More Cairo

So I freaking love being in Egypt.

I have already made some really good friends. There are a few Americans that I have become friends with but I have actually became better friends with some Egyptians and mostly with some Lebanese.

The Jordanians and Lebanese that I have met, I have hit it off with the most. I love the people over here so much. There are 7 Lebanese students here and I've become good friends with them all. Nancy and Nataly are twins and Rasheed, Mohamad, Ramy and Mostafa are all sophomores at AUC. They are all on MEPI scholarships which are U.S. State Department scholarships. They all also participated in the YES program which is an exchange program which sends students from abroad to US high schools. Nancy spent a year at Perry Meridian in Indianapolis. She misses the people in Indy and her host family and its cool to meet someone who lived in Indy from the Mid East so we have bonded over our love of the Colts as well. Mohamad spent time in Toledo, OH and Mostafa was in Michigan and in true Michigander fashion, when I asked where he was at in Michigan he got out his hand and pointed. There is something re-assuredly American about them, but wholly and completely Arab too. The 7th Lebanese is Shiraz and she is in my graduate program in Migration and Refugee Studies. Mostafa's girlfriend, Sherri, is from New York and she is in my grad program of International Human Rights Law. So I think it was providence that I fell into that group.

There are also 6 Jordanians that I have met as well - and I love the Jordanian people as well. The two cultures are less conservative than even in Egypt. Egyptian conservatism can be seen and experienced right on campus nearly every day. In order to attract Egyptian students the University reflects the values of the greater Egyptian culture which means that there is great separation of sexes. Being on the other sides' dorm area is immediate expulsion. PDA of any kind gets you points and 7 points gets you kicked out of housing. Liquor is completely forbidden and gambling as well. So no poker and beer on campus for me.... Although I'm quickly learning that these are more "official" policies than they are actually enforced. There is a bit of a double standard for Americans as well. While they want to appeal to Egyptians with their conservative values, they want to appeal to Americans so they tend to look the other way and hand out a lot of warnings to Americans as opposed to how they treat Arabs. Its not really fair, but its the way it is....

It turns out that they forgot to tell me and all the other grad students in the program that our classes are all downtown and not at the new campus. Because a lot of law students in Cairo also work in the law field and criminal justice system in Egypt, they keep their classes all at night and all downtown. But those of us who thought it would be a good idea to live on campus - whoops! They forgot to tell us and so we will have an hour bus ride each day, each way to get to our classes. My first class is tonight. Classes are held Sunday - Thursday because Friday and Saturday in Egypt are the weekend days.

This is the tail-end of Ramadan so a lot of schedule stuff is messed up anyways because of the required fast for all Muslims every day in the month of Ramadan. Muslims fast while the sun is up, so Egypt bumps back the time during Ramadan, to make it easier on its citizens so they cannot eat from 4:30AM until 6:30PM. 6:30 is Iftar which is the breaking of the fast when they eat. I've been hanging out with my Lebanese friends a lot and so have kind of accidentally fallen into their fasting schedule. I stay up with them and eat at 3AM and then go to bed and sleep till noon and don't really get hungry till around 5:30 or so, so I just wait and break fast with them at 6:30. Although they have to fast from EVERYTHING including water and cigarettes too...so I'm not fasting but am definitely on their eating schedule by now - I'm gonna have to transition off soon because Ramadan ends soon with the upcoming Eid holiday on September 9-12 where we have a four-day weekend - Thursday through Sunday.

I'm ready for classes to start tonight. Although this first week instead of classes being from 5:00 - 8:00 like normal, they are all from 8:00 - 10:30 this week to allow for the breaking of the fast (Iftar). Its amazing to be here and experience the diversity of thought, opinion and background here and the great bonds we have in spite of the differences. Last night I was at dinner with Lebanese, Jordanian, Puerto Rican, American and Palestinians.

Its a great atmosphere. There are a LOT of students here who have one (or both) Arab parents but have always lived in the US, so now that they are here they are experiencing their own culture for the first time. And although they may have never lived in Palestine, Egypt or wherever, they are accepted by those groups as if they always had....

I cant wait for two more years here.... so so so excited for the adventure to continue!