What a time to visit

Ok, so, if it's not already painfully obvious to anyone that has been attempting to follow this blog, I would like to state a fact: I am a horrible blogger. Abysmal, actually. I tend to forget about my blog. My apologies. I promise that once I'm stateside, there will be a flood of interesting things, but right now, life in Egypt is very easy to get distracted with.

Go figure, I've come to study here right around the time of the election to the Majlas Al-Shaab, basically parliament, here in Egypt. The elections are November 28th, and things are really starting to get interesting. I usually enjoy politics, but it's been a whole different matter following the Egyptian elections, because the setting and the context are so vastly different from what I'm used to seeing in America.

Here's some background: Egypt is, on paper, a democracy. A democracy with all the hallmark democratic institutions and courts and parliament and a president. Here's the problem. Egypt has had the same president since 1981, when the last president, Anwar Sadat, was assassinated. Now, here's the trick; due to the assassination, in 1981 the new president Hosni Mubarak declared a state of emergency that came with its own set of emergency rules and laws which essentially gave Hosni Mubarak the power to do what he saw fit, be it over-ruling court decisions or arresting dissenters and writers. The state of emergency has never ended. Twenty-nine years after the assassination of Anwar Sadat, Egypt is still in a state of emergency rule, with no signs of this changing. It's also rather strongly suspected (come on, everyone knows...) that the elections are rigged. Hosni Mubarak has never really been popular, and with the state of Egypt, and the economy here, it's really no wonder. Enter Al-Ichwan Al-Muslimeen, The Muslim Brotherhood, a rather popular Egyptian political and religious group started in 1928. To keep it simple,  Al-Ichwan believe Islam is the solution to the social, political, and economical problems facing Egypt. They also happen to be illegal in Egypt, courtesy of President Mubarak. So, in the elections, the Ichwan candidates run as independents, and the last parliamentary elections, they took 1/5 of the seats. This year, Mubarak and the ruling party want to make sure this does not happen again. For months now, there have been news stories about the government taking action against Al-Ichwan, be it laws against mass text messaging(A primary way Al-Ichwan reach their voters) or shutting down TV stations, arresting demonstrators, and people putting up signs for Ichwan candidates. Just this week the police got violent at a march in support of Al-Ichwan candidates.

It certainly has been an interesting process to watch, and I'm very much looking forward to seeing what happens on the 28th. In the meantime, some light reading:

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2010/11/20101119212833744148.html

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2010/10/20101019211047129994.html

http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/features/2010/11/20101117115630882819.html

Islamophobia

Living in Egypt, religion is ever present in my daily life. Just about any street I walk down, I am bound to see a church or a mosque. Five times a day (provided I'm awake) I will hear the Islamic call to prayer broadcast over loudspeakers from a nearby mosque. If I'm traveling while this is happening, I will hear a chorus of calls to prayer from several different mosques. A majority of the women around me wear hijab or the niqab. It is not unusual to see people praying in the streets, or in empty classrooms.

It's not scary. It's not threatening. Nobody is trying to convert me. The mosques and churches and monasteries are beautiful. The call to prayer is beautiful. The women living in the dorms with us all wear hijab or niqab, they pray daily, and they are fun, kind, hilarious, and generally just wonderful to be around. Being here has just confirmed what I already knew before I ever set foot in the Middle East: Islamophobia, that is, the fear of Islam, is bullshit. Complete and utter bullshit. Apologies for the profanity, but that's exactly what it is. If it were isolated, and not creeping into law and policy around the world, it would just be in the realm of the ridiculous and unfortunate, which is where it rightly belongs, but it turns out this fear and hatred is being codified in laws all over the world. If you watch the news, you can see that people are even trying to move in that direction in America. The so-called 'Ground Zero Mosque' controversy, proposed Quran burnings, warnings against Sha'ria law in the U.S., these are all episodes of Islamophobia in our own country. Here are some of the most horrible examples from other countries:

Swiss Minaret Ban

What it is: A law in Switzerland banning the construction of minarets

What is a minaret? It's a spire that is constructed as part of a mosque, a Muslim house of worship.

See the tall, pretty towers in the background? Those are minarets. Offensive, right? Yes, very, very scary architecture.

Another mosque with a minaret

So, moral of the story, these are now illegal in Switzerland. Or at least, no new minarets can be built. Guess how many minarets there are in Switzerland? There are 8. In the whole country, there are 8 minarets...but they were such a threat, that they are now banned. How on earth did this happen? Are the Swiss afraid of architecture? No, this ban passed by a 57% margin because of fear mongering, and very effective use of propaganda. How effective? Have a look at this:

This is the propaganda poster used by the pro-minaret ban party. Pretty terrifying, huh? Don't those minarets look like missiles? And the threatening woman in the niqab, I think maybe she's a terrorist! Right. Let's all just ignore the fact that there are nearly as many minarets in this picture as there are in all of Switzerland...Let's also ignore how the imagery here is obviously suggesting that minarets=islam=terrorism/violence. You have to admit, the image is very striking, and it was definitely effective in getting a country to ban a bit of architecture.

The French 'Burqa Ban'

What is it?: A law in France with a misleading name. Not only does it ban the burqa, but also the niqab. I guess 'The Niqab Ban' just didn't have the same ring to it...This law follows an earlier law that bans all forms of religious symbols in schools. This law means that French Muslim women that want to be able to attend school in France must forgo wearing hijab, something that is very important to many, many Muslim women. Now, for a crash-course in Muslim religious attire.

Hijab

This is the Hijab, the most common form of veiling among Muslim women. It covers the hair, and the neck/chest area

Niqab

The Niqab covers all but the area surrounding the eyes



Burqa

The Burqa covers pretty much everything, with only a mesh opening over the eyes

These last two are now outright illegal in France, and if caught wearing them, a woman will face a hefty fine. Here's the real zinger. How many women in France actually wear the Niqab or Burqa? Let me give you a hint: I am in Egypt. I have not seen any women wearing the Burqa. It is estimated that about 2,000 women in France wear the Niqab or Burqa. As of January 1st, 2010, the estimated French population was 65.4 million people. Math, anyone? That figures out to about .003% of the French population that this law is targeting. Not even one percent. Not even half of one percent. .003% of the population is so damned scary that France needed to pass a law aimed specifically at them. This is ridiculous. Keep in mind, this is France and Switzerland we're talking about, not some wacko dictatorships.

These are just two examples of Islamophobia manifesting itself in national laws. There are many other examples throughout Europe. They are all based on hate, fear, and ignorance. Pay attention, folks. Let's not let this mess happen in our country.

If you've got any questions about Islam, laws regarding Islam, or anything else, really, feel free to get i touch with me, I'll be happy to talk.

Rant. Over.

How I(almost) witnessed a police raid(maybe).

Let me start by saying that this is not as scary as it sounds. I was not in a sketchy place, there were no drugs, and no bootlegged alcohol.


I went to my favorite ahwa this morning to study. Ahwa is the Arabic word for cafe, but cafes in Egypt are not the same thing as cafes in America. In an Egyptian cafe you go in and sit down at a table or along the street in front of the cafe, like you would in a restaurant. Someone, kind of like a waiter will come and take your order. At most cafes they serve coffee and tea of different kinds, fresh juice, soft drinks, and some cafes, namely my favorite thus far, Riviera, have food items on the menu. You can get a whole meal. I had a roast beef sandwich with fries today, but they also have ice cream, and fruit, and pizza. The most striking difference about these cafes is why most people go to them in the first place. They serve shisha. Shisha is moist, flavored tobacco smoke with a hookah.

This is a pretty fancy hookah. It's essentially just a system for filtering the smoke through the water in the base of the hookah. The shisha is put in a bowl at the top of the hookah, and then a screen (or tinfoil with holes in it) is place over it, and on top of that, there are hot coals. The coals heat the shisha, producing smoke, but not actually burning the tobacco.
This is what everyone does at Egyptian cafes. They socialize with their friends, or study, and they smoke shisha. When in Rome...


So, I went to Riviera this morning expecting to drink turkish coffee, and smoke shisha, and study. I got to do two of those things. When I got there, there were men carrying hookahs out of the place like mad. There were people still smoking inside, but the waiters were sheepishly approaching them and taking their hookahs away. Still determined to have my shisha, I asked for it when the waiter came to take my order. From what I could gather of what he said, the police were coming. I could not have shisha, because the police were going to be there soon, and there was a problem with shisha. He told me that maybe in half an hour, I could have shisha. I was surprised. I had never had this problem at Riviera, or any other cafe. I had been there the night before, and everyone was smoking, and there was no problem.

I stayed for a few hours, drank coffee, studied, and had a sandwich. The police never showed up, and nobody got any shisha. I guess the police here operate on Egyptian time, as well. I was kind of disappointed. I had gotten all excited about my first police raid. I asked one of my professors about why the police were bothering my favorite cafe about shisha, and she told me that it was forbidden to have shisha in a closed space. Luckily for me, and all of the other cafe-goers, these things are rarely enforced, and I'll bet anything that if I go back to Riviera now, I will be able to smoke shisha. Maybe next time I'll at least be there at the right time to catch the police raid...

I'm not dead, I just have classes now

So, it has occurred to me that I haven't written anything here for two weeks. This is a problem. Unfortunately, my life here has gotten a lot busier since classes started two weeks ago. I'm taking four classes, three about Arabic, and one about religious life in Egypt, taught completely in Arabic. This is great, except for the fact that I have the vocabulary of a five year. A five year old who is very well informed about the United Nations.

Nearly three weeks into the Language Pledge, I can certainly say that it's difficult. The worst circumstances are those involving complex emotions or abstract concepts. It is very difficult to pantomime liberty or anxiety. For a while, everything was 'kwayis' or 'mish kwayis' (good, or not good), but things are definitely getting better. It's a small victory every day I go to class and understand something the professor says without translating it directly to English in my head. I'm also getting really good at charades.

It hasn't been all gloom, doom, frustration, and classes, though. I've managed to to some traveling. I can leave Egypt happy now, because I've seen the pyramids. I've stood on some of them, and climbed down into one of them. I may focus completely on Egyptian history after the arrival of Islam, but there's no denying how cool it is to see, let alone get up close and personal with something so ancient, and so enormous. To be honest, the size of the pyramids and the Sphinx really surprised me. I knew they were big, but it's hard to tell just how big they really are until you stand next to one. That said:

The picture really doesn't do it justice. One thing that really bothered me during my trip to Cairo was the fact that everything was so geared to tourists. I think I'm probably just carrying over a little bit of my Downeast sentiment about tourists, but I really generally dislike them. They're not so bad in Alexandria. Where I'm living and studying isn't really a touristy part of the city, which I am very much thankful for. In Cairo, they were everywhere. Near the hostel we were staying at, shop owners would call out to us in the streets, trying English first, and then French, or Spanish. The driver we all hired to take us to the pyramids also felt the need to take us to several 'mathafs' (mathaf in Arabic means museum) that were not in fact museums, but shops selling mostly really expensive goods marketed to tourists. It was frustrating, but a good insight into the Egyptian tourism industry, I suppose. 

The vacation had to end sometime, though. Classes started about two weeks ago now. I'm currently in the middle of my week. We have classes Saturday through Tuesday every week, with a three day weekend of Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. This is mostly due to scheduling and facilities availability issues, and isn't a common thing in Egypt. It's odd, but the three day weekend is a really nice bonus, so I'm not going to complain.

For now, that's the summary of the last two weeks. Lots of classes, lots of homework, lots of Arabic, lots of learning. Overall, it's been really good. Hopefully I'll have more to say about specific things in less than two weeks. Wish me luck with my mountain of homework...

My(Abridged) Adventure So Far

So, now that you know all about my trip over, I suppose I need to start talking about what I've been up to this whole time. I've been up to a lot. I'll try to cover all the important or interesting bits.

The first place we all went in Alexandria was the girls' dorm. All the female students in the program were dropped off here and left in the care of our roommates. Every female student living in the dorms is paired with an Egyptian woman. Having a roommate from your own country and your own culture can be very difficult, and it stands to reasons that the same would apply with someone from a completely different culture. While this may be true because there are certainly occasional differences or misunderstandings, I have to say that one of my favorite things about the program so far is my Egyptian roommate. Honestly, she's a riot. She has a wonderful sense of humor and a boisterous personality. It's very difficult to be sad with her around. She's also always willing to  help, be it with homework, or taxis, or getting to a market, or even lending me a set of pajamas the first night I was there because my bag hadn't made it upstairs yet. Also, she's told me that her mother is a teacher، and that she's looking forward to helping me with my Arabic...which is good, because on day 3 of the language pledge, I can certainly say that I need all the help that I can get. Hopefully at the end I'll look back at this and laugh, but right now it can get pretty frustrating not being able articulate what I'm thinking or feeling.

During orientation we all got shown around the university, and the city as well because of some of our excursions. The first morning I was in Alexandria, a group of us walked five minutes down the street and I took this picture. It's almost like being at home. It smells the same, but the wind isn't nearly as cold. Go figure. Maybe I should start an Egyptian lobster fishing business...

During orientation we also went to the Alexandria Library. The big, famous one. We got a tour, and it's enormous. It's very different from a regular library, though. You can never check out any of the materials in the library. They're only available to use in the library. We also went to the National Museum in Alexandria, which was relatively small, but gave a good picture of Egyptian history through the ages, from Pharonic Egypt to contemporary Egypt. It was very interesting, and also air-condition, which was definitely a bonus.

Later in the week the Dean of the Faculty of the Arts set our program up to go to this amazing park that was once the palace garden when Egypt still had monarchs. We got a tour of the palace that the king used as an office, and then we sat outside in the garden on these big couches and talked and had juice and tea and coffee and smoked shisha(hookah). It was a wonderful time. There was a performance by a 'Whirling Dervish.' See how they got the name? It was quite a sight to see.

http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=432770284813&ref=mf

 Before we went to the palace gardens, we had Iftar at an Egyptian restaurant.

So, about Iftar and Ramadan: When we arrived in Egypt, it was during the last week and a half or so of the month of Ramadan on the Islamic calendar. During Ramadan, Muslims fast during the daylight hours. They get up very early, before sunrise, or as seems to be the case with our Egyptian roommates, stay up all night, and eat a large meal before the sun rises. During the day, they abstain from eating, but look out when the sun sets (around 6:15), because everything stops. Shops close, trams stop running, and everyone begins Iftar, which means breaking the fast. The Iftar we had in the restaurant consisted of pita bread with hummus or tahini, different kinds of meat, rice, beans, and a drink called 'qamr al-deen,' which is a very sweet kind of apricot beverage. It was very, very good.

After all this fun, things finally had to get serious. We had placement exams, and then the (in)famous signing of the language pledge. Honestly, life is a lot harder not being able to speak at all in English. It makes simple things like asking for food or arranging to meet, or traveling very difficult at times. This is all complicated by the fact that most of us have only studied al-Fus-ha, which is Classical Arabic(kind of like Shakespearean English), but all of the people here speak ammiyya, or colloquial Arabic, and many don't speak or understand Fus-ha very well. So, as it stands, we're all kind of learning ammiyya on the fly. Hopefully when classes start it will get easier.

Getting there is half the fun(Part II)

Ok, up and at 'em!

Cairo ---->Molly ---->Hotel
Now the real adventure started. I had to get a visa, change my money over to Egyptian, and go through customs and immigration. This was all actually very easy. Anyone (American) that wants to visit Egypt, don't worry about getting a visa. Tourist visas are granted automatically to Americans in the airport upon arrival. I flew in to terminal one in Cairo, and I was supposed to meet my friend Molly in terminal three. Getting from one airport terminal to another should be simple, right? Nope. Welcome to Egypt. I had to ask three different people along the way to find the shuttle bus that would eventually take me to terminal three. Once there, I witnessed my first(but probably not last) heated argument in Arabic. They were speaking too quickly and too loudly for me to understand even a word of what they were saying, but they were very upset. I did finally make it to terminal three, and as luck would have it, Molly and another student from our program found me just as I walked through the door. From terminal three, we hailed a cab to our hotel. I don't think I'll ever forget my first cab ride in Egypt. It was an adventure, to say the least. Egyptian driving is shocking for someone who isn't prepared for it, which luckily I was by my dearest friend and his driving. In short, turn signals are rare, lanes don't matter much, speed is not a concern, and the horn is a driver's best friend. Good luck crossing the street. In addition to all of this, you often need to bargain with the cabbie for a good price. Alhamdu-lilah(Arabic for 'Thank God'), we made it to the Cairo Hyatt with no major bodily injuries.

Fil Funduq(In the hotel)
Let me start by saying that the Cairo Hyatt is definitely the nicest, fanciest, most upscale building I have ever set foot in. It was beautiful, and the service was wonderful. Molly and I shared a room, and it was lovely. We had an enormous bathroom with a nice shower, a bidet, and a phone by the toilet. Yes, a phone by the toilet. There was also toilet paper, which, as I've learned since leaving the Hyatt, was a major luxury as well. We also had a balcony with a great view of Cairo and the Nile. It was gorgeous during that first night, and also during the day.

For my first meal in Egypt, I ate a pigeon. A roasted pigeon. It was actually very good, not a lot of meat, though. It tasted something like deer meat. We spent a lot of time sleeping, which was more of a necessity than a choice.We also watched some Arabic-language MTV, which was just as classy as American MTV. Some of the shows were in English with subtitles...no wonder there's kind of a warped view of American women over here. Finally, after a lot of much-needed rest, we met up with more of our group in Cairo, and several perilous street-crossing later, we found the bus for the Middlebury program that would take us to Alexandria.

ALEXANDRIA!
A relatively long bus ride, and lots of socializing later, we made it to Alexandria where the female students were dropped off at our dorm, and the bus continued on with the men, and those students in home stays. We were all shown upstairs to our rooms by the Egyptian women that are living with us. Each female student has an Egyptian roommate. This is wonderful, for many, many reasons, linguistic and social. My roommate is wonderful. Her name is Mona, and she is always looking on the bright side of things, laughing, and making other people laugh. All of the Egyptian women here are wonderful. They always go out of their way to help us whenever they can, whether that mean helping us with Arabic, or taking us to the mall. I'll have more on all of this later.

That just about covers my journey. It was long, and certainly difficult at times, but thus far, well worth it.

Getting there is half the fun

Ahlan wa Sahlan!

Looks like I've made it to Alexandria. If I said it's been an easy journey, I'd be lying. It has, however, been very interesting. I'm breaking this into sections for my own sanity, so bear with me.

Home ---->Bangor
Pretty uneventful. Being the genius that I am, I forgot a bag at Walmart, much to my mother's dismay. In the end, it meant that I made the bus trip to Boston without my Goldfish snacks. Sad, but not a tragedy.

Bangor ---->Boston, Logan Airport
Also uneventful. I wasn't on the Greyhound, so thankfully I don't have any horror stories to tell about this bus adventure. It was nice, quick, and quiet. Always a winner when it comes to busses. I ended up spending a few hours waiting for my flight in Boston, which was actually pretty nice. I picked up a stuffed lobster for my Egyptian roommate, had some pizza, made a few important phone calls to those dear to me, downloaded skype with the free wifi, and most important of all, I enjoyed my last meal in America: Asian cuisine from the lovely Panda Express. My flight left on time, and all went well.

Boston ----> New York, JFK
On the flight to New York, I made a friend. By chance, the man sitting next to me was headed to Saudi Arabia where he works in a school. We were going to be on the same flight to Amman, Jordan, so we teamed up to navigate JFK and our change of airlines. The man was a blessing. He had made the trip to Saudi Arabia before, and knew what to do. I would have been in a mess if he hadn't been there to help me out. After a few minor airport hiccups we made it through security and to our plane.

New York ----> Amman, Jordan
This is where things got really interesting. It's hard to imagine that an 11 hour flight could be interesting, but it really was, I promise. I was flying on Royal Jordanian, which as the name implies, is based out of Jordan. Since it's based in Jordan, all announcements were in Arabic first and then English. The flight attendants handed out complimentary newspapers in Arabic or in English. The screen that was used to show movies had information about our progress, including altitude, miles to destination, time in New York, and time in Amman, as well as a map that showed where we were. The most interesting feature was a diagram of the plane with an arrow pointing in the direction of the Ka'aba. The Ka'aba is in Mecca, the holy city where all Muslims turn and face to pray, everywhere in the world. I wasn't really surprised by this being featured with all of the other important information, but it really was an indication that I had finally made the jump to the Muslim world, even before the plane left New York. The flight itself was long. Very long. There were two in-flight meals, which were delicious, especially because I was tired and hungry, and hot food of any kind was more than welcome. Eventually we landed in Amman, and I had to run around using my limited airport-arabic skills(You'd think Al-Kitaab, our Arabic textbook, would teach us words to use in the airport...nope) to find my way to my gate. I had to go through security again, but it was much different than U.S. security. There were two separate lines for men and women, and I didn't have to take my shoes off. From there, the gate was easy to find, and I was on my way to Cairo.

Amman ---->Cairo
This was a very, very short flight, which after the last one, was nice. The fed us on this flight, too. Everyone was given a box with a small bottle of water, orange juice, three dates, two small cheese sandwiches, and an almond sweet roll. Everything was very good. I strongly suggest flying Royal Jordanian for any trips you may make to the Middle East, they really know how to treat their passengers well.


Ok. I'm only about half-done with my story, it's 1 a.m. here, and I have orientation in the morning. I'll get to the rest of the story tomorrow, with pictures, Inshallah.

Bedtime in Alexandria.