Beni Suef in US news

A friend and fellow classmate directed me to this article about the Center in Beni Suef we visited last month. It's informative if inaccurate. For example, it is Dr. (not Mr.) Hassanein’s center.

Sidewalks, failed states and violence against women

In the shadow of my 3^rd consecutive Independence Day in the Arab world, I still haven't decided how I feel about Cairo and Egypt. Last week a pregnant Egyptian woman was murdered in Germany with her child and spouse present. Racism, poverty, complicity and all types of depravity continue to plague and degrade the lives of women, in Egypt and elsewhere.

The failure of the Egyptian state manifests itself in mundane ways such as the lack of maintenance of city sidewalks.
The more I travel in MENA, the more I realize how different each state/city/community is both within and across borders. On the other hand, terrible, cracked, dangerous, craggy, pocked sidewalks, if one has been paved at all, are a constant from Morocco to Syria to Jordan to Egypt and likely beyond. In my rush to make it to Hardee's before the 3am closing time after Istiqlal (Independence) Day activities, I tripped and skinned my arm and hand in a way that looks more gruesome that it actually is. Thus, even though I enjoyed the taxi ride home from the movies tonight in large part because the driver verbally abused a man in a pink shirt for walking in the street instead of on the sidewalk, I found myself able to sympathize for the pink shirt man. And I learned the word for sidewalk ( رصيف ).

Other failures of the state are more heinous and detrimental. Trash disposal and collection across the developing world are problematic due to underfunding and lack of oversight and planning. In Egypt there are designated communities whose residence undertake the responsibility of removing residential trash. Once collected, it fills the narrow, winding streets and the crevices of vacant, abandoned street front spaces in the communities where the collectors live. It is the men of the garbage collector communities who gather the refuse and the women who separate it and in the case of The Association for the protection of the Environment (APE) are able to create products from some of the waste. APE's work is amazing, but a visit to the facility reveals the clichéd pattern of women working and men overseeing. APE's current director happens to be a woman, which is refreshing, but the pattern otherwise is woefully familiar in the few grassroots development schemes I have witnessed in Cairo, including Fathet Kheir.

Inequality between men and women is certainly not the only dyad of uneven relationships. Nonetheless, it is the official policy of the Mubarak government to ignore and deny violence against women in Egypt, including (and especially) harassment. I went to the Renaissance Nile City Cinema specifically to see Amr Saad's movie. Amr Saad is neither particularly famous nor particularly talented. His appeal lies in the fact that he played Khalid, a character from the series of Arabic language textbooks called Al-Kitaab. Unsubstantiated rumor has it that he denies this work, which has made him famous among Anglophone students of Arabic. In addition, Yallabina was unduly vague with the description of the plot. All told, the movie دكان شحاته (Shehata's Produce) was both remarkable and predictable. The opening credits featured a stunning flashback sequence of headlines and sound bites; however, the film itself failed to live up to the amazing opener. Typically overacted and featuring the requisite misplaced/inappropriate slapstick, the main character Shehata (played by Saad) is loathsome in his weakness and passivity. The more disturbing aspects of the film featured a rape scene in which the victim's brother, her lifelong, best friend (and almost sister-in-law) and another community member hold her down while her beloved's brother rapes her as an official challenge to her chastity. In sum, while not a fantastic production, دكان شحاته is provocative and worth seeing, if only for the kitsch of Amr Saad.

Finally, to conclude this pregnant, bloated post, I visited the first church ever erected for Saint Simon the cobbler (Cave Churches of Samaan el Kharraz) and did not receive a satisfying answer to my query as to the reason behind the pallor of Jesus' and Mary's skin in the iconography. I am apparently extra argumentative in the Arab world.

عيد الاستقلال السعيد or how to walk like an Egyptian

Bed bug bites. Yuck!

Since my last post I have traveled to the pyramids of Giza, visited 2 NGOs in Muqattam and seen St. Antony's Monastery

at the foot of Al-Qalzam Mountain.

Otherwise the chaos and adventure of bed bugs has subsided

(for now إن شاء الله )

and my roommate and I have moved from the Hotel President to the Hotel Longchamps to the Horus House Hotel in Zamalek, with an interlude at the 5 star Mövenpick Resort El Sokhna. After visiting the pyramids of Giza (including Khufu's boat) we had class Sunday and Monday. Tuesday we visited 2 organizations in Muqattam. The first is called فتحة خير (I am working on a translation and more information). Women volunteer their services to produce lovely textiles including table settings, aprons, fabric baskets and clothing in order to raise money for development projects. The second organization, called ألوان واوتار (Alwan wa Awtar Organisation--colors and strings) provides art therapy to children affected by the 1992 earthquake. Afterward we convened to take in a typically over acted Egyptian film at ARCE (featuring Papa John's pizza) called سهر الليلي (named after a famous Fairouz song) and the 3rd room move in Cairo. Wednesday included class time and ARCE boiled my and my roommate's belongings and our suitcases are still currently baking in the sun on a balcony that includes a view of the US Embassy. In the process of isolating any potential bed bugs, I bought a new outfit and was wearing it as I walked from AUC to ARCE Wednesday to fetched my belongings. 2 Egyptian women stopped me and asked me directions in Arabic, which was thrilling. My Egyptian clothes coupled with the plastic bag standing in for my back pack and my pal's Cairo purchased sunglasses did the trick.

Thursday at 7 AM we departed in the space bus for St. Antony's Monastery, and later for Ain Sokhna. After 2 delightful 5-star nights at the beach, I am back in Cairo at Horus House Hotel.

Hotel President has bed bugs and other travails of travel in Egypt

I'll begin with my personal state and then backtrack to recent travels (and travails).
While I personally do not possess documentary evidence, my fellow travelers have been repulsed enough by the carnage wrought by the bedbugs to take pictures. I will try to obtain some. I am covered from finger tips to shoulders and from toes to hip in bed bug bites. It's miserable, ugly and unforgivably itchy. In the 110 degree heat of Beni Suef each little painful, poison infested mound throbbed with additional heat, bringing me to my first bout of tears this summer.

To make myself feel better I decided to buy things after we returned to civilization (in this case, Cairo). Here is a display of my treats:

Last Saturday 20 June we traveled to Memphis and Saqaara. The pyramids of Saqaara are visible from the Maadi neighborhood of Cairo, as seen here:
Sunday and Monday I had Arabic class at AUC's downtown campus. Tuesday was perhaps the best Arabic class I've ever had--we went to the mall. The advanced class (there are 15 of us) get to spend 1 day per week learning in context, so after we dumped off the beginning classes downtown, the space bus took us to a governorate just south of Giza called 6 October. We spent the morning at Nadim, a furniture making and restoration facility. We lunched and concluded our trip at Dandy Megamall. At Carrefour we had a scavenger hunt that was probably the most fun Arabic learning activity ever. Did you know there are more than 15 brands of sliced cheddar cheese for sale?

Wednesday and Thursday we spent in the desert 10 km south of Beni Suef at the Mediterranean Centre for Sustainable Development being hot and unproductive. Tomorrow is Friday, our free day. I intend to attend a movie or two, do some homework and brace myself for the heat I will encounter in Giza on Saturday.

Best view of Cairo

My first personal glimpse of the Pyramids of Giza.

This is a view from the south of Gezira, the island where I live. The southern half is Mohandiseen and the northern half is Zamalek, where I live.

Giza and the Nile all at once!

Arrival in Cairo!

I got to Cairo safely on Sunday afternoon and was so overcome with fatigue and allergies that I fell asleep on Monday at 6 pm and slept through till this morning. Tuesday we went to the American University in Cairo for our Arabic language orientation. My first impression of my teachers was that they seem overly intense. They thought it was completely unacceptable that the lot of us haven't read a library's worth of Arabic literature and poetry and consequently questioned our abilities to read at all by requiring one of us (not me luckily) to read the newspaper headline aloud. Savages. I'm terrified. The group of teachers furthermore assured us that Arabic is easy. Jerks. Anyway, I have had ridiculous allergies since Monday afternoon and was checked by a doctor who assured that I don't have H1N1 but I do have "allergy to the weather" in Cairo. Good thing I brought Zyrtec--I am congested, have a TB sounding cough and a runny nose. Festive!
The work week in Cairo is from Sunday to Thursday, so today (Friday) is our free day. The first 2 days of class were less daunting than that first day of orientation. Turns out that the really mean guy won't be teaching us till July, so that's a relief. My colloquial teacher is the most beautiful woman I've ever seen. Other than class I've been doing amazing things every day. Tuesday was the first day of the Refugee Film festival and I went after class and saw 2 films--
and Salt of this Sea and Giraffe in the Rain. Wednesday night I went to Khan el Khalili to see some Sufi whirling dervishes and filmed part of it. I'll upload it to Youtube.

Last night I went to see 3 tenors at the Cairo opera house. And today, my precious free day, I finally unpacked, made my first trip to the grocery near my residence and successfully negotiated the delivery of 4 boxes of water to our room for my roommate and me. Afterward my Cairo man protector, Blake, and I went to the Grand Hyatt Hotel. From the 40th floor panoramic view of Cairo I finally laid eyes on the Pyramids of Giza. Breathtaking. We then saw a movie called "Omar wa Salma" that was far too loud and totally inscrutable.

I'll likely spend the rest of the day smoking lemon flavored sheesha and relaxing! We head off to Memphis tomorrow.

Receipt of Critical Language Scholarship to Cairo

Receipt of Critical Language Scholarship to Cairo

I got word Thursday 26 March that I am the lucky recipient of a Critical Language Scholarship for Advanced Arabic in Cairo. I have orientation in DC on Thursday 11 June 2009 and Friday 12 June 2009 and depart for Cairo on Saturday 13 June. I return to the US on 8 August.

The hosting institution is the American Research Center in Egypt (ARCE), which is a part of the Council of American Overseas Research Centers (CAORC).


I will be housed at the President Hotel and studying advanced Arabic at the School of Continuing Education (SCE) at The American University in Cairo (AUC).

More details to come!