It has been exactly one month since I last posted here. That is a much longer gap than I originally intended, but I guess it is just another manifestation of what I predicted in my last post--that the real story starts when you come out of the clouds. Before leaving on any study abroad adventure, the typical student will hear hours, perhaps days of rhetoric about 'intercultural exchange', 'the immersion experience', and of course the usual talk about language learning and academic standards. Yet, at least as far as study abroad in Egypt is concerned, I am coming to think that the value of study abroad is much less specific, and probably a great deal less ambitious (at least on the surface) than any study abroad brochure will tell you.
My biggest struggles in Egypt have not really come from any so-called 'clash of civilizations', or even, really, the famous 'culture shock.' What has exhausted me most, (even kept me from posting for quite some time) is not my experiences themselves, but the struggle to keep perspective on everything I experience. Before leaving home, I had several encounters with people who expected me to come back with a particular story of Egypt--one that either focused on the glory of the Ancient Egyptians (and ignored both the existence, and the history, of any Egypt after that point), or the threat of radical Islam, terrorism, fundamentalism, misogyny, etc.
Here, I find myself in conversations with professors, random people, etc., who expect me to be the kind of American they saw in action movies and music videos on satellite television (every time I see a Britney Spears music video in a coffee shop, I think there must be another American businessman I want to kill...or at least permanently injure...) Side note/crackpot theory: Satellite tv, which I think is responsible for most of the world's view of American culture aside from foreign policy, is full of the worst of American television. When I'm not expected to be a stereotypical American, I am expected to have stereotypes about the Middle East like 'everyone rides on camels' and 'all Arabs are terorrists.' Barring that, I am expected to admit that Americans are just like Egyptians and in fact everything is exactly the same. Except Egyptians are friendlier. Of course not all, or even most of my conversations run this way, but enough of them do. I end up feeling caught in the middle of a tug-of-war between these defensive discourses about America, about Egypt, about the 'East', about the 'West'...so caught up that there is hardly any room for me to have any impressions of my own! Part of the problem, of course, is that I kept seeing myself as that 'student ambassador' that study abroad programs love to glorify, rather than a person.
Living in Egypt, or living in the Middle East at large, means (for a westerner) living in the middle of one of today's most problematic cultural misunderstandinsg. This is difficult for professional ambassadors, let alone students, to handle. We are in a particularly strange position as we are neither connected to an expat community, nor truly immersed in Egyptian society. Over the past month, I began to realize that as long as I viewed myself as this mythical 'student ambassador', I would feel frustrated and anxious. The real benefit of study abroad, I've come to believe, is something much more subtle and simple.
What we are learning here, bottom line, is how to make a life for ourselves in a new place. This is something that is hard to do; it involves making a certain amount of sacrifices, but it also involves making decisions about what aspects of your culture, your identity, your history, and your privilege you want to preserve. It also involves huge questions of identity, adaptation, and growth. Of course, making a life for one semester under the care of a college study abroad program is much different than making your life over as an immigrant or refugee in a new country, but some of the basic questions and issues are still the same. I do think that what I learn during my time here will be valuable in helping me to understand other people...I don't think that the most valuable aspect of this time will have been 'learning to appreciate Egyptian culture.' I could just as easily have done that from the U.S., by 'appreciating' Egyptian cinema, music, literature, etc., and not having to even think about the many problems in Egyptian society, or even those aspects of Egyptian society that, while they are not necessarily problems, make me uncomfortable.
I'm not saying that I don't appreciate Egyptian culture, or that living here has made me appreciate it less, but I do think that our program directors are missing a huge part of the picture when they sell study abroad as a way to learn to appreciate something. Wherever you are, whatever you are doing, you choose what you will and will not learn to appreciate. I think it would be very easy for me to live here and learn to dislike, even hate, huge parts of Egyptian culture. It would also be very easy for me to live here and pretend for six months that I had forgotten American culture. Neither of these options is at all appealing or even helpful, aside from being very crude survival tactics. What I am here to do, bottom line, is to learn...good, bad, ugly, and to grow.
I am still figuring out how and where to grow, but ever since I came to the above conclusion, I have felt much less anxious about my position in the middle of America's testy conversation with the Middle East. I am trying to make a life in a new place; sometimes that means listening to myself more (and listening to the 'rules' less), and sometimes that means pushing myself farther, to meet new people, to build new relationships (even if they don't always work out). I think an understanding of that process will ultimately be much more helpful than acquiring a taste for Egyptian movies (which I actually don't mind, they're sort of a weird in between step, part Hollywood, part Bollywood, and part hurry-up-and-get-it-over-with), eating foul and falafel every day, or watching hours of music videos on satellite television.
Monday, March 10
Sunday, February 10
this is the post about saturday, which explains why I said "mostly"
On Saturday Caitlin and I went to the national museum. We got dropped off at the wrong place again (the Greco-Roman musem), but we found our way. I made some sketches of my favorite pieces at the museum. I am starting to feel friendly with that place.
We figured out how to walk back to our neighborhood from there, and got programs from the French cultural center on the way (which are only in french and arabic). We found a place to buy an iron becase our clothes always come off the line full of wrinkles. I remembered the word for iron from our last ‘amiya class. Across the street from that shop was a fresh juice place. We bought fresh lemon juice for a pound each, and sat upstairs so we could look out over the street, but this little girl and boy were sitting by the railing, so we sat farther back and watched them instead. They reminded me of those greeting cards with children posing as adult couples, it looked like a version of the ‘French bistro’ pose, or Paris. It was a great neighborhood, right along Nabi Daniel Street, which is lined with booksellers, which means it is literally lined with books. We started to finally feel comfortable with our place here and competent in taking care of ourselves.
From there we walked to Mohatat Masr, the train station, and through a busy fruit and vegetable and olive and bread and cheese and meat market , and bought a pirated dvd which didn't work (for less than two dollars, oh well), and found a church. We were walking in the wrong direction and we knew it, but we kept going because the building was so huge and majestic, and the neighborhood looked poor, we wanted to see what it was. When we got closer we knew that it was a church, and it was huge, but there were gigantic cement blocks in front of all the entrances, like someone had finally had to abandon it and didn't want anyone to get in. We could see over the cement blocks through the grill to the inside. There was beautiful greco-roman detail on the columns.
I wanted to know whose church it used to be and what happened…about four or five years ago there were a lot of very violent riots in Alexandria, which is where the Muslim Brotherhood is based. Had it been cemented up then? Or much earlier? Is it just another place that Alexandria doesn’t have the funds or the organization or the impetus to preserve?
The district all around the church looked like a car repair district, men were grinding off paint and welding things and all the chemicals in the air were making us sick so we turned back.
We walked through the market again, and we found our way to a fatir restaurant on our street called Ana Misho. They also serve koshary, pasta, and apparently hamburgers, and we decided to try some of those other dishes but they weren't very good.
Still, we felt that we had made progress because the last time we were there our waiter kept changing the music to 'gasolina' over and over again, and smiling at us as if we liked it, as if we wanted to hear gasolina playing every time we walk into a fast food restaurant (this has happened to us before. I don't know why). This time they left the music playing as it was.
As we were walking home we spotted another juice place across the street. This one had coconuts, and since our food was so unsatisfying we thought it might be a good time to try a new juice drink. We especially want to try more places in our neighborhood, so we don’t feel we have to go far away to eat and drink well.
Just as we were about to enter, I saw this man approaching out of the corner of my eye, but I didn’t really take notice of him, there are always men in my periphery vision, talking to me, even, but I can’t respond and so I have taught myself almost not to notice them.
But suddenly this man leaned in and spit in my face.
It was a very fine spray, actually. I remember noticing that, and appreciating it.
The men on the street yelled at him:
'Why did you do that?'
'Why?!' he yelled out, 'Because they're asses!'
We decided not to get any juice.
And I started to cry.
Egypt makes me very emotional, all my emotions are right beneath the surface and constantly getting triggered, good and bad, one after another.
I know the guys who had yelled at the man saw me crying, they were staring at us when Caitlin put her arm around me. We walked the whole way back to the apartment like that, me with my hand over my mouth.
Caitlin had to buy more water from Fathalla, the market on our street, so I went back up to the apartment by myself. While I was sitting alone in the apartment waiting for Caitlin to come back and not knowing exactly what to do because Mona was in Cairo I wondered...idly…if he was someone we had pissed off in particular. If he was a cab driver, or some other person, maybe, who we hadn't paid more than he charges everyone else…and he recognized us.
I almost like that idea better. The reason I don't lie when people ask me where I'm from is because I think we need to represent ourselves well when we get the chance. But when we are just walking down the street we don’t have the chance to represent anything, our face means whatever it means to the people who see us.
It is frustrating to run into that without having the chance to explain. I know that a lot of people experience that in America, this is just a short slice out of my life, and that it probably won't even happen to me again.
But I felt hurt because I am putting so much energy into this venture, and I really care about each and every thing that I do here and what kind of a story I take back with me when I go home. So it disappoints me, even though I know that that man is not a representative of his country.
Just as I am not really a representative of mine.
We figured out how to walk back to our neighborhood from there, and got programs from the French cultural center on the way (which are only in french and arabic). We found a place to buy an iron becase our clothes always come off the line full of wrinkles. I remembered the word for iron from our last ‘amiya class. Across the street from that shop was a fresh juice place. We bought fresh lemon juice for a pound each, and sat upstairs so we could look out over the street, but this little girl and boy were sitting by the railing, so we sat farther back and watched them instead. They reminded me of those greeting cards with children posing as adult couples, it looked like a version of the ‘French bistro’ pose, or Paris. It was a great neighborhood, right along Nabi Daniel Street, which is lined with booksellers, which means it is literally lined with books. We started to finally feel comfortable with our place here and competent in taking care of ourselves.
From there we walked to Mohatat Masr, the train station, and through a busy fruit and vegetable and olive and bread and cheese and meat market , and bought a pirated dvd which didn't work (for less than two dollars, oh well), and found a church. We were walking in the wrong direction and we knew it, but we kept going because the building was so huge and majestic, and the neighborhood looked poor, we wanted to see what it was. When we got closer we knew that it was a church, and it was huge, but there were gigantic cement blocks in front of all the entrances, like someone had finally had to abandon it and didn't want anyone to get in. We could see over the cement blocks through the grill to the inside. There was beautiful greco-roman detail on the columns.
I wanted to know whose church it used to be and what happened…about four or five years ago there were a lot of very violent riots in Alexandria, which is where the Muslim Brotherhood is based. Had it been cemented up then? Or much earlier? Is it just another place that Alexandria doesn’t have the funds or the organization or the impetus to preserve?
The district all around the church looked like a car repair district, men were grinding off paint and welding things and all the chemicals in the air were making us sick so we turned back.
We walked through the market again, and we found our way to a fatir restaurant on our street called Ana Misho. They also serve koshary, pasta, and apparently hamburgers, and we decided to try some of those other dishes but they weren't very good.
Still, we felt that we had made progress because the last time we were there our waiter kept changing the music to 'gasolina' over and over again, and smiling at us as if we liked it, as if we wanted to hear gasolina playing every time we walk into a fast food restaurant (this has happened to us before. I don't know why). This time they left the music playing as it was.
As we were walking home we spotted another juice place across the street. This one had coconuts, and since our food was so unsatisfying we thought it might be a good time to try a new juice drink. We especially want to try more places in our neighborhood, so we don’t feel we have to go far away to eat and drink well.
Just as we were about to enter, I saw this man approaching out of the corner of my eye, but I didn’t really take notice of him, there are always men in my periphery vision, talking to me, even, but I can’t respond and so I have taught myself almost not to notice them.
But suddenly this man leaned in and spit in my face.
It was a very fine spray, actually. I remember noticing that, and appreciating it.
The men on the street yelled at him:
'Why did you do that?'
'Why?!' he yelled out, 'Because they're asses!'
We decided not to get any juice.
And I started to cry.
Egypt makes me very emotional, all my emotions are right beneath the surface and constantly getting triggered, good and bad, one after another.
I know the guys who had yelled at the man saw me crying, they were staring at us when Caitlin put her arm around me. We walked the whole way back to the apartment like that, me with my hand over my mouth.
Caitlin had to buy more water from Fathalla, the market on our street, so I went back up to the apartment by myself. While I was sitting alone in the apartment waiting for Caitlin to come back and not knowing exactly what to do because Mona was in Cairo I wondered...idly…if he was someone we had pissed off in particular. If he was a cab driver, or some other person, maybe, who we hadn't paid more than he charges everyone else…and he recognized us.
I almost like that idea better. The reason I don't lie when people ask me where I'm from is because I think we need to represent ourselves well when we get the chance. But when we are just walking down the street we don’t have the chance to represent anything, our face means whatever it means to the people who see us.
It is frustrating to run into that without having the chance to explain. I know that a lot of people experience that in America, this is just a short slice out of my life, and that it probably won't even happen to me again.
But I felt hurt because I am putting so much energy into this venture, and I really care about each and every thing that I do here and what kind of a story I take back with me when I go home. So it disappoints me, even though I know that that man is not a representative of his country.
Just as I am not really a representative of mine.
Saturday, February 9
a (mostly) successful weekend…
Staying in Alexandria this weekend (instead of heading off to Dahab with the other Middlebury kids) turned out to be a good idea.
On Friday, Caitlin had a ballet class in a neighborhood called Kafr Abdo, where we’d never been before, so we took directions from Mona (who was in Cairo this weekend) and got in the cab. When we arrived, we realized that we had finally found at least one of Alexandria’s expat neighborhoods. It was almost funny how quickly we realized it…first we thought ‘expat’, and then we started looking for the clues that had tipped us off. Cars parked in the street, garages under apartment buildings, more trees, American and European clothing stores, a general feeling of spaciousness…we quickly realized (despite the initial lack of any obvious foreigners besides ourselves in the streets) that we were right. While Caitlin tried out the class, I sat in the café across the street and copied all the cultural centers, galleries, artists’ names, projects, etc. in their magazines and newspapers. It’s a pretty good list, and I hope to use it as my personal guide over the next few months.
Despite the Tamareen Center’s location on a dead end street, we were still able to catch a cab back to the Faculty of the Arts, where we planned to meet Helene. Unfortunately, the cab driver spent the whole long ride trying to chat us up in Arabic. We couldn’t really get out because there weren’t that many cabs in the neighborhoods. On the other hand, he talked almost exclusively about food, which helped reinforce last week’s vocabulary lessons in Amiya! And we told him that we don’t own cell phones (although I had used mine in the cab to text Helene…I guess he didn’t notice), so once the ride was over we escaped.
I met Helene at the center just this past week, where I found out that she was a Middlebury alum from Norway who had just arrived a week ago. Since Caitlin and I were planning to explore Alexandria this weekend, I invited her to come along. We got to play tour guides and psuedo-mentors to her, even though she’s 26 and has lived abroad in Singapore, Vermont, South America, and Tanzania. It amazes me every time I reaize how true it is that immigration and language learning press a kind of reset button on age…the usual hierarchies kind of fall away in the face of practicality.
First we went to Citadel, or the Qatbai Fort. I was worried that it would be gross or dark or boring after the way that Fatma (our friend from Alexandria) described it, and worried again after we accidentally got tickets for this weird fake aquarium-diorama section in a section of the Citadel, rather than entrance tickets to the Citadel itself. But when we finally went in, it was beautiful. The weather was amazing, and families sat in the courtyard, children running around. The passages and corridors reminded me of the kind of imaginary places I used to like a child, and the windows and arches inside framed the light and the people beautifully. It made me very sad that my camera isn’t working yet. All of us were equally impressed, and decided that it was a good location for a picnic, or a return visit on a day when we wanted to just be somewhere nice. The air off the water is clean and from the roof of the citadel we could see the brightly colored boats in Alexandria’s harbor.
The boardwalk outside the Citadel reminds me of boardwalks in the U.S….there are men selling cotton candy and ice cream and tacky gifts made out of shells. Couples and children and families are all around. In general, I love the fact that tourist destinations in Egypt are also tourist destinations for Egyptians. Although it is startling to run into large tour groups from other countries and suddenly see more foreigners, there are always plenty of Egyptians there exploring their own city, their own country, or just enjoying it. And one of the nice things about running into tourists is being able to act as their guide. At the Citadel we met a family from Lahore who somehow had gotten a non-English speaking driver. They were only in Alexandria for a day and they wanted to know a good place to go. Maybe a shopping district? Caitlin and I were very proud of ourselves for telling the driver to take them to Menshia, because it is the perfect combination of tourist destination, shopping, and a real part of the living city. Hopefully they enjoyed it…
After the Citadel, Caitlin and I took Helene to Mohammed Ahmed. It was so much fun to watch someone else realize for the first time how good their food is and (afterward) how cheap. All along the way we taught her important Arabic phrases and directions to important, useful places. It was a great exercise, because we were finally able to see how much we had learned and how much more at ease we were in this city. Helene was also an awesome person to spend the day with. She’s had all sorts of interesting experiences, and she remembers Middlebury, and UWC (I think once you dip into the world of United World Colleges, even if you never go there, you can’t escape..), and also she was able to pull a very helpful trick when guys tried to bother us: speaking Norwegian. Maybe we can get her to teach us a few phrases so we can do that ourselves.
(Another reason why the language pledge is not that helpful: the best way to get rid of bothersome men is to pretend that you don’t understand them.)
I’m already looking forward to next weekend, because I’ll be going with Helene and her host family on a church trip to the St. Mina monastery. Her host family are Copts, and apparently they go on trips like this frequently.
On Friday, Caitlin had a ballet class in a neighborhood called Kafr Abdo, where we’d never been before, so we took directions from Mona (who was in Cairo this weekend) and got in the cab. When we arrived, we realized that we had finally found at least one of Alexandria’s expat neighborhoods. It was almost funny how quickly we realized it…first we thought ‘expat’, and then we started looking for the clues that had tipped us off. Cars parked in the street, garages under apartment buildings, more trees, American and European clothing stores, a general feeling of spaciousness…we quickly realized (despite the initial lack of any obvious foreigners besides ourselves in the streets) that we were right. While Caitlin tried out the class, I sat in the café across the street and copied all the cultural centers, galleries, artists’ names, projects, etc. in their magazines and newspapers. It’s a pretty good list, and I hope to use it as my personal guide over the next few months.
Despite the Tamareen Center’s location on a dead end street, we were still able to catch a cab back to the Faculty of the Arts, where we planned to meet Helene. Unfortunately, the cab driver spent the whole long ride trying to chat us up in Arabic. We couldn’t really get out because there weren’t that many cabs in the neighborhoods. On the other hand, he talked almost exclusively about food, which helped reinforce last week’s vocabulary lessons in Amiya! And we told him that we don’t own cell phones (although I had used mine in the cab to text Helene…I guess he didn’t notice), so once the ride was over we escaped.
I met Helene at the center just this past week, where I found out that she was a Middlebury alum from Norway who had just arrived a week ago. Since Caitlin and I were planning to explore Alexandria this weekend, I invited her to come along. We got to play tour guides and psuedo-mentors to her, even though she’s 26 and has lived abroad in Singapore, Vermont, South America, and Tanzania. It amazes me every time I reaize how true it is that immigration and language learning press a kind of reset button on age…the usual hierarchies kind of fall away in the face of practicality.
First we went to Citadel, or the Qatbai Fort. I was worried that it would be gross or dark or boring after the way that Fatma (our friend from Alexandria) described it, and worried again after we accidentally got tickets for this weird fake aquarium-diorama section in a section of the Citadel, rather than entrance tickets to the Citadel itself. But when we finally went in, it was beautiful. The weather was amazing, and families sat in the courtyard, children running around. The passages and corridors reminded me of the kind of imaginary places I used to like a child, and the windows and arches inside framed the light and the people beautifully. It made me very sad that my camera isn’t working yet. All of us were equally impressed, and decided that it was a good location for a picnic, or a return visit on a day when we wanted to just be somewhere nice. The air off the water is clean and from the roof of the citadel we could see the brightly colored boats in Alexandria’s harbor.
The boardwalk outside the Citadel reminds me of boardwalks in the U.S….there are men selling cotton candy and ice cream and tacky gifts made out of shells. Couples and children and families are all around. In general, I love the fact that tourist destinations in Egypt are also tourist destinations for Egyptians. Although it is startling to run into large tour groups from other countries and suddenly see more foreigners, there are always plenty of Egyptians there exploring their own city, their own country, or just enjoying it. And one of the nice things about running into tourists is being able to act as their guide. At the Citadel we met a family from Lahore who somehow had gotten a non-English speaking driver. They were only in Alexandria for a day and they wanted to know a good place to go. Maybe a shopping district? Caitlin and I were very proud of ourselves for telling the driver to take them to Menshia, because it is the perfect combination of tourist destination, shopping, and a real part of the living city. Hopefully they enjoyed it…
After the Citadel, Caitlin and I took Helene to Mohammed Ahmed. It was so much fun to watch someone else realize for the first time how good their food is and (afterward) how cheap. All along the way we taught her important Arabic phrases and directions to important, useful places. It was a great exercise, because we were finally able to see how much we had learned and how much more at ease we were in this city. Helene was also an awesome person to spend the day with. She’s had all sorts of interesting experiences, and she remembers Middlebury, and UWC (I think once you dip into the world of United World Colleges, even if you never go there, you can’t escape..), and also she was able to pull a very helpful trick when guys tried to bother us: speaking Norwegian. Maybe we can get her to teach us a few phrases so we can do that ourselves.
(Another reason why the language pledge is not that helpful: the best way to get rid of bothersome men is to pretend that you don’t understand them.)
I’m already looking forward to next weekend, because I’ll be going with Helene and her host family on a church trip to the St. Mina monastery. Her host family are Copts, and apparently they go on trips like this frequently.
Friday, February 8
good news
It may seem like a funny coincidence that just as the Lenten season begins, my new life in Egypt is starting to regain some of the comforts I had to give up during the past month. I know I have repeatedly complained vaguely about my unsatisfactory 'internet situation', and I've been here long enough to know that a new 'situation' could easily develop within the next few minutes, or days, or months, but at the risk of jinxing myself I do want to celebrate this: Caitlin and I have internet in our apartment! The coverage is still a little uneven between the two of us (the wireless works for her, doesn't for me), but I am finally able to do my internet business from home, without worrying about the life of my laptop battery or the closing hours and ridiculous security protocol of the Alexandria library.
Now that I have internet, of course, I feel overwhelmed. How can I possibly 'catch up' with everything that's happened, not happened, and mis-happened over the past month? How many of the entries that I promised I would write can I even remember, let alone organize? Maybe it is time to take a step back and try to find a 'big picture.'
I've said repeatedly in conversation and emails (and even quoted myself as saying here) that I love Egypt. Yet in all the craziness, I've really only had time to relate a few 'amusing' anecdotes that do more to show why I might have trouble adjusting to life in Alexandria and Egypt, than to show why I feel coming here was a right decision. They certainly don't explain why I am considering coming back next fall. So maybe it is time for a feel-good, self-indulgent, why-I-want-to-stay-in-Egypt-long-enough-to-know-it-better post. Consider yourselves warned.
Reason #1: Beginnings
I've been trying fruitlessly not to romanticize Egypt--Masr--since before I got here. I told myself that I would take everything, absolutely everything, just exactly as it was, no more, no less. But Masr is too huge, too old, and too complex a place and a concept to experience without feeling something...something a lot like romance. And to make a huge, but I believe accurate, generalization: the culture, the music, the art here are all extremely emotive. Masr inspires laughter, love, and even anger or fear...but it honestly doesn't make sense to live in Masr without getting carried away.
The feeling that most often carries me away is the feeling of origins. This is true for several reasons, some personal and some historical. Masr sometimes calls herself 'Omm al-Doniya' or Mother of the World, mother of civilization. I don't need to give a lesson in Ancient Egyptian history to explain that one. But it is not just that old-ness that touches me...knowing I am at the source, now, after almost twenty years of museum halls, tours, exhibits.
As I mentioned in my first post, my name has Persian and Arabic roots, and tends to get 'taken back' here. To me, my name is a very important part of my identity. I have never met anyone with the same name, and I have been able to see my name and my self as almost inseparable, rather than one being representative of the other. And as someone who believes (whether I acknowledge it or not) that everything has a reason, a meaning, I have always connected ideas about my name to ideas about my self. For example, my name's real-life source was a book (now out of print) that my mother read. She liked the name, and the fact that in the book (called Jessamy, by Barbara Sleight), Jessamy was the name of all the eldest daughters. For years--and, honestly, even now--I (have) believed that this has influenced the nature of my attraction to literary and creative worlds and perhaps, even, to ideas of tradition and inheritance. I may see myself as a character in a story (for better or worse) because that is where the first idea of me and my name came from.
In this context, Masr has a huge influence on my identity and self-exploration. I almost feel that I am exploring the secret roots of my name, one of the places that had to exist for even that first character to have been invented (I personally think that Jessamy came to English through Arabic and not directly from Persian, because my little crackpot linguist self thinks that the Y to J transformation came through Spanish, which I then tie to Arab connections with Spain...no fussing about details from me, haha). It is also curious to find myself suddenly in a place where my name is almost normal (some people have even reminded me of that singer from the Persian Gulf, Hussein al-Jassmy, who I originally picked up as proof that Arabs *could* pronounce my name correctly, not as Yasmeen), and every time I meet someone new I find myself getting another lecture about its roots.
Of course, this also means that Masr is making me see myself as more of a fictional character than ever before. Jessamy Part 2. Or "Jessamy" (the word) gets de-colonized. I always have to laugh when I think about a white American girl de-colonizing her name. I think that's the only reason I even have that idea in the first place...to laugh at it. :D
The third, and maybe most important beginning, is a religious one. I don't talk very much about my religious feelings, mostly because I am still in the process of hashing them all out, but one of the major results of my Middle Eastern Studies...studies...has been a real cementing of the feeling that all the Abrahamic faiths (and personally I think more than these) do worship the same God, and beyond that, the incredible closeness between these religions.
Sometimes this comes out as language. Although our Arabic textbook hinted that Christians would be more likely use to use the word 'rub' or Lord than 'allah' for God, I've found this to be emphatically untrue as far as conversation is concerned. Arabic is full of 'allah', full of 'thank god's and 'god willing's, and god bless yous and god keep yous etc. And Christians say them just the same way as Muslims do, rather than having some kind of 'special version.' That's not saying that there aren't some language differences, and Christians do use a different word for God in church services (as far as I've been told)...but there isn't any sense that Muslims own the Arabic language more so than Christians do (*Jews in and of Egypt deserve their own entry at some later point...it's too long, complicated, and sad a story to just stick in here). If someone ever seemed offended at my saying 'inshallah' or 'alhamdulillah', I would probably be offended right back.
I've sort of veered off topic here. My point in bringing up religion was to say that as a minister's daughter, and someone who does take matters of faith seriously (to the point that it kept me from being confirmed in any particular doctrine just because that happened to be the church I was born into/belonged to), there is something very stirring about being in the home of the oldest Christian church in the world: the Coptic church. In fact, we get our word for Egypt from a corrupted version of the word for Copts (correct me if I'm wrong). This is a picture of a Coptic Church on an island in the Nile. There's something about seeing a church in this country that makes me excited and curious...it may just be that they're more beautiful.
Now that I have internet, of course, I feel overwhelmed. How can I possibly 'catch up' with everything that's happened, not happened, and mis-happened over the past month? How many of the entries that I promised I would write can I even remember, let alone organize? Maybe it is time to take a step back and try to find a 'big picture.'
I've said repeatedly in conversation and emails (and even quoted myself as saying here) that I love Egypt. Yet in all the craziness, I've really only had time to relate a few 'amusing' anecdotes that do more to show why I might have trouble adjusting to life in Alexandria and Egypt, than to show why I feel coming here was a right decision. They certainly don't explain why I am considering coming back next fall. So maybe it is time for a feel-good, self-indulgent, why-I-want-to-stay-in-Egypt-long-enough-to-know-it-better post. Consider yourselves warned.
Reason #1: Beginnings
I've been trying fruitlessly not to romanticize Egypt--Masr--since before I got here. I told myself that I would take everything, absolutely everything, just exactly as it was, no more, no less. But Masr is too huge, too old, and too complex a place and a concept to experience without feeling something...something a lot like romance. And to make a huge, but I believe accurate, generalization: the culture, the music, the art here are all extremely emotive. Masr inspires laughter, love, and even anger or fear...but it honestly doesn't make sense to live in Masr without getting carried away.
The feeling that most often carries me away is the feeling of origins. This is true for several reasons, some personal and some historical. Masr sometimes calls herself 'Omm al-Doniya' or Mother of the World, mother of civilization. I don't need to give a lesson in Ancient Egyptian history to explain that one. But it is not just that old-ness that touches me...knowing I am at the source, now, after almost twenty years of museum halls, tours, exhibits.
As I mentioned in my first post, my name has Persian and Arabic roots, and tends to get 'taken back' here. To me, my name is a very important part of my identity. I have never met anyone with the same name, and I have been able to see my name and my self as almost inseparable, rather than one being representative of the other. And as someone who believes (whether I acknowledge it or not) that everything has a reason, a meaning, I have always connected ideas about my name to ideas about my self. For example, my name's real-life source was a book (now out of print) that my mother read. She liked the name, and the fact that in the book (called Jessamy, by Barbara Sleight), Jessamy was the name of all the eldest daughters. For years--and, honestly, even now--I (have) believed that this has influenced the nature of my attraction to literary and creative worlds and perhaps, even, to ideas of tradition and inheritance. I may see myself as a character in a story (for better or worse) because that is where the first idea of me and my name came from.
In this context, Masr has a huge influence on my identity and self-exploration. I almost feel that I am exploring the secret roots of my name, one of the places that had to exist for even that first character to have been invented (I personally think that Jessamy came to English through Arabic and not directly from Persian, because my little crackpot linguist self thinks that the Y to J transformation came through Spanish, which I then tie to Arab connections with Spain...no fussing about details from me, haha). It is also curious to find myself suddenly in a place where my name is almost normal (some people have even reminded me of that singer from the Persian Gulf, Hussein al-Jassmy, who I originally picked up as proof that Arabs *could* pronounce my name correctly, not as Yasmeen), and every time I meet someone new I find myself getting another lecture about its roots.
Of course, this also means that Masr is making me see myself as more of a fictional character than ever before. Jessamy Part 2. Or "Jessamy" (the word) gets de-colonized. I always have to laugh when I think about a white American girl de-colonizing her name. I think that's the only reason I even have that idea in the first place...to laugh at it. :D
The third, and maybe most important beginning, is a religious one. I don't talk very much about my religious feelings, mostly because I am still in the process of hashing them all out, but one of the major results of my Middle Eastern Studies...studies...has been a real cementing of the feeling that all the Abrahamic faiths (and personally I think more than these) do worship the same God, and beyond that, the incredible closeness between these religions.
Sometimes this comes out as language. Although our Arabic textbook hinted that Christians would be more likely use to use the word 'rub' or Lord than 'allah' for God, I've found this to be emphatically untrue as far as conversation is concerned. Arabic is full of 'allah', full of 'thank god's and 'god willing's, and god bless yous and god keep yous etc. And Christians say them just the same way as Muslims do, rather than having some kind of 'special version.' That's not saying that there aren't some language differences, and Christians do use a different word for God in church services (as far as I've been told)...but there isn't any sense that Muslims own the Arabic language more so than Christians do (*Jews in and of Egypt deserve their own entry at some later point...it's too long, complicated, and sad a story to just stick in here). If someone ever seemed offended at my saying 'inshallah' or 'alhamdulillah', I would probably be offended right back.
I've sort of veered off topic here. My point in bringing up religion was to say that as a minister's daughter, and someone who does take matters of faith seriously (to the point that it kept me from being confirmed in any particular doctrine just because that happened to be the church I was born into/belonged to), there is something very stirring about being in the home of the oldest Christian church in the world: the Coptic church. In fact, we get our word for Egypt from a corrupted version of the word for Copts (correct me if I'm wrong). This is a picture of a Coptic Church on an island in the Nile. There's something about seeing a church in this country that makes me excited and curious...it may just be that they're more beautiful.
This isn't one of the most beautiful churches I've seen...though pretty much all of the churches I've seen here have been gorgeous. Sometimes the architecture makes me feel that connection between faiths even more strongly; more than a few of the churches I've seen look like mosques with crosses stuck on the top.
This brings me to Reason #2: Visuals
Unfortunately, some continued technical difficulties with my camera have kept me from sharing this experience as I would have wished, but I often feel that I experience Alexandria and Egypt most strongly as an artist and an appreciator of art. Alexandria is a very colorful city, from clothing, to cars (especially those made-up chevrolets), to the boats in the harbor, to the murals and tiles in the tunnels, to the strange cartoonish artwork and disney characters that seem to populate many of its walls. Even the strange experience I had being dragged into a sort of seedy performance of 'Sufi whirling derwish' (the package deal!) on the stuffy airless bottom floor of a Nile cruise boat in Cairo touched me as an experience of color.
Sunday, February 3
an anti-terror mystery...
First, I should say that we do have internet at the TAFL center, alhamdulillah, and so whenever I am able to use my computer between/before/after classes, I will. Now for the mystery!
The very first time I watched television here in Egypt, I noticed these strange anti-terror ads that came with a very strong, clear message: Terrorism has no religion, no homeland. The production was all very slick, but with no announcement saying who the message was from. I finally was able to write down the website that flashed at the end of the ads: noterror.info. But the website was also extremely mysterious. Finally I sent notices to two sites about the ads, one of which (http://www.muslimahmediawatch.blogspot.com/) put up a post about it. Today I saw that someone had posted a link to an article in the comments:
http://www.egypttoday.com/article.aspx?ArticleID=7612
I recommend that anyone interested in the U.S., the Middle East, "terrorism" in all its definitions, Iraq, the media, communications, government, etc. read it. Read it even if you aren't interested in any of those things. It's an interesting mystery...I'd like to hear your theories. Actually, while I'm here I'm collecting conspiracy theories as a kind of hobby. I think this is going to go on the list.
The very first time I watched television here in Egypt, I noticed these strange anti-terror ads that came with a very strong, clear message: Terrorism has no religion, no homeland. The production was all very slick, but with no announcement saying who the message was from. I finally was able to write down the website that flashed at the end of the ads: noterror.info. But the website was also extremely mysterious. Finally I sent notices to two sites about the ads, one of which (http://www.muslimahmediawatch.blogspot.com/) put up a post about it. Today I saw that someone had posted a link to an article in the comments:
http://www.egypttoday.com/article.aspx?ArticleID=7612
I recommend that anyone interested in the U.S., the Middle East, "terrorism" in all its definitions, Iraq, the media, communications, government, etc. read it. Read it even if you aren't interested in any of those things. It's an interesting mystery...I'd like to hear your theories. Actually, while I'm here I'm collecting conspiracy theories as a kind of hobby. I think this is going to go on the list.
honeymoon's over/ PSA about internet in the Middle East
First, I just wanted to let you all know that I probably won't be posting for a while, and that my email situation is equally spotty, because the internet all over Egypt is kind of....broken. Apparently the cables that connect us to Europe's internet service through the Mediterranean were cut by an anchor during the last storm, and the internet for the entire Middle East is right now being routed through South Asia. There are a few good spots, so I'll try to touch base when I find myself in one of them, but it is going to be at least a week until they fix this. Apparently these cables went to Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Iraq, and maybe Libya? My flatmate read the BBC article, but I didn't hear everything. So you can do your own research....conspiracy theorists are having a field day, and though I don't personally agree, the bloc of countries affected is, uh, amusing at the very least.
In the meantime, here is the post I typed yesterday, thinking I'd be able to put it up that night:
Everyone knows that traveling, living, and studying in a foreign country will eventually lead to culture shock, whether it occurs in the airport the day you arrive, or moments before you leave. Throughout my weeks here in Alexandria I’ve been waiting for the ‘shock’ to hit. Although I’ve definitely experienced frustration, fear, and irritation…nothing so far had really distinguished itself from the frustrations, fears, and irritations I experience in my ‘normal’ life in the U.S.
* * *
Yesterday Caitlin and I had to be at Naya’s apartment by 6:15 in the morning (according to her host family) in order to leave for Cairo. We got up at 5:00, shoveled some leftover koshary in our mouths, and hopped in a taxi. Being up at that time of day was beautiful…no traffic, the weather was nice… We all made resolutions to get up earlier more often (although we also complained about having to be awake so early after our late-night, mandatory concert).
Then we began what turned out to be a long day of constant, constant noise. The trip to Cairo was organized by a group of 20-24 year old Egyptian students (friends of Laila and Khaled, the children in Naya’s host family), who happily met all our problems (like not having enough seats on the chartered bus) with lots of singing, yelling, and eventually…another plan? By the time we arrived at our first stop, the pyramids, it was around 1:00 and all the Americans (five of us: Naya, Michaela, Helena, Caitlin, and me) were hungry, but very excited to see the pyramids in real life for the first time. It was already getting hot…hard to believe it’s February here, too.
For a while we all milled around the entrance to the pyramids, and then suddenly the Egyptian students started pulling us along with them into a tightly packed line. A mother who had been sitting next to us on the bus pulled me in next to her and kept telling me in Arabic to “look at the ground, look at the ground.” I realized that when the organizer bought the trip as a package, she had entered everyone as Egyptians. They were trying to smuggle in the foreigners.
They hadn’t met us before this trip…maybe they thought we would look more Egyptian (Helena and I are both ‘blonde’ by Egyptian standards, and as I’ve said before, any Egyptian woman as white as us is definitely mohajjiba)….if we’d known we would have at least tried to disguise ourselves a little better.
Naya got in, but the guards at the entrance started yelling at Michaela when one of the mothers tried to drag her in, and soon we were all cordoned off outside the gate. The guys kept trying to negotiate a way for us to get in at a reduced price, because we’re students at an Egyptian university, but we would still have to pay at least 25 pounds, which was way more than what everyone else was paying. On the other hand, 25 pounds is less than 5 U.S. dollars…but the group was only planning to look at the pyramids for 20 minutes or a half an hour. It wasn’t really a big deal from a logical, mathematical, financial perspective (although 25 pounds would have taken out half the cash I was carrying at the time…I needed to go to an ATM), but there was something about seeing the group we came with inside the gate, and everyone talking around us and about us while we stood outside, and being so close, and realizing that no matter how long I stay here, or how good my Arabic is, or what my purpose is, or whether I even have an American salary to justify being charged American prices, or how much I really connect with the people around me…I’ll always get hassled by taxi drivers, officials, guards at tourist sites, what-have-you, and people will always try to get the most money out of me that they can, thinking that they deserve it (and on one level I really understand it, and it makes sense, even, if you’re a tourist on a vacation taking time off from your high paying English/American/European job) and I’m being stingy and cheating them if I try to pay normal prices etc. etc. etc. etc…….that pushed me over the edge. My eyes started to water and I felt I had to concentrate very, very hard in order to keep myself where I was. Oh no, I thought, there it goes....
Later that evening, when we finally got away from the group of students, Max took us to see his friend Safi, who is Sudanese and has lived in Egypt for a long time. Safi asked me what I thought of Egypt. I said “Ana baheb Masr…” (I like/love Egypt). Safi interrupted me.
“No, no, I’m not Egyptian, you don’t have to tell me that Egypt is beautiful and nice…what do you really think?”
“There is a second part to the sentence,” I told him. “I do love Egypt so far…that’s true. But I don’t like to be a foreigner in Egypt. And I don’t like to be a foreign girl in Egypt. It’s hard.”
I think the first wave of culture shock is a kind of milestone. This weekend was the first time I’ve cried since I got here, and I think I needed to. The story is going to be a little different from now on, but I don’t think it is going to be sadder or worse in any way. Just more real.
As always, there is much, much more to tell, but I only have so much time and energy…and this post is already very long and convoluted. Stay well until next time!
In the meantime, here is the post I typed yesterday, thinking I'd be able to put it up that night:
Everyone knows that traveling, living, and studying in a foreign country will eventually lead to culture shock, whether it occurs in the airport the day you arrive, or moments before you leave. Throughout my weeks here in Alexandria I’ve been waiting for the ‘shock’ to hit. Although I’ve definitely experienced frustration, fear, and irritation…nothing so far had really distinguished itself from the frustrations, fears, and irritations I experience in my ‘normal’ life in the U.S.
* * *
Yesterday Caitlin and I had to be at Naya’s apartment by 6:15 in the morning (according to her host family) in order to leave for Cairo. We got up at 5:00, shoveled some leftover koshary in our mouths, and hopped in a taxi. Being up at that time of day was beautiful…no traffic, the weather was nice… We all made resolutions to get up earlier more often (although we also complained about having to be awake so early after our late-night, mandatory concert).
Then we began what turned out to be a long day of constant, constant noise. The trip to Cairo was organized by a group of 20-24 year old Egyptian students (friends of Laila and Khaled, the children in Naya’s host family), who happily met all our problems (like not having enough seats on the chartered bus) with lots of singing, yelling, and eventually…another plan? By the time we arrived at our first stop, the pyramids, it was around 1:00 and all the Americans (five of us: Naya, Michaela, Helena, Caitlin, and me) were hungry, but very excited to see the pyramids in real life for the first time. It was already getting hot…hard to believe it’s February here, too.
For a while we all milled around the entrance to the pyramids, and then suddenly the Egyptian students started pulling us along with them into a tightly packed line. A mother who had been sitting next to us on the bus pulled me in next to her and kept telling me in Arabic to “look at the ground, look at the ground.” I realized that when the organizer bought the trip as a package, she had entered everyone as Egyptians. They were trying to smuggle in the foreigners.
They hadn’t met us before this trip…maybe they thought we would look more Egyptian (Helena and I are both ‘blonde’ by Egyptian standards, and as I’ve said before, any Egyptian woman as white as us is definitely mohajjiba)….if we’d known we would have at least tried to disguise ourselves a little better.
Naya got in, but the guards at the entrance started yelling at Michaela when one of the mothers tried to drag her in, and soon we were all cordoned off outside the gate. The guys kept trying to negotiate a way for us to get in at a reduced price, because we’re students at an Egyptian university, but we would still have to pay at least 25 pounds, which was way more than what everyone else was paying. On the other hand, 25 pounds is less than 5 U.S. dollars…but the group was only planning to look at the pyramids for 20 minutes or a half an hour. It wasn’t really a big deal from a logical, mathematical, financial perspective (although 25 pounds would have taken out half the cash I was carrying at the time…I needed to go to an ATM), but there was something about seeing the group we came with inside the gate, and everyone talking around us and about us while we stood outside, and being so close, and realizing that no matter how long I stay here, or how good my Arabic is, or what my purpose is, or whether I even have an American salary to justify being charged American prices, or how much I really connect with the people around me…I’ll always get hassled by taxi drivers, officials, guards at tourist sites, what-have-you, and people will always try to get the most money out of me that they can, thinking that they deserve it (and on one level I really understand it, and it makes sense, even, if you’re a tourist on a vacation taking time off from your high paying English/American/European job) and I’m being stingy and cheating them if I try to pay normal prices etc. etc. etc. etc…….that pushed me over the edge. My eyes started to water and I felt I had to concentrate very, very hard in order to keep myself where I was. Oh no, I thought, there it goes....
Later that evening, when we finally got away from the group of students, Max took us to see his friend Safi, who is Sudanese and has lived in Egypt for a long time. Safi asked me what I thought of Egypt. I said “Ana baheb Masr…” (I like/love Egypt). Safi interrupted me.
“No, no, I’m not Egyptian, you don’t have to tell me that Egypt is beautiful and nice…what do you really think?”
“There is a second part to the sentence,” I told him. “I do love Egypt so far…that’s true. But I don’t like to be a foreigner in Egypt. And I don’t like to be a foreign girl in Egypt. It’s hard.”
I think the first wave of culture shock is a kind of milestone. This weekend was the first time I’ve cried since I got here, and I think I needed to. The story is going to be a little different from now on, but I don’t think it is going to be sadder or worse in any way. Just more real.
As always, there is much, much more to tell, but I only have so much time and energy…and this post is already very long and convoluted. Stay well until next time!
Sunday, January 27
patterns to set
After the other "newbies" (alguddad) finished their fusHa class today, we went to a tiny little foul&falafel place that Helena found. The boy working there (actually he's probably about our age) made fun of our mixed-up 'amiya/fusHa, and messed up Helena's order, but the food was good and cheap, and I think we'll be going back there more often (if only to speak better Arabic and try to prove to that guy that we are goofy because we're new, not because we're stupid). Michael, Helena, and I took our sandwiches along with us in order to see the National Museum in Alexandria before it closed at 3, and we had class at 4. None of us exactly remembered where it was, but two nice men showed us the way in the end, and our wandering helped us get a better idea of our surroundings.
The museum itself isn't exactly amazing as far as layout or presentation is concerned (and some of the English translations were a little hooky), but like everything we've seen here so far, the actual *stuff* is incredible. I can't really describe it...I'm going to go back and try to sketch some things when I'm not lugging around my laptop. And, though I don't think a photograph is necessarily what I need ( I felt like I'd seen some of the statuettes before in multimedia presentations, either here or at the Brooklyn Museum this summer), I decided today that I am not going to be embarassed about taking pictures in the future (especially since I usually want to take pictures of different things than other people...like that sign with the cherries&onion).
What made me determined to become an obnoxious photo-snapping tourist was not the beauty or the age of the art around me...it was three cute little school girls from Alexandria, all sisters, who insisted that I take a picture with them. When I asked them why they wanted me in the picture, they told me "Because you're beautiful!" I couldn't really refuse then (though don't get the wrong idea...if they'd been male they'd have gotten a completely different response), so I just smiled for the camera.
The point is that if I'm going to be the object in somebody else's photograph, I might as well take a few of my own. It's only fair play, right?
I do wish I had talked to the girls a little longer, because that would probably would have disspelled some of the awkwardness and made me feel like less of a...curiosity. In general, this kind of exchange makes me a little bit sad, because I feel like white skin, light hair and eyes are so over-glorified here(at home is another story). All of those girls (probably aged around 13, 9, and 7) were gorgeous, and today is definitely not one of my better days (those mosquitoes in our apartment--gah!). The same goes for my host sister Mona, and her sister Safa'. Safa' and her children (but mostly Mayor, who is the oldest) are always talking about how pretty I am, amongst themselves and to me. Some people have even explained it directly in terms of color. I would rather people treat me as a crazy foreigner/tourist/westerner for my skin color than automatically admire me because of it. And I'm about to dye my hair.
The first day I arrived here, Baba told Mona (she's a teacher) to bring me in to school with her so that her students would do well on their exams. Why? They'll be inspired by my beauty. "No, Baba," she told him, "They'll just be distracted." I think I prefer the calling and hissing in the streets from guys to the kind of looks I sometimes get from girls. Hopefully they don't think that they themselves are any less beautiful, and it is just a fascination with what's different, but I think there is a little more to it than that.
Going to the museum in between classes (and it was the perfect amount of time to do it...) really made me regret not studying in New York or another culturally interesting city. I would have loved to visit museums before and after class, wander around, make sketches and doodles...communicate with my surroundings. At Middlebury the environment is occasionally interesting and often forbidding, the classes and the workload are restrictive, and the location is isolating. It seems strange that I should have had to travel halfway around the world to have the student experience I always wanted to have.
That is basically the crux of why I'm so happy...or...before that, even, relieved to be here. Finally, my schooling is not getting in the way of my education! All this free time that I suddenly have doesn't mean I am bored, or dull, or dumb...it means I have time to make connections, to explore, to have good conversations with friends and strangers, to write and to learn, learn, learn. I have time, finally, to reply to emails, to read the news (!), and to discover things on my own. I even have time, amazingly, to study. The more I get acquainted with the city, the more I am able to do for myself, and the more I am able to teach myself.
It makes me angry and sad when I realize how hard I had to fight at "real"/American Middlebury to be the kind of person and the kind of student I wanted to be. I've only been here a few weeks and I feel I am quickly getting all the tools I'll need to find my own path for a thesis project...I feel I will be capable of putting together a program for myself in the fall if I can stay.
I miss my family, I miss my friends, I miss New Jersey, I miss New York (probably in the opposite order...after that experience with the Biblioteca, I really want a job in New York and to spend my summer in the New York Public Library system), and I miss the amazing professors I've had at Middlebury...but I want to come back here next fall.
The museum itself isn't exactly amazing as far as layout or presentation is concerned (and some of the English translations were a little hooky), but like everything we've seen here so far, the actual *stuff* is incredible. I can't really describe it...I'm going to go back and try to sketch some things when I'm not lugging around my laptop. And, though I don't think a photograph is necessarily what I need ( I felt like I'd seen some of the statuettes before in multimedia presentations, either here or at the Brooklyn Museum this summer), I decided today that I am not going to be embarassed about taking pictures in the future (especially since I usually want to take pictures of different things than other people...like that sign with the cherries&onion).
What made me determined to become an obnoxious photo-snapping tourist was not the beauty or the age of the art around me...it was three cute little school girls from Alexandria, all sisters, who insisted that I take a picture with them. When I asked them why they wanted me in the picture, they told me "Because you're beautiful!" I couldn't really refuse then (though don't get the wrong idea...if they'd been male they'd have gotten a completely different response), so I just smiled for the camera.
The point is that if I'm going to be the object in somebody else's photograph, I might as well take a few of my own. It's only fair play, right?
I do wish I had talked to the girls a little longer, because that would probably would have disspelled some of the awkwardness and made me feel like less of a...curiosity. In general, this kind of exchange makes me a little bit sad, because I feel like white skin, light hair and eyes are so over-glorified here(at home is another story). All of those girls (probably aged around 13, 9, and 7) were gorgeous, and today is definitely not one of my better days (those mosquitoes in our apartment--gah!). The same goes for my host sister Mona, and her sister Safa'. Safa' and her children (but mostly Mayor, who is the oldest) are always talking about how pretty I am, amongst themselves and to me. Some people have even explained it directly in terms of color. I would rather people treat me as a crazy foreigner/tourist/westerner for my skin color than automatically admire me because of it. And I'm about to dye my hair.
The first day I arrived here, Baba told Mona (she's a teacher) to bring me in to school with her so that her students would do well on their exams. Why? They'll be inspired by my beauty. "No, Baba," she told him, "They'll just be distracted." I think I prefer the calling and hissing in the streets from guys to the kind of looks I sometimes get from girls. Hopefully they don't think that they themselves are any less beautiful, and it is just a fascination with what's different, but I think there is a little more to it than that.
Going to the museum in between classes (and it was the perfect amount of time to do it...) really made me regret not studying in New York or another culturally interesting city. I would have loved to visit museums before and after class, wander around, make sketches and doodles...communicate with my surroundings. At Middlebury the environment is occasionally interesting and often forbidding, the classes and the workload are restrictive, and the location is isolating. It seems strange that I should have had to travel halfway around the world to have the student experience I always wanted to have.
That is basically the crux of why I'm so happy...or...before that, even, relieved to be here. Finally, my schooling is not getting in the way of my education! All this free time that I suddenly have doesn't mean I am bored, or dull, or dumb...it means I have time to make connections, to explore, to have good conversations with friends and strangers, to write and to learn, learn, learn. I have time, finally, to reply to emails, to read the news (!), and to discover things on my own. I even have time, amazingly, to study. The more I get acquainted with the city, the more I am able to do for myself, and the more I am able to teach myself.
It makes me angry and sad when I realize how hard I had to fight at "real"/American Middlebury to be the kind of person and the kind of student I wanted to be. I've only been here a few weeks and I feel I am quickly getting all the tools I'll need to find my own path for a thesis project...I feel I will be capable of putting together a program for myself in the fall if I can stay.
I miss my family, I miss my friends, I miss New Jersey, I miss New York (probably in the opposite order...after that experience with the Biblioteca, I really want a job in New York and to spend my summer in the New York Public Library system), and I miss the amazing professors I've had at Middlebury...but I want to come back here next fall.
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