about graduate school and writing theses and dissertation and the anxiety over providing an original contribution. There were so many good chats yesterday! It makes me rather keen on the idea of getting another degree sometime in the future. I love the stretching and growing that I've experience both as a result of living in Egypt and attending grad school.

News & Issues

Egypt
NPR reports on succession speculation and the current crackdown on opposition
Muslim Brotherhood's direction depends on outcome of leadership struggle
Defense lawyers in Hezbollah spy trial quit, alleging court not impartial

Middle East meets Midwest
Peoria's "terrorist" sentenced to eight years
Speaking earlier of sacrificing for one's country and including a category about the intersections between the Middle East and the Midwest, it's only fitting to inform you that Peoria's Lebanese American community is hosting its annual Itoo supper at the Itoo Hall on 1 November from 11 AM to 7 PM. They're offering 300 free meals to vets and reduced prices for active military personnel.

2009-10-29T01:03:00.002+02:00

After my little identity-inspired writing outburst of yesterday, I was more conscious of the different types of people milling around the campus this morning. I saw a real live Egyptian "goth" girl, an Egyptian "thug" sporting a 59Fifty hat and baggy pants, another Egyptian wearing a bright fuchsia polo, and so on. And then...I saw some Americans tossing around a football. I don't even know where you find an American football in Egypt. Good on them, I guess.
Anyway, being the good American I am, I met up with some friends for Lebanese food and then we headed to watch a documentary on Napoleon in Egypt at the French cultural center in Mounira. I can't say it was particularly well-made, but it was cause for me to meet up with a French acquaintance. She and I ended up at Horaya. Phil joined us and a whole little group coalesced since as people we know kept showing up. We talked about colonialism and racism, about whether Napoleon's brief incursion into Egypt brought about modernism in the country, about the creepy men that linger outside of Horaya looking in, and so forth; the usual.
And here're all the more interesting things that were going on in the world today:
News & Issues

Egypt
Complaints of torture resurface as Hezbollah trial continues
German concert in Cairo canceled for fear of violence over murder of Egyptian women in Dreseden
Opinion: "Niqab and the Boundaries of Debate"
President of the General Authority for Standards and Safety says cars in Egypt are unsafe, standards are low
Mubarak Jr. being promoted on Facebook even though he's not thrown his hat in the ring for the 2011 elections

Migration & Refugees
NYTimes: Sexual orientation-based asylum claims on the rise in US. My thesis topic (and an attorney whom I interviewed in my research who's doing great work) are in the limelight.
Police fire shots to disperse refugees protesting meager rations in Uganda
Iranian refugees released from illegal detention in Turkey

2009-10-27T22:33:00.009+02:00

Because I have nothing more culturally enlightening to share than the fact that Cynthia and I discovered tonight that the Yemeni restaurant in Doqqi delivers to our downtown doorstep, I am going to regale you with some of the latest AUC news as covered by the student-produced campus newspaper, the Caravan.
First we have this choice comic strip wherein Americans are portrayed as green-eyed frat boys in pink polos ("dude bros", if you will), busty blonde valley girls, and hip hop-garbed black kids who speak only monosyllabically. These three archetypal Americans are shaming an Egyptian for being able to speak Arabic and enjoying Egyptian cinema. While there's a whole lot wrong with the comic, the irony is that most AUC students don't know Americans like this. The Americans that study abroad or come here for grad school exemplify a whole set of stereotypes on our own. You have the noble types who are seeking to better understand the Arab world or Islam, the know-it-alls who are here to study Arabic and treat you with the utmost scorn if you're not smoking shisha with old men in an ahwa and deploying your best colloquial Egyptian Arabic phrases by your second week here, the wanderers who are "finding" themselves in a foreign land, the go-getters who're adding studying in Egypt to résumés already replete with internships at various government agencies—they inevitably all want to work for the CIA or the FBI, the bleeding hearts who have come here to volunteer among the poor and refugees, the embittered ones that hate it here and become alcoholics, etc. etc. Most of us are some mix of most of those categories (though I assure you, I'm not an alcoholic and my Egyptian Arabic is nothing to hold over the heads of others). Only among the undergraduate study-abroaders do you find anyone approaching the stereotypes in the comic and even then, they're a rarity. The people on campus who most closely fit those caricatures? Egyptians! Upper class, popped-collared, designer brand-donning, gigantic sunglasses-sporting Egyptian kids. I swear, AUC's undergrads are more "American" than me, at least superficially. They haven't quite caught on to the idea that you're not entitled to throw trash on the ground just because some man* in a uniform following you around with a broom and cleaning your every mess. (*Or child—AUC's food contractors hired children in an move embarrassing for a university that has published research on the phenomenon.) Anyway, I'd wager their Western ways and styles come more from movies and other media than from real live Americans and other Westerners. The comic strip appearing in the latest print version of the Caravan was even worse, depicting a terribly inappropriate rendering of a Chinese man that looked like something out of a racist propaganda leaflet from a mercifully bygone era.
The actual articles in the student paper range from the informative (like the one about AUC's new connections with Columbia and Sciences Po) to the ridiculous: AUC, despite being an American liberal arts university, is too prudish to allow nude figure drawing. I guess that's par for the course, though, when there are worries about Beyoncé's scandalousness is apparently a threat to the Muslim Brotherhood. Another article, was accompanied by a photo of a bunch of bored looking AUC students protesting Israeli actions in East Jerusalem (Al-Quds), one of whom had a creative little sign with a blurry, crossed-out Israeli flag. She was, no doubt, showing her commitment to a commitment for a two-state solution. The protest, according to the article, featured a Jewish kid from New York who "surprised the crowd with his condemnation of Israel’s actions". I can hear the gasps now and the excited whispers, "Ya salaam, he doesn't even have horns!" Meanwhile, their more spirited compatriots at other universities were busy burning Israeli flags.
Anyway, that's about enough fun for today, onto (more) news.

News & Issues

Egypt
Transport minister steps down in wake of deadly train accident
Ministry of Endowments rents mausolea to the living
Another story about the 'Black Cloud' for good measure
France seeks to keep Sudanese president away from Egypt during February Africa-France summit in Sharm
'Egypt needs more women in power' from The Guardian
With as much as I get frustrated with racism and intolerance in Egypt, I feel like maybe this Egyptian blogger's thoughts on racism in the US deserves to be linked to. Some points she's gets wrong, to be sure, but it's interesting to get an Egyptian take on us that's a little more serious than the comic strip I rambled on about above.
Migration and Refugees
UN to text message food vouchers to refugees
Fear and uncertainty for internally displaced in Pakistan

2009-10-26T21:53:00.005+02:00

Though Cairo's black cloud usually makes it look like we're on the verge of a storm here, today it actually rained. If memory serves, this is the fourth time I've been rained on in Cairo. I didn't mind the light sprinkles so much so long as I was able to keep myself from thinking about what kind of polluted tidbits were inside.
Beyond just the rain, precipitation was the order of the day, apparently: After spending the afternoon at the CMRS office, Erin and I planned to go to dinner in Zamalek. We marveled at the raindrops and crossed Mohammad Mahmoud and I flagged down one of the new white cabs. These cabs are part of "cash for clunkers"-esque push to get decades-old death traps off the road. Anyway, tell the driver our destination, he agrees, and we hop in. It took a couple of minutes for me to realize that we were in a "fake" white cab. There was no modern meter. This guy painted his old car white, put a new checkered strip around the side and was ready to rip off whomever he could. Ma3lesh, we thought, we'll just pay him the 7ish LE we usually give to black & white cabdrivers when they take us from downtown to Zamalek or vice versa (with a white cab, it's been beteen 5.25 and 6 lately). So, we're riding along, our driver is swerving and nearly slamming into people, something to which we have become accustomed and he gets to the general area Erin had mentioned. She told him in Arabic "right [the direction] here, please" and he misunderstood her to mean she wanted him to pull over on the right-hand side. We politely correct him and he yammered on belligerently for a few seconds as he arrived at our destination. Erin task me, as the man, with handing him the money. I went to do so and he yelled "no, ten pound". I shook my head and held out the money to him. When he didn't take it, I set it on the passenger set and turned to walk away. Every other time this has happened, it has elicited a dejected head shake and a quick departure from the driver. Tonight the man actually spat at me and yelled. Startled, I let out a few choice words. Delightful.
Erin and I got some fiteer and laughed off the man's untoward behavior. Uplifted by being able to meet with my advisor to alleviate my thesis frustrations and squaring away my post-grad school travel plans, I was pretty feeling pretty unskinable.
Apparently though, I wasn't done offending Egyptians for the day. I posted a comment on my flatmate Phil's Facebook wall that was, I assure you, completely benign, but had a passing reference to Mohammad. My Muslim Egyptian friend felt I was "taking her Prophet lightly" and told me that she could forgive me if I wronged her, but "not Him". Given the gravity of her response, you'd think I'd said something decidedly blasphemous. I wish I could reproduce the utterly inoffensive comment here to prove my point, but I don't want to risk inflaming the situation. Exceedingly respectful of other religions, I never thought I'd accidentally find myself up against this kind of reaction. Ma3lesh. I apologized only that she took offense and not for my words. It was my own little taste of a broader tension than I'd hoped to avoid.
The combination of spitting cab drivers and spats with friends weren't enough to overcome the premature nostalgia I was experience for Cairo. I'm really in deep, I guess.

News & Issues

Egypt
Mubarak meets with Carter over stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace process
Mubarak Jr. engages Egyptian youth via the internet
PM Nazif urges South Sudanese not to vote for independence in 2011 referendum
Listen to or read NPR's story on Egypt and Israel 's "cold peace"
Student arrested over creating Facebook group accusing mogul of plagiarism
With the upcoming Liberal International to be held in Cairo, many are asking why Egypt's liberals are so anti-Semitic
Guardian article on Egyptians' "fear of authority" and "culture of stern obedience"
Elsewhere in the MENA
Exiled Hamas leader lashes out over Al-Aqsa mosque tensions
Tunisia's president unsurprisingly wins his fifth election by a landslide

2009-10-25T22:30:00.002+02:00

I managed to leave the apartment today, an improvement over yesterday. Being frugal, I took the metro over to Doqqi, apparently choosing the Egyptian hipster car. Usually I see dusty galabayas, mismatched suits, and wrinkled army uniforms, but today I saw skinny jeans and trendy scarves.
Anyway, I had Yemeni for dinner. Delicious as usual. My meal companions and I discussed our imminent departures from Egypt, some sooner than others and how we felt about it. I received an email back from my thesis advisor letting me know that, so long as I had my thesis approved and filed by the time I left, I didn't have any further business to attend to in Cairo. Now, despite some encouraging feedback on an initial draft, I've returned to worrying about my thesis. I'm about 43 pages in, which is a little under halfway, I guess. I'm just not sure how to organize and keep getting lost on tangents. I guess I just wish I had quicker and more copious comments to point me in the right direction.
Enough whining...time for the news!

News & Issues

2009-10-24T21:43:00.002+02:00

Today I booked a one-way ticket to Chicago via Istanbul. While this doesn't mean I'll remain in the States long (I'm tentatively heading to France and Madagascar in January and February), restrictions on frequent flier mile tickets and the costliness of air travel are more than likely keeping me from adding Egypt to the mix. Unless I need to return to Cairo for urgent thesis or other graduation requirement-related matters and can cough up the money for that round trip ticket in addition to the one to Antananarivo, the 16 of December is my definitive date of departure from Egypt.
I guess I knew it was coming, but not having the cushion of a week or two in January to say my goodbyes and tie up loose ends makes the end of my year and a half in Cairo look rather stark. And speaking of stark, with the end of grad school and the depletion of my meager financial reserves imminent, I'm staring down the reality that I'll have to get a real person job for the first time in my life.
Despite the relief I'd felt this summer at the prospect of wrapping things up by December, Egypt feels like a home of sorts again. Though my thesis-filled days are less exciting than those spent exploring Cairo during my first two semesters, their more comfortable and more productive than all the other days where, frustrated with Egypt, I whiled away my time indoors doing nothing in particular. My life in Egypt is no longer an adventure (nor a periodic nightmare), it's life as usual somehow and I'm going to miss it. There, I said it.

News & Issues

2009-10-23T21:38:00.005+02:00

After finishing six pages of a literature review analyzing the foundation of State of Israel through the lens of a chapter from Hannah Arendt's The Origins of Totalitarianism, I plunged into my thesis again, making halting progress. I can feel my brain atrophying as the virtual stack of sources cluttering my desktop crowds out my thinking space. I shall overcome, however. In a matter of months it will all be over (which is bittersweet, actually–I really like researching). Anyway, now for the news:

Egypt

Elsewhere in Africa

Migration & Refugees

2009-10-23T00:29:00.005+02:00

I got up and got ready and marched over to the CMRS office today, ready to be productive. Alas, not long after I arrived, the internet petered out. I accomplished nothing on the ol' thesis today. I did read for class though. This was our fifth session and I still dig our discussions and never mind staying longer than the allotted class time.
Afterwards, I returned to Taboula for the first time in months but with a new crop of friends. Hanging out with the new kids in the program and their friends leaves me feeling torn. It's strange to realize that they're embarking on what inevitably be a fun and memorable adventure and that, I'm already mostly finished with mine. (At least this particular adventure.) But I don't see an impending move as a reason not to meet new people even as I become closer with the friends I've already made.
Planning for the future lately, I've been perusing job sites, checking out the State Department's test cycle, and looking for cheap tickets to make sure I stay on the move. If any of my readership knows anyone clamoring to hire a newly-minted graduate student, do let me know.
Back to my thesis, but first, the news:

PS When my posts wax banal because my writing capacity has been sapped by hours of academic endeavoring and you're looking for something more intellectually stimulating to read, don't forget to check out the blogs on my blogroll and the other links on the righthand side of the page. For example a Cairo newbie I've had the pleasure of befriending recently has glowing things to say about his new home and the LATimes always has something interesting to say about the Middle East–like the scandalous possibility that Israel and Iran engaged in secret nuke talks in Cairo.

2009-10-21T12:04:00.003+02:00

In between writing center conferences, I'm catching up on the news and trying to find the energy to read the articles I need to cite in my thesis. Though I had trouble falling asleep again, I don't feel as much like a zombie today.
Wednesday mornings are fun because I've got my fellow grad. fellow Katie to chat with. We have a lot in common in terms of our academic interests (and misgivings), some of our thoughts on Egypt, and on the future. As I already mentioned, everybody I've encounter here has been high quality–interesting, engaging, insightful.
The supervisor there is all these and responsive to boot. It's a refreshing thing to find someone at AUC who takes people's concerns serious. After I mentioned in passing the problems I had in straightening out my stipend (I'd heard other students had had more consequential problems with the man who had blustered and raised his voice and claimed not to have said the things he assured me of last week), the Writing Center supervisor took up the cause with the man's supervisor. Feeling supported in the face of the failings of the AUC bureaucracy, what a novel feeling! (Though to be fair, there were certainly a few understanding administrators that responded to our complaints about the graduation nonsense.)
Anyway, enough gushing. I need to get to back to reading thesis articles until the next student arrives.

News & Issues
Egypt

Migration & Refugees

2009-10-20T15:38:00.005+02:00

Despite popping a pill and getting to bed before midnight, I was completely unable to sleep before four in the morning. And so, dear readers, I come to you with half a tank, as it were. I woke up at 8 and miraculously made it to the 8:25 bus. I drifted in and out of half-sleep along the way, opening my eyes only twice. The first time I saw palm trees and what looked to my like cypress trees and the second time sand dunes. I somehow managed to avoid all of the unfinished, mismatched crumbling apartment buildings that later give way to commercial developments and McMansions.
Once on campus, bright and early, I went to check on my fellowship stipend that a man I met with in the administration labyrinth assured me would be available this week. It, of course, was not. When I returned to the man's office, he unabashedly told me he'd never made any such claim about the availability of the funds, got visibly flustered, raised his voice, and told me I could complain to the president. Nonplussed by the near-hysterics nor excited about his solution, I convinced him to call one of the secretaries in my department who was responsible for submitting some form or another. The ever effervescent Hend chuckled to me about the man's dramatics and assured me not only had she seen to everything, but that they'd arranged for me to pick up my stipend downtown. Delightful. I still didn't appreciate being yelled at in the basement of the admin. building because of a series of unsent forms and miscommunications that had nothing to do with me.
Anyway, when I wasn't tutoring or reading for my thesis, etc., I picked up a copy of the ever-inspiring AUC Caravan. The beacon of student journalism led with the story of the Japanese woman who fed the cats on the Greek Campus and found inner fulfillment. Now the cats are homeless and, on another page of the paper, you can see photos of each of them with descriptions and information on how to adopt. I will confess that with the time we spent in the courtyard of the Greek Campus, my classmates and I developed quite the mythology around the cats–some of us, me excluded, even became rather fond of them. However, it was the story of American AUC students protesting against the "posturing" that goes on at "Gucci Corner" that piqued my interest for its ridiculousness. This area is where upper class Egyptian AUCians go to seen and be seen, apparently. Apparently there was a Facebook group or an event or both. I haven't found either to link you to for your edification, but will keep you updated.
In more serious and more troubling news, I found out yesterday that my paternal grandfather has been in the hospital since Friday with blood clots that initially landed him in the ICU. I don't care to dwell on it here, but it's another of those times where I feel very far away. Prayers for my grandfather (and my cousin, who's also still in the hospital) are appreciated.

News & Issues

2009-10-19T17:02:00.005+02:00

I'm spending the day at the CMRS office, hoping the change of scenery will inspire continued productivity in thesis writing. I have no profound cultural observations or deep insights, so please enjoy the news:

News & Issues

Egypt
Listen to several NPR stories on Egypt, environmentalism, and climate change.
Breast Cancer Awareness month invigorated by cooperation among the US, Egypt, and other Middle Eastern countries
BBC News reports on the pervasive problem of Egyptian men phone-stalking women, something which several of my friends here have had to deal with.
Muslim Brotherhood denies its Supreme Guide stepped down over a row with conservatives
Tensions rise after murder of Copt whose son allegedly had affair with Muslim woman
IRIN interviews a Southern Sudanese refugee living in Cairo about his experiences

Middle East
Egyptian president Mubarak says illegal Israeli settlements worry "the entire Muslim world".
Iran blames West for recent bombings that killed Revolutionary Guard commanders

2009-10-18T12:22:00.005+02:00

Last night, I heard from my mom that my second cousin was in a bad car accident. In addition to feeling terribly that I was so far away and could do nothing to help the family out, I thought about family and how different it is in the States and in Egypt. My second cousin, who's going to be ok, is someone I've only spent time with on a handful of occasions. I care about her because she's my second cousin, but more by proxy because I am close to her grandmother (my grandmother's sister) and her aunt (my mom's first cousin). My great-aunt became like a surrogate grandma when my own grandma died and my mom's cousin has always been around since I was little.
If we were an Egyptian family, we would without a doubt be much closer. The importance of the extended family is one of the things I envy about Egyptian culture. I'm close with only a few of my second cousins and see my paternal first cousins only a few times a year. My friend Marise, on the other hand, lives in the family building. All the floors are or were at one time occupied by relatives. Marise is constantly going to the weddings of extended family members and talking to her cousins on the phone daily or spending time with them in person. She has "aunts" and "uncles" who are first cousins once-removed with whom she dines regularly and who look after her well-being.
I realize that there's also a stifling element to the Egyptian family, many more expectations, opinions about your choices and behavior being offered, unsolicited, all the time, more obligations, and so on. And I also realize that there's something that seems arbitrary about being loyal to people just because of blood ties. I value the diversity of our social spheres in the US and that we rely on friends who like us because of who we are rather than shared genes, but there's some primordial draw to family closeness that I feel. I've always regretted that. Getting into genealogy and seeking family stories from older family members has resulted in closer relationships with many of my great-aunts and -uncles and other relatives. Valuing that and knowing that's not the norm has, in a rare instance, made me jealous of Egyptians.
All that said, those of you that pray, please keep my second cousin and her sisters, mom, aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandma in your prayers.

News & Issues

Egypt
20 members of the Muslim Brotherhood arrested
Supplies for disabled Gazans held up in Port Said
Rising food prices put pressure on Egyptians' ability to afford staples (clip below)

Elswhere in the Middle East
Suicide bombing kills some 30 people in Iran

Migration & Refugees
UNHCR braces for flood of displaced people as Pakistani army launches offensive against Taliban
9 of the 50 Iraqi refugees deported from the UK remain in Iraq voluntary, the balance, mostly Kurds, return to UK

2009-10-17T14:35:00.003+02:00

A short entry is on order, as I don't plan to regale you of the tales of remaining all yesterday in my apartment. Suffice it to say I was very productive. I wrote several more pages of my thesis and caught up on class reading. Today will be more of the same, but I've resolved to leave. Mostly because a bag of muesli I purchased from the Alfa Market in Doqqi is crawling with tiny creatures that are begging to be returned. More shocking than that is the fact that I, with a bowlful on my lap, first ate the frozen yogurt I'd dumped on top while staring, nonplussed, at the occasional elongated beetle-like thing that struggled to escape the weight of a raisin or a dried banana chip before voiding the contents of the bowl into the garbage. This has not been a good food week. After botching an order of sushi, Bob Sushi sent us a replacement order in which, as we prepared to consume, we discovered a worm. My reaction was mild and we simply shut the lid on maki roll menagerie and called the restaurant. They refused to accept responsibility or do anything about it and in so doing lost our future business.
Food fiascoes and a new crop of exceptionally speedy mosquitoes (one of which feasted on my carotid last night) have alleviated some of my ambivalence about departing Egypt for good in a couple of months. Some, but not all. Egypt and its bugs have become a part of me.

News & Issues

Egypt
Interior minister predicts Islamic election success won't be repeated
City Cab drivers frustrated with pay delays want "efforts to be rewarded"

Elsewhere in the Middle East
PM Netanyahu vows to fight the Goldstone report. The report, endorsed by the UN, calls on Hamas and Israel to investigate alleged war crimes during the recent conflict in Gaza.

Migration & Refugees
Sri Lankan refugees end hunger strike
Iraqi officials refuse entry to refugees deported from the UK

2009-10-16T13:58:00.003+02:00

At some point while I was gone, the rooster that lived in the trash heap behind our building disappeared. I'd like to think his was a slow and painful end in retribution for all the nights he kept me up or woke me early, but I'm sure whatever fate befell him was swift and routine. I was acquainted with him for a year. He was frequently a topic of conversation, an icebreaker in conversations with other downtowners who had their own poultry problems, and even provided recreation (Ross's bottle throwing, murderous plans to find a BB gun at the nearest sporting goods store, photography, etc.) I'm not so sentimental that I miss the noisy feathered monstrosity, but in some strange way, reflecting on the life and times of the trash heap rooster puts in perspective how long I've lived here and how things have evolved. Ross, with whom I switched from one rooster-terrorized apartment to the other, is now back in Texas and Phil and Cynthia have been living here for months. When I was first kept awake by cockcrows and car horns, I didn't eat street food, scampered through traffic like a frightened rabbit, and stressed over cab rides and landlord visits. I don't suppose getting over these issues implies any sort of grand personal transformation, but in so many ways, I really have grown from this experience. Lest I wax sappy, I won't share paragraphs of verbose self-analysis. I will say that, as a I grow preemptively nostalgic (I can't convince myself that having two months left with my friends and routines and favorite haunts isn't the same as leaving tomorrow), I am increasingly aware of how meaningful living in Egypt has become to me. My tumultuous feelings and ambivalence about returning have relented and I am, more often than not, convinced of the rightness of choosing to come here. Realizing that it's all coming to an end soon has me wondering what I'll miss and what's to come.

News & Issues

Egypt
Nour el-Sherif's libel case against Al-Balagh Al-Gedid has been adjourned until 26 October, meanwhile he's appearing at the inauguration of AUC's Theater Club on the new campus.

LGBT Rights
Rights groups outraged by proposed Ugandan anti-gay legislation mandating life sentences and the death penalty

Migration & Refugees
UN says Congo group massacred refugees
Sri Lankan refugees aboard ship bound for Australia go on hunger strike as they're held in limbo

2009-10-15T22:34:00.005+02:00

I'm still exhausted from the disruption in my sleeping schedule that attempting to get to New Campus at 10 AM brings. As a result, I beg your forgiveness for any orthographical or grammatical missteps or outlandish statements.
Today was a marvelous Egypt day, fueled by my having gotten ethics board approval for my thesis, helpful comments from my thesis advisor, lunch with a friend at the French cultural center, and having enjoyed a really excellent double class (which, I can say in all honesty, I would have liked to have run even longer). I had dinner with a fun bunch (that sounds like the way someone's grandmother would describe a group of people, wow) at Om al-Dahab downtown. I hadn't been to the baladi mom and daughter establishment since last year, but I realized I was missing out. The molokheya and bamiya were pretty tasty.
In the interest of capitalizing on the time I have available to rest, I'm going to cut to the good stuff:

New & Issues

Egyptian opposition leader Nour launches "anti-succession campaign"
EU-funded research symposium in Cairo focuses on Migration
Private school closes due to H1N1 flu
"That Cairo is a polluted city" is "based on rumors" says Egyptian Environmental Affairs Agency official. See the clip below for information on just how dismal the air pollution problem is here.

2009-10-14T12:47:00.004+02:00

I'm sure it's in terrible form, but I'm writing this from the Writing Center. The mind boggles at my having been so ambitious as to ask to be scheduled from 10 AM until 3 in the afternoon. 10 AM is an hour of the day I am otherwise generally unacquainted with and today it occurred to me that my practice of catching the 9:25 bus which has arrived later and later (once it was 10:10) is not practical. This means I am now, barring the discovery of a magical shuttle service on the half-hour, going to have to rise at 7:30 AM to get ready and get to the 8:25 bus, arrive at 9:15-20ish, and wait forty minutes for the Writing Center to open. Yes, I realize there are children starving and wars waging. I don't feel particularly sorry for myself, but I do pity both the those that come in for tutoring when my brain is still not functioning and for my flatmates who have to put up with me when I take sleeping pills that make me loopier than a bucket of eels on a Farris wheel. Why it is that AUC planned the bus to arrive ten minutes after the hour, I'll never know. I presume it's the same logic that leads the buses to depart concurrently with the end of my Tuesday night class rather than after it.
In any event, I enjoyed my bumpy ride to the new campus this morning. After giving up trying to sleep, I paid more attention than usual to my surroundings. I even snapped some photos of the Christian and Muslim cemeteries we pass that have always fascinated me. The mausolea of the city's cemeteries make them look like small towns (and in many cases, they actually are). Past them are awful monstrosities of new construction, cheap glass and metal affairs pretending to look futuristic but succeeding only in looking prefab. AUC, incongruous with its environs for a lack of garishness, is an oasis (literally, really).
Last night's bus ride was less pleasant: I found myself relegated to a fold-down aisle seat that would be illegal in the States, no doubt. However, I eavesdropped on an interesting conversation between a French student and an Egyptian student. They talked about Islam and, while agreeing with her religion's restrictions on marrying non-Muslims, the Egyptian student expressed skepticism at the fact that in Islam men can marry non-Muslims, but women cannot. They talked about antiquities and the situation with the Louvre, and the Egyptian student spoke about her visit to the British museum where she took in the Egyptian exhibits. She concluded that the artifacts were better off there because of the ability of the British Museum to preserve and maintain them. I'm sure Zahi Hawass would be chagrined to know the feeling existed in one of his countrymen.

News & Issues

Fatah agrees Egypt's Palestinian unity deal
AUC awards 57 scholarships to students from across Egypt
NPR: "Artifical Virginity Device Sparks Backlash" (listen to the story here)
Government-sponsored poll reveals Egyptians think corruption problem is going from bad to worst

2009-10-13T20:37:00.003+02:00

Apparently even the quietest, darkest conditions, a half a sleeping pill, and concentrating on my breathing just aren't sufficient to allow me to pass out for the night. Since I've been going to bed later and later, trying to go to bed before midnight last night was, in retrospect, a doomed endeavor to begin with. I lay awake for over three hours before finally drifting off. And then, at 8:33, I was up and off. I made the proper bus to New Campus and everything.
I could swear that something in the air out there makes me just a little more positive. With the help of the head of the writing center, I printed out my application for graduation and transliterated my name into Arabic (I decided on مايكل كارل بود). I then took that and my passport to the administration building. By the time I left, I was 622 LE poorer, registered to graduate in February, had handed my passport into to have my student visa processed, and checked on my stipend. I probably visited five or six different offices. But because the new campus air is chock full of positivity, I barely noticed the effort and, in fact, decided that dealing with bureaucracy makes you feel productive. Ahem. I also ran into the IRB chair and Ray, my advisor. I had brief, welcome chats with both. I'm feeling pretty good about my thesis and getting it done before February.
Recently, I've been reading this downright goofy refugee case and the associated transcripts from the High Court of Australia review of its findings.
Well, the prospect of food and sleep are compelling me to leave today's blurb brief.

News & Issues

Hamas spokesman's brother alleged to have died after being tortured in an Egyptian prison
Despite being removed from the UN Security Council's terrorist list, Nada not able to return to Egypt
Egyptian, Libyan arrested in connection to Italy bomb attack
Egypt not the only Arab country abuzz with questions over succession
Women protest niqab ban My favorite quote from the article: "The niqab should be worn under two circumstances," a cleaning lady who works at Al-Azhar, told CNN recently. "A very beautiful woman should wear it to prevent men from fighting over her, and an ugly woman should wear it to hide her face."

2009-10-12T13:45:00.003+02:00

After encountering the frustrating email on graduation procedures and fees, I emailed a couple of AUC administrators. I have to say, I am impressed with their professionalism and competence. I received a response right away and follow-up emails today. I only wish that this level of responsiveness and efficiency existed throughout AUC's bureaucracy. Maybe one day.
The mysterious graduation fees were explained to me:

Graduation fees: cover to defray the cost of processing candidates for graduation, printing and conducting the commencement ceremonies. It also covers the cost of the diploma and its cover.

Participation in the commencement Ceremony is optional, but students must pay the graduation fee regardless of their attendance or absence.
The Alumni fees: covers services by Alumni such as the directory, career exploration and job posting information. It Also covers Alumni Communication via magazines and other printouts.

So, just as I'd feared, they're charging students for the commencement ceremony regardless of whether they show up. Ridiculous.

Other than this observation, I don't have much to share. I went to Marise's with Phil so we could all hang out and work on our theses. Otherwise, I've been rather pensive about the future as this chapter of my life is drawing to a close. I won't burden the reader with my existential musings, but I will say I'm a little surprised that I realize I'm going to miss Egypt more than I would've thought a couple of scant months ago.

News & Issues:

2009-10-11T18:47:00.003+02:00

I woke up to an email from the CMRS senior secretary informing those of us that intend to graduate in February must perform a number of tasks involving AUC's Kafkaesque bureaucracy (ok, so perhaps it's not has bad as the Egyptian government, but efficiency and logic are often jettisoned). Furthermore, we have to do this by Thursday or risk having our "names deleted from the Fall 2009 Graduation List." They really have a way with words. So, being notified a week before the deadline on our AUC mail accounts (which few of us use) and four days before the deadline through our department, we're expected to cough up 560 LE to be able to graduate, zip to the new campus and visit at least three different offices between the hours of 10 AM and 2 PM pronto or risk being unable to graduate on time. This fee is not for a cap and gown mind you, but what it actually covers, God only knows. 75 LE of it is for mandatory "Alumni subscription dues". This cost is listed nowhere on the Tuition and Fees webpage, though the remaining 485 LE is if you look hard enough. For graduate students, God knows where the 75 LE is going because you don't even have the option of filling out a graduate student form (despite being asked to in the instructions). You are instead linked to the graduating seniors page where you're asked what kind of bachelor's degree you'll be receiving from AUC. Great. Thanks, AUC! When I'm not attending my swine flu cancellation make-up classes, working, or commuting, I'll be sure to make your four hour window by this Thursday even though you only notified of the elaborate process a few days ago. Don't bother explaining what my 485 LE for "graduation fees" covers or why you think it is you can come up with mandatory alumni subscription fees without announcing them beforehand. Nah. That would be honest and responsible.
An excerpt from another interesting email I was sent this morning reads as follows:

AUC has been notified that a student in the university's continuing education program has tested positive for the H1N1 flu. The student attends an English language class in Heliopolis and is being treated at Abbaysia Hospital. AUC's medical clinic director, Dr. Mohamed Amin, has been in contact with the student and the student is responding well to treatment.

In this case, I actually think the university is being quite responsible and neither overreacting nor unnecessarily placing students at risk. Bravo, AUC.

News & Issues:

Carnivore and Caterpillar

2009-10-10T14:44:00.007+02:00

I had the pleasure last night of visiting "Africa's greatest dining experience"...on a riverboat in Giza. Carnivore is a theme restaurant whose theme, as you might imagine, is meat. The interior of the restaurant is meant to recall the original location in Nairobi, Kenya. Though Egypt's English-language restaurant review site, Yallabina, assures you that you can ingest "every type of meat imaginable", pork products are glaringly absent. Furthermore, you can't get zebra or crocodile like you can in Nairobi; about the only thing beyond the usual lamb and beef that you'll find is ostrich. But why am I complaining? I am a vegetarian (or rather a pescetarian who eats the occasional entrecôte or steak tartare when my convictions about the social and environmental impacts of meat fail me once every year or two). On that level, I wasn't bothered by the "Masai swords" and skewers full of animal flesh in various forms, it was rather the bizarre spectacle of pseudo-African culture that didn't sit well with me. Living in this land of re-created "Pharaonic" villages and ancient Egypt-inspired kitsch, I understand the idea of trying to get the bang for one's buck by caricaturing one's storied heritage. And yet, I could only cringe watching a bunch of Egyptians sing a song whose most prominent lyrics were "happy bersday" and "hakuna matata" (apparently Carnivore is the birthday destination: they sang to nearly every table in the joint at one point or another). Watching one set of former British colonial subjects dress up as another to perform for upper class Egyptians and Western expats and tourists made me feel like I should've been wearing a pith helmet and a monocle, smoking a pipe, and making derisive observations about "the natives".

In an entirely unrelated vein, I followed a link a CMRS colleague of mine posted to a site purporting to reveal connections that various multinational corporations have to Israel's occupation of Palestine. Remembering that I'd heard Caterpillar had been in the wrong for their dealings in the Middle East, I typed the company's name into the search box and found this. Seeing the name of my hometown on the sidebar of such a webpage was disheartening. Like many Peorians, I have many friends and relatives that work for Cat. As a Bradley alum I realize the direct and positive impact Cat has both on Bradley and the rest of the community and I really want to believe Cat is an upstanding corporate citizen. According to an old Salon.com article, when confronted with the realities of what its earth-moving and demolition equipment was being used for, Caterpillar responded essentially with a "guns don't kill people, people kill people" argument. You can find both sides of the debate over a shareholder proposal in 2005 to reassess Cat's dealings with Israel on their website (pages 28-29). I can understand that policing the sales of equipment can be difficult, but clearly given the effectiveness of divestment campaigns in South Africa it's not impossible. And furthermore, when I read that D-9s and D-10s are "specially modified", I'd like to know by whom. If it's by Caterpillar, then that's active participation in the goals of the Israeli occupation.
With all of the groups calling for a boycott of Cat, it's funny that countries like Lebanon, Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia, to name a few, continue to import and use Caterpillar equipment. According to the Wall Street Journal, even Iran is happy to import Caterpillar equipment via a European subsidiary.
It's a complex situation and I'm conflicted about it, but I think that at the very least, Caterpillar should look more seriously into the matter in a public and transparent way.

News:

BBC News examines Egypt's ongoing niqab row. A veild employee in one of Talat Harb's ubiquitous clothing stores is quoted as saying "The Sheikh won't affect my decision to wear it. I feel more relaxed in this. Men aren't looking at me. I feel closer to God." Many women beg to differ, some even suggesting that veiling has fueled an increase in harassment.
CNN offers the Egyptian response to Obama's Nobel Peace Prize award.
A 23-year-old woman from Giza became the third H1N1 fatality in Egypt this week.
The Louvre has given in to Zahi Hawass's demands that allegedly stolen artifacts be returned to Egypt where, if they're exposed to the kinds of conditions that exist the Egyptian Museum, they'll be degraded worn down by the hands of curious foreign and Egyptian visitors.

2009-10-09T12:50:00.005+02:00

I'm not a big fan of Horaya, I must say. I don't have the qualms more seasoned and culturally-attuned expats have about study-abroaders and tourists invading the old bar-cum-ahwa and diminishing the atmosphere created by the ghosts of subversive political discussions and wizened old men playing chess. Or do they play towla, or is it dominoes? I never see them anymore to notice, always peeking in to see who of my Cairo acquaintances are there. My beef is primarily with the curtain of cigarette smoke that hangs heavy over the place, the terrible Egyptian beer, and handsy Milad, the waiter.
And yet, last night I found myself braving the carcinogens and Milad's ridicule for abstaining from Stella to "bro down" with a new CMRS friend (whom I thank for letting me borrow her "bro" phrase), her flatmate, a journalist friend of theirs, and half of everyone else I know in Egypt who also happened to be there. Because this city of 18+ million people is really quite small, the Egyptian blogger whom my new CMRS friend was meeting turned out to be a friend of my high school friend Sheila's. I met him last year when he, Sheila, and I did dinner. And then, who should come walking in but my Egyptian pal Sayed. I won't bore you with the additional connections and coincidences, but there were plenty. It was a Thursday night of the sort I'd forgotten about since I've been spending days on end in the apartment working on my thesis. It hearkened back to the days when Cairo was new and there were all sorts of people to meet and stories to be amazed by. Perhaps Cairo's still much newer than I give it credit for.
I recently discovered that I am not the first Carl in Cairo.
And yet, nothing's ever new, is it? I recently discovered that another, better-traveled and more adventurous Carl regaled the blogosphere with his tales of life in Egypt from 2007-2008. Before I begin quoting Ecclesiastes, I shall move to the news:

Egypt

Daily News Egypt: An infant died in prison two weeks ago after being denied medical attention. If the allegations are true, this is another violation not only of the rights of refugees (the child and her mother were Ethiopian refugees), but of basic human rights under international law. This with the specter of the murders of East African migrants looming in Egypt.
As tensions mount in Jerusalem, Egyptians are called upon to participated in a "Friday of Anger" today to protest Israeli actions.
Pro-reform activists say US support is waning four months on from Obama's speech in Cairo.
Two cases of swine flu have popped up in high schools, but there's no sign of mass school cancellations yet.
A crime ring operating in the US and Egypt was busted for identity theft.
An Egyptian newspaper was banned after alleging three well-known actors were caught in a gay prostitution sting. One of the actors, Nour el-Sherif commented, "Naming me among [...] homosexuals defamed me and all Egyptian artists. The Journalists' Syndicate has to be firm with anyone trying to insult the dignity of Egyptian artists" Apparently he's fine with the idea of being linked to a prostitution ring, just not a gay one.

2009-10-08T12:08:00.004+02:00

Despite my best efforts yesterday, I was unable to write an entry because the perfect weather and cool breezes at the new campus overcame me. That and the fact that half the wireless access points in my vicinity weren't allowing me onto the internet. It's always a give-and-take with AUC. But really, when said cool breezes are being enjoyed from a desert development rather than blowing bits of rubbish and waves of pollution into your face, you really realize that October in Egypt is sublime. It's more than just clean air though that makes the AUC campus different. Being surrounded by even pavement, skinny jeans, AUC English, and being able to have an arugula and mushroom salad with Roquefort (though I was shocked when my supposed Roquefort was served shredded, alas) make me feel like I should be carrying a passport when I leave downtown for new campus. Meanwhile, back in reality, Egypt has slipped 11 spots in the Human Development Index. The measurement takes into account not only GDP, but factors like life expectancy and education. Find a breakdown of how Egypt measures up here.
I started at the Writing Center yesterday, albeit nearly an hour late as apparently the downtown-to-desert buses come and go as they please. I had to run after the one I did manage to get, or rather speedwalk given that the state of traffic at the time kept the coach stationary for sometime. The atmosphere at the Writing Center is terribly congenial. Katie, an acquaintance from last year, showed me the ropes after Tim, the director, filled me in on the basics. Katie and I are one of a handful of graduate fellows who staff the Center. Professors fill the rest of the time slots. Though I didn't have the chance to meet with any students (half of the few appointments we had were not attended), I sat in on a session Katie did. Because it would be in bad form to speak in any specifics about students who come to the Center, I'll only mentioned that I found it interesting that one of the topics he brought up in his paper was religion and how shocking it was when he first met an atheist. I've heard this more generally in Egypt, that it doesn't occur to people that broads swaths of the world's population may not believe in God. In the end, the student became friends with the atheist and all was well, but I wonder how an Egyptian atheist would fare. Maybe like this.
I look forward to things picking up as the semester goes on and getting to know the other tutors better. I'm sure that sounds schmaltzy, but I mean it. And hopefully in the downtime, I'll be able to continue making progress on my thesis. Though I don't plan on attending graduation in February (presuming I'm allowed to graduate after this semester), I'll have my own celebration in honor of vanquishing this many-pagèd beast. Funnily enough, as I was listening to Katie's simple suggestions and re-reading the manual, I thought to myself "Wow, brainstorming? outlines? thesis statements and topic sentences? How novel! I probably could've planned out my entire thesis before plunging headfirst into the writing process". Ma3lesh. I work better when I write an amorphous nonsensical mass that is later tamed and transformed into something half-way presentable.
Oh, the 6th of October finished up well too. Last semester when walking to Doqqi, I met an Egyptian student who was hellbent on befriending me despite my best attempts at pretending I couldn't hear anything or anyone over my iPod. We ended up talking, he helped me find where I was going. He asked if we could hang out sometime, explaining his love of Americans and the wide variety of nationalities that filled his coterie. Skeptical about joining his menagerie, I feigned ignorance of my own cellphone number and, instead, gave him my full name to allow him to find me on Facebook. He was tenacious and we Gchated occasionally and kept in touch through the summer and the first month of this semester. I finally relented to his indefatigable niceness and we met up for ful and ta3meya sandwiches. I made Marise come along which put the kabosh on Sayed's desire to stroll Qasr al-Nil Bridge. For some reason, he couldn't be convinced of the severity of the harassment young women meet with walking in Cairo, but we managed to convince him to settle for the next bridge up which was emptier and where we could park the car right next to our windy perch overlooking the Nile. We talked about Sayed's dreams to visit America, the French lessons he was taking at the CFCC, about his family, and about Marise's. In passing, the displacement of Marise's paternal family from near the Suez led to an entirely coincidental discussion of the October War with the subsequent realization that we were on the 6th of October Bridge. How perfectly patriotic of us. Or something.
Today, my classes recommence. I have Migration and Refugees in International Relations later this afternoon. Gone are the days of swine-flu vacations and undisturbed days confined to the apartment working on my thesis (and/or Facebook skills).
And now, the news:

Egypt has severed ties with the Louvre, over what Indiana Jones, er, Zahi Hawass, head of the Egyptian Council of Antiquities says are stolen artifacts. (ici en français)
The trial of the alleged murderer of a veiled Egyptian woman is set to begin in Germany this month.
Back in session, Egypt's public universities are coping with flu fears.
A Muslim Brotherhood MP demands the head of Al-Azhar University step down over niqab remarks. See the clip below for more:

2009-10-06T13:15:00.006+02:00

Today is the 6th of October, a date on which Egyptians commemorate the launching of the October War (also called the Yom Kippur War) against Israel. The war ended with an agreement to return control of the Suez Canal to Egypt with the concession that Israeli ships be allowed to use it. Egyptians tend to view it as a marvelous victory over Israel; I'll refrain from sharing my own opinion. 6th of October Bridge and 6th of October City as well as 10th of Ramadan City (the date on the Islamic calendar of beginning of the military operation) all remind Egyptians of the events of 1973, as does the October War Panorama, described here by another blogger.

For me, today hasn't included retaking any canals. I ate some Turkish cereal while watching Al-Jazeera, turned on the bathroom sink only to have it shudder and violently expel a flood of light brown water (at least I think it was water), and killed a mosquito who apparently survived a night of eucalyptus-scented Allethrin-D poison. The ants, not content to be outdone by the mosquitoes were out in force in the bathroom today. A little bit of Kirox crawling insect spray and the garbage can became ant graveyard. I know, you're all jealous of my glamorous lifestyle.

My supply of sun-dried Turkish apricots (that I could swear have chocolatey undertones) is running out and I'd love nothing more to return, enjoy the fresh air, and buy some more. But apparently, leaving Turkey when I did was a wise idea. Opposition to the IMF has filled the streets of Istanbul (including Taksim Square and environs where we were leisurely dinnering last week) with protesters opposition to whom has filled the streets with riot police.

Tomorrow I start at the Writing Center. To that end, I need to read the tutors' manual. But before that, the news:

Egypt

Turkey

Israel/Palestine

Israeli police bring reinforcements to Jerusalem (al-Quds) fearing escalation of protests

2009-10-05T13:18:00.003+02:00

Yesterday, after poring over Australian and Canadian court decisions while being feasted upon by tiny, silent mosquitoes, I decided that escaping to the outside world might be a good idea. The previous day, I hadn't even left the apartment. I did however, have a delightful visit with the very polite man downstairs who's somehow connected to my landlord. Mohamed (my landlord), sent him to check on our toilet whose tank, over time, had decided to stop refilling. Using my lamentably sparse Arabic vocabulary, I was able to prevent our guest using a dinner fork to fix the problem and to kindly ask another man brought in later to quit smoking in our hallway. At the end of that day, we had a fixed toilet, muddy floors, and the lingering smell of cheap tobacco to give our humble abode that homey touch.
Anyway, my flatmate Phil and I went on a field trip to escape our theses and the confines of the apartment. We strolled effortlessly through traffic and over uneven pavement around piles of trash, old hats at Egyptian Frogger, ultimately arriving at the unadvisably-pink Bostan mall. Here all sorts of electronics both licit and illicit (a classmate's stolen laptop resurfaced here last semester) are sold. But that's not all, you can even find the grandiosely-named "Café de Paris" and a couple of clothing and shoe stores thrown in for good measure. From every direction, music blares, each habibi-filled ballad competing with the others while the omnipresent fluorescent light transforms night into a desert summer day. We were there to pick Phil up an external hard drive and to find a power strip for the kitchen as the previous one had given up the ghost. As Phil inquired about the specifics of the hard drive, I idly observed the comings and goings of a storefront that had been covered over with crazily studded sheets of multi-colored metal. Another layer beyond the narrow opening prevented you seeing into the mysterious establishment. Is the Bostan mall cool enough to have a club? Before I was able to get the courage up to find out, we were off to the pastry shop near the apartment where Phil indulged his love of baqlawa. As the man who usually tends the store wasn't there, we made a new friend who asked the usual question of where we were from. "Amreeka," I answered. He told me my cheeks were too rosy for an American and that that, combined with my mechanical way of walking which he took delight in imitating betrayed to him that I am undoubtedly either a Russian or a Czech.
That was the extent of our fun for the day. We returned with the electronics and pastries to our mosquito-breeding ground (which some ants have recently provided with a bit of diversity). We ordered food from a Turkish restaurant, wistfully recalling the old days in Turkey. Before long, I smelt something burning. Since I often smell peculiar scents wafting in from outdoors, I didn't bother to check but we later found out that our new power strip had fried. Streaks of black and melted plastic had deformed the white cord. I supposed we should've realized that plugging two major appliances into a power cord rated only up to 250V wasn't the wisest choice. Ma3lesh. Another day on Tahrir Street.
After working on my thesis today, I'm meeting a new friend, Tsega (yet another Coloradan) for Yemeni food. With Phil, Marise, and Erin, over Lebanese the other night, we had discussions about cultural differences among the US, the Arab world, and East Africa, including how sharing is viewed and what constitutes politeness were really a lot of fun. We debated how many times if at all you should politely decline something offered to you that you really want and other such questions. An Ethiopian-American, Tsega, grew up negotiating two cultures, as Marise did.
Alright, I'm back to nursing my mosquito bites and reading refugee cases. I leave you with the news:

2009-10-04T11:51:00.009+02:00

At this stage in the game, needing more of my words-per-minute to line the many still-blank pages of my thesis, I'll be spending fewer minutes blogging. So, without further ado, straight to the news and issues:

Strange bedfellows, the US and Egypt, have gotten a resolution on free speech passed at the UN Human Rights Council. Egyptian ambassador Hisham Badr made clear what Egypt's aims were: "“the joint US-Egypt resolution is key to achieving balance on the issue of incitement that erupted in the world after September 11." To me it seems like free speech advocates are trying to use an anti-incitement, anti-defamation resolution to further free speech in the Muslim world while others hope to use a free speech resolution to restrict free speech when they find it offensive to their religious sensibilities. Free expression group Article 19 is nervous that the resolution seems to defend religions rather than believers.

Protesters at Al-Azhar demonstrate in solidarity with Palestinian protesters barred from entering Islamic holy sites in Jerusalem (Al-Quds) following a riot last week.

The Muslim Brotherhood is finding itself pulled in several directions ideologically even as the Egyptian government cracks down and the press lashes out. Friday morning, 15 members of the MB were arrested.

Mubarak urges Israel to rethink its Middle East strategy.

Trash heaps crowd out fears of swine flu in working class Cairo neighborhoods.

Human rights group pressure Egyptian government to intervene on behalf of its citizens in Saudi Arabia.

Factions in Egypt's Christian community trade barbs. The Coptic Orthodox Church apparently fears Evangelical missionary efforts, while Evangelicals are saying members are leaving Orthodox churches because of stagnancy and unresponsiveness to changing times.

2009-10-03T14:14:00.007+02:00

Seldom do I have the chance to incorporate the goings-on of my hometown into my blog, but a couple of things struck me yesterday that have led me to want to write about Peoria, or more particularly, the views of Peorians on the Middle East.
First, I received a forward from my mom that she in turn received from her cousin. From the trail of addresses, I can see that it's made the rounds in my extended family. Initially, it seems to be a celebration of the life of Irena Sendler, a Polish Catholic woman who saved thousands of Jewish infants and children during World War II, but then it includes an image of a Holocaust survivor's tattooed arm with that of a child clasped atop an Israeli flag. A cartoon about a Holocaust survivor reminding a young child of the dangers of political extremism follows, and then this paragraph:

It is now more than 60 years after the Second World War in Europe ended This e-mail is being sent as a memorial chain, in memory of the six million Jews, 20 million Russians, 10 million Christians and 1,900 Catholic priests who were murdered, massacred, raped, burned, starved and humiliated with the German and Russian Peoples looking the other way!

Now, more than ever, with Iraq , Iran , and others, claiming the Holocaust to be 'a myth,' it's imperative to make sure the world never forgets, because there are others who would like to do it again.

Beyond the fuzzy statistics (apart from the 6 million Jews), the glaring absence of any mention of the political dissidents, Jehovah's Witness, Roma, gay men, and mentally and physically disabled people who lost their lives in concentration camps and rotted in prisons and beyond the absurdity of the suggestion that the current government of Iraq has denied the Holocaust, the most glaring problem is the use of a story of heroism and the suffering of Jews during WWII to drum up support among Americans for the current objectives and aims of the State of Israel.

There are a great deal of these sorts of forwards floating around encouraging unthinking support of one cause or another, but it was the second thing I saw yesterday that compounded my frustration. While reading the Peoria Pundit, I came across a link to Representative Aaron Schock's special order speech on his recent trip with a congressional delegation to Israel. For your convenience, I have included it here:

I found a number of things problematic with Schock's speech that betrayed an utterly unbalanced and overly simplistic understanding of the painfully complex Israeli-Palestinian conflict. When he equated doing "all that we can to support our ally, the State of Israel" with doing all that we can to support "peace in that region" he overlooked the destabilizing actions taken by the Israeli government and the quasi-independent institutions that preceded it. I believe that Schock should support doing all we can to support peace here in the Middle East, period. This means engaging with both sides and a good faith attempt to find solutions that mitigate the suffering and fears of all people involved. Schock, during his visit, found that the Israeli citizens want peace. This is a sweeping statement and such statements can rarely be entirely correct or entirely false, but there are definitely Israelis who want and actively work for peace. B'Tselem is but one fantastic example. On the other hand, there a great many in Israel who don't want the kind of peace that affords a solution at all favorable to the Palestinian people. Like most free (or relatively free) societies, the Israeli populace expresses a diversity of opinions and drives. Let's be careful neither to paint them as a nation of just doves or just hawks. We must avoid the same dangers when characterizing Palestinians.
It's great that Schock was able to pray together with Israelis for peace, but Jewish Israelis aren't the only ones who pray. Are the prayers of Muslim and Christian Palestinians not as sacred?
And then there's the theme of unambiguous borders Schock returns to again and again. In my opinion, the construction of security barriers and the occupation of territory do not eliminate ambiguity. The occupation of Palestinian and Syrian land is not "fiction" and neither are the illegal settlements in the West Bank.
Suggesting that Obama implied that the State of Israel exists only because of Holocaust guilt is not particularly responsible. While the events of World War II had a massive impact on the formation of the Israeli State (and on the international system and just about everything else, for that matter), the progress toward a Jewish state in the Middle East had begun long before. If Schock thinks that the Holocaust represents a tragedy that happened because the Jewish people didn't have a homeland, what about the tragedy that's happening because the Palestinians have no homeland?
One of the most persistent problem's in Schock's narrative about how the modern state of Israel came to be is that he portrays a stable and continuous presence in the territory Israel now occupies. Waves of invasions, population fluxes, and migration changed the demographic character of the area as it passed under the control of various empires and colonial powers. Schock's "stability of Abraham" is hard to find in the annals of history.
And then, there is the question of the settlements. Schock explains them as if they're the most inoffensive phenomenon in the world, but it's more than a question of adding an extra stall to your garage or having a family member move onto the vacant lot next door because the vacant lot next door, like the lot where the already-constructed home stands, do not belong to the State of Israel and are not legally available to it to construct on. It is Palestinian territory, plain and simple. It's not ok for settlements simply to "fill in" when they should never have been there in the first place.
As for Schock's admonishing Obama for lecturing Israel, I should think that with the amount of money the US contributes, we're not remiss in wanting to have a say. And isn't Schock simply lecturing another set of people? He lumps together Muslims in a single category, failing to recognized that there are "leaders in the Muslim community" that have rejected extremism. This is not about religion itself, it is about the use of religion and particularly as a means to motivate and control. There is a world of difference. Whatever Schock thinks motivates Iran, Palestinians are not fighting Israel for the sake of Islam or even because they're Muslim. A fifth of Palestinians are not even Muslim. Of course Islamic organizations like Hamas have committed atrocities and I'm not about to defend them. An atrocity for an atrocity is never an acceptable way to move forward.
Finally, Schock's comment that Israel is "the lone beachhead of democracy in the Middle East" is insulting, not because the Middle East is filled with well-run, developed democracies, but because a beachhead is an area where external control gets a foothold and whence it launches an invasion. This recalls the imposition of democracy that has failed in Iraq. Democracy is not a foreign panacea that we are spreading to the Middle East via Israel. The potential for democracy exists organically in this region.
Schock says that the impressive heat he felt getting off the bus in Israel challenged his preconceived notions about the place. That my congressman didn't know the Middle East was hot does not make me optimistic that he knows much else about it either. At least he did not utter the following phrase that his fellow congressman (who represents my uncle in State College, Pennsylvania) decided to share: "Israel gave up what i thought looked like a pretty good piece of real estate that set [sic] along the Mediterranean sea and that was the Gaza Strip".

In any event, I am not trying to argue that Palestinians are saints or that the Holocaust didn't happen or any such nonsense. What I want to convey to my fellow Central Illinoisans is that, over here, the protracted conflict between Israelis and Palestinians and the effects it has on the other countries in the region require us as voting Americans to be aware and informed. Please don't rely on hearsay or infotainment or even your local congressman for the full story. It makes all the difference.

2009-10-02T13:02:00.005+02:00

After my previous, dreadfully dull attempt at a soul-baring entry, I will spare you from somnolence by returning to the business of linking you to relevant news and issues from my corner of the world and related to my studies.

In the course of my thesis interview in Istanbul, it was recommended I watch Gender Against Men, a documentary about gender-based violence in the Great Lakes region of Africa. It explores how men are often left out of the equation or seen only as part of the problem in a gender-based violence paradigm that focuses nearly exclusively on women as victims. It takes up the issues of sexual violence perpetrated against men themselves and against their wives as a means of emasculating them, of the effects of shifting gender roles in refugee communities, and of the treatment of gay men in Uganda. It's 44 minutes long and watchable here in several different formats.

Politicians and intellectuals are boycotting a Sunday meeting with the US ambassador upon learning that Al-Ahram's Hala Mustafa was invited. Mustafa has been heavily criticized for a Ramadan meeting with the Israeli ambassador to Egypt.

Muslim Brotherhood leader removed from UN Security Council terrorist list

Heavy security presence thwarts Bedouin protests in North Sinai

Swedish journalist Per Björklund deported this morning following detention

2009-10-01T13:17:00.003+02:00

A number of things occurred to me as I took the cleaner of the two metro lines from Mohamed Naguib station to Doqqi for dinner and on the way back (I returned on foot): one, I haven't written a particularly personal entry related to my experiences here lately; two, a lot of the way I see Egypt has been colored by my struggles with anxiety rather than Egypt itself; and three, Yemeni food is delicious.
Though during my scholarship period I attempted to keep my entries upbeat and look for the silver lining, I'm sure there were more than a few that revealed some, shall we say, acerbic sentiments about my host country and its people. It reached the point where I could see nothing but chaos and filth, dishonesty and decay, corruption and inefficiency. I saw my return home and to Europe for the summer as something of a prison break and harbored a deep resentment of Egypt that fed an utter dread of returning.
When I did return, I sought refuge in my air-conditioned room, seldom went out and blocked out Cairo with my iPod and a determination to be bothered by no one. I tried to live in Egypt without actually living here (which is essentially what Egypt's upper class does by retreating to desert compounds and gated communities). There's something to be said for preserving one's sanity, but what I was doing wasn't healthy either. I carried this feeling to Turkey, constantly pointing out Egypt's shortcomings in comparison (i.e. my last entry).
Last night though, something shifted. Walking down Tahrir in the direction of Abdin Palace, I forced myself to ask the question, "Is Egypt really how I think it is?" I wiped the standard dour, standoffish expression of my face and descended into the metro station. On the train, I didn't recoil dramatically or sigh loudly with exaggerated exasperation every time I got jostled. One man turned to talk to me and I tensed up. I didn't understand his Arabic and another passenger translated "Are you getting off at the next stop?" I replied in broken Arabic that I wasn't and realized that they were making sure I was close enough to the door to be able to maneuver through my fellow sardines. The rest of the evening was filled with equally mundane little attempts to recognize and respond positively to the good things I'd convinced myself didn't exist here: instead of scowling at a little kid who yelled "hello," I turned and smiled, etc. etc. Perhaps the most significant indicator happened this morning, however. My landlord, he who inspired near panic-attacks and sleepless nights before, came to collect rent. Already calm from the evening, I went to bed without worrying about what the morning would bring too much, but when the doorbell rang sometime before 11, I felt my stomach lurch and my stress level rise. I was ready to fight over anything. Restraining the force within that almost caused Mohamed not to renew our contract, I allowed for the possibility that maybe he wasn't the evil, weasely man I'd always assumed (by association with his brother, mostly). Lo and behold, our brief meeting was more than pleasant. He apologized that the rubbish collector had been harassing Cynthia and told us he would take care of it and that, instead of us paying the man directly, Mohamed's relative upstairs would take care of it for us.
I realize this is all very minor-sounding, but being able to take into account that the lens through which I view my surroundings makes all the difference is priceless. Demonizing or idealizing serves no one's interests, I don't think. So, dear Egypt, sorry for the bad rap I've given you in some circles. Here's to hoping the Cairene chapter of my life story will end happily.

News & Issues

Egyptian armed forces to construct factory that will produce H1N1 vaccine
Security beefed up in North Sinai in anticipation of Bedouin protests
The Giza Zoo, everyone's favorite place to bribe a guard and hold an animal, was overwhelmed with visitors during the 'Eid with children shooting animals with pellet guns and trying to force their way into cages.
A Shorouk (in Arabic) poll of online readers finds that some 77% would refuse to conduct business with Israelis.
Cairo's metro to increase fines (article in Arabic): 15 EGP for not having a ticket and 100 EGP for street vendors and beggars. Really? You're going to fine a beggar 100 EGP? I'll bet the one-eyed woman who sells packets of Kleenexes is just flush with cash. Thankfully, to fight congestion, the trains are meant to begin running more frequently as well. And, for your added convenience, swine flu announcements over the loudspeakers.

2009-09-30T16:17:00.007+02:00

I'm back with my nose to the thesis grindstone after a splendid impromptu jaunt to Turkey. While my trip was mostly for pleasure, I also managed to meet with Rachel Levitan of the Helsinki Citizens' Assembly - Turkey for a thesis interview. Ms Levitan with two others recently published an article called "Unsafe Haven: Security Challenges Facing LGBT Asylum Seekers and Refugees in Turkey" in PRAXIS: The Fletcher Journal of Human Security. The report that led to the article can be found here.
Istanbul reminded me more of Seattle than of anything in the Middle East. The clean air, the calm, the uncongested streets, and the courtesy of vendors, restaurateurs, hostel proprietors and the general public were a welcome departure from the noise, chaos, and stress of Cairo. (Just as I typed this, the lovely trash collector who rang our bell yesterday over forty times while my flatmate Cynthia was sick in bed returned. He's been ripping Cynthia off all summer. When he returned today to ask for the money, I told him in my awful pidgin Arabic that I'd already paid him for the month (and then some) last time he came and that I wouldn't pay him again now. He seems to have relented, thankfully.)
Anyway, classes are supposed to resume soon across Egypt, but I've heard rumblings of further delays and class suspensions, so we'll see. I don't have any great plans for the rest of my time off beyond buckling down and working on the ol' thesis.

News & Issues

Swedish journalist, blogger set to be deported: Per Bjorklund's blog frequently covered labor issues which may've made him a target for deportation, but he also participated in the To Gaza March that led to the February detention of Philip Rizk and the recent deportation of Travis Randall. Per's friend and fellow blogger writes about it here.
Farouk Hosni fails in bid to become UNESCO president: While many in the Arab world (and Hosni himself) allege a Jewish conspiracy, Egyptian daily Al-Masry al-Youm attempts to sort through the claims more evenhandedly.
Equal access for women to divorce increasingly a possibility; also, Egyptian divorcées have recently an online radio station to support each other
Slate.com explores the effects of Egypt's pig slaughter
AUC's move to the desert a blow to downtown economy; Greek Campus sale expected to be final within a month

Swine and Turkey

2009-09-20T14:48:00.005+02:00

I neglected to blog yesterday because I was busy scraping together plans for an impromptu trip to Turkey. Most of us in the CMRS program have decided to make the best of this swine flu class-cancellation debacle by traveling. I'm not sure I have the money for the trip but, then again, when I do have the money I probably won't be conveniently located in Egypt. So why not, right? I'm bringing along materials to be able to continue to work on my thesis everyday. I shall, insha'Allah, find the discipline to do so somewhere deep within.
In other news, today is the first day of 'Eid. So 'Eid mubarak to all of my Muslim friends! Obama wishes you the same.
Because I have rooms to book and more plans to make, I'll move onto the news.

News & Issues

And, recalling gender-based violence during 'Eids past, here's a clip how Egyptian women are fighting back against sexual harassment:

2009-09-18T15:00:00.005+02:00

Last evening, after an unspectacular meal at Zamalek's La Bodega (with which I had previously been quite impressed), I went with Phil, Marise, and Michelle to El-Sawy Culturewheel to see Wust el-Balad in concert. The venue is right along side the Nile and is small enough to be cozy but large enough to allow the acts to turn a profit. Now, I must preface my description by saying that I am one of those unfortunate souls who is generally unable to enjoy live music. I know my preference for polished, iPod-ready tunes makes me boorish and unsophisticated, alas. Anyway, the performance started out in true Egyptian fashion, that is to say, over an hour late. The people-watching and the company of my friends were enough to keep me occupied in the mean time. The crowd was mostly Egyptian, the young among them came primarily from that segment of society that loves knock-off Abercrombie and tees splattered with nonsensical English. Hijab-wearing girls sat next to unveiled friends sporting SpongeBob SquarePants paraphernalia. Wholesome-looking families were there too with plump children who enjoyed the music with greater vigor than most.
Before the band played, they were introduced by a man who, Marise tells me, suggested that the upcoming 'Eid holiday is not a time for air horns and firecrackers but for the appreciation of music. Parents were told that the idea of delighting in scaring adults with loud noises instilled in children a terrorist mentality. While I don't think firecrackers are at the root of terrorism, I do think the man should go on a lecture circuit touting the benefits of peace and quiet or at least of nicer noises than car horns and screaming.
Nicer noises like the (Middle) East-meets-West stylings of Wust el-Balad. To my untrained ears, about half the songs sounded like "Hotel California" as they started out except when they sounded vaguely Caribbean. The crowd favorite was "Antika", a song about how after a woman captures a man's heart, she keeps it on her shelf like a knick-knack or an antique leaving him beholden to her forever...or something like that. You'll have to find your own translator if want to truly sympathize with the lyrics of love and heartbreak. My personal translations were drowned out by off-tempo clapping and general enthusiasm together with the crackling of the sound system and the admittedly mellifluous voices of the band. Click below to hear "Antika".

All in all, the Nileside concert was a fun cultural experience. I hope to get back to Culturewheel again if my thesis-angst and swine flu don't do me in.

News & Issues
—Egypt

—Islam

More and more Americans know their Muslims neighbors and more about Islam

2009-09-17T13:55:00.007+02:00

Clearly, living along a river that snakes its way through a vast desert, Egyptians have a certain appreciation for water. Ancient Egyptian culture was deeply informed by a dependence on the River Nile. This is something I'd learned in history class long ago. In college, however, the research one of my professors conducted in water policy led me to understand what a vital role water plays today in international relations and conflict. It was therefore with great interest that I read about Israeli FM Lieberman's visits to Ethiopia, Kenya, and Uganda, home to the two most important sources of the Nile. This while Egypt and the other Nile Basin states are attempting to resolve their differences over water use issues. Though I'll refrain from Biblical allusions, it looks very much like Israel is trying to use water as a means of leverage over the Egyptians.
What made me think so much about water today wasn't anything on quite so grand a scale: My flatmate Phil purchased a couple of bottles of Hayat brand water for me before my return to Egypt. He prefers it, apparently, for its taste. I am a Nestlé Pure Life man myself it having been recommended as a reliable clean and neutral-tasting choice. I'd always been a little leary of Hayat. Phil and I debated the finer points of the Egyptian bottled water industry (while we weren't in our rooms, noses to the grindstone, working on our theses) agreeing that Baraka tastes the least pleasant of the major brands. With all of the discussion and my admittedly unsupported claims that my brand was healthier than his, I decided to check into the matter further. Such a riveting topic apparently hasn't warranted much journalist attention or blogging lately, at least not in English, but I found an article from early last year referring to Ministry of Trade and Industry tests. The results (probably interesting only to potential consumers of bottled water in Egypt) were that only seven brands were both fit for consumption and accurately labeled for mineral content, etc.: Aqua, Aqua Siwa, Aquafina, Dasani, Mineral, Nestlé, and Siwa. Schweppes, notably, was considered unsafe. Unsafer still are other sources of water in Egypt. Some 40% of Egyptians drink contaminated water that leads to typhoid outbreaks, kidney failure, and thousands of deaths a year. Recent water shortages across the river in Giza have forced local residents to pump their own water only to discover that it is contaminated with sewage. If anyone finds more recent material on bottled water in Egypt, do let me know.

News & Issues

–Egypt

The South Cairo Criminal Court has sentenced two US couples to jail in a high-profile illegal adoption case and is expected to hand down a ruling in another major case centered on defective blood products.
AFP reports on the closure of AUC and other foreign universities and schools suggesting that the measures being taken by the Egyptian government may be in line with WHO recommendations.
The government has taken an important step in tackling the un-Islamic practice of female genital mutilation (FGM). Authorities arrested a 69-year-old man after his circumcision of an 11-year-old girl left her hospitalized.
A US NGO, Freedom House, is accusing Egypt and others of using their positions in the UN's Human Rights Council to limit the protection of human rights. Find Freedom House's "The UN Human Rights Council Report Card: 2007-2009" here in .pdf format.
Resurgent 80s fashion trends apparently don't jive with Grand Mufti Gomaa's sensibilities; stretch pants are a no-no, but loose-fitting trousers have been deemed ok in a recent statement following the controversy over trouser-wearing Sudanese women.

–Islam

Will the real Islam please stand up? Daily News Egypt reprints an article that first appeared in Arab News tracking the multiple forms that Islam has taken in practice in the past century and its possible trajectories.
Sana from KABOBfest also recently examined the complex relationship between Islam and modernity in her blog noting that the two are far from antithetical.

( Fear of ) Swine Flu Strikes Again

2009-09-16T12:33:00.005+02:00

This morning, I received the following email from AUC's VP of Planning and Administration:

AUC will be suspending classes beginning Thursday, September 17 until Saturday, October 3. The decision follows a request by the Egyptian government that the university suspend its classes in line with government universities, which have suspended classes due to concerns relating to the H1N1 flu.

There have been no positive cases of the flu reported on the AUC campuses or by any member of the AUC community.

The university’s administrative offices, the library, sports complex and food outlets will be fully operational during the suspension; however, the day care center will be closed. Staff who rely on the day care center will be provided leave during the suspension, if necessary.

Faculty and students are encouraged to utilize all available electronic resources to continue classroom activity. The Office of the Provost will provide guidance and direction on a revised class schedule to ensure all academic requirements are fulfilled.

As already announced, the university will be closed for the Eid September 19 to September 22. We will continue to provide updates to the AUC community immediately following the Eid.

Splendid. First all the pigs are slaughtered, now education is disrupted for every student in the country. For me, this means missing four class sessions (especially problematic given that each of my classes meets only once a week) and not starting my Writing Center position for another three weeks. American colleges haven't gone to such drastic measures, but they are bracing for a significant outbreak of the strain that has already killed students, so maybe my cynicism is a little unjustified. And, on the bright side, clearing my calendar until the 3 of October will permit me to hole up in my H1N1-free bedroom and churn out more thesis copy.

In other, slightly frustrating news, the garbage man and the man who washes the floors in our building's common areas once a week have been taking my flatmates for a ride all summer. charging them as much as eight times more than they were supposed to be paying. And, in my absence, my landlord absconded with our hard-won vacuum cleaner. The little un-joys of Cairo. By and large though, despite my natural tendency to come unhinged as little stressors accumulate, my re-adjustment to Cairo as been quite easy. I am less bothered than ever by comments on the street, terrible if well-intentioned customer service, and things never happening as they're intended.

News & Issues

Egypt

According to Daily News Egypt (in an article with an unfortunate title) the Anti-Defamation League has accused the weekly Al-Youm al-Sabei (site in Arabic) of antisemitism for its publication of a cartoon caricaturing Israel as a greedy Jewish man milking water from the udders of what is meant to symbolize the Nile Basin. Humorously in the Daily News article, the head of Al-Youm's international news section is quoted as saying, "This accusation is baseless because there is something called freedom of expression." Oh really? In what country? Perhaps he's forgotten the international outcry over certain Danish cartoons or even the reactions to an American movie in which a dog was named for a former Egyptian president.
Somali pirates who held Egyptian fisherman were returned to Somalia facing trial in Puntland, the stable(r) section of the failed state. After being held hostage for months, Egyptian fisherman had managed to overcome the pirates and were hailed for their bravery by fellow citizens.

Middle East

And last but not least, check out KABOBfest, an amalgamation of blogs written primarily by Arab-Americans about a variety of topics impacting the Arab world.

2009-09-15T16:14:00.004+02:00

Just beyond a strip of palm trees, the desert spreads out before me. The sight is much more in keeping with what most people think of Egypt than what I see most days. Between me and the little palmeraie, are the large panes of glass that let ample natural light into AUC's new campus library. I know I mentioned it last time, but this place really is gorgeous.
I hopped the Route #12 bus to the new campus this morning just in time to get here and get lost. The Humanities and Social Sciences (HUSS) building is not clearly marked on any of the maps around campus which in turn are unhelpful in that they don't have any sort of "You Are Here" indicator. Embarrassed, I resorted to calling the head of the Writing Center a total of three times to orient myself. Once I reached the actual building, I found that the numbering system made little sense. Ma3lesh. I found the professor I was looking for, he gave me the rundown on the Writing Center, and I was off to complete my next errand. Procuring a bus sticker was utterly painless and getting the process started for my student visa application was nearly as easy. The anticipatory knot in my stomach that manifests when I know I have to go to an office in Egypt gave way to a tentative satisfaction. AUC? Not so bad, right?
I ran into my Egyptian friend Reham on the way out of the administration building and strolled along with her, taking in the warm sun, the cool breeze, and the impressive architecture while catching up. When she headed to a bus to take her back to reality, I met up with an Iraqi-American friend who was involved with the International Affairs Organization and Model UN with me back at Bradley. She's studying here for the semester, taking classes on the history of the Middle East, Sufism, and Arabic. Over koshary—which after all of the horror stories of overpriced new campus food was comparable in price to what you'd pay downtown—I listened to Helen explain the novel sensation of being in a new place where she had such an affinity with the majority of people around her. She's eating up the mannerisms, the warmth, and the flowery phrases.
At one point, we popped into the library (whither we have returned) to grab a book for my thesis. I was overly impressed by the 3-M check-out machines. Now, I realize that all the cool kids have probably used these at their public and university libraries, but scanning my ID card and then laying my barcode-less unopened book on the apparatus to check it out seemed pretty space age. And at AUC no less. The self check-out machines and the ID-scanning posts at the one of the gates and at the library give a veneer of modern efficiency. So did the copy center that Helen had to stop by to get her course packets. That is, until she returned to pick them up and her order had mysteriously disappeared from the system. You can't win 'em all, I guess.
After today, I can't say I'm dreading coming to the new campus twice a week. Clean air and the lack of clutter are a welcome change from downtown. The construction in the library itself during regular hours today, however, keeps a little of that rustic, never-finished atmosphere. Feeling guilty about enjoying the place, remembering the misgivings friends who study urban planning and sociology and sustainability shared with me, I was relieved at the very least to find that the campus was designed to be low-impact and energy-efficient. This isolated desert community model, though, does seem as though it's draining the energy from the very heart of Cairo. Another blogger has this interesting entry that speaks about the trend and specifically about a community called Dreamland, coincidentally the first place I stayed in Egypt back in 2005.

News & Issues

Egypt
· Online radio station to be launched by activists affiliated with the party of opposition leader, Ayman Nour
· MPs debate definition of death in Shoura Council
· Foreign Ministry defends murder of African migrants (see also Bikya Masr article)

· In a country where a majority of women don headscarves, women who do so and seek access the haunts of the small upper class sometimes find themselves discriminated against. Increasing conservatism has made the practice more popular, but many in the élite reject it. When I returned to Egypt this last time, I noticed that EgyptAir's flight attendants were unveiled just as many many television personalities on state-owned channels are (though there's been a row over this). It's interesting that the government would seemingly be interested in showing a "modern" image of Egypt to the world while this image doesn't reflect the practices of the majority of Egyptians.

2009-09-14T15:29:00.004+02:00

Setting about reading for my class on Palestinian refugees, I have nothing profoundly culturally interesting to report. My current view of Egypt is obscured by the walls of my air-conditioned bedroom, where suitcases still lie on the floor not entirely unpacked. The challenges of Egypt have mostly left me alone even if they haven't been so kind to some of my friends (Cynthia has a strange bruise on her arm at the site of one of the several injections they gave her after she went to the hospital with her left eye swollen shut from an ant bite). I'm running a steady course and trying to be a conscientious student. Boring, right? I begin work at the Writing Center next week. I'm looking forward to it despite the added time commitment.

News & Issues

Egypt

· Down the street from my apartment is Tahrir Square, home of the infamous Mogamma, the insides of which I hope never to see. An American journalist tells his story of navigating the infernal Egyptian bureaucracy there with his infant in tow.

· Israeli PM Netanyahu and President Mubarak met to discuss peace efforts. No deal has been reached on kidnapped Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit. Meanwhile, Daily News Egypt, has reported findings that Egyptians are more open to peace with Israel than their other Arab neighbors. Given past actions and agreements, I should think this would be obvious, but wars and discord between the two countries are far from passing from Egyptian national consciousness.

· Egypt destroys tunnels used to transport contraband to Gaza

· A/H1N1 fears continue to impact schools

· Possibility of father to son power transition has opposition leader Ayman Nour calling for united front against handover

2009-09-13T17:56:00.005+02:00

Last night, I had a delicious iftar in Zamalek at my friend Hadeel's. I arrived just in time to eat a date to break my not-so-fast again with other faux-fasters and a few Muslims who were actually observing. The spread laid out was delicious. I had bamya (okra and tomato stew), wara ainab (rice-stuffed grape leaves) and other kinds of mashi (rice-stuffed vegetables), molokhaya, and more. In between servings, I met some of Hadeel's friends, mostly journalists and professors. We had conversations about Canadian politics, Egypt, racism, sociolinguistics. Later, Hadeel, an Iraqi-Canadian journalist, told us about her experiences in Baghdad. Rather than retelling them myself, I recommend you check out a story she wrote that was carried by several newspapers and networks in the States. The desserts came out and sealed the deal–our food comas were well worth it. Qatayef, baqlawa, konafa, and other Middle Eastern pastries took their places next to chocolate cake, brownies, and cupcakes.
Today I headed to the ol' copy shop near AUC's now-sold Greek Campus. I purchased enough course packets to turn my reusable grocery bag into a strength-training apparatus and then went to wait in Tahrir Square for my friend Amanda. From my perch in front of the Hardee's, I could feel the warm sun and the breeze. Drowning out the noise with my iPod and closing my eyes, I almost felt like I was somewhere by the ocean. Then I realized the ocean spray was in fact air conditioner condensation dripping on my head. Oh well, can't win 'em all. I watched with empathy as three different people tripped over paving tiles jutting up from the uneven pavement. I bet that a little more attention to the infrastructure in Egypt would lower their healthcare costs. My friend Amanda, who had been spirited off to the far reaches of Qasr al-Aini after her cabdriver misunderstood her request to be taken to Tahrir, arrived around one and we headed down into the metro station. She caught the womens' car to enjoy a more tranquil ride down to the Ma'adi station where we met back up again and headed to Lucille's. Yes, it's been less than a week and I've already taken refugee in my favorite American restaurant. Prevention is better than cure, right? After I polished off some mushroom fajitas and Amanda her burger, we strolled onto the network tree-lined residential streets just adjacent. It was like being transported to another world. An Egyptian man begging, however, and grafitti on a utility box in awkward English calling for the downfall of the rich reminded us of the incongruousness of this community with the realities of Cairo. We walked by golf course-lush grass and stopped to look at it as we mused about what our post-Egypt lives would be like. We took a gander in a grocery store and looked at all of the imported European and American foods a little to pricey to indulge in for the time being and began to plan for Thanksgiving.
Feeling a little guilty about my un-Egyptian day at first, I am now looking at my thesis research spread out around me and the hefty heap of course packets waiting to be read and am reminded that it's ok to take it easy. There will be plenty of time for culturally enriching adventures once I get back into the swing of things.

News & Issues

Egypt
· Pig cull has consequences more far-reaching than anticipated ; tensions high over trash problems
· Israeli PM Netanyahu meets with President Mubarak over iftar
· Copts mark new year with prayer rather than protests aimed at ending discrimination against them
· New Coptic TV channels elicit worries over the propagation of extremism
· Osama Diab of the Guardian weighs in on the government's campaign against those eating, drinking, and smoking in public during daylight hours
· Budget airlines to link Egyptian cities with destinations elsewhere in the Middle East and in Europe

Middle East
· Islamist thugs' campaign of gay killings in Iraq facilitated by the internet
· Differences remain between Israel and US over peace talks with Palestinians

2009-09-12T15:00:00.005+02:00

One of the things I was struck by when I returned to my neighborhood (Bab al-Luq) was not a bus or a taxi, but the progress made on a particular building whose entrance is on Fahmy Street which opens into Falaki Square a block west on Tahrir St. from my apartment building. I'd passed by the concrete structure many times on my way to classes, initially presuming it was a parking garage. Later minarets began rising from from the structure and I thought to myself, "Another set of loudspeakers tinnily calling the devout to prayer five times a day?" Lo and behold, when I returned, at the top of these "minarets" were Coptic crosses. A new church had been built downtown. Or I should say, is still in the process of being built. When I walked by the other night, there was a large depiction of Mary and either Jesus or a saint of some kind made up, of course, of lights. It looked like a giant Lite Brite creation. This was just after iftar had begun. Muslims were in the same street under tents enjoying their meals after having broken their fasts paying no attention to the wooden screens with crosses on them and the service or other kind of gathering going on inside.

Given the recent fatwa prohibiting the construction of new churches in Egypt, I was surprised at the lack of resistance in the community. Then again, as a non-Arabic speaker, I am not particularly integrated in my community here. But there have been no protests, not so much as a suspicious glance that I've seen. The Grand Sheikh of Al-Azhar had already declared the fatwa to be in error, but sectarian tensions in Egypt are already a problem without it. The recent arrests of Christians for not following Ramadan restrictions threatens to inflame them further, but perhaps the example of convivencia in the heart of Cairo is cause for a little optimism.

Also upon my return, I was exposed to a more light-hearted picture of peaceful religious co-existence. My flatmate Phil introduced me to CBC's Little Mosque on the Prairie, a program about a small Canadian town where a Muslim community rents out an Anglican parish hall to serve as their mosque. Canadian cheesy in the best way, the show still manages to bring compelling issues to the fore, causing people to stop and think. Plural marriage, gay marriage, wearing the burqa, dating, terrorism, Islamophobia, and more are addressed in the series that is well worth watching online if, as a non-Canadian you don't have ready access to CBC. If you are in Canada (and I may here be overestimating my readship), you can watch full episodes here.

2009-09-11T15:04:00.007+02:00

Yesterday, though I wasn't fasting, I began iftar in the traditional way, by eating a date. My flatmate Phil and I joined friends Shannon and Eric at the Yemeni restaurant on Iran St. in Doqqi for the meal. After the dates, we had soup, sahawiq, fasuliya (a fried bean dish) with eggs, and a potato dish and the meat-eaters had fahsa, all to be eaten with rashoosh (Yemeni flatbread).
Meanwhile, in Yemen itself, recent events have caused a great deal of turbulence. Thousands upon thousands of displaced people have been moved to IDP camps.

After dinner, I returned downtown for the class I recently switched into, Migration and Refugees in International Relations. I have to say that my first impressions of both the professor and the class lead me to believe it could be one of the best I'll have taken here at AUC. We discussed the impact of migration and globalization on the concept of the nation-state and what that meant for the field of international relations.

Later on, I headed back across the Nile to Mohandaseen to Cedars to hang out with CMRS colleagues. I sipped on a spicy ginger drink while the rest of the gang enjoyed shisha. When we piled in Marise's car to leave, we got to see the full gamut of Cairo's flashy new traffic signs. Neon lights, the darlings of cab-drivers, have now come into official use, presumably as a means of drawing attention to under-heeded signs and traffic lights. The funniest of these is the crosswalk sign. In most other countries, the sign depicts a man calmly crossing a road. Here in Cairo, there is a man composed of green lights shown running like a bat out of hell across a glittery white crosswalk. Running is indeed preferable to lingering in Cairo traffic, but sometimes staring down a bus is just such fun.

As many struggle with how to remember and interpret the events that happened eight years ago today, the direction of relationships between the US and the Muslim world and between non-Muslims and Muslims in the US itself are brought to the fore. Al-Ahram Weekly examines these both through the optimistic lens of Dalia Mogahed, an Obama advisor, and in light of the still-difficult realities many Muslims face. Prejudices and confusion about Islam and Muslims are still a major obstacle to peace and understand. To find out more about Islam, check out the BBC's religion page.

News & Issues:

Egypt
· 155 arrested in southern Egypt for not fasting during Ramadan
· TV serials during Ramadan intended to foster patriotism
· Thinktank CPA speculates on succession

Migration
· Outburst by Republican congressman focuses more attention on irregular migrants and their place in the US healthcare debate
· US soldier seeks asylum in Canada claiming sexual-orientation based persecution

Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

2009-09-10T14:04:00.006+02:00

As you might have noticed, my links section has changed a bit. If you haven't checked out the right side of my blog, on the other hand, you really should. There's some cool stuff in there about Egypt, about how to apply to be an Ambassadorial Scholar, about the clubs and districts who sponsored and hosted me last year, info on migration and refugees, news links, and more.
Anyway, my scholarship period came to an end in June. I have reworded my Rotary links to reflect that change, but have kept them up because of the importance of the organization both in my life and to the community at large. Because of scheduling conflicts, I have not yet given speeches back in the US about my experience in Egypt, but will arrange to do so sometime in early 2010. In the meantime, my belated congrats to Three-Month Cultural Scholar, Elizabeth Killingbeck from the Land of Goshen Rotary Club who is serving in Sénégal and to Dr Fetene Gebrewold, sponsored by the Bushnell Rotary Club, who spent the summer as a Three-Month University Professor Ambassadorial Scholar in Ethiopia.

News and Issues:

Egypt
· Doctors suspended after country's second A/H1N1 death
· FM Aboul Gheit says stopping illegal settlements in Palestine is necessary precursor to normalization of relations between Arab states and Israel
· Jewish Nazi-hunter supports embattled Egyptian Minister of Culture in UNESCO bid
· Norwegian national prevented from leaving Egypt, told she is a "national security case"
· Slate examines Egyptian 9-11 hijacker, his urban planning studies and frustrations with Cairo

Middle East
FP article on "Iraq's New Surge: Gay Killings" Even as the US is hailing progress in Iraq, the wartorn country's LGBT population remains incredibly vulernable as their government, and apparently occupying forces, turn a blind eye.

Migration & Refugees
· UNHCR has created an educational online game to allow people to understand the dehumanizing challenges refugees have to face to escape persecution and begin new lives.
· Amnesty International calls on Egypt to halt border killings of African migrants

American Blogger Deported

2009-09-09T13:12:00.004+02:00

After rectifying the situation with the canceled class (I am now taking a class on refugees and international relations, perfect for synthesizing my undergraduate studies with migration and refugee issues), I realized I had not even mentioned that an American freelance journalist who used to keep a blog about his experiences in Cairo was deported last Thursday.

An article from the Los Angeles Times reports that the journalist, Travis Randall, will remain in London while sorting out the reasons for his deportation and possible remedies. The blog / news site Bikya Masr has a string of articles related to the situation.

Molasses Laps

2009-09-09T11:54:00.008+02:00

It occurs to me anew that getting things accomplished in Egypt is like trying to swim laps in molasses. Not only in the resistance that you mean in accomplished even the most mundane of tasks, but in the mindset you inevitably fall into. Knowing that everything will be an undertaking, you're disinclined to take initiative. I say this, I'll remind you, having only been back a day and a half.
I awoke this morning (with a sore throat-hopefully just Cairo pollution and my AC which, al-hamdulilleh, is functioning again) to breakfast while watching Al-Jazeera and then to set about trying to look into visa requirements and to respond to emails. Lo and behold, once is marked "URGENT" and comes to me from AUC. Once of my two classes for the semester, the European System of the Protection of Human Rights, has been canceled due to low enrollment. That's some excellent planning on the part of the university, especially when they've known for months how many students registered for the class. Now I have to find another class from the sparse list of those that count as CMRS credit.
My other class, the one focused on Palestinian Refugees, despite being held out in the desert and requiring a total of nearly two hours commuting round trip, promises to be interesting. As I was walking to the Mustafa Core Center in the darkness, I looked around the courtyard in front of the library and was reminded that, despite the bureaucratic nightmares and the poor planning, AUC built a gorgeous campus in New Cairo. I mean it really is stunning. Less stunning was the busride back. The creative driving approach the driver took and his liberal use of both the gas pedal and the brakes, sometimes nearly simultaneously, left me feeling thoroughly nauseous by the time (after 11 PM) I staggered out at the gates of the old main campus.
Despite the relatively short duration of my honeymoon, I am determined to keeping doing things–anything that seems even mildly productive, rather than zoning out and peering deep into the glow of Facebook blue that all-too often emanates from my laptop. Reading for my thesis seems sensible and I think I'll put off going to the visa office until after Ramadan when the hours have returned to regular. After dinner, I'll probably go get groceries in Doqqi or Zamalek.
Speaking of Ramadan, here's a clip of CNN's Zain Verjee reporting on Ramadan in Cairo a little over a week ago:

News:
Israeli PM Netanyahu to visit Cairo next Sunday
Egyptian government threatens to take action against private telecom companies for low prices
Egyptian police kill yet more African migrants trying to reach Israel
Al-Jazeera Clip: Israel settlers push further into Palestinian lands

Cairo Comeback

2009-09-08T12:38:00.004+02:00

Last night was the easiest and most pleasant of my arrivals at Cairo International Airport. The combination of knowing the system, arriving at the most modern terminal, having my bags be among the first to roll out onto the carousel, and having two great friends waiting on the other side of customs to pick me up made returning a whole lot easier and more fun.
I flew EgyptAir which, while not the most glamorous airline, managed to accomodate me with a vegetarian meal. Their in-flight magazine, Horus, was distinctly Egyptian, obsessively providing titles with every name mentioned-CEO Pilot such and such, etc. And then, there was the laughably bombastic article by Zahi Hawass, general secretary of the Supreme Council of Antiquities who spent pages name-dropping, talking about palling around with Obama, and then reliving in detail his personal battle against an Exxon-Mobil exec. So the literature wasn't inspiration, the cabin wasn't especially luxurious nor was the service exceptionally attentive, but the view out my window as we made our final descent was magical. The green lights of the mosques and minarets twinkled brightly within the otherwise orangey-yellow glow of the city whose contours were shaped by the complete darkness of the desert.
From the airport, Marise and Phil spirited me off to the Trianon on the Nile Dragon riverboat where the French music and tasty food at our Nileside table eased even more my transition from Europe back to Egypt. It being Ramadan and me being a glutton, I ordered an entire konafa, having a piece there and bringing the rest of it back home.
Speaking of home, my apartment has a new shine. During my absence, my friend, classmate, and travel companion, Phil moved in with Cynthia and has been conscientious about getting our friend Erin's cleaning lady over. The internet, the water, and the electricity are all functioning as well as the washing machine. Most of these, at some time or another, had gone out over the summer. My AC worked last night but seems only moments ago to have broken again. At least it's not August, I suppose.
I woke up relatively early this morning after spending the early morning hours catching up with Cynthia and Phil. The reality of my being back is upon me--I already got a call from the human rights law department confirming my enrollment in one of their classes and had a little rudimentary Arabic conversation with the gas man whom I had the pleasure of paying. I have class tonight out on the new campus...from 8 - 10:30 PM. The Ramadan schedule is en rigueur for the next couple of weeks and I'm not especially keen on it. Ma3lesh. I'm sure Palestinian Refugee Issues will be a great course. It's with the same professor I had for International Refugee Law and Comparative Migration Law, both of which I thoroughly enjoyed. I don't start my fellowship duties for a while yet, so I'm not sure of my hours or the details on that.
In less egocentric news:

As the US condemns continued Israeli settlement in Palestine, the Palestinians are calling for other Arab nations to stand in solidarity with them against the illegal move. The next steps Israeli PM Netanyahu will have to be careful ones as he balances pressure from the right-wing with internal and international pushes for peace.

Meanwhile, the Egyptian government's renovations of Jewish historical sites have caused some Egyptians to reconsider the role Jews have played in Egyptian history.

Le Bazar Egyptien

2009-08-29T21:39:00.007+02:00

I'm slowly working my way back to Cairo. I am now in Paris where I spent yesterday evening with French friends I met in Egypt. With my friend Alex, I went to Le Bazar Egyptien, a shisha place in the 11th arrondissement. I did my best to rescue my once-promising Arabic reading skills by trying to decipher the Arabic on the sign. With a bit of help, I got through about half. Ma3lesh. I'll have to re-polish those skills once I get back. In any case, there was little Egyptian about the place that had a full list of wines, beers, and sometimes scandalously-named cocktails. The menu tended toward the more generally North African than toward the Egyptian, but I got nothing other than a glass of Ricard, also very un-Egyptian.
Although I heard tales of broken appliances and internet outages, apparently I'll be returning to a functional apartment on the 7th and for that I am glad. Cairo seems a lot more welcoming when you've got friends and a functioning dwelling to come "home" to.
Before I succumb to jet-lag, here are the recent goings-on in Egypt and environs:

Israel accepts German-broked agreement with Hamas over kidnapped soldier
Ex-Egyptian general held in Switzerland without charges
In pictures: Ramadan around the world

Oh, and I stumbled across Bikya Masr today. This website is rife with excellent English-language material on current events and social issues in Egypt. I'll be linking it on the righthand side of my blog.

2009-08-24T16:30:00.010+02:00

I'm writing from New York, my last stop on this side of the Atlantic for the summer. My feelings about Egypt are a mix of eager anticipation and dread. I received an email last nights from one of my flatmates letting me know that, while I've been gone, somehow the internet, one of our AC units, our phone, and the washing machine have all gone out. The feeling in the pit of my stomach that forms when I think back on the anxiousness I had last May in part because of the landlord has done much to quell my looking forward to returning to old friends, jumping in and getting moving on my thesis work, starting my fellowship position on the new campus, and maybe traveling a bit.
What's more, AUC's website is currently down and I have no indication that my tuition has yet been waived. On top of that, I have no idea how to get my transportation arranged for. Ma3lesh! I'll have to wade through that mess when I arrive.
Thankfully this time, vis-à-vis the landlord, there's less at stake. I already have the contract signed. While I won't be there at the beginning of the month, I've suggested my flatmates refuse to pay rent since the landlord is violating the contract. Apparently he told Phil and Cyn that they somehow broke the already moribund AC and the ailing washing machine. Phil has been on the phone with the internet company ceaselessly and the landlord refuses to change carriers. Maddening!
Anyway, I'm soaking up my last bits of carefree enjoyment while in the Big Apple. I met up with a friend of my Egyptian CMRS colleague Reham's and am meant to grab lunch with the student who I sublet to this summer. If anyone has sage advice about Egyptian landlords, I'm all ears.

Meanwhile, check out how Cairenes are celebrating Ramadan, courtesy of Daily News Egypt.

In other news, the pirate-fighting fisherman have returned home to a hero's welcome in Egypt.

As the trial of alleged Hezbollah operatives got under way in Egypt with some of the accused alleging torture at the hands of the Egyptian government.

Hamas is accused of abusing prisoners in Gaza. See a clip from Al-Jazeera here.

As Egypt sets about restoring a historic Jewish temple, some speculate the move is a way to mitigate the controversy surrounding UNESCO head-hopeful, Faruq Hosni who infamously declared in parliament, "I'd burn Israeli books myself if I found any in libraries in Egypt".

The Seattle Times reviews Café Riche in downtown Cairo. In my humble opinion, much of the charm of the place waned when the Egyptian people suffered the loss of "the tolerant atmosphere of old Cairo". The service the single time I went there was, despite the utter warmth of the waiter, horrid. The food wasn't much better. The article touts it as a breakfast place and I'll have to admit I haven't tried it, but the offerings at places like Maison Thomas are comparable (scrambled eggs, bread, etc.) If you're looking for breakfast in Cairo, though, and you're hoping for something American-style, Lucille's in Ma'adi (find their breakfast menu here) is the way to go. For something more Egyptian (and much cheaper than any of the other choices), a humble bean cart or fuul and ta3mayya at to-go place are my preference.

2009-08-19T19:01:00.005+03:00

An interview of Mubarak by Charlie Rose aired Monday night. I found most interesting Mubarak's explanation of human rights and his claim that he has not discussed succession with his son.

While Mubarak treads lightly when responding to Rose's questions about Barack Obama and former president George W. Bush, Egyptian opposition leader Ayman Nour says that the current US president is neglecting reform in Egypt.

Mubarak's visit to Washington was met with skepticism by the Middle Eastern press, while US media have focused on 'the power transfer'.

Meanwhile, Ramadan is set to begin this week. While I respect those who sincerely espouse the ideals of this holy month, I am not particularly disappointed to be missing a good portion of it. To learn more about Ramadan, visit the CBC's succint FAQ page.

In Rotary news, I just discovered (shame on me, since it's been posted for a few months now) that the economic downturn has forced Rotary to discontinue two of its three ambassadorial scholarship programs. Read more on the decision here.

Egyptian Fishermen 1 - Somali Pirates 0

2009-08-16T05:28:00.005+03:00

News:

In a daring move, Egyptian fisherman liberated themselves from Somali pirate captors yesterday. Earlier in the year, even the US Navy got involved in the pesky Somali piracy problem, extricating the captain of a ship who was taken hostage when his crew escaped into a lifeboat after battling back.

An AUC student was detained in Israel and order deported after protesting the eviction of Palestinians from their home in East Jerusalem (Al-Quds). She has been given leave to stay while contesting the legality of her initial arrest in court.

Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak to visit the US on Tuesday. The Boston Globe asks the question about the leader that's on everyone's mind. Last week, John McLaughlin of "The McLaughlin Group" made his prediction that a transition in Egypt could happen as soon as next year.

Fugitive Nazi's connection to Cairo confirmed.

Egypt opens border with Palestine to allow pilgrims passage.

Vehicles in honking, high-speed wedding procession collide near Assiut, killing the groom and three wedding guests. Says the article, "In Egypt, it is traditional for the wedding party and guests prior to the reception or afterwards to drive through the streets, weaving in and out of traffice and honking their horns." What a ridiculous reason to die.

"Visit to 'King Tut Tomb' Found On Illinois Prairie Is Good Trip"

2009-08-13T03:09:00.007+03:00

"Temple Mounds and Burying Grounds of Race Which Inhabited This State a Thousand Years Ago, to Be Seen Near Illinois River, 100 Miles From Decatur, Remind One of Pyramids of Egypt; Visit May Be Planned As An All-Day Trip" reads the byline of a news clipping without citation reprinted on a wall of the Dickson Mounds Museum. The institution is an hour or so from my mother's home in Peoria, Illinois. Who knew that my worlds were so much alike?

The museum, which details the history of the human inhabitants of central Illinois over the past 12,000 years, is situated on a burial mound. While the museum is cleaner and better run than the Egyptian Museum, its artifacts are neither as grand nor as numerous. The claim that the mounds remind one of the pyramids of Egypt is a bit grandiose, but another parallel is interesting. The Dickson Mounds Museum used to be known for providing the opportunity to see an excavated Native American burial site with the remains and artifacts left in tact, but in the early 1990s questions over whether the dignity of the deceased was slighted by the thousands of eyes upon them yearly led the site to be recovered and new exhibits installed in an attempt to compensate. In the 1980s, similar questions were being asked in regard to the mummies on display. Then-President Anwar Sadat, under clerical pressure, took the mummies off display and they remained so until some seven years later. It is interesting that the decision in Egypt has been ultimately to display the mummies (generating lots of revenue, I'm sure) while in Illinois, the remains have gone unseen for nearly two decades. An article from the time of the controversy over Dickson Mounds is an interesting read.

With traveling exhibitions like Bodyworlds and the grim bone art of the Sedlec Ossuary on one end of the spectrum and the decisions to cover the dead influenced by Islamic and Native American ideas about degnity and sacredness on the other, it certainly is something to think about.

News:
Egypt bans import and export of genetically modified foods. This decision, related to the broader debate over the safety of GMOs, has significant implications for trade. Egypt, one of the world's largest importers of wheat, recently found itself at odds with Russia over the questionable quality of imports.

Yale University Press has decided not to reprint cartoons depicting Muhammad in a book on "Cartoons that Shook the World" after consulting experts on Islam and counterterrorism.

Egypt is looking into claims that a marine posted at the US Embassy beat an Egyptian man who was inquiring after his American life who left him and took their children. Meanwhile, an Egyptian student at Penn State accused of raping two women has returned to Egypt. He is likely to face extradition if he does not return voluntarily.

Progress

2009-08-10T09:08:00.003+03:00

I've blogged before about the treatment of Bahá'ís in Egypt and have been following the halting progress toward their fairer treatment. It's heartening to see that identity cards have finally been issued.

Meanwhile, the son and possible successor to the current president is set to address young Egyptians online. A website has been set up for the address.

Religious tension was stirred up again in Ain Shams, the neighborhood where I taught English first semester as Muslims protested Christians holding church services in an old factory.

The Egyptian government linked the February bombing to Al-Qaeda and says that the cell had plans to kill the Israeli ambassador to Egypt.

James Karl Buck, formerly detained in Egypt, shares his thoughts on the detention of Americans in Iran.

2009-08-06T07:59:00.004+03:00

I was uploading some more photos of the past two semesters in Egypt and waxing nostalgic. Despite my misgivings about my upcoming flight on EgyptAir, maneuvering my baggage, and jumping back into the less-than-low stress world of haggling with cab drivers as soon as I land, I am hopeful that once I get back and get settled in, this will be my best semester of all.
I have heard that the diabolical cat who joined us late last semester has relocated to a more loving home. Al-hamdulilleh! I also heard that our water stopped working again. At that, I winced and looked around at my relatively glamorous accomodations here in the US. What was I nostalgic about again? No, really. I miss my friends and even more, I'm tantalized by the opportunity to try again--to engage the culture more. It'll be worth dealing with AUC bureaucracy and the Egyptian bureaucracy and worth all the stressors big and small. (All? Really? ... Yes. )

Anyway, as I prepare myself to head out into my soft transition (a week in New York and a week and a half in Europe) to Cairo, President Mubarak is preparing to visit my lovely country. Meanwhile, former President Sadat (assassinated in 1981) is making news as his family expresses outrage over an American film in which one of the characters names his dog after the deceased president. I think she'd have trouble living in the States where our dead presidents are subject to much worse.

And I'll leave you with this WSJ article by Fouad Ajami about the state of the Arab world. Very interesting.

2009-08-03T04:50:00.003+03:00

Some news from my home away from home away from:

Lizards and explosives are causing some people to rethink flying EgyptAir, though I'll be taking the airline for the first time from Paris to Cairo in September. This article also quotes someone who's talking about the beefed-up security measures in Cairo at tourist-dense locations, like hotels. Let me assure you, hotels in Cairo are among the easiest places to circumvent metal detectors. Sometimes they aren't even on. As for EgyptAir, ma3lesh–I'd rather have a desert lizard aboard than a terrorist.

The Egyptian government is cracking down on advertising for illegal and uncertified drugs and cosmetic products. I hope that includes skin-whitening creams.

An Egyptian state security court will try 26 alleged Hezbollah operatives on the 23rd of this month.

According to a Pew survey, Obama's more popular in Egypt than in other Muslim countries.

Checking in from Wisconsin

2009-07-31T06:42:00.004+03:00

There are lots of things I'd like to do when I get back to the Middle East in September: reconnect with old friends, meet the new people who'll have joined our program, eat koshari and Yemeni food, go on a felucca ride, and all of those other predictable Cairene delights. However, I'm also trying to compile a list of new things to experience and new places to visit, some closer and some further afield. Maybe Turkey or Syria, Lebanon, Israel and Palestine? Within Egypt I'd like to make it south to Luxor and Aswan, northeast to Port Said and over to the oases in the west. We'll see how long my ambition lasts. If I find my fellowship responsibilities too arduous to go off on longer distance jaunts, I always have the little things in Cairo to keep me entertained. Maybe the Japanese gardens at Helwan or the Giza Zoo.
If any of you has suggestions, I would be more than happy to entertain them!

Oh, and I'm thinking about taking Arabic classes or looking for some kind of language exchange. I think it would be shameful to spend a year and a half or two years without some kind of minimum proficiency.

In the meantime, here is some more news out of Egypt:
Former mufti declares Egyptian gas exports to Israel '7aram'
Border with Palestine to be temporarily opened next week
Number of death sentences in Egypt spikes in recent months
Swine flu keeping some from the Hajj this year (an article by my friend Liam Stack)

Hello from Chicago

2009-07-20T09:54:00.006+03:00

Instead of letting my blog lie completely fallow for the summer and inspired to think of my home away from home away from home by some tasty falafel I had at Sultan's Market in Chicago (where I'm visiting friends), I'm going to include a couple recent news stories coming out of Egypt. Over the course of the summer and especially when I return to Egypt, I plan to maintain my blog though it will transition from a project undertaken to keep Rotarians, friends, and family informed to something with a more general appeal. Stay tuned!

US Federal court reverses ban on progressive Islamic scholar
Murder of Egyptian woman in German courtroom leads to outcry
This article is from earlier in the month but bears reading. Find further background here.

2009-06-23T07:40:00.004+03:00

UNHCR study suggests that Islamic law has influenced international refugee law

2009-06-16T06:03:00.001+03:00

AUC quarantine ends, classes resume

2009-06-11T07:43:00.005+03:00

Health workers wearing masks wait to measure the temperature of passengers arriving at Cairo airport -- Reuters

Further cases of H1N1 confirmed in Alexandria; AUC's New Campus off limits to all but residents

Zamalek residents alarmed over cases of the virus in neighborhood dorm

I've been in this dorm several times and had friends living in it up until the end of last semester. Luckily they were out before the quarantine. It's strange how H1N1 seemed so far off when I was in Egypt and then the same day I left the first case was discovered. I feel for those who are holed up in Zamalek.

Check out this blog kept by someone who's stuck inside. The university updates this page with information on the progress of testing for the virus and related administrative decisions.

2009-06-09T18:41:00.003+03:00

Another five cases of H1N1 have been confirmed in AUC's Zamalek dorms and Cairo Airport is now screening all passengers.

2009-06-09T02:40:00.001+03:00

Looks like I got out of Egypt just in time:

AUC students test positive for swine flu, Zamalek dorms quarantined

Ana fi Amreeka

2009-06-03T18:35:00.002+03:00

I'm back in the States and hadn't intended on posting much, but found a couple of interesting Rotary links:

Book The New Global Student lauds Rotary's Youth Exchange program for high schoolers

Rotary story about the release of Roxana Saberi, the Japanese-Iranian-American journalist who was imprisoned in Iran

News:

Wall Street Journal: "Obama must address skeptics in Cairo"

New York Times: "Message on Obama Attributed to Bin Laden"

WHO says that case of H1N1 discovered in Cairo unlikely to spread

2009-06-01T01:54:00.004+03:00

Well, nearly two hundred blog posts and over nine months after starting my stint as an Ambassadorial Scholar here in Cairo, I am leaving for Germany tomorrow and continuing onto the US the following day. Even though I'll only be away from Masr for the summer, it feels more final and more bittersweet than I'd anticipated. Though a lot of the closer friends I've made here will be here when I get back in the fall, others will have left Egypt for good.

Three months seems longer as it draws closer and I'm both ecstatic about it and sad about it. I'll miss spending time with my friends here, but relish in the possibility of picking up where I left off with friends and family back home.

I have most things wrapped up here and am more or less ready to begin my thesis research. Grades have been posted for two of my three classes from this semester and in both of those I earned As. I'm satisfied and feel like I'm leaving on a positive note.

News:

Much riding on Thursday's Obama speech in Cairo

Dozens of foreign students arrested by Egyptian authorities

American delegation enters Gaza, Egyptians turned back at border

2009-05-29T13:00:00.002+03:00

As the call to prayer issues from Cairo's minarets, I lay here, scrambling to fire off emails to tie up loose ends, looking around me to size up how big of a job packing everything up will be this weekend. I can't believe my Rotary Ambassadorial Scholarship period is drawing to a close already.

Yesterday as I relaxed on the beach in Alexandria (a much needed daytrip), I began to think of the lessons I've learned and what sorts of things I hope to talk about in my speeches. Despite my acute displeasure with my situation in Egypt right now, overall I am so thankful for this experience. I have learned a great deal and am sure I have a great deal more still to learn when I return.

I saw my friend Quin off this morning. We were both tired, as I'm sure Marise and her brother Pierre were after we bargained at the Khan, hung out at Al-Fishawi Café, and took a calming late night felucca ride. It's sad to think that Marise and Pierre will likely be out of Egypt by the time I get back, but given my penchant for globe-trotting to keep in touch, I'm sure we'll meet again.

News:

Cairo University to host President Obama

NYTimes "Memo from Cairo: Why Freed Dissidents Pick Path of Most Resistance"

Sec. State Clinton urges Egypt to respect human rights; also says Obama clear about the halting of illegal Israeli settlements in Palestine

Egyptian Minister of Culture apologizes for anti-Semitic remarks

2009-05-27T00:23:00.004+03:00

I took my visitor to the pyramids at Giza today. It went surprisingly--I think I found the too most honest cab-drivers in all of Cairo. The camel ride we took wasn't particularly cheap, but the prices weren't too unfair and, I'll have to admit, it was kind of fun. We took a whole lot of photos, some of which I suppose I should post some day.

Came home to find the water wasn't working at all. I called my landlord who eventually came to fix it and I pounced on the opportunity to relieve myself of a boatload of anxiety by asking him to sign the lease. He was livid that we'd made amendments, but we'd simply added the provisions that had been in the previous contract we'd signed with his brother. I don't know if he'll try and back out, but his signatures on the paper, and that's provided a little relief. I'm not going to lie though, this whole ordeal as well as school-related stressors have not left me feeling positively about my decision to come back in the fall and finish my MA. I think I need the whole summer away from Egypt to make it bearable to come back. Hopefully this is just a phase.

Anyway, tonight we ended up dining at La Bodega, a restaurant in Zamalek that I'd never been to before but am all the better for having visited. I raved once about Crave on my blog, but this place was tenfold as fantastic in terms of service and the food was excellent as well. I'll definitely be going back.

News:

Exiled Egyptian dissident has jail term overturned

Those arrested in connection with February blast suspected of links to al-Qaida

Policeman sentenced to ten years for shooting

2009-05-25T19:09:00.002+03:00

Great NYTimes article and video on the pig cull

2009-05-23T23:55:00.004+03:00

I've become quite busy, hence the brief and less frequent updates. I've been running around doing touristy things with my guest. Yesterday we visited Cairo Tower after lunching in Zamalek. By night, we hit the Nile, attending the benefit cruise aimed at raising money for the Youth LEAD project. It was a lot of fun. There was Sudanese food, music, and lots of my friends and acquaintances from the refugee studies and refugee outreach and advocacy communities.

Today I had Yemeni food (including fasuliya), which was delicious and economic over at the aptly named Yemen Restaurant in Doqqi. Later on, my friend and I headed for Islamic Cairo and ended up at Al-Azhar park at sunset. Afterward, we had dinner there at the Citadel View restaurant. I'm back home trying to coax a few more pages out of my Migration and Development paper.

News:

Egyptian construction mogul sentence to death for murder

FM Aboul-Gheit to travel to US in President Mubarak's stead

Recently-released opposition leader burned in attack

2009-05-19T01:24:00.002+03:00

I'm quite busy with school stuff, but will check in again soon. In the meantime have some news:

Egyptian governments says it has important information on February bombing

Pig cull clip on YouTube sparks outrage

24 sentenced to death for shootout last year in village north of Cairo

Egypt Gets It Right

2009-05-14T17:43:00.008+03:00

I haven't slept much in the last twenty-four hours, but prior to my insomniac night and morning, I had planned to write this entry. I was talking to Marise yesterday about her frustrations with so much of what's negative about the Middle East and Egypt being highlighted all the time and too little of the positive getting notice. I think this is the trend in mainstream media in general, but it's all too often the way things work in everyday conversations. Applying the adjective "Egyptian" to anything connotes inefficiency or a lack of sophistication or lateness far too often when in reality there is so much positive about the culture and the people. The subtlest cultural insensitivity is often the worst. A lot of expats feel entitled to speak so tersely about their temporary (or even long-term) home, and some times you have to uncork and complain to remain sane, but I think as I've mentioned before that it's important to disentangle one's frustrations from Egypt itself. When we're in our own countries and something bad or vexing occurs, we're not as likely to attribute it to a nationwide phenomenon, but rather the particular people or phenomena involved. Lately I've been trying to keep that in mind here.

After a post-dinner game of Risk, I found myself too tired to give such an entry the proper attention, so I planned to wait until morning. Unfortunately, I lay awake all night anxious about a meeting I was to have with my landlord, about finishing off the semester, traveling home, getting my thesis research done, etc. etc. By the time my landlord showed up forty-five minutes early just as he'd done last time, I was in no mood to deal with him. He did, as I'd feared, trying to snake his way into more of our money and this time, I didn't have Marise and her family around to help me out. He left a contract, but is going to return at a later date to pick it up, signed and for the deposit. I won't explain the whole interaction, but I was so livid and felt so beat down that I wanted nothing other to be home in that moment. In my mind, there were no weasely landlords in America, no shabby problem-ridden apartments, in fact, nothing at all but family, friends, and relief. This, quite obviously, is not the case.

After he left, I was still unable to get to sleep, so I breakfasted, showered, and slumped into a living room chair feeling victimized and angry. I continued to feel this way all the way until I met my friends Amanda and Katie at Tahrir Square whence we headed to lunch at the French cultural center in Mounira. Seeing friends I'd not seen in along time and walking and chatting, it finally occurred to me that the weather was absolutely perfect. Sunny and breezy and beautiful, Egypt seemed a little less like it was conspiring to impoverish me. I'm not becoming some kind of categorical Egypt apologist and I stopped believing long ago that it was even worth trying not to resent the problems around because it's somehow culturally insensitive, but I can say that things that used to bother me terribly don't get to me as much anymore. I never thought that I'd adapt to the degree I have, but I am ten times less stressed out than last semester save for the landlord-centered flare-ups. And since adapting, I've been able to appreciate even more the things that I'd already begun to like and notice other things to enjoy:

The cohesiveness of the extended family here is impressive. I'm sure it can be stifling at times to have to try and live up to the expectations of scores of people, but knowing that you have just as many people to help you out when you're in a bind is something that doesn't exist the same way in a lot of other places. And furthermore, families are always willing to take other people under their wings. Even if it's not always the help you're looking for or the way you think you'd like to be helped, there's a wellspring of good intentions and a willingness to help solve problems. There's a warmth and openness that I haven't seen in the same way too many other places.

The positive side to all the disorder and informality and lateness is an immense flexibility. People are willing and able to step outside a given role to assist you and to find a way around formal barriers. It's as if everyone is in cahoots. I'm sure some of it is disingenuous, but the kind of finagling people have done for me personally to get things squared away with AUC for example are deeply appreciated. If there's a will, there's a way. Unless of course Allah doesn't will it, then ma3lesh.

There's a kind of vibrancy in the fabric of Cairo that is also rare. You never feel alone. I think this must be the value placed on the family writ large. People are always together socializing at all hours of the day. Unlike in Europe, things don't close early. You can run to a juice stand at 11 at night if you feel so moved or go the corner store or for koshary or to the cell phone shop long after the sun's gone down. It's easy to make friends with Egyptians if you're looking to meet them. Again, quite the foil to Europe's reserved social processes, it's easy to find yourself swept up in a sea of invitations from new friends if you make the slightest effort. Above all, they don't want you to be lonely or feel left out.

The combination of people you meet here is like nowhere else. Though New York and Paris are diverse, Egypt mixes people together in different proportions. As a nexus between the Middle East and Africa it is unlike any other place in the world.

I count myself lucky to live here; to benefit from the warmth of the Egyptian people; to be challenged by the things I find upsetting in such a way as to be forced to examine my own values in a way I wouldn't in the West. Every infuriating interaction or gesture of goodwill is a unique opportunity for growth that I've never have had if I hadn't come to be a part of this crazy, beautiful city.

Links:

Wall Street Journal photo journal, "In Egypt, Muslim Brotherhood plays defense"; over a dozen Brotherhood members arrested

Israeli strengthening border barriers in an effort to curb irregular migration

Egyptian-American groups urger Obama to bring up reform with Mubarak

2009-05-13T21:49:00.003+03:00

After a satisfying law class in which we discussed the desirability and feasibility of discontinuing citizenship at all and the ramifications of migration for liberal democracy, Cynthia and I came home to order in and hack away at our workloads. Only a week left of classes!

News:

Cairo ranks 93 out of 215 in infrastructure in liveable cities index

Mubarak indicates that Israel will be recognized by more Arab countries only after peace negotiations

2009-05-12T21:39:00.013+03:00

Cynthia and I just got back from a relaxing and satisfying dinner outing to Café Arabica in Zamalek. Stuffed with salad and fiteer and frozen yogurt, we stopped to get her some phone credit on the way home. Perched on one of the Mobile Store's stools was a distinguished looking man in his 60s who inquired where we were from. I told him America and he wished us a good visit. I politely corrected him, telling him we lived in the neighborhood. He told us we had more courage than he, as he, though Egyptian, had been living in Australia for 38 years and was only here on business. You know you're in trouble when an Egyptian's giving you kudos for living in downtown Cairo.

Alas, Bab al-Luq isn't so very shabby. The water and electricity have been working far more consistently this semester and a couple of the doors in the apartment aren't broken.

I finished my contributions to the mock convention that is our group project for Comparative Migration Law and tonight I plan to make a dent in my final paper for that class. I can't believe next week is the last week of classes for this semester. Al-hamdulillah!

AUC hasn't been doing much to garner my favor lately, it having been revealed to me today that I may have to register for the "thesis guidance" course during the spring semester of 2010 rather than doing so this fall. Meanwhile, its student newspaper has revealed that a majority of the student body at this university whose mission includes "advancing the ideals of American liberal arts education" and "promoting international understanding" do not believe that Israel has a right to exist. AUC produces many members of Egypt's élite. The ideas of today's AUCians is likely to bespeak the direction of future government policy.

News:

Egypt court ruling bans pornographic websites

Mubarak says Israeli FM still not welcome in Egypt

Tone for future of US-Egypt relationship to be set by Obama speech

2009-05-11T20:57:00.004+03:00

Cynthia and I and the rest of my Nigerian migrant survey group made it through our presentation (and those of four other groups) alive. The class drug on for five hours in freezing temperatures because of the unregulatable air conditioning and the window that was bolted shut. To be freezing in Cairo in May is truly absurd.

After we were dong presenting and shivering and the like, the majority of the class went to Shabrawi, the Egyptian restaurant on the corner of Nubar and Mohammad Mahmoud on the way back to my place from campus. Dr Jureidini treated us to dinner, which was quite kind of him. The proprietor of the restaurant tried to show his kindness to us in a slightly more bizarre way, writing "USA" in ketchup on our orders of baba ghanoug. Let me tell you, sweet Egyptian ketchup isn't a pleasant accent for any eggplant dish.

Now I'm working on finishing my section of the mock convention that my other group has to submit on Wednesday. I'll be relieved when the semester is over, though I am glad it's not as hectic as the last one.

News:

A bomb exploded near St Mary's Church in Zaytoun, a district in Cairo. This is a place that Marise's mother and I discussed before; it's famous for an alleged apparition of Mary that happened in the late 1960s. The bomb was placed under a car near the Coptic church and went off during a wedding, but no one was injured.

Egypt's ill-advised slaughter of pigs in response to the spread of H1N1 will likely impact the residents of Garbage City most severely.

Opposition groups are organizing protests for Obama's visit.

2009-05-10T21:52:00.003+03:00

Today wasn't particularly exciting for its hours of analyzing SSPS data and making a Power Point presentation for tomorrow, but I did call and chat with my grandma and my mom to wish them a Happy Mother's Day. I also had a phone interview for a half hour. It seemed to have gone well and I'll know for sure whether or not I've been awarded the scholarship by Thursday.

Lynch from Abu Aardvark not thrilled with Cairo as choice of location for Obama's pivotal speech

Israel PM Netanyahu coming to Egypt tomorrow

Saudi judge okays physical abuse should wives spend too much of husbands' money

2009-05-09T00:37:00.003+03:00

I polished off a law paper today, leaving two group projects and two final papers between me and freedom. Tonight, I went to a friend's birthday get-together at the once shabby-chic (now just shabby) Café Riche in downtown Cairo. Tomorrow, I am meeting with my Methodology class group to assemble and process our findings on Nigerian migrants.

Today I was meant to go to Ma'adi to volunteer with the project through which I teach English, but some unforeseen events delayed that.

On Sunday, I'm interviewing for a fellowship. It's a really exciting prospect to think that I might have found a way to fund my next semester here. Keep your fingers crossed for me!

News:

President Obama to give major policy speech in Cairo on 4 June

2009-05-07T20:26:00.004+03:00

Since my last post of a quarter day ago, I've gone to my (rather helpful) advising appointment. Ray explained that he doesn't suggest trying to do my thesis and two courses all at once next semester, but I think I'm going to try and get as much of my research done as possible this summer. I'm really not inclined to spend Spring 2010 at AUC, but we'll see. In any event, I'm not the least bit worried either way and am reenergized about my thesis and how dynamic and engaging the process of research and thesis-writing promises to be.

Following my meeting, I made a pit stop at home, chatted with the ever-changing group of people in my living room, and walked to Doqqi. In between the two bridges, that is to say past the Mohammad Mokhtar museum, I was approached by a grinning Egyptian who I guessed was around my age. I'd made it that far without any remarks or hindrances thanks to my power-walking and iPod-listening, but the chap was insistant, so I took one earbud out and greeted him tersely. Over the next ten minutes, however, I realized he wasn't trying to show me his cousin's shop or sell me hash or take me on a tour. He turned out to be from the countryside, but commutes in to take classes at Cairo University. He was walking there from downtown as I was heading to get my haircut. We chatted and inevitably America (I was picked out as American for a change, usually I'm mistaken for a German or an Englishman), George W. Bush, and Palestine came up. I elaborated my views briefly, apparently to his satisfaction. He then told me about his American friends and all the English they'd taught him, producing a notebook filled with obscenities and other "useful" phrases to enrich his academic English. He inquired what the phrases "freak me out" meant, as he'd seen it somewhere and written it down so that he could later look it up. I wanted to use it in context when he asked if I had Skype, but recognized that it's common for Egyptians to be so gregarious and socially straightforward. I gave him my Facebook info instead. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad to meet for coffee and pick up a little more Arabic.

My haircut was great, as last time. Getting all the massaging and shampooing and conditioning and cutting and styling for the equivalent of just over twenty bucks with tip included is fantastic. I had a different hair-cutter this time, but he was just as good and also French. I left feeling lighter both for having spent an hour relaxing and because he took a whole lot of hair off. After a funny little discourse with the Ethiopian receptionist, I took off for the supermarket I raved about after going there last time. More of my meagre funds spent on food. Ma3lesh!

I walked all the way back home, glad that my taxi-eschewing, in my mind at least, makes up for not exercising much. I've just finished dinner and am going to a house party that's raising funds for an AUC organization offers a variety of courses to refugees. Somewhere in there I hope to get some time for myself and to make a dent in my papers and projects!

News:

Egyptian FM claims Iran and Israeli nuclear threats equal; dismisses reports of own nuclear activity

2009-05-07T14:25:00.002+03:00

Erratic sleeping and filling my free time with social events (knowing that some of my friends are leaving for good while I'm away and some I won't see all summer) and with school work (which seems to be exponentially increasing with the advent of the semester's end have detracted from my faithful blogging. My apologies.

The lastest news in my corner of the world is as follows:

Weapons grade uranium found in Egypt

Egypt's National Council for Human Rights publishes its fifth annual report after delay

Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, to visit Egypt on Monday

Africa prepares for H1N1

2009-05-05T20:15:00.006+03:00

I spent yesterday breathing it bits of the Sahara as Google's weather report for Cairo accurately read "sand". The sky turned whitish-yellow while the air itself seemed almost tangible because of the dust and sand it was full of.

Undeterred, I managed to finish my thesis proposal and venture outside to make the trek to campus to print it out and submit it. We had a guest lecturer from the Cairo Family Planning Association who talked about FGM and its pervasiveness in Egypt.

Later in the evening, Phil and I joined Marise and her family for a trip to Hyper One. This Egyptian hypermarket is apparently the homegrown answer to chains like Carrefour and Spinney's. As with any of the hypermarkets, it's a strange feeling to stray into the suburbs and see this little slices of Egypt that are superficially similar to America, but not at all the same beyond the fact that many of the people who shop in them know nothing of life downtown or in the cities poorer districts. In whichever country you find yourself, it's always possible to isolate yourself from societal problems.

Yesterday was the president's birthday, but I didn't notice any particularly extravagant indicators of this. The Daily News Egypt reported on it, but as of this entry, I cannot acces the website, nor can I find anything on Google news. Strange. What I have heard a lot about was the continuing of the rather ill-advised pig cull and the reactions.

Beyond this brief update, I haven't much time to type as I have to get my nose to the grindstone. Final papers and group projects to finish up!

2009-05-02T23:15:00.002+03:00

Struck with motivation, I am dedicating what's left of the evening to working on my thesis proposal which I think I've spent more time writing about in blog entries and Facebook statuses than actually attending to. Today hasn't been entirely unproductive, though. I met with my law group to begin out mock convention on the discrimination against migrants. The interviews with Nigerians for my other group have been moved to tomorrow.

The project I'd been teaching English through that had been shut down temporarily is starting up again soon. I'll be transferred to a different suburb because of reorganization, but should get a few more weeks of volunteering in before I leave. I will also return to the position past the end of my Rotary scholarship.

News:

Farmers clash with health officials as Egypt goes ahead with its mass slaughter of the nation's swine

Taxi rides and general driving conditions ever-terrifying in Egypt

Is Egyptian State Security on Twitter? Hoaxer takes credit for impostor account, but others insist government maintains a presence

2009-05-01T16:16:00.005+03:00

Happy May Day, everyone. Though growing up in Peoria, I knew the 1st of May as a more benign, rather unimportant having something to do with leaving flowers on peoples' porches, it is an important day to celebrate labor and protest for improved working conditions around the world. Protests are especially vigorous this year given the economic crisis. Moving beyond labor issues, many in the States are calling for progress on immigrants' rights.

Meanwhile, in Egypt, the president reminded his constituents that striking is illegal and that doing so would only serve to hurt the economy. While he was busy doing that, I was, with the assistance of my saintly Egyptian friend Marise and her helpful brother and her godsend of a mother, negotiating the renewal of my lease. After ten months of getting ripped off, I finally have more or less a fair price. It's a relief, but I'm holding my breath until I get the physical contract itself in front of me and signed by both parties.

I got up early for the occasion and cleaned and am rather tuckered out. Last night, we played Risk until the wee hours of the morning after some tasty and inexpensive Lebanese food in Mohandaseen.

I've been making headway on my thesis proposal, but a group project for my methods class will have to take precedence today when Cynthia and I go to interview Nigerian migrants about their experiences in Cairo.

I'm not longer dying from a migraine, but it last through yesterday. At least I don't have swine flu, I guess, which is, says the WHO, henceforth to be referred to by its scientific name H1N1 Influenza A specifically because of Egypt's spirited but "misguided effort" to prevent the spread of the virus. The Egyptian government now is claiming the measure was not swine flu-related, but rather a "general health measure". Either way, Egypts' hogs have been sent to slaughter and Brigitte Bardot isn't very happy about it.

Meanwhile, back across the world in Peoria, Ali al-Marri pleads guilty to charges of aiding terrorists. While it's more than a little unsettling to see Islamic fundamentalism hit so close to home, I sincerely hope that the events surrounding his trial don't fuel more of the ignorance and Islamophobia that are inevitably reflected in the comments on PJStar stories about al-Marri.

2009-04-29T23:57:00.002+03:00

As I've been laid low by a migraine, I'm not going to do much more than link you to a few news stories this evening:

UN calls Egyptian mass pig slaughter a mistake. Christians riot.

Hamas and Fatah give unity talks one "last" go in Cairo.

The LATimes profiles the founder of the largely unsuccessful 6 of April opposition group.

2009-04-28T21:48:00.003+03:00

I neglected to mention a couple of extraneous but delightful observations yesterday. When Erin and I were riding in the cab to Carrefour, we saw a pick-up truck carrying a perfectly smug-looking trio of camels. I've seen a dozen men packed into a pick up, I've seen just about every type of produce piled from the bottom of the bed of trucks to twice their height, but I've never seen dromedaries being spirited away from central Cairo. I'm not sure what they were up to or why they looked so non-plus about their journey, but Erin and I spent the rest of our own trek to the store guessing. Perhaps this means we have no lives. It's better than thinking about the economic crisis or swine flu or group work (the last is the far gravest threat, I'm convinced).

While shopping, we also spied a women wearing a niqab carrying around a toy sword in fron the Nike store and all through Carrefour. It was far funnier to see than it is to describe.

The taxi ride back was more like a carnival ride than a form of transport as there were no shocks and each tiny bump sent us flying into the beige cloth drooping down from the ceiling. Oh, Egypt.

Today I had an economics-heavy session of Migration and Development which wasn't the most rousing thing I've ever experienced. Cynthia, who's now entirely moved in, cat and all, and I joined Ross for dinner at the fatatri place on Tahrir for dinner. Fiteer was a cheap, delicious, and Egyptian dinner option, but not the least greasy. Ma3lesh. I can spend the summer munching on organic mixed greens in America...or tamiflu.

Speaking of swine flu (since everyone else is), Egypt seems to be just as alarmed at the prospect of a pandemic as other countries who have halted pork imports, issued travel advisories, etc. Some members of the lower house of the Egyptian parliament have called for the nation's 250 000 plus swine to be put to death immediately.

Other news:

A Saudi-based IGO pressures a controversial video game manufacturer to remove a combat game from its site that allowed players to pit religious figures such as Muhammad and Jesus against one another.

A brother of a Hamas spokesman was arrested on the Egyptian side of the border with Palestine today.

The European Union plans to strengthen ties with Egypt according to the Czech presidency.

2009-04-27T23:37:00.004+03:00

After a Methods class focused on a few of the controversies regarding people trafficking and how to define it and legally address it, I hopped a cab to the fringes of Ma'adi to get some shopping done at Carrefour with Erin. We lingered for quite some time, overwhelmed with the fluorescent-lit consumerist fairy tale. Each of us picked up some household goods and some edibles by the end of our shopping excursion. Believe it or not, it was an exhausting experience.

I'm back at home finishing off a bottle of ISIS brand doum juice. ISIS optimistically describes its flavor as gingery, but I myself think that Egypt's gastronomic strengths lie elsewhere.

Now that the EU has issued travel warnings for the US, I'm thinking I've picked quite the fine time to return home. Egypt is apparently moving all of its pigs (admittedly, not very many) to a 238-acre plot in 15th of May City far away from residential areas.

Other news:

The Muslim Brotherhood is distancing itself from a debate over Shia and Sunni Islam. Egypt is a majority Sunni country that has recently experienced tension with Shia countries and groups like Iran and Hizbullah. The two sects differ over the legitimacy of certain of Muhammad's successors, but the rift often goes far beyond theology.

An ancient necropolis discovered at Fayoum oasis yields dozens of artifacts.

An Egyptian delegation in DC paints a picture of Egypt that Egyptian-American students and others aren't quite prepared to accept.