So I suppose I owe anyone who was actually still reading my blog at the end of the year an apology. I promised to write about the end of my trip and then I got home and didn't want to think about Egypt. Ever. Again. Luckily, the more distance I get from the experience, the more I've come to accept it. The good and the bad. This is all part of the re-adjustment to the western world. More on that later.SO, our last week or so in Alexandria- We had guests from Dahab on two separate occasions. Both groups were welcome distractions from you know, things we should have been doing, like studying for finals. Although in the end, I failed the only final I actually studied for (14+ hours with my academic partner the week before, so it wasn't for a lack of trying!). We were more than happy to show our guests around Alex. The first group was 2 Americans and an Australian. The second group was an American, Mexican, Canadian, and Australian. We sent them out exploring Alexandria while we took our finals and we had beer and smoked shisha with them. Just before leaving, one of them set off fireworks (very small noise maker ones) in our living room. All around fantastic time.
Someone suggested to me that I was crazy for letting these guys stay in our apartment after having know them for a very brief time on our
Dahab trip. A few of them we d
idn't even know, they just accompanied the ones we did know. I guess it might seem a little crazy, but you form this weird bond with people you meet in Egypt, who are not Egyptians, or from the Middle East, or Europe for that matter. You all share that adventurous spirit and you bond. I would still open my house to any of them who came to visit the states. Even you, Dale, even after the fireworks that made my roommate yell at you.
We all left Alexandria at different times. Some even stayed in Egypt for a month or two to escort relatives and friends around. Laura, Hannah, Nour and I set off for a layover in Paris. I wasn't emotional leaving Alexandria. I didn't think I would miss it. I was wrong. I do miss aspects of it. I miss our apartment, the view from our balcony sitting and drinking my coffee in the morning. I miss hearing the call to prayer. I miss the man yelling down the street, selling strawberries every morning. I miss being able to speak English in public and not have everyone understand me. But there are lots of things I don't miss. More on that later.
I was more than anything sad to leave the people in my program. We had become close in the last year. So close that
I think we were all driving each other crazy. So it was definitely time to part ways. Luckily, I've been able to see some of them again. I spent the first two weeks of July in Washington, DC house and job hunting and hanging out with Laura and Sara, and also seeing Nour. I heard Hannah was in town, but missed her. My mom and I drove up to Michigan one Saturday afternoon in June to see Valerie who was in Ann Arbor for a weekend for a conference. These are the ladies I lived with. The ladies that made my year in Alexandria bearable. And I miss seeing them everyday and I will continue to do so.
Anyway- Paris. Oh Paris. What a city. When we arrived late at night, having not slept much in our last week in Alexandria, lugging Nour's giant 100 lbs suitcase with broken wheels around, I hated it. I hated the French everywher
e. I hated the rain. I hated the cold. By morning, after the most delicious coffee I've ever had, I began to take a more positive view. I confess I was a bit underwhelmed in general by the city. The Eiffel To
wer was just a big hunk of metal, the Chanzelize was a street with a bunch of shops with goods I couldn't even afford to look at. And not understanding French, I failed to make a connection with the local population. But I did on our second day of walking around find myself in love
with the city. The art, everywhere, on the street. Walking along the river, my eye attached to my camera, seeing everything in shades and colors and shapes in magnificent contrast to the dark, dusty, crowded streets of Egypt.Someone yelled at me for walking into a coffee shop and asking for the bathroom.
The green. I had forgotten how much I love the color green. Even if some pollen in Paris gave all of us wicked allergy attacks. I would have a similar thought driving from Cleveland to Columbus after I returned home. The flat, endless fields of agriculture that stretch through rural Ohio, that feed so many. This landscape stands in such stark contrast to the endless desert full of brown rock and dust in rural Egypt. Whereas, having grown up in Ohio, making the trip from Cleveland to Ann Arbor for school countless times, driving through this endless stretch of green, finding the view of farmland mundane, I can only imagine what an Egyptian would say at such a sight, just as I found the western Sahara and the moon like landscape of Sinai fascinating. I marveled at the architecture in Paris, at the endless corner flower shops, the couples walking side by side, holding hands and embracing openly.
We drank coffee, ate creme brulee and cheese, and bought cheap wine and champaign. I loved the whimsical feeling in the city, the romantic appeal. I felt like anything
was possible and some crazy love affair waited around every cobblestone corner. I was in love with Paris, if only for the simple fact that it was not Egypt.
The two days in Paris passed quickly. The night before we left, we went to dinner with the man who owned the apartment we were staying in- our French grandfather.
He was an adorable man who left us bananas on the door in the morning and took us out to a lovely dinner- refu
sing to let us pay. "Listen to you all!" he said, in French. "Whining like babies- 'let us pay! Let us pay!' Listen. I'm the old man, you're the young ladies, it's my job to pay." I had
the most delicious French onion soup and we all tried snails. A little earthy, but not too bad. I think it's all in the sauce.
I was glad to finally arrive home after a brief lay over in DC.
Begin re-acclimation. Things I had to re-adjust to:
1) being able to wear shorts and tank tops in public. I still have a hard time with this one. Sometimes I see girls walking down the street and I want to yell, "put on some clothes!"
2) American food. I was mildly ill for about 2 weeks after I got home.
3) All the English. I miss Arabic.
4) Being able to flush toilet paper. Awesome.
5) That mild feeling in the pit of my stomach missing Egypt.
While I do miss Egypt a little, there are aspects I really don't miss. The crowds. The taxi drivers trying to rip me off.
The endless harassment and sexism that has cranked my already ardent feminism (I went to UofM, it happens) into something like a steroid induced overdrive. The flagship program (minus Robyn. I miss our director, Robyn).
They say that we were the first large group. There were bound to be problems and kinks to work out. They're making things better for students this year. I hope so. And while I admit that sometimes our efforts were lacking, they never bothered to understand why. I think American Councils labeled the majority of students in our program as simply unmotivated, uninterested, and lazy.
Yet, I know we are all great students. I'm sure our academic records at our home Universities reflect such. Why did we not succeed then, as they expected? It couldn't possibly be the poor curriculum that not only failed to reflect our actual abilities, but bored us to the point of exhaustion. The poor organization on everything. The failure of the program to understand the challenges students, especially female students, were facing outside (and sometimes inside) the academic program. The extreme culture shock that
actually caused a breakdown in one of the TAFL center students I lived with second semester? The inevitable depression. Personal issues that arose individually and within the group. etc. etc. The list goes on. Unfortunately, no. American Councils has failed to recognize the numerous challenges, obstacles, and pitfalls we overcame.
For some, simply making it through the whole year, just staying in Egypt, was an accomplishment. Like I mentioned before, one of my roommates second semester didn't make it. In fact, the culture shock was so extreme for her, she left only 3 weeks after she moved in with us. Instead, American Councils has chosen to see us as irresponsible and, I think, a general waste of their time.
Laura, Sara, and I had lunch with 2 girls that were with us in the summer last year and are going back in the fall for the year long program. We tried to explain why we had left Egypt feeling the way we did. Exhausted. Disillusioned. Angry. But even they did not understand. After trying to explain myself to several people, it's clear: Unless you've lived there for that long period of time, you'll never understand. Tourists could never
understand, in their short visits to the popular destinations. AUC students (yes, I'm ripping on the AUC study abroad students- you don't actually study in Egypt. Deal with it)
who's campus is now located in the middle of the desert outside Cairo, who attend University
with only the upper echelons of Egyptian society, spend EVERY weekend partying in Dahab or in the bars in Cairo, and who do not actually speak Arabic because most people in Cairo speak
English, could never understand.
It's frustrating to have had what was easily the most amazing and most terrible experience of my life, all at the same time, and have no one outside our little group of 14 understand it. But that's the way it is, the way it will always be.
I can only hope that you've enjoyed my stories and my pictures throughout the year. I hope that it gave you a peak into my life abroad, into my incredible journey, and into my personal transformation.
I will continue to use this blog to post updates for my next step in life, though I'm sure they will be far less interesting. I'm still job hunting and planning on moving down to Washington, DC in August with one of my best friends, Kristen Weidus. I've known her since birth, literally. We were next to each other in the nursery. I'm excited to live with her and share adventures while she continues her second year of law school and I look for a job and try to decide in which direction to take my life.
But for now- Shukran thank you. For your interest and support.
Ma'a Salama. With Peace. Goodbye.
