Slow Down and Breathe Every Now and Then

The following is a guest post from AUA Mosaic Fellowship recipient Ryan Rivera. He recently returned from volunteering with Hands Along the Nile Development Services, Inc. in Egypt. To find an amazing opportunity like this one, search the AUA Directory of Recommended Organizations© today!

You have the heavy traffic: congestion that can be slower than the pedestrians walking by and taxis constantly driving by, seeing if you need a ride.  Lane changes are spontaneous, car horns are used more often than blinkers, and the only limit on speed is how well you can maneuver through traffic.   You have the shop keepers: various people selling almost the same thing but still finding a way to convince you that theirs is better than the other guy’s.  You have uniformed officers policing the public areas and streets, be it on foot or in a vehicle.  No, I’m not referring to Cairo here, although such descriptions could hold true.  If anything, there are only two conditions that control the taxi drivers of  New York and Cairo.  One is that New York has stop lights and cross walks and the other is that Cairo has innumerable cars, people and animals occupying the streets.  But this anecdote about the similarities I’ve noticed after returning from Egypt is but one of many.  As days passed and I resumed my routine at Columbia, more and more of the comparisons become apparent, both similar and dissimilar alike, between life in Egypt and life in the United States.

And even still, it is near impossible for me to communicate every minute detail of comparison.  When I am asked, “was Egypt cool?”  or “how different was Cairo?”, I find myself stumbling over the various reasons I could give for why I liked it.  There are the little things, such as how relaxed the atmosphere felt.  It was not uncommon to see people smoking from a Shishah outside at the tea shop at all hours of the day, nor was it stressful for the students at the American University in Cairo (AUC) to come spend an evening with us, eating Koshari and drinking tea, the night before they had a midterm exam.  But there are other things, such as how friendly the Egyptian people were.  When we met with the NGO groups and the university students, we were welcome every time.  Not once were we rushed through a meeting, unless we ourselves were running behind on a schedule, and the AUC students who we were originally only supposed to meet with on one evening, offered to meet up with us again throughout the week, and suggested some great places for us all to meet for dinner.

Nowhere else though did I feel more welcome than at the Sisters of Charity Orphanage.  Although the women caretakers did not understand at first why a group of Americans wanted to work in their neighborhood, it was clear that they appreciated the extra help.   Thankfully we had Aiya on our trip who was able to speak in Arabic to the women we were working with, explaining what we were doing in Egypt and why we were volunteering.  We were an extra pair of hands to feed, pick up, sooth, and play with the children since there were usually only 2, maybe 3, women in a room of almost 20 kids. We were able to form bonds with the children of the orphanage, communicating not with words but with tones, expressions, and actions, and a few of the children would cry when we had to leave at the end of the morning.  Our volunteer project not only taught me how to feed a baby without making a mess, or to say “Bring me the ball” in Arabic, but it allowed for a personal interaction between us, the children, and the staff of the Sisters of Charity Orphanage.

As I reflect upon the amazing experience I had in Egypt, I realize how easy it is to forget about the world outside of Columbia, outside your immediate happenings.  I find my self returning to the busy schedule of classes, work, exams, meetings, etc., and I realize how New York and this ambitious, fast-paced culture, could learn from the Middle East.  Everyone has work, and everyone has obligations, but at the same time we should be able to slow down and breathe every now and then, to sit on the side walk with a mint-flavored shishah, a pot of tea and bread, and talk with friends.  It is in revisiting my thoughts, pictures, and discussion of the trip that I keep contemplating what my next experience will be, what area of the world presents an interesting opportunity to learn and grow, be it Egypt, the Middle East, or elsewhere, and how can I get people involved and have the opportunity to have a similar experience as I have had.

A Familiar Trip With New Reactions

The following is a guest post from AUA Mosaic Fellowship recipient Christine Choi. She recently returned from volunteering with Hands Along the Nile Development Services, Inc. in Egypt. To find an amazing opportunity like this one, search the AUA Directory of Recommended Organizations© today!

By now, my family and friends are old hands at sending me off to various locations around the Middle East.  Where my first trips to Fes and Cairo generated a flurry of concerned e-mails, phone calls and lengthy discussions—I quickly developed a point-by-point strategy for addressing concerns ranging from kidnappings to proposals—my announcement of my recent spring break trip was instead greeted with responses of resigned acceptance (“Again?” my grandfather replied) or muted enthusiasm (“Cairo! Jealous.  More of your research stuff?” texted back my high school best friend).

Upon our return, after waking up at an unseemly hour due to jetlag, I called my mother—thankfully an early riser—to check in.  She has for years indulged my long rambles about the places I’ve just returned from, but this time around, it was different. When I began to describe the environment of Garbage City and the way in which many of the residents there make their living through the collection of trash, she pushed for more details about the system of collection and the production of sustainable crafts at the Association for the Protection of the Environment, one of the NGOs in the neighborhood we had visited.  And when I began to discuss the difficult work of taking care of, playing with and feeding the young children at the orphanage, especially infants, she laughed and we debated at length the best techniques for getting stubborn kids to finish meals.  She’s always been interested (or skillfully feigns interest) in what I have to say about where I’ve been and the people I’ve met, but by transmitting my experience through the weight of the social issues we’d witnessed and certain shared elements of human interaction—particularly working with kids, an issue that resonates with her as a parent and a children’s librarian—she was, I believe, able to experience my retelling not just as rehashed narration of where I’d been and what I’d seen, but able to undergo and more vividly imagine, in a small way, the trip for herself.

That’s what makes trips and service such as ours so compelling and so important for more people to take on.  Traveling to places such as Cairo not only “normalizes” the individuals who live there—just as you may normalize or diversify the notion of what an American looks like to your new friends—but also normalizes the challenges the communities there face.  As I’ve mentioned many times before, media representations of the region convey circumstances of violent social upheaval, dangerous and militant milieus and seemingly intractable systems of social oppression.  And yet, when you see that there also exists the need for volunteers to feed children and hang up laundry, or you tour classrooms and are greeted by choruses of “Hello! How are you?  What’s your name?” or get a chance to chat with some local peers, you see that the challenges and issues they face are, in many respects, much the same.  There exists a need for greater support systems for children and education in all places around the world; there are teenagers trying to navigate the social environment in every city you go to; there are difficulties regarding the environment and sustainable infrastructure in all countries.  By visiting and serving in places such as Cairo, even if only for a short time, you are not only able to diminish the distance between yourself and the people who live there, but experience, if only briefly, their challenges—after which you will inevitably conclude that, in many ways, they’re not so different from ours.  And even now, more than a week since my return and the inevitable fading of sensory memories accelerates, small daily activities such as the Facebook updates from our AUC friends, the e-mails I’ve sent to Gihan, a women’s rights activist who talked with us, or the arrangement of volunteer opportunities at an Association of the Protection of the Environment crafts sale here in New York City in May through a HANDS board member help sustain the experience, making that short week a now inseparable part of all of our lives.

How To Tell a Story About Another Place

The following is a guest post from AUA Mosaic Fellowship recipient Laura Mills. She recently returned from volunteering with Hands Along the Nile Development Services, Inc. in Egypt. To find an amazing opportunity like this one, search the AUA Directory of Recommended Organizations© today!

Despite the flurry of midterms and thesis deadlines that hit us right before our trip to Egypt, the Kony 2012 video was something no one could quite avoid. It spurred virulent debate across the country, raising questions about how to portray the suffering of others and how to galvanize support for tragedy.

Strangely enough, this was something constantly on my mind before my trip to Egypt: I had never been to the Middle East before, and I was terrified that I would simplify things by bringing home a shorthand, fun-size version of my experiences. How would I tell my friends about the city? Was photographing children in a poor neighborhood wrong? Was it better or worse that I looked away from beggars outside our shiny tour bus? I wanted to show people both the National Museum and the barefoot man atop the fruit truck who tossed our driver an orange; both the delicious kebabs we had eaten and the pick-up truck piled with unconscious cattle, their necks swaying nauseatingly with every lurch of the vehicle. But how does anyone strike that balance?

I still don’t know the answer to the question, but I’ve found out something else instead: the hardest (and yet most wonderful) part of writing and talking about Cairo has been capturing the joy and the hopefulness of people there, not the difficulties they face. The people we spoke to were proud of their democratic accomplishments, excited about the upcoming presidential elections, and truly believed in the prospects of civilian government in Egypt. When I told this to an analyst at the NGO where I work, he was bemused. He was armed with all the analysis that gave him a more tempered, pessimistic outlook, and he only had a few words for me after our talk: “You must have spoken to a very particular group of Egyptians.”

And I won’t deny that my experiences are limited and unrepresentative, and that I was only there for a week. But I still believe that the only point of traveling to another place is capturing what is illogical, magical, and transcendent—everything you can’t get in the pages of a newspaper or a yearly analytical report. Nothing could make me forget the Egyptians’ hopefulness, their happiness, and their joy, and I’ll never stop rambling about it, even (or perhaps especially) to those who don’t want to believe me.

This year, I read Dostoevsky’s Notes from the Dead House for the first time. This semi-memorial piece can arguably be labeled a work about human rights—it captures the harrowing experiences of men in a Siberian prison camp for the average reader in Moscow. But much of the beauty of Dostoevsky’s work lies in his emphasis on the small, daily joys of the prisoners: they delight in hot ginger bread, they put on a play at Christmas, they give affectionate pet-names to the animals that wander into the prison yard. And it is these small joys that not only make life livable, but also make these men fully realized and truly human characters to readers back home.

Egypt is no Siberian prison camp—there are definitely a lot more things to be happy about in today’s Cairo than in 19^th-century Omsk. But Dostoevsky’s work taught me, in whatever small way, how to attempt a truthful rendering of a people and a land that are so casually distanced from daily life. People are people anywhere, with both their suffering and their joy. And all I can do is write about that with as much honesty as I can muster.

Two Different Countries – But We’re All Alike

The following is a guest post from AUA Mosaic Fellowship recipient Nicolas Miyares. He recently returned from volunteering with Hands Along the Nile Development Services, Inc. in Egypt. To find an amazing opportunity like this one, search the AUA Directory of Recommended Organizations© today!

It’s hard to imagine that just last week I was halfway around the world in Egypt. The moment I stepped off the plane in the JFK airport, I fell right back into my college routine of excessive studying and eating a whole lot of pizza (the stereotype that college kids eat nothing but pizza is very, very true). By Wednesday (we arrived back in New York City on Saturday night), I was already so re-acclimated to college life—the endless meetings, the studying, and the lack of sleep—that when people asked me about Spring Break, I felt as if it all happened a long time ago. But it didn’t. The memories are still vivid and the story is still fresh; so when my friends eagerly asked me to tell them how I spent my time in Cairo, I was more than ready.

My closest friends—all action-craving guys—wanted to hear if I had been in any imminent danger or whether the region was as unsafe and unstable as the media outlets portray it. So they were a bit disappointed to hear that Cairo (at least the parts of Cairo we saw) felt relatively safe. Of course, we were only there for a week; but during that time I never felt particularly threatened. The constant sight of armored vehicles and military personnel took some getting used to, but overall, things seemed pretty tame. It was actually the sense of normalcy that surprised me the most about Cairo. A revolution that toppled a 30+ year–long regime was toppled only a bit more than 12 months ago. Since then, a council of the highest-ranking military officers has been ruling Egypt, much to the disapproval of many of Egypt’s revolutionaries. Although I didn’t expect to witness the instability that defined 2011 for Egypt, I certainly didn’t expect to see hardly any of it.

But what actually struck me the most about Cairo and its people was the fact that they are just like us. When I was a kid, I used to play with my globe and think of all the far-away lands I would one day venture through and the exotic, interesting people I would meet along the way. Now that I’m an adult with a passport full of stamps and visas, I’ve come to realize that while each culture and nation has its idiosyncrasies - humans in general - are nevertheless mostly the same. The college and English students (from the English conversation class we attended at the US Embassy) we met, for example, shared our same interests—they had similar social and political concerns and shared similar professional aspirations. In the Garbage District, where the zabbaleen make a living foraging through trash looking for recyclable goods, we found a community of people who placed a strong emphasis on education, business, and family.

I used to marvel at the enormity of the world and the sheer number of different cultures and people that inhibit it; now I marvel at how small the world truly is and how we’re all so very much alike. Our trip to Cairo only reinforced this notion, and I can’t wait to share it.

Fundraising Made Simple for Volunteers

The following is a guest post from AUA Mosaic Scholarship recipient Shibrika Pansy. She will be volunteering with Cross-Cultural Solutions in Morocco. To find an amazing opportunity like this one, search the AUA Directory of Recommended Organizations© today!

In 2007 while attending Howard University, I received an information packet from Cross-Cultural Solutions (CCS).  Since I am an adventurous person who loves to try new things, I was fascinated with all CCS had to offer.  I participated in health-care and non-health-care related volunteer activities domestically, but the opportunity to volunteer abroad was a dream I had not fulfilled.  As I began to conduct more research through the Internet about international volunteer work, I discovered that I would not be able to accomplish my goal due to a lack of time and financial constraints.

The Dream

Although my dream of becoming an international volunteer had to be delayed, my desire to complete this task never diminished.  One day while I was browsing the CCS website, I stumbled upon the America’s Unofficial Ambassadors (AUA) Mosaic Scholarship offered by Creative Learning.  Instantly, I knew this opportunity would be perfect for me. I applied and I was awarded a partial scholarship to participate in the program.

As a Research Technician at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, I perform difficult experiments in a setting in which more than fifty percent of the participants are Muslims adjusting to the challenges of life in America.  Finally, I would get the chance to walk in their shoes for a few weeks while volunteering in Rabat, Morocco, a Muslim majority country in North Africa.  But first, I had to figure out a strategy to get the remaining funds I would need to travel abroad.  My parents would not give me money to travel to Rabat, so I knew that if this was something I had my heart set to do, I would have to do it on my own and I could not fail because people were depending on me.

People I encountered spoke highly about traveling abroad, but no one murmured a word about fundraising and what it would entail.  Initially, I was extremely apprehensive about asking people for money to travel to another country.  Who should I ask and how will people respond to my desire to volunteer in another country?  What if I do not reach my fundraising goal?  These are just a few questions that surfaced in my head.

The Plan

My fundraising plan would have to be simple and cost efficient. 

• Approximately seventy-five people would be notified through letters, fliers, and emails to make a thirty-dollar contributions to offset my travel expenses to Africa. I asked friends, family members, and businesses in Lockhart, Texas, my local community.
•  If I traveled by car to a particular destination I would always have ten fliers handy.
• Whenever I was near a computer, I would check my email or view my account with CCS to see if people had donated.

For twenty-eight days, I completely immersed myself in my fundraising project.  Eventually, I began to hear from people, but I did not receive the answer I anticipated.  The harsh reality of fundraising and in life is that a person will not always get what he or she wants.  Roughly fifteen people told me no at the start of my fundraising campaign.  I began to lose my motivation and I took my eyes off of my vision to volunteer internationally.  Had my work been in vain?  If this is what it would be like from now until the end of my fundraising project, then I must wave the white flag immediately because things aren’t looking good.

Before surrendering to defeat, I had an intense conversation with my mother and my best friend.  They encouraged me to continue to fundraise for my trip to North Africa.  Aside from the Creative Learning staff, I knew these two individuals could serve as a source of support.  They were two of my biggest supporters.

Although, things began a bit rocky for me, I am extremely excited about the things I was able to accomplish.  Fifty people agreed to donate to me, and I raised almost $2,000.  As my departure date approaches, and I reflect on my experience as an amateur fundraiser with a big heart and small pockets I am extremely grateful I was selected to be one of several AUA Mosaic scholarship recipients and that I met my fundraising goal.  Just like I was able to reach my goal of raising money to volunteer internationally, I believe that anyone who reads this article and follows the tips listed below will be successful as well.

1. Come Up With A Budget – Write down a list of all of your expenses (flight, lodging, food, immunizations, travel insurance etc.).  Try to formulate a budget that is extremely cost-efficient.  Remember your mission is to create change through volunteering abroad without getting into too much debt.
2. Design A Fundraising Plan – How much money do you need to cover your expenses?  Who will you ask and how many people will you ask?  What material (webpage, fliers, letters etc.) will you use to display your desire to volunteer abroad?  These are just some of the questions you should ask yourself while developing your fundraising strategy.
3. Be Persistent – Whenever you share your passion for volunteering abroad with people do not be discouraged if you don’t hear a “Yes, I will donate to your cause” instantly.  It takes time, and the more people you ask the more comfortable you will be with fundraising.
4. Show Your Graditude – Personally, I hand wrote and mailed fifty thank-you cards to all of my sponsors.  Also, I said thank-you to the individuals that took time out of their busy schedules just to listen to me even though they did not give me a monetary donation.  Saying thank-you doesn’t cost a thing and it goes a long way.
5. Keep People Informed – Let people know where you are in all stages of your fundraising goal and volunteer trip.  For example, when I wrote out my thank-you cards I mentioned that I had met my goal and that I would send pictures of my experience.  If people are willing to donate to you, then they are just as excited about this opportunity given to you as you are.  Remember to keep them posted before, during, and after your trip.

Connecting Through Shared Nationalities

The following is a guest post from AUA Mosaic Fellowship recipient Aiya Aboubakr. She recently returned from volunteering with Hands Along the Nile Development Services, Inc. in Egypt. To find an amazing opportunity like this one, search the AUA Directory of Recommended Organizations© today!

“Welcome to Cairo,” echoes the pilot.

Exiting the terminal, our jobs as America’s Unofficial Ambassadors began. Here we were, a group of 8 students representing America to Egypt. Not that we came with a detailed political agenda, but what we did and said was all some Egyptians got to see of the West. As we got onto our bus, the guide was amazed that I spoke Arabic.

“You’re Egyptian?”

With a smile, I nodded, and he was at ease. Perhaps due the comfort of sharing a nationality, he immediately asked me detailed questions about our trip. He had stopped himself from asking the others, scared he would be asking too much, or miscommunicate in his efforts and not make much sense. He was surprised that we had left the busy streets of New York during our school break to come and volunteer in the streets of Cairo, which he thought – and correctly so – most people considered “too dangerous.” It brought him joy that we were coming, even though we weren’t coming as tourists, because the past few months have been rough on the tourism industry. I was able to explain our mission in coming, the genuine helping hand we were offering, and in doing so, already dissolved his stereotype of who Americans are. This interaction allowed me to foster an understanding, even if on a small level, between the two cultures.

For me, I too gained an appreciation of my cultural identity, a surprising outcome of this trip I was not necessarily expecting. Even on our first day at the orphanage, the women were surprised that I spoke Arabic. They thought Arab-Americans would not be concerned with preserving Middle Eastern culture. After being somewhat relieved that this is not at all the case, they asked a dozen questions about our trip in just a few minutes. The focus of these scenarios, however, is not my Arabic fluency, but what the Egyptians told me and may not have told the rest of my group. Two of the women at the orphanage similarly questioned our choice of location, the motives behind our trip, what we hoped to gain, and of course, why just a week? These conversations and the answers I provided perhaps taught me more about our group as a whole versus teaching the women who asked the questions. They clarified our mission and gave the trip a stronger meaning for us as a collective group.

Our time at the orphanage is only for four days and although we will do our best to play with the children, feed them, put them to sleep or stop them from crying, I think more of what the orphanage means for us is the perspective it allows us to take hold of. The orphanage is located in one of the poorest towns around the globe, and centering on garbage collection, is far from being the most healthy environment. Our experience reminded us of the difficulties involved with living in a poverty-stricken environment, and how this may shape our interactions with the respective town’s inhabitants. The garbage community ultimately served to highlight the impact of social conditions on individual perspectives, and by volunteering our time there, we learned to appreciate and understand the differences between those people and ourselves.

While it’s a blessing that these children have a place to sleep, eat, and play, it is difficult to grasp the idea that they need so much more. Children with developmental problems are unable to receive the adequate care and attention they need, but better something than nothing.  One of the workers at the orphanage had reminded us that by giving up the hours of our mornings, we are giving some of these children the emotional personal attention they usually are missing as they grow. It made me realize the universality of what we were doing. Replace this orphanage with any other in a poor town around the world – what we were doing transcended cultural values, what we were doing was a human to human interaction. Americans and Egyptians alike, helping humanity with the time and resources we had.

Although one may think otherwise, from what I’ve seen in just a matter of days, the people of Egypt, even in the garbage community, are full of a distinctive hope that their respective situations will get better, that Egypt indeed will restore itself.  It was inspiring to see that they are able to carry on with their lives with a vigor that, cliche as it sounds, money can’t buy. No matter how bad their socio-economic situation, the Egyptians never failed to hide their smiles.

US Embassy in Cairo, Where Impressions are Everything

The following is a guest post from AUA Mosaic Scholarship recipient Ryan Rivera. He recently returned from volunteering with Hands Along the Nile Development Services, Inc. in Egypt. To find an amazing opportunity like this one, search the AUA Directory of Recommended Organizations© today!

It was Wednesday afternoon when our group had planned a meeting at the US Embassy in Cairo with the English Conversation Club. This group was a group of Egyptians from all levels of English proficiency who met regularly to practice their verbal skills while discussing various topics and issues. This group was college aged and older, and mostly male, but still held a wide range of opinions and beliefs.

This was the first time I had been to a US Embassy abroad and I was extremely taken aback by the level of security and the immensity of the building.  Many of the other embassies were converted, classical Egyptian building and did not carry the same air of intimidation that I felt from the US embassy. Before we could reach the library of the embassy we had to pass through three levels of security, and were pretty much not allowed to bring anything into the building.  As I passed through this maze of walls, security check points, and military guards, I couldn’t help but wonder what kind of impression this gave to people about America as a country and Americans as a people, especially if they have never had an interaction with either of the two.  At least during this brief conversation that we were about to engage in, I hoped to show a different, more personable side of the American people than what may be conveyed from our embassy.

There were probably about twenty Egyptians who had come to the meeting to converse and discuss comparisons between Egypt and America, as well as the direction of the post-revolution country in all regards: politically, socially, and religiously.  We told them about our time volunteering at the Sisters of Charity Orphanage in Mukattam, a facility which helps the Zeballeen, a primarily Coptic Christian, garbage collecting community.  This sparked a brief discussion about the immense separation between Egypt’s rich and poor, and how opportunities are not as available for low income families as they are in America.  We also discussed the recent discovery of the New York Police Department’s surveillance of Muslims, including the monitoring of Columbia University student groups.  This topic inspired a mutual frustration and disgust at such measures, where both we as non-Muslim Americans and the Muslim Egyptians, could agree that this governmental action was completely out of line and uncalled for, supporting post 9/11 racism and Islamophobia.  We briefly touched on the ethnic groups of Egypt in comparison to the diversity of America.  But our conversations didn’t focus entirely on such weighted political issues.  As the discussion progressed, we broke off into smaller groups to have more intimate discussions.  The group I was with focused on Egyptian universities and higher education, allowing me to discuss my experience as a Biology major at Columbia in relation to their experiences.

Touring the Association for the Protection of the Environment

Overall, from this single experience and many other’s like it, I have seen glimpses of the Middle East, a view which is not shadowed or influenced by the terrorism of 9/11 or the revolutions of the Arab Spring.  I hope to go back to the US and share this discussion, giving them an alternative view of the Arab people as I have been introduced to.

Similarities in Goals Amaze Me

The following is a guest post from AUA Mosaic Scholarship recipient Rubii Pham. She is currently volunteering with Hands Along the Nile Development Services, Inc. in Egypt. To find an amazing opportunity like this one, search the AUA Directory of Recommended Organizations© today!

Cairo is an unforgettable city. From dawn until dusk, the traffic never stops and neither do the people. They work to carve out for themselves a place in this hectic city of 20 million. The recycling school we visited in Mukkatam is the embodiment of that spirit, albeit it being a school in a very non-traditional sense of the word. Like a typical elementary school, there are small children learning multiplication tables and reciting vocabularies in Arabic, but in this place women can also come to learn how to weave and make other arts and crafts as a vocation in order to help them sustain their livelihood. They collect papers from offices and schools from all over the city, then mix them with water and dry them on a wooden screen in order to make sheets of thick, durable paper. With this “recycled” paper, they create beautiful hand made cards, paintings, and small jewelry. The process of producing this paper is not easy, but the women cheerily chatted on while they worked and even invited me to join in to help them make the paper.

Touring classes at APE.

There were not enough tables and chairs for every child; some classes were even held outside with only a tarp for a roof. However, what struck me was not the sparse structures and limited of the school but the enthusiasm of the students. In one classroom, the students were learning English, with the simple English words like “watermelon” and “woman” written on the black board. When we passed by to say hi, the children eagerly waved back and excitedly practiced their hellos and how are yous.  Their warm hospitality reminds me that the more I travel of the world, the more I realize it is often not the differences in people’s goals that amazes me, but rather the similarities. Whether Egyptians or Americans, we all simply want to learn and to connect with others.

It was important to see that people in underprivileged communities are not completely helpless like they are often portrayed in the media. Even though life is hard, they have means and agencies of their own to help themselves to escape the poverty they were born in to. They have dreams, aspirations, and lives far more complex than any half-hour “slum tour” could ever depict. Cairo has become an unforgettable chapter in my life, for the warm reception and generosity that I’ve received from these strangers that have quickly become friends. This is a trip that I will never forget.

The Kindness of Strangers: Women and My Trip to Egypt

The following is a guest post from AUA Mosaic Scholarship recipient Laura Mills. She is currently volunteering with Hands Along the Nile Development Services, Inc. in Egypt. To find an amazing opportunity like this one, search the AUA Directory of Recommended Organizations© today!

It’s hard not to get to know someone over shisha, but that statement couldn’t be more true in Cairo, where your chairs are tucked up close to one another between parked cars, the crazy Cairene nightlife happening in real time around you. One night during our trip we met with a group of American University of Cairo (AUC) students, and were starting things off like college kids usually do, swapping favorite movies and music recommendations (mingled with more than a little talk about politics and the revolution).

But when I stopped to look around, there was one thing that struck me: our group of American students was mostly female, but the Egyptian group was almost exclusively male. I shrugged it off, putting it down to coincidence—these were, after all, supposed to be the most progressive, westernized representatives of society, and both their travels and their knowledge of American chain restaurants far outdid my own. But the next day, during an English-language conversation club at the American Embassy, it was the same case again, with one or two girls in a crowd of twenty men.

So where were all the ladies? I knew that in coming to the Middle East for the first time, one of my greatest shocks would be encountering gender roles I personally opposed. I also realized that I would have to conform to these roles myself in whatever small way, even if that just meant pulling on a long-sleeve shirt and jeans instead of shorts on a hot day full of pyramid-climbing. But the mere absence of women in my trip to Egypt meant that, as much as I could infer or read up on women’s issues today, I couldn’t simply sit around a table and get an honest, personal perspective—I couldn’t understand those problems as real.

On the eve of our departure we met with Gihan Abou Zeid, human rights activist and an expert on women’s issues in the Arab world. She talked to us about what women are demanding in post-revolutionary Egypt, and about the tenuousness of their position. For example, women were elected to only 8 out of 508 (or less than 2%) of parliamentary seats. Gihan explained to us that the majority of these 8 seats belong to the Muslim Brotherhood, and that these women often resided in “the most traditional wings of the party,” spearheading calls for conservative measures like the reexamination of previous legislation with regard to Sharia law.

Perhaps these statistics underscore something else—the fact that in a democratic Egypt, these numbers are an honest reflection of the barriers to political entry many women face around the country. Gihan explained to us that, while quotas had enforced female representation in parliament before the revolution, these seats were so easily controlled by the ruling party that they had virtually no political force. In essence, the system was dishonest and representation was virtual. And therefore, as disillusioning this lack of representation may be in the short-term, it is perhaps this stark absence of women in the newly elected parliament that can teach people the most about the reality of women’s rights in Egypt, and enable them to finally discuss and address the issues.

But what really struck me in our meeting with Gihan, the first Egyptian woman I had really interacted with throughout our trip, was her kindness and care for each member of our group. We were sitting in the lobby of our hotel, and more than half of our group was coughing violently in rounds like some kind of sad, sickly chamber orchestra. She stopped several times in the midst of a discussion on women’s rights to ask us if we were all right or to sternly but kindly advise us to get better before our flight home. Most of the Egyptians we met were absurdly generous and almost overwhelmingly kind, but I was struck by Gihan’s particular, almost familial care for each member of the group. Meeting Gihan, both on a personal and a professional level, made me hope that if I ever get the chance to come back to the Egypt (and I do hope this trip was not my last) that I will make an effort not only to talk about women’s rights issues more openly, but to interact with more Egyptian women who—if Gihan was anything to go by—were capable of so much kindness and so much care.

From Strangers to Family in a Few Days

The following is a guest post from AUA Mosaic Scholarship recipient Christine Choi. She is currently volunteering with Hands Along the Nile Development Services, Inc. in Egypt. To find an amazing opportunity like this one, search the AUA Directory of Recommended Organizations© today!

One hour into our first day at the Sisters of Charity Orphanage in the Muqattam neighborhood of Cairo, I set down a three year old girl I had been rocking and unwrapped my leg from the preternaturally firm grip of another toddler, then followed Sister Celeste up to the rooftop of the orphanage’s small complex, where laundry lines cut across a view of the urban sprawl below.  Garbage City, the small neighborhood of the Muqattam district of Cairo in which we were working, is nestled in a range of hills overlooking the city (depending on the legendary Cairo traffic, a five minute drive from the Salah al-Din Citadel, chosen for its strategic location by the famed ruler to serve as fortification against the Crusaders), and the rooftop of the orphanage offered an expansive panorama of the buildings and hustle extending far into the distance. 

Our three other group members were quickly joined by two girls who worked at the orphanage, each bearing buckets of laundry in each hand: sheets, towels, baby clothes, their clothes, although I wouldn’t have been able to tell—from their weight, they seemed filled with bricks.  As we began wringing out the wet garments, one of the young women there flashed a broad smile, then whispered something to the other girl there. 

She turned back to me and asked, in halting but confident English, “What’s your name?”             

“Christine,” I replied, then in my own halting and not quite so confident Arabic, “Wa ismik?” 

“Mariam.”

We continued on as I told her where our group was from, how long we were here for, and so on.  After a few minutes, I asked her how old she was—seventeen—and whether she lived in the neighborhood, which she did, with her family.  What about school?  She had finished.  Sister Celeste, who had been hanging laundry nearby, then commented in English: “The schooling system here is not so strong.  Most of them finish early.”  I nodded, not sure of what to say next, but Mariam asked me another question and soon, the laundry was done and I was back in the grip of a small child.  Over the next few days, I would pass by Mariam in the hallways of the orphanage and we would smile and exchange greetings and laugh over statements, such as “I’m fine,” that normally carry no humor but, I like to think, signified a small but warm connection.  That, or she was laughing at my flat American accent in Arabic.  

In either case, by our last day, as I again stood up on the rooftop wrestling with a sheet, she came up the stairs with another bucket of laundry and set it down next to me, then asked, “Your last day?” 

I nodded, and replied, “Yes, our last day.”

“You should come back tomorrow and stay longer.”

I smiled and tried to offer up a poor apology, but the best I could come up with was, “Hey, do you want to take a picture?” 

Afterwards, as they reviewed the shot in Laura’s camera, we asked for their e-mail address, which none of them had, so I promised to send it by mail to the orphanage.  And with that, Mariam said goodbye.  It wasn’t the last time I heard such a sentiment, though, as other women who worked in the orphanage and the nuns there continued to tell us that we had to stay, even if we just came back for a few hours before our flight the next day. 

While our mornings were a flurry of small hands and laundered shirts, our afternoons and evenings were filled with meetings and discussions with a variety of NGOs and student groups, and on one afternoon, we found ourselves in the American embassy participating in a discussion with Egyptian and Tunisian youth.  As the broader conversation about civic education and common American-Middle Eastern misperceptions shifted into smaller chats, the girl next to me and I struck up a conversation over—what else—her long silver earrings, which offset her deep purple hijab.  As we continued chatting, I found out Maha was from the countryside and had come to Cairo to study to be an interpreter.  English was her second language, Italian her third.  Our conversation ranged from exchanging details over family life (complaints about siblings on both sides) to the new Egyptian parliament (“I believe in a secular government,” she repeated multiple times).  At five o’clock, as our time there wound down, she turned to me and said, “I already feel so familiar with you, like you’re family.”  I hid my surprise by smiling and offering her my e-mail address, and as we exchanged contact information, she insisted we meet up again for coffee if I had any free time before I left in three days but to stay in touch either way. 

I shouldn’t have been surprised.  When I was in Cairo last August, an hour’s coffee and dessert turned into invitations to come back and stay for the summer, while thirty minutes of discussion turned into introductions to a whole network of friends—and this time around, it was no different.  When I think of the way that Nayer, who helped us coordinate the logistics of our trip, ran out to buy medicine for our group members with colds and Egyptian flags for those who wanted to take one home, or that Gihan, a women’s rights activist who I met last summer and met with our group, stopped her discussion of parliamentary laws to advise that we needed to eat and drink better in order to get well before our flight home, or the manner in which a few days or a few minutes is all it took for Mariam and Maha to become family, even the stoniest urbanite can’t help but get a little sentimental. 

And that’s why I keep coming back to the Middle East, and why I think it’s so important for more Americans to experience it.  The warmth and generosity of so many of the people there, and the way in which strangers become family in a few days, offers up both a different social system and a different way of relating to individuals and groups in the region.  It’s so easy to “other-ize” populations you only know through the secondhand interpretation of television or print media, to use the lazy cultural shorthand of films and television shows to define and categorize groups—it helps you define your worldview through comforting shortcuts and stereotypes that may not be entirely unfounded but offer only one type of viewpoint and don’t require you to reconcile their reality with other realities and circumstances.  But once you’ve spent a few days or hours with people like Mariam or Maha, it’s far more comforting to know that there is family there to go back to.