Warning: this blog entry is going to seem very biased. It's just something I've been thinking about for a while, and I do think that other study abroad AUC students will agree with me on some points.
After a few conversations with various people, I have discovered things I wish the study abroad programs in Egypt in particular should have. I've gotten many questions about what it's like over here, particularly the surprise that comes about when I mention that I'm in classes with primarily Egyptian students. In that case, because I am technically enrolled in a University, not a program, it's a good thing about immersion in another culture. I give props to AUC on that part - I'm one of four foreigners in my anthropology class of 18, and further one of three Americans out of those four foreigners. In another class, I often am grouped with Egyptian students for group discussions and when they speak amongst each other in Arabic, I know what it feels like to be the minority. When everyone is out in the common hang-out spaces on campus and I have to walk through a throng of people, I know what it feels like to be the minority. When I can understand basic colloquial conversation, but I can't read a single word in Arabic (except for some - I know some letters, not all, and can read words like Radio Shack, Coca Cola, and Pepsi...) I know what it feels like to be illiterate.
But aside from that, here is just... so Western sometimes that it hurts. I get into the same routine over and over again of going to the same classes, going to campus, losing yet another water bottle on the bus (I really hate buses now), and feeling like I'm working way past the expectation level (this is a good thing, and at the same time, makes me really wonder) in some classes. The difficulty is not at all what I expected it would be, in terms of academics. And it makes me wish that AUC could coordinate with something like an SIT or CIEE program.
Because quite frankly, being amongst Egypt's "elite" day after day doesn't make me feel like I'm getting the true Egypt. I don't know how it feels like to be one of the common every day Egyptians in southern Egypt, in areas like Luxor, Edfu, Aswan, or somewhere in Nubia. I don't live in a village, I don't know how the Bedouins live out in the desert. I wish I had a home stay for a little while, as uncomfortable as I know that'd make me, I feel like I need that push. I feel like, quite frankly, I am attending just another normal college, with normal classes, and with Egyptians as the majority, and then being a tourist the rest of my time here.
I feel like it'd be a much, much better program if we could maybe have half of the semester at AUC, living the University life, taking AUC classes and what not and then once the half way point hits (typically the point of time where I personally get sick and tired of all the Westernization of everything...) maybe take those students enrolled as Study Abroad and put them in home stays somewhere else - like in a village like an SIT program, or maybe even have a change of scenery and spend the rest of the semester in Alexandria!
Quite personally, I don't feel like I'm in another country most days. I just feel like I'm on the other side of a very very big country, where Pennsylvania is still on the same continent, just six hours away and on another side for some odd reason. I have to remind myself, looking out the window on those long bus rides through New Cairo from Campus at the end of the day or by going exploring, that I am in another country, and I am with another culture.
Also, Egypt claims to be an easy location for travelling, but to be quite honest - compared to those students doing programs in Europe, going around to different cities seems like...pennies compared to twenty dollar bills. Okay, don't get me wrong, I do love the traveling within the country - to amazing places like Alexandria, Luxor, Aswan, Edfu, Ain Sokhna, etc. and it's totally feasible to travel within the country (for the most part) - but travelling outside? A little more difficult and pricey. People have spent weeks doing relatively cheap trips with their programs to all sorts of places all over Europe. Perhaps the trip to Greece for a few days for Eid will make up for that longing to just travel and explore and not be herded like sheep every time we go out of Cairo.
But yeah. Those are just my two cents. I do like it here, I do love Egypt. But there's issues with every program, I feel, and those are just what I've been thinking of. I just feel like the program can be so so so much more improved! More amazing than it is in the majority of respects! And maybe it's just me, but that's how I feel. :) That being said, I should write my paper now and wait for a movie to load!
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