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

Arabic

Learning Arabic is truely a humbling experience. I have been studying Arabic for three years and I have noticed some things that can make someone successful at the language. Obviously I am not the expert on language learning but there are general qualtities in a person which really help if you are trying to take on a second language.

First, having an outgoing personality helps. I am not the most outgoing person, well at least I don't think I was when I first started learning Arabic. I just didn't know how to start a conversation with someone or maybe I just was never interested, or I was just too shy. But here, it has become my goal to start conversations with people. In general Egyptians make it very easy for me, I have already made a lot of friends on my street or around the university such as the shawarma guy and "Abu Sham" or the pizza guy from "Pizza Roma" or the dessert guy from the dessert place down the street. I have noticed that since learning Arabic I have become more outgoing, more so in Egypt than in the US but also I have noticed a difference in the US.

Secondly, paying attention to detail is so helpful when learning Arabic. I had to learn this the hard way. I am more of a big picture person. I don't give a lot of details in conversations or ever. But now I am realizing this has to change and I am really excited for the change. Being meticulous was never something I ever had to focus on. I always gave enough details to make my argument or enough description for people to know what I am talking about. But now I have to be constantly thinking about the details. Its the verb conjugations which are the killers. But once I can conjugate a verb without thinking about it, I know I would have achieved something.

Thirdly a person who is not bothered by criticism would thrive in this sort of environment. This is where language learning becomes humbling. So I didn't grow up speaking Arabic. I don't remember my mother speaking too much while I was growing up. She would say a few phrases but nothing that would really make learning this language any easier. Maybe hearing random conversations between my mother and my grandmother helped in some way. At least the sounds weren't completely unfamiliar to me. So anyway when I started learning Arabic I didn't speak. I was too scared. I mean it is literally learning how to speak all over again. I would say you are going through the same learning process as a child but that isn't true. Children are expected to make mistakes, they are also absorbing so much more of the language at once. Anyway I won't go into the details as to why it is easier for children. But for me its not just starting over, it is learning how to speak when people are constantly giving you criticism, positive and negative. Its also hard when I come across people who think Arabic is easy to learn. But being able to hear that criticism and take the steps needed to correct your mistakes is the type of attitude needed in the language learning process.

From my experience, the people who have been most successful in learning a language have been those who are constantly going out of their comfort zone. So my plan for now is to talk more, pay more attention to detail, and welcome any criticism and look at it as a private Arabic lesson :)


Other news:
I will be leaving for Luxor and Aswan on Sunday! It is eid al adha (I really don't know how to spell that) which is a Muslim holiday. From what I understood it is based around the story of Abraham when he was suppose to sacrifice his son at the top of the mountain but then an angel stopped him and instead they sacrificed a lamb. So there are a lot of animals around getting ready for the feast :) I am not sure on the details of the holiday so if anyone knows feel free to correct me.


That's all. I'll leave you all with this picture of me on top of the Sofitel Hotel where I ate a delicious dinner with everyone from the program. My roommate Nada and our friend Fatima are pictured with me. If you can't tell I am having an awesome time in Egypt :)

The Balcony

The balcony has become my place to go for study breaks, to drink tea and the main place to talk and hang out with friends. Last night Monica, Katelyn, Jordan and I sat on the balcony for hours not even realizing what time it was. We talked about anything and everything while finishing off a bottle of red wine and listening to a mix of Indie rock and hip hop. Once we finally decided to get dinner we got pizza from Pizza Roma and went straight back to the balcony. There is nothing on the balcony except a shisha and an ash tray so we just sit on the ground and relax. Monica always says we have the best conversations on the balcony and its true.

The conversations between me and the other people in the program are not only stimulating but they can also help me retain my sanity. We are all here going through the same things such as being homesick or being frustrated with Arabic or whatever, having people here who understand exactly what you are feeling helps. The balcony provides us with a safe place where we can mix our American lifestyle with our Egyptian experiences. It is the perfect place to take a step back from life in Egypt and become an observer. From my balcony I can see the vegetable stand, the guys selling foul on their donkey cart who pass by several times a day, the bawabs and their children playing in the street. Its nice to have a spot where you can just watch the world go by, talk about international politics, or just vent freely with people who understand you.

Midnight Adventures

Here in Egypt the weekend begins on Thursday night, not because we are huge partiers but because everyone is off on Friday. So while sitting on my balcony around 11 pm we were planning what we would do for the evening. We had two options: 1. go to a wedding (which started at midnight) 2. go to a Mawlid, which is the equivalent of a Sufi All Saints Day Celebration (which also started at midnight). These Mawlids happen once a year on the last Thursday in October. It seemed like it would be an interesting and new experience so we decided to go the Mawlid.

We didn't know where this place was. We got in the cab and asked if he knew where the Mawlid in Bahry was and he was certain he knew what we were talking about. So he took us to this carnival which looked like it was from a horror movie. Almost empty for the exception of the people running it who couldn't stop starring at us. Granted it was very strange that four foriegners would show up to this carnival for children around 1 in the morning. So we left almost immediately. Luckily we got directions to the right place.

The Mawlid was in a place we had never been before, nor have any of us heard of it so we didn't know where the cab driver was taking us. All we knew was that the further the cab drove the more Sha3bee (more local, poorer area) it got. You would have thought it was 8 pm because everything was open and the streets were full of people eating and sitting at coffee shops playing dominions or backgammon. This isn't an uncommon scene in Egypt at all but we could tell these aren't areas where you would find a foreigner. After a good amount of driving through these neighborhoods we were not quite sure if we made the right choice. We didn't know where we were but we finally arrived. So the cab driver asked us where exactly we wanted to go and we told him we were looking for the Mawlid. He then proceeded to warn us three times, "Take care of yourselves! really! Take care of yourselves in there!" This was a little unsettling but our other friends were already there so we decided to check it out.

It was a little overwhelming when we first walked into the tent. There was a stage with music playing and a man singing. In front of the stage there was a large group of people dancing and going into trances. Around the group of people dancing and going into trances, people were eating, smoking shisha, children were running around everywhere, there were food vendors and people drinking tea and turkish coffee. I didn't know how we were going to find our other friends in this huge gathering of people, but it was actually quite easy. Foreigners in Egypt usually stick out but in this instance I think we were the only foreigners there so it wasn't a challenge at all. After the musicians took a break we proceeded into another tent where we sat on rugs and drank tea. Everyone was lined along the walls of the tent just chatting. It was really nice. I got to practice my Arabic on the people there. The men sitting next to us looked at me and said "she looks Egyptian, are you Egyptian?" Being that my father isn't Egyptian people here don't really consider me that Egyptian. So then it becomes my responsibility to convince them of my Egyptian-ness by telling them " Oh Egypt is the mother of the world and Egyptians are the best people." This is a crowd pleaser. And then the men tell me how Egyptian I am.

After drinking tea we went back out to see the musical performance, or prayer, I actually don't know if it was a way of praying. But people were dancing and going into trances again. Then the most awesome guy walked up to the stage. I think the best way to describe him is Jaafar from Alladin, except his turban was way bigger. He was wearing all green, even his huge staff was green. So he was rocking out on stage dancing and occasionally playing the whistle. The whistle didn't match the music at all but I don't think anyone was going to question this guy. We stood there for a while and then got curious and began to walk around to see the rest of the place. The tent turned into a street which consisted of different places to smoke shisha and drink tea or coffee. We didn't go to those places. They took us to the road and brought chairs so I guess we created our own coffee shop. We drank tea and talked with the Egyptians there.

At around 3:30 we were all pretty tired and decided to go home. Our midnight adventure came to an end with some pizza and  fateer from the shop down the street. It was definitely an experience I will remember. It was so different while still being extremely authentic. It was also the first time I saw Sufis. For those of you who don't know what sufism is it is a sect of Islam that is often characterized as having mystical elements. Based off the conversation we had with the cab driver on the way home I don't think Sufis are that accepted among other sects of Islam. The cab driver kept telling us they were a problem.

Other News:

- Halloween! We had our Halloween party yesterday and I was a blue m&m.

- The program is taking us to Luxor and Aswan in two weeks :) I will be sure to take a lot of great photos.

-I started my university class. It is intense. I am taking economic development in Arabic. I missed 5 lectures because I started late and my academic partner, basically my tutor, is so worried about me passing. She doesn't understand I am not really taking this class to pass. I just want the language practice. She is really sweet though. She wants to meet up with me whenever I have free time. I told her that Ill stick with meeting her once a week because I don't care about my grade. The class is suppose to last 3 hours but never goes more than 2 hours. It isn't overcrowded as I thought it was going to be which is really good. My professor also got his masters and PhD from London School of Economics which is awesome.

FOOD!

One of the things that always excites me about Egypt is the food. Not only is the food delicious, it's also cheap! Take for example my dinner last night at Mohamed Ahmed where seven of us were able to eat dinner for only 55 egyptian pounds which is a grand total of a little less than 10 dollars! But before we even knew the price of everything we were loving the food.

We got foul with garlic, foul Eskandrani (this is foul with tehina and salad on top of it), moussaka (eggplant cooked with tomato sauce), falafel, french fries, salads, shakshouka (eggs cooked with cheese and tomato sause), and grilled white cheese. The restaurant gives unlimited bread to eat these delicious dishes which makes silverware optional :) Another thing about this dinner was that we ordered 7 dishes off the menu, and the dishes are small, but it was still so filling. We couldn't even finish everything. But it makes a lot of sense that Egyptian food is so heavy and still so cheap. It is a third world country so in a way it has to find the most efficient way of feeding everyone. This means a lot of bread and beans and they do it so well.

In Arabic class last week we did a unit on cooking! Yay! More food! So my teacher had the awesome idea of having us cook dinner together. I forget what the name of the dish we made was but it was good, it reminded me of a stew of some sort. For dessert we made baklava!

We were split up into groups, I was peeling potatoes on the balcony, Katelyn was cutting up sausage. It was a lot of fun trying to figure out how to prepare everything with the limited cooking supplies we had. So in this stew we had potatoes, zucchini, sausage, eggplant, a frozen bag of mixed vegetables, onions, and I am sure there was more but I really don't remember. Anyway we put all of that into a pan, added the tomato paste, covered it, and put it in the oven. While it was cooking our teacher made the baklava. All in all it was a delicious dinner and a lot of fun. Although we were all really tired and stressed because we had to get back to do homework everyone had a good time.

Other news:
- Cinema club had its first meeting yesterday and I don't think we could have had more problems. Right so what could be so hard about watching a movie, I mean we had a television available with a DVD player and several copies of the same movie? Okay but when none of the copies of the movie work and then none of the other movies in the movie cabinet right next to the television work there is a problem.  So we were going to watch the movie on my computer, not the greatest but at least we will be able to watch the movie. Oh wait we couldn't do that because the lounge was closing and our director didn't know where his key was to close it when we were done. UGH! But we didn't give up, we borrowed speakers from the university and walked to Jordan's apartment to watch the movie. I was very proud of us for not giving up and going through with the movie night even though we started an hour and a half late. Also I was very happy people stuck around through the whole fiasco. In the end everyone enjoyed the movie, we watched Bolt by the way and it was fantastic!

- Its almost the end of October! I can't believe it! Part of the reason it has been so hard to believe is because it has been 100 degrees here! But hopefully it will start to cool down now. I think it should be in the 80s for the next few days.

- It's AlexFest for the next week or so which means a lot of cool events are taking place throughout Alexandria. I haven't attended any of the events yet but hopefully this week I will get around to it.

That is all for now!

Bye!

Welcome to Egypt!

This past week I had a very important visitor, my mom :), I spent the weekend with her in Cairo and then she came to visit me in Alexandria.

My mother arrived last Friday in Cairo, so I went to Cairo to go meet her. My trip to Cairo wasn't well planned because going to Cairo doesn't require much planning at all, but I will never again not plan my trip ahead of time. Because I was so late in trying to buy a train ticket they were all sold out. This isn't a big deal because there are buses so I asked an old man who was also trying to go to Cairo where the micro buses were. He sent me with his son to buy a ticket for a legitimate bus instead. So the old man, his son, and I get to the bus and we are sitting together because we bought the tickets together. The old man insisted I sit with his son who is a 30 or 40 year old man and I really don't want to but hi insisited. SO the son didn't stop talking to me the entire ride. I think this guy had to be the most annoying and obnoxious person I had ever met. I couldn't believe the way he was acting.

For the first hour, of course, he wants to fix my arabic. Fine, thanks I know I am not perfect at Arabic but really I am in class all week and in my free time I am doing homework, I don't feel like doing this now. So I told him that because it was getting to be too much. And he was like "oh okay" and I am hoping he will stop talking to me at this point and to ensure he does I tell him I am going to listen to music and I want to relax and look out the window. And his response " Oh can I listen to one ear phone while you listen to another??" And I straight up told him "No!" So at this point I really think he is going to get the hint that I don't want to talk to him. Anyway his response to this was  to start playing is own music outloud from his phone. Okay, great fine as long as he isn't bothering me. Oh but he insists that I take my head phones out to listen. I listen for a few seconds and put my headphones back in and really at this point he should know I don't want to talk to him.

So after about 5 minutes, he starts saying my name. I pretend I don't hear him. So then he starts waving his hand in front of my face until I look at him. Ugh! So what did he want? He wanted me to buy him tea. Really?? So I say okay while looking so utterly confused and annoyed. There is no way this guy couldn't tell I was annoyed I didn't hold back my facial expressions at this point. So I put my headphones back in hoping he will just leave me alone for the rest of the time.

No. He didn't. He wouldn't. It was amazing. Every five minutes he would tell me something that I don't care about. One time it was about his family troubles, other times he would just repeat random words in the most exaggerated manner over and over again. This was his attempt to teach me Arabic. Tap on shoulder, I look over, he says "River. River. River. Now repeat. River. River." I try not to be super annoyed at his attempts to teach me Arabic but I really had to hold back and I don't think I did a very good job. I quickly would say it and assure him that I knew the word river and put my headphones back in.

This just continued and continued. It was just so unbelievable. I am not exaggerating when I say  5 minutes didn't pass on the 4 hour bus ride without him trying to talk to me.

Besides the bus ride my weekend in Cairo was uneventful but still nice. I got to see my mother and we sat with her  family in a number of different locations, my grandfather's house, my mother's uncle's house, and a cafe.

I returned to Alexandria on Monday (I made sure to take the train) because I had class and homework and a dish part to plan! In honor of my mother's visit and to show off the new apartment I thought a dish party would be appropriate! It was great, we had all sorts of delicious food (thank you to all the Egyptian mothers who cooked)

You are looking at macarona beshamel, chicken and rice, two plates of stuffed grape leaves or mashy, there was meat pies, koshery, molkhia, and more rice. Then later on more food came but sorry I don't have a picture of that. Its safe to say I won't be going hungry for a while.

There was music, shisha, and food. I think my favorite part was having my mom meet everyone in the program. Of course everyone loved her :) Other than that it was really  nice having everyone come and hang out together outside of class. The people in the program are really great. I learned what happens to your coffee when you are rude to your barista, I heard different perspectives on different world leaders and everyone talked about some of their experiences in Egypt.

I was going to go to Cairo with my mom on Thursday but she had meetings and such so she decided to spend the day with me in Alexandria and that she would just go back alone. So the day after the dish party my mother and I hung out in my apartment, went to the hair dresser, sat in a cafe, and then returned to my apartment, ate and sat on the balcony :) It was nice and I wish she could have stayed longer!

On another note, I have now been in Egypt for a month and I am loving it! I have my new apartment which is a only a block away from the sea, I have great friends, and I am apart of an awesome program! I finally feel settled and am totally excited to continue with the rest of the year.

There are several new developments:

-I bought my ticket to Morocco! I will be going to Morocco for Christmas and then spending New Year's in Spain! So excited!

-Also Cinema Club should be starting this week. Our first movie: Bolt!