All the dancing kings and wives assembled in the hall…

The following is a post from AUA contributing blogger Eric Mlyn, Executive Director of Duke Engage at Duke University. Eric is now in Egypt, where he is serving as a senior fellow for the John D. Gerhart Center for Philanthropy and Civic Engagement at the American University in Cairo. He is also writing about his experiences on his blog, Notes from Cairo.

This is one if many times that I wish I could speak Arabic. We are in the airport in Hurghada, on our way back from a long Thanksgiving weekend on the Red Sea where we snorkeled, go-carted (Noah went so fast on his first lap that he drove off the track) , and ate Nathan’s with great disappointment as the french fries were good but not authentic and the hot dogs virtually inedible. I told the man at the counter that the hot dogs were not good – and indeed I used my limited Arabic – but he was not impressed.  He just said OK.

On the television in the waiting area here at the airport is a broadcast of a meeting of the judges’ syndicate, who are objecting to the recent Presidential decree that makes presidential decisions not subject to judicial review. I don’t know what they are saying, but they seem angry and defiant in the face of President Morsi’s presidential decree that seeks to consolidate power in his office by side stepping the judiciary and firing the general prosecutor.

It seems that President Morsi was riding high here after upstaging Hilary Clinton in Cairo and fired the general prosecutor who refused to be fired and sent to the Vatican months ago. ( I just asked the man sitting next to me what they were saying on the television. He told me not much, that it was a lot of posturing and words with no real action. Mahmoud, a 1993 graduate of AUC, had a theory that Noah heard on television, that in fact the US gave the green light to Morsi to consolidate power in return for his restraint of Hamas in Gaza. I personally tend to reject these kinds of conspiracies, but given the very mild statement that came out of the US State Department about Morsi’s actions today, who knows?)

What I do know, according to Leah who stayed in Cairo this weekend, is that some are saying there will be a new revolution. I doubt this. Unpredictability and some potential for chaos seems to be the norm now here. I don’t say this lightly, as each one of these eruptions and disruptions is deeply dislocating for so many. Images once again on CNN showing angry men on the street was of course not good news for Max, our British guide who took us snorkeling this morning and said that this kind of news kills tourism, and told us that during the revolution he had no business and spent most of this time drinking beer and watching CNN. He suggested to us that if things get bad in Cairo that we should just come hang out in El Ghouna. Were this to happen, I would definitely take up wind surfing as it looked like great fun out on the turquoise Red Sea.

President Morsi does seem to have overstepped a bit here, and his subsequent conciliatory tone toward those liberals and secularists who have taken to the streets bodes well for a peaceful resolution of this latest governmental and constitutional crisis. I would not be surprised to see Morsi continue this tone as tensions hopefully calm. There are few who would argue with the fact that that this accidental president (called a “spare tire” by some) was elected in fair democratic elections, a first in this country. As such, he enjoys legitimacy until he totally squanders it. Thus far, he has proven to be more politically savvy and astute than most thought he would be. In August few understood his audacity when he fired General Tatawi, but this held and is now seen as a very positive step for the revolution.

I remember when we flew from JFK to Cairo months ago that I chuckled to myself as I read an article in the English Egypt Daily News that suggested that protests should be banned. How silly I thought, don’t they understand what democracy is? That protest is a fundamental right and that you can’t ban it? Well, I do at least have some understanding of where this desire came from. Democracy is a real hassle. I am reminded yet again of the complexity and fragility of democracy as I suspect President Morsi is as well.

We remain engaged in all that is going on around us, and though I know that some of you are wondering why we are still here, I want to assure you again that the images on CNN belie the fact that life goes on. It is often disrupted, and from far away must look scary. But at this point it is not, only deeply interesting and challenging. Keep in touch.

I Need A Miracle Every Day

The following is a post from contributing blogger Eric Mlyn, Executive Director of Duke Engage at Duke University. Eric is now in Egypt, where he is serving as a senior fellow for the John D. Gerhart Center for Philanthropy and Civic Engagement at the American University in Cairo. He is also writing about his experiences on his blog Notes from Cairo.

This is a challenging city to figure out. In a quest for increased understanding, I am reading Understanding Cairo: The Logic of a City Out of Control by David Sims, which despite its title actually marvels at how things kind of work in what some people claim is Africa’s largest city. Sims offers some interesting explanations for what I observe every day, for example why it seem that 50% of the apartment buildings along the road on my 45 to 90 minute bus trip to the American University in Cairo are half built and largely empty. (The explanation is complicated, but has to do with how housing is financed, the lack of cars, real estate speculation, mass transit and poorly thought out zoning regulations.)

So I am still agnostic on whether this place works or not, though leaning to yes. That does kind of amaze me given the density of this quickly growing city of 17 million people and the fact that we are in the desert. And though it can sometimes be maddening to try to get something done quickly, taking deep breaths and appreciating when things do work helps a lot.

When we first arrived here, I withdrew money from the ATM in our neighborhood, right in front of the Cairo American College where Noah goes to high school. I got my money, but alas my card was not returned.  I stood around for a while, watched another person use the machine, and then called the phone number on the machine to see what I should do. My lack of Arabic did not help, though I think the man on the phone suggested that I wait a few days and go to an address down town. That seemed both complicated and a long shot, so I called my bank at home and they told me they would have a card Fed Exed to me in 5-7 days.

The next day, while on the AUC campus, I decided to stop in to the CIB bank where I had been earlier to open an Egyptian account. I saw the man who I had met the day before and told him my predicament. He listened carefully and began to repeatedly call a number that seemed to be busy. After about 15 minutes, he reached somebody, spoke for a while, and hung up. “Mr. Eric,” he said with a half smile, “I will have your card in a few days. Please give me your phone number and I will call you.” I hoped, and wondered, does this place work well enough that this will happen? I don’t know that it would have happened in Durham.

So as Sims concludes about Cairo:

And it is a near miracle that such a huge agglomeration has been able to grow from four to seventeen million inhabitants in less than fifty years on its own, so to speak, counter to government intentions and plans….[there are] efficient neighborhoods where two-thirds of all Cairenes live and almost half of them work, where housing is minimally acceptable and quite affordable….and a majority of inhabitants can live modestly respectable lives.

Back to me. I had grave doubts I would ever see my card again.  You mean to tell me that in this city of 17 going on 18 million people, that somebody will find my ATM card at a machine that is 45 minutes from here and deliver it to campus? Please! Well, I stopped in to the bank every day on my way to the office, checked and he told me he would call me. And indeed, 4 days after I first made the request, this very kind bank employee handed my ATM to me.  “Shokrun,” I gushed, “ma salaama.” It does kind of work, a little differently perhaps, but it does kind of work.

(Note: Just learned that Leah, on her way back from Ain Soknah on the Red Sea, is stuck on a bus with other AUC students at a stand still on the highway because of an accident that will not be cleared until tomorrow. They are turning around and going back to the hotel.  OK, I did say kind of work.)

Noah Connects with Muslim Students through Student Action For Refugees

The following is a message from guest blogger Noah Schumer.

While studying abroad at the American University in Cairo (AUC) in the fall of 2009, I volunteered with the university’s chapter of Student Action For Refugees (STAR), an organization run by AUC graduate students that recruits English speakers to teach language courses to local refugees once per week at the school’s Tahrir Square campus. The program is free and most semesters more people sign-up than the number of available classrooms will allow for. I hadn’t planned on volunteering with STAR prior to my arrival in Cairo, but when a fellow study abroad student told me about the program during our orientation week I was excited by the opportunity to add a service component to my experience living in Egypt.

After attending a general information meeting and brief training session, I was assigned to teach a class of twenty-five students, a diverse mix of adults from various African, Middle Eastern, and South Asian nations. My co-teacher, Ashish, was a fellow student from Tufts University who grew up in India.

The vast majority of our students were practicing Muslims, and given that our first week of classes coincided with the final days of Ramadan, STAR organized an iftar to allow teachers and students to get to know each other. One of our students, Abdul Wahid, hailed from Nuristan, a province in northeast Afghanistan. After talking to him for a few minutes, he pulled out his cell phone to show me pictures of his village and his family, all wearing traditional Nuristani tribal garb. “You see,” he said, smiling, “you are not the only one having to adapt to Cairo.”  Another of our students, Ali, was a middle-aged gentleman from Baghdad with a young son. He later stayed after class several times, telling us the latest news that his family, still in Iraq, was reporting to him, and asking questions of us about life in America, where an NGO was working to relocate him. For many Americans, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are abstract events in distant locations.  Ali and Abdul Wahid’s depictions of their family’s situations humanized the conflicts for me in ways that reading about them could not.

The program supplied us with copies of “Haroun and the Sea of Stories,” a children’s book by Salman Rushdie, to distribute and read in class. Ashish and I, however, decided to open our first session with a discussion of President Obama’s speech at Cairo University in June of that year in order to facilitate a more mature conversation. Given that we were several years younger than our students — many of whom had not been in a classroom environment for a long time – we knew we needed to work to earn their respect. Several of the students spoke to President Obama’s eloquence and the powerful message of American’s having the tolerance to elect an African-American president with the middle name Hussein. “When I heard about the election, I was very proud of Americans,” one student, named Habib, told me. Others, while praising the president’s words, warned that he still faced the responsibility of translating his promises into actions. As the only American in the room, I sometimes felt the burden of, if not defending, at least presenting American viewpoints. At one moment during the discussion, Habib passionately questioned what he saw as the U.S. government inconsistency in promoting democracy in some parts of the world while supporting autocrats in others. Whether or not I agreed with my student’s opinions, I felt it was important that they knew – regardless of if I was listening to them or engaging in debate – that I was genuinely interested in and respectful of their opinions, thereby to counter the unfortunate reputation of American arrogance that exists in many places. 

Ashish and I taught level five – the program’s highest level – so instead of having to focus the majority of our time on grammatical minutiae, our classes were based on reading and oral comprehension, and allowing our students time to simply practice speaking English. Reading “Haroun and the Sea of Stories,” a book heavy on metaphors and motifs, out loud in class offered a chance for the students to improve their understanding of non-literal English writing. At the end of the semester, we were charged with designing a final exam; if the students passed our exam, they graduated from the program. Ultimately, around half the class passed, rendering them eligible to apply to various AUC scholarship programs for graduates of STAR, while the other half returned to level five the following semester for more instruction.

After returning to the United States, I’ve been able to stay in touch with my former students through email and facebook.  During the revolution in Egypt earlier this year, I had several email exchanges with Abdul Wahid, who updated me on the rapidly evolving political situation and offered first hand depictions of the scene in downtown Cairo.  My experience reinforced my belief that a vital component to being an active and engaged American citizen in the twenty-first century is having the ability to build bridges across racial, religious, ethnic, and cultural lines. As I learned from my time in the classroom, interactions between individuals allow the dispelling of stereotypes about “the other” and the making of positive change through engagement across cultures – something that, in our increasingly interconnected world, is as important now as ever.