Winter in Alexandria

It’s the beginning of December and winter has come... kind of. It isn’t very cold, I still don’t need a jacket most of the time maybe just in the evening. Anyway there are way more exciting things happening other than the weather. Well actually not really, I haven't been up to much at all. I have been doing homework and trying to get better at Arabic. Before coming here I thought I didn't know much when it came to Arabic but now I have come to learn I really know nothing about Arabic. I mean I am just learning how to form sentences. It’s crazy how different this language is from English. For example, in English run on sentences are BAD. Here it’s the opposite. It is encouraged not to have periods and to be able to write sentences the length of a paragraph. Punctuation is completely different. From what I understand you can put punctuation anywhere in the sentence and it will have no meaning. You just keeping reading as if it’s not there I guess. I don’t know if that is true but that is what I was told. Other challenges I have include gender agreement, spelling, limited vocabulary, etc. It’s as if I am in 2nd grade again but I am happy with my progress. Maybe I’ll make it to fourth grade by the end of January.

So while everyone in America is out doing their Christmas shopping and preparing for the holidays I am preparing my trip to Morocco and Spain. I know what you all are thinking “Mae you are so awesome, I want to go with you!” Yeah and believe me I wish everyone could come because it is going to be an amazing trip. We will be visiting Casablanca, Marrakesh, Fez and another city I can’t pronounce or spell but it is known as the blue city. After visiting those awesome sites, we will be flying to Spain for only 8 euro and we will be staying in Madrid for four days to bring in the New Year. Yeah I know you all are jealous because this is going to be AWESOME! Okay I am only trying to make you all jealous of my awesome trip because while you guys are bundled up in holiday sweaters and sipping hot chocolate while watching your favorite Christmas movies and perhaps even going ice skating, I am here pretending it is winter by wearing sweaters in 70 degree weather and smiling at any light that has the slightest resemblance to Christmas lights. That said I hope everyone is thoroughly enjoying the holiday season by going and seeing lights and being with your loved ones and watching holiday movies. HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

Election Time

Its election time in Egypt and you know what that means... well it seems to mean election rigging, low voter turnout and a landslide victory for the ruling party, the National Democratic Party.

For those of you who don't know the state of Egypt's government I will do my best to explain what I know. Egypt is a republic and it has a President, Hosni Mubarak who has been president since 1981, and a parliament. The parliment is made up of the People's Assembly and the Shura Council. Altogether there are 578 elected seats and the remaining 138 seats are reserved for Presidential appointment. Now this is obviously an oversimplification of the government system so if you want to know more you should google it. 

Here is a good summary of the current climate in Egypt post elections: http://frontpagemag.com/2010/12/02/egypts-electoral-unrest/

Okay so my experience through this whole thing:

The elections have been a popular discussion topic in class and among Egyptians for the past several months. I am always curious to know who is voting in the elections and who isn't. Let me tell you, hardly anyone is voting. I met one person who voted. Whenever people tell me that they aren't voting in the election I like to hear their reasoning. Sadly its always the same answer, they have lost hope or faith in the election process. Coming from America you always hear about how lucky we are to have the freedom to chose our government so for me it is still hard to figure out how people have lost hope. How did they get to this point? 

I asked one of my friends why she didn't vote and she gave me a list of reasons which basically summed up to why am I going to waste my time to go to a fake election. I still wasn't convinced that not voting is the answer. If the entire country voted, things may not change but I feel it would make it harder for the government to ignore them. However when no one is voting it only makes it easier to rig the elections. Egypt can't continue on this path, there are too many problems plaguing the country and the people need a change. So if there is no  real democratic process to create change and the current state is not sustainable, can we expect to see a revolution?? That would be insane!!!!

But really I don't expect to see any revolutions