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

Racist Cabbies & Peoria Pals

Today was another beautiful day in Cairo (from a meteorological point of view, anyway). I did more laundry, ate more koshary, and end up going to CityStars, the obscenely large mall in the suburbs of Cairo with my friends Erin and Brandy. Because I am a responsible adult, I bought a sensible black shirt at H&M that was on sale and then a host of cleaning supplies and kitchenware at Spinney's. No more college-esque bachelor pad living for me; I own a colander now, and sponges! Anyway, on the way to said mall, our trio encountered a taxi-driver who explicitly told us that America was only good for money--I presume he meant making it. We assured him that with this financial crisis the only redeeming quality he found in our homeland might not even hold. He went on to share his incredibly racist views with us at which point I politely reminded him that our new president had African roots. This of course threw him off. Egyptians don't feel much camaraderie with the rest of their continental brethren, so he recovered quickly and came back with some ignorant retort. Ma3lesh, we said as many polite but firm things as could be said and then went on our way. The cabdriver on the way back drove like a maniac, scaring the girls. I was more miffed about the price he charged us. In the end, though, I was glad to have this mini-reunion/consumerist adventure with two of my favorite people in Cairo.
Back at my apartment, I chatted with my flatmate and made dinner and in the process received a call from an undergraduate from my alma mater, Bradley University. We'd planned to get koshary earlier, but his class ran later than I'd expected so I invited him to come up and hang out, which he did. It was fun having someone else who knew Peoria and Bradley and many of my friends and acquaintances.
Tomorrow, insha'allah, shall be a day of cleaning and unpacking and maybe a bit of reading for my classes that start next week.
Oh! And my honeymoon with a mosquito-free apartment ended abruptly this evening when some stealthy little bugger got me right between the eyebrows, on the forehead, and on my cheekbone. Thanks, mosquitokind, for reminding me about our bitter feud. I'll have you in the end.

News:
Middle East hopeful about Obama
Darfur activists arrested in Cairo
Egypt hosting Gaza reconstruction forum

Fighting Back, Feeling Better

So in hindsight, I might have been a bit rosier in my last entry had I mentioned, for example, that my panang tofu (tofu and veggies in a red curry sauce) and som tam were both pretty delicious, that Ross somehow found Craisins on the new campus and brought me back a package, and a couple of other small positive things, but, when drowning in a sea of aggravating problems, it's hard to pick out the good and highlight it sometimes.
That Egypt and its people aren't all bad, I already knew in theory, but running into Mr Negativity himself today helped me to recall it more clearly, paradoxically. As I was walked through Falaki Square on my way to the metro, a British man approached me, saying, "Do you live here too?" I confirmed and was then subject to a five-minute tirade en marchant about what awful people not only the Egyptians were, but also the Mexicans apparently. This man advised me that the happiest path to take were one obliged to live in Egypt, is one intentionally devoid of friendship with Egyptians. No matter what, I was informed, Egyptians will make ill use of you in the end. I am sprucing up the language which is not appropriate to reproduce here. He complained about the "stupidity" and lack of logic and made himself sound like a perfectly awful racist. I didn't bother to asked what he was doing in the country, in the end, managing to slip away into the metro.
Now, I won't gloss over the fact that certain norms, ways of acting and interacting that are acceptable to the majority of Egyptians, etc. are to me endelessly vexing and intolerable, but I will say that absolutely none of that is inherent. I find racism, that is to say in the sense of discriminating against someone or believing someone to be lesser because of a perceived and widespread biological inferiority in a people group, absolutely ludicrous. To suggest that Arabs are somehow bereft of logic in their very genes is ignorant. This is especially so because it was their civilization centuries ago was the crowning achievement of humanity and to whom modern Western civilization is heavily indebted especially in various hard sciences, philosophy, medicine, and so on. The cultural values and habits of modern Egyptians that frustrate me are the result not of something inborn, but from a complex web of circumstances stemming from colonialism, Islamism (in its current form itself largely a response to colonialism and Western actions), poverty, religion, and more. Rather than writing off all Egyptians from across the ages as one thing or the other, I remain thankful that I was born where and when I was to have acquired the cultural values and idea that I have and wonder if perhaps some of them might not think the same way, to some extent. I don't have to adopt the Egyptian way of life but rather a way of living in Egypt. I'm proud to be an American, and, unlike when I lived in France, spoke French, attempted to pick up Franch manners from my fastidious host mother, et cetera, I'm not in Egypt for cultural immersion. I'm here to represent my country and the values of Rotary to others while being respectful and taking the best from what I encounter. On the same token, I cannot Egyptians to cater to me and my expectations in their own country. With that in mind, I'm trying to go forward down the path of least resistance, having minimal expectations and being pleasantly surprised when anything exceeds them. This is my way of fighting back, not against Egypt, but against some of the unhelpful ways of thinking that I inevitably slip into after days or weeks of setbacks and frustrations. Like one of the true forms of jihad in Islam (or gehad as it's pronounced here in Egypt), the struggle is inward, not outward.
Well, enough of my rambling explanations of how I'm coping with Egypt. The purpose of my trip to the metro (which was interrupted by the one-sided conversation with the racist Brit) was to go to Ma'adi. I met Phil for what was essentially a late-afternoon brunch at Lucille's. Enjoying Phil's company and stories and the food at Lucille's, I had a great time. Afterward, Phil joined me in a quest to find some bug spray. We found some Egyptian-made Off! at a pharmacy, and just purchasing the bottle of 15% DEET insect-repllent gave me a feeling of relief. I can't tell you how powerful I felt when I popped the top off and began spraying my mosquito-bitten feet, and the couch, and pretty much all of Cairo upon my return home. It was more of a psychological victory than anything. And so it is that I'm feeling much better than when I authored my last entry, once again illustrating the ups and downs of life in Egypt.

News:
European politicians bound for blockaded Gaza in defiance of Israel
Obama sends senior Middle East advisor to Egypt & Syria to outline policy on region
More on the violence at opposition party headquarters in downtown Cairo

A bit of Chicago in Ain Shams

I spent most of my daylight hours yesterday reading, researching, and working on a reflection paper (which I have yet to finish) as well as nibbling on leftover Lebanese. In the evening, though, I marched to the Metro, weaving in and out of traffic and looking determined and impassive, though I was really just braindead from my day of isolation and study. The later was exemplified by the fact that I managed to walk all the way to the wrong platform going the opposite direction (Helwan instead of al-Marg) and wait for the train for a good five-ten minutes before realizing my mistake. Happily, I ended up going the right way and meeting Cynthia in Ain Shams. My class didn't start as expected (though whose expectations one is talking about, I can't say--I always expect things to happen in the most unexpected fashion and at entirely different times on entirely different days here in Egypt). The reasons were that the table-maker that Natalie and Cynthia had contracted to furnish the school with a few, usable flat surfaces had suddenly decided to take a vacation and that classes were larger than anticipated (generally a good indication of the enthusiasm of these young men to learn English, but a logistical problem nonetheless). We tried to further divide my class into two classes, meeting at different times. I still don't know how that worked out. I did get to meet a few of my students, though. Many choose English names or even words to be called by, not for classes, but in general here in Egypt. One of my students, who is from southern Sudan as nearly all are, speaks Arabic and Dinka and rather passable English. He's really excited for my classes. Another student was eagerly asking me questions about Chicago. Though I tried to explain that I lived some two and a half hours away, he was enthralled with his conception of the city. Interestingly, many of the guys wear clothes in a style imitative of America's hip-hop artists. The student wanted to know if Chicago looked like that, if everyone there dressed like the Sudanese at the school. Actually, I told him, many did. Some of them would fit in rather convincingly in the city. He then wanted to know why I wasn't dressed that way. I laughed and, instead of explaining America's cultural realities, I told him that that simply wasn't how my family dressed. I point to another student dressed in a white button-down shirt and jeans and told him that's how some people in America dress too. He ended up walking me back to the Metro past the hanging carcasses of dead cows, old men playing towla, speeding buses, and suspicious Egyptians no doubt wondering what a black Sudanese guy and white American were doing navigating the bustling streets of Ain Shams together. Wiching told me he'd been in Egypt for seven years now and that he'd just dropped out of high school after completing his junior year, but was a bit circumspect about the reasons. After he finishes his education here, he wants to travel or return home to southern Sudan (which is probably UNHCR's ideal for him as repatriation to that part of Sudan is possible--it's the Darfurians who still face grave danger). He continued asking me about my friends from Chicago and wants me to bring photos next time. Who knew Illinois was so exotic?
I was exhausted by the time I got home, zoned out, watched the news, read a bit for classes, and did some genealogy (yes, it's a compulsive sort of addiction that I do by default when my mental energy for higher-order thinking has drained away; it's a lot easier to read census records than formulate my opinion on the moral and practical legitimacy of camps as a solution to refugee crisis).
Unfortunately, a dash of insomnia has crept insidiously back into my nights and I just couldn't drift off. Instead, I listened to this week's episode of This American Life which was a series of vignettes from around Pennsylvania on volunteers from both campaigns and the problems they encountered. One of the segments delt with the racism preventing some people, otherwise staunchly aligned with his principles, from voting for Obama. The frustrating ignorance reminded me of spirited discussions I'd had with my paternal grandfather in which he liberally used racial epithets that would scandalize most people in this age of political correctness and offered spurious reasoning and fanciful stories to justify his distaste of black people. My other grandfather would vote democrat even if the candidate were blue, I think, but that doesn't bespeak a critical analysis of the candidate's policies or viewpoints, rather a loyalty to party handed down from his parents.
I keep forgetting Halloween is on Friday and am more annoyed by the prospect of trying to find a costume to attend various parties I've been invited to. Halloween for me is more of a family event where, in years, past, I've taken my little brother trick-or-treating and then we all congregate at home for pizza with my grandpa (the Democrat) who will have been handing out candy beforehand. Two years ago this Halloween, I was in a small church in the middle of France with my host family and last year I was just hanging out with friends at Bradley. Maybe I'll buck up, be nauseatingly ironic, wrap myself in toilet paper and try to get into the US Embassy party as a mummy.

The Cheap Gets Cheaper

I realize that my last couple of entries were a bit lengthy, so I'll try to up the brevity in the future.
This morning, Ross and I headed back to AUC to visit the bookstore; I was hoping to find an Arabic phrasebook. It was, however, closed for inventory--something not mentioned anywhere else. Ma'alish! My diminutive Arabic vocabulary has been slowly but surely expanding as I listen and interact (and get some help from Ross and other friends. I'm sure he's tired of me practicing my ayin, which I'm convinced I'll never figure out how to pronounce. Egyptians are amused and more friendly when I thank them or ask a question in their language, so I figure, despite the minor embarrassment involved, it's good to practice.
We had koshary for lunch again, this time at a place Ross has eaten at before a couple of doors down from our place. The waiter, enthused at our arrival, was jovial and engaging but insisted on pouring the spicy chili sauce himself onto our meals. My germophobic little eyes widened as the condiment streamed out of an open container theretofore sitting on the table for God knows how long under his dirty thumb held over the opening. I cringed, but proceeded to gobble most of the delicious dish down. Ma'alish.
We returned to our apartment in time to hear a tinny rendition of happy birthday ring out (our awful doorbell, not a festive party) announcing that yet another man had come to collect on an electric bill that wasn't ours. That's how electricity is paid for here, to someone that comes door-to-door. A call to Ahmed our landlord whom Ross put on the phone with our guest seemed to fix things, to our relief.
Not a whole lot was accomplish in the day between this and dinner, but I did hear back from a Rotarian here in Egypt that I emailed back in July. Ross also received assurances from our scholarship coordinator that he was contacting someone. We'll see what comes of it.
For dinner, we wandered northward, a direction we'd yet to explore. En route, we were the only Westerners to be seen, save for the advertisements and mannequins defining for Egyptians some ersatz aesthetic ideal in which they would be just a little more beautiful if they looked a little less Egyptian. This kind of dangerous colonial holdover leads to whitening creams both here and in sub-Saharan Africa and has been blamed for cosmetic eye surgery in Asian populations in Asia and abroad.
Arriving at our destination, we found a surprisingly clean and tastefully-tiled restaurant serving food yet cheaper than Felfela where we'd dined the previous two nights. I bit the bullet and had a tomato and cucumber salad (despite being told something about not eating fruits and veggies you can't peel). We'll see if I'm dying of dysentery tomorrow, if not, it'll be a small victory. I also had spicy stuffed eggplant, some kind of soft Egyptian cheese with tomato, and baba ghanoug which is known also sometimes as mutabbal in Lebanon and thus at Haddad's on Main in Peoria where I enjoyed it from time to time in college. Elsewhere in the Arab world it's called baba ghanoush or ganuj–the Egyptian dialect of Arabic has the peculiarity of replacing the j sound with a hard g. Thus jamil (beatiful) becomes gamil, etc. All this, with bread, water, tax, and tip only cost me the equivalent of $1.58. I'm telling you, if you're worried about the rising cost of food in the states, I have just the place for you.
Anyway, soon we'll be heading back out into the night (it's 11:35 PM) to get some bottled water. Places open later and stay open later here, many until 1 AM. That's a welcome change from France where things always seemed to be closing too early for my taste.