Brian Cassels

Stage one of MESP is over. I am no longer in Egypt. The last few days in Cairo were well spent. Went and saw a few amazingly ornate mosques, dominated my Arabic final, and went to the opera. The opera was a good multicultural experience. A few of us went, all dressed up-mingling with the bourgeoisie. We sat next to some Russians and Egyptians; the opera was performed by the Chinese – in Italian. We saw Turandot, which is a good opera, it had a legit plot.

We left on Wednesday morning for Istanbul, Turkey. It is so much different here than Cairo it is ridiculous. Turkey is basically just like Europe, completely secular and quite democratic, as well as technologically advanced in every way. Istanbul is a city that sits partly in Europe and partly in Asia, split by the Bosporus River. First thing we did when we got here was take a boat ride on the Bosporus. It is actually fall here, and much cooler than Cairo. We went to our hotel, which is on the European side and then walked to the Hagia Sophia, which is one of the most amazing buildings I have ever seen. It was constructed in the 6^th century as a church, and was later converted into a mosque, now it is a museum.

I feel like I have learned more about Turkey in a short time than I could have ever imagined. This is just the way our program is set up, we have a lot of articles to read about the current political and religious situations in Turkey and then get to meet with intellectuals and leaders and discuss to find out more info. We went to a university and were able to dialogue with Turkish students, and then a journalist here spoke to us at night, Friday morning we went to the ruling AK Party headquarters in Istanbul and spoke with their representative, and more good speakers to come.

Outside of the academics we actually have a lot of free time to do whatever, which has been fun. Today was a good day of adventuring. Went and explored the old Ottoman sultan palace. They had a lot of amazing relics there, such as Moses’ staff, David’s sword, John’s arm, Mohammad’s beard, and a gold molding of the meteorite that fell to earth and acts as part of the foundation for the Kaaba (the holy shrine of Islam). It was a pretty amazing place, followed by the blue mosque, which might be one of my favorites. Afterwards we had about 5 hours of freedom, so a few of us decided to go to Asia. We walked down to the waterfront and saw some boats leaving, so we just hoped it would take us to where we wanted and it worked out. When we got to Asia (still Istanbul), there was not much to do, we were in like, a residential area. But we found a nice little restaurant where no foreigners ever go and ordered some food that we had no idea what we were getting (no one knows any Turkish). The highlight was Austin flapping his arms trying to explain that he wanted a chicken sandwich. They loved us. Tomorrow we have a free day, and I think I’m going to a soccer match, which apparently is insane in Turkey. Also hope to tour some of the islands maybe in the Black Sea, if I can find the ferry for it. Heading to Ankara the next day for a few days, then off to Syria. Will try to keep updating.

Luxor-the ancient city of Thebes. Home of the ancient pharaohs, think Exodus. It was a 12 hour ride by train at night. Relatively uneventful except for my window getting shattered by a thrown rock at 2:00AM, a great welcome to Upper Egypt. We went straight to the Temple at Karnak. You may have seen this in “The Mummy”. Just think enormous obelisks and a large columned temple. Amazing how they built this stuff back then. Apparently they would lay the stones and then fill it with sand and drag stones up to the next level. Continue these steps until you build a 100ft temple, then remove all the sand. No wonder they took 1000 years to construct. In the following days we visited other amazing temples, but they were pretty similar. Another treat was our visit to the valley of the kings, where they discovered the pharaohs underground tombs. These were amazing and vast. Carved into limestone, they went deep into mountains, like in some cases probably 100 yards, with all the walls covered in painted and carved hieroglyphics that still have vivid coloring.

Our accommodations were amazing in my opinion, mainly because we had a pool and lounge chairs on the roof where I spend half the time. I went swimming 7 times the last full day we spent there, with the rest of the time dedicated to soaking up the sun. One problem is that it is a very touristy place and the locals there are just aggressive. Ultra rude and expect us to be idiots who don’t know the prices like we were on day one. But by now we’ve got it wired. They were also a little more pestering to the girls in our group which was infuriating. Egyptian men have no respect for women, that’s a pretty sweeping statement-in a normal situation I’d avoid using it, but it’s true.

Since coming back to Cairo we are in our last week of class before our travel component. This means finals and papers. I just finished my last paper for a while-8 pages on the effects of Western influence on the Middle East-politically, economically, and ideologically (fun fun fun). Also had an Islam paper and final, so done with that class, and my Arabic final is on Monday.

I spent some time with Muhammad from the Muslim homestay family. Went with him and his friend before they went to work in Suez. We went out to a traditional Egyptian café where his friend smoked shisha and we battled it out on the chess board. People in the café kept coming over and giving Muhammad some Egyptian support since international chess games don’t happen to often at that place I guess. He didn’t need much moral support, because he handed me my king pretty swiftly and has forced me to play a game of chess titans on my laptop every night in preparation for our next meeting.

Yesterday we threw a big birthday bash for a girl in the program. We went on a boat in the Nile and had some dinner. I was able to bargain the faluca (boat) from 600LE to 125LE, which was nice. Then we went to the world famous (?) Cairo Circus in Agouza, walking distance from where we live. I will say, for 4 dollars I got my money’s worth. While waiting for the circus to start I was able to pet a LION! The show was awesome, with classic acts such as knife throwing, the token chick who uses a whip to extinguish flames from a candle, and a lion/tiger show with 9 of the beasts jumping over one another and the trainer in the most rickety cage I have ever seen. I could have broken through it if I rammed it I think. All in all, glorious.

This Wednesday we are leaving Cairo and heading to Turkey by plane. We won’t be back for a month. I should still get internet every once in a while. We are going from Turkey, to Syria, then Jordan, and finally Israel before returning. Road trip by bus throughout the Middle East. Sorry about my laziness in pictures. My new policy is that I don’t even bring my camera places because everyone else brings theirs and they have better cameras and like to use them. So, there are a bunch on facebook by kids on the program and Joel’s site, again, is a good resource for LOTS of pictures. Lighayit il mara tenya! Until next time!

The week with an Egyptian family is over, and it was a great week in general because of the change of pace. It can be easy sometimes in an apt with a bunch of cool guys to not get out much, especially when we have a lot of homework. But, just living out of the flat means a daily commute to and from school, and my family lived in Hadeyek El Maadi, which is a nice little trip. A taxi ride, a metro ride, and a walk. I feel like I know my way around the city pretty well by now.

Going into the home-stay situation I only had a little information. We would be put into families with a same-gender kid around our age who would be our main contact in the family. They were also presumably all Muslim families. My family, however, did not speak ANY English, and only has a 9 year old boy. They are also Coptic Christians, so the first activity from when they picked me up was to go to church. It was a cool experience to go to church with them, even though it didn’t understand a word of it. I met some of the youth afterwards and some of them spoke good English (learned from movies). It was fine that the family didn’t speak any English because it forced me to use my Arabic a lot just to let my needs and plans known. The family was great, but, actually not that engaging with me. They more or less just gave me a bed to sleep in, and fed me every now and then. It was a good opportunity for me to get some hw done though. I was getting a little jealous of some of the other kids experiences because many of them were able to communicate more since their families spoke
English, and were learning more about the culture and making friends with their same aged brothers/sisters.

There was also a girl from my program, Abby, staying in the same area as me; she lived a street down from me. We happened to meet on the street the first day on the way to the Metro which was cool having some company for the commute. Since then we always commuted together. Her host fam is Muslim and her host sister teaches English and speaks perfectly with a British accent. They invited me to hang out with them, since they are always going out having epic times in Cairo while I am left to chill in my room in my house. Friday was probably my favorite day here hanging out with their family.

I walk in the door to a plate of breakfast and dad telling me that I am his new son, sit and eat. Their real son, Muhammad, was hilarious and we got along really well. Abby and I left for church in Maadi where I went in the past and have some friends there. After church we were walking around the town and spotted a Coptic guy we had met who took us on a tour of the American school where he works as a librarian. This school is for the embassy kids as well as anyone else who wants to pay $20,000 a year for the best education in Egypt. I was AMAZED. This school was the nicest school I’ve ever seen in my life. Like, good enough reason to join the State Dept is that your kids get to go there.

Later just talked with the fam and learned a lot more about the culture here from a legit Muslim perspective. Talking to Muhammad about his journey to find a suitable wife had me just about rolling on the floor laughing as he described meeting the girls that his mom or sisters had picked for him. They helped me a lot with Arabic since they were able to explain it well in English. We went downtown and goofed off and chilled on a bridge like all Egyptians do. So, now I have joined Abby as being part of this family. Even though I’m back in Agouza now, I’m sure I will visit them regularly.

I am really happy with the language situation now. I had been kinda frustrated about my progress, but I’ve definitely turned a corner. Just within the last week everything has come together. I am able to have real conversations and can speak in all tenses. It will just take time to add vocabulary and fluency, rather than stopping to think about number, gender, etc…

This Tuesday we are going on a trip to Luxor and Aswan by train. It is about a 17 hour ride, but I think we have sleep cars, which will be awesome. I’m really looking forward to seeing some of the ancient temples that are there. Hope you are well!

Sorry that it’s been a while. Life goes on in Egypt as usual; we didn’t have much of a weekend last weekend because we had to make up classes. Since Ramadan ended the beginning of October, they have a big feast holiday, so we have a week of no Arabic after a weekend of classes.

This weekend we went to Siwa Oasis, which is on the far west of the country. It was a long drive-about 12 hours, but a really nice trip. Oases (I’m assuming that’s plural), are hard to comprehend. This is in the middle of the Sahara Desert, big old sand dunes everywhere, nothing but dry and hot. Then suddenly there is a fresh water spring coming out of the ground with palm trees all around. We stayed at a nice little place that had a clean pool (rare), and no electricity, just candles and lanterns, which was awesome. The first day (Thursday) we rented bikes for the day and rode throughout the town, there were some cool things to see. One was the Oracle, which is a really old temple that Alexander the Great went to receive some sort of prophecy, no one knows what it was. After that we rode to Cleopatra’s Bath, which is a big deep pool in the middle of an intersection. Some of us had our bathing suits and dove in and had a good time impressing Siwans with our acrobatics-synchronized back flips and the like. Next, off to a salt lake on the edge to watch the sunset. At night we hired a Siwan band to play for us for a couple hours at our hotel (where we were the only guests). They were really fun and sat in a square on some blankets and would dance to their own music and come pull us into the square to dance with them. Soon we were all dancing around the courtyard. The next day we took Jeeps out into the desert and played in the dunes. We went sand boarding and swam in different springs. We spent the night in the desert with the Bedouin. A few of us guys went out into the desert and found some curious jackals and chased them around the desert. I will have to direct you to Joel’s site to see more pictures of all this because he’s telling me he took over 100, while I took maybe 10.

Today I am really excited because at 6:00 I will be meeting my Egyptian Muslim host family.  I will stay with them for the next week.  I’m pumped about learning more Arabic and the informal lessons about culture here-plus make some new friends.  I will update you when I get a chance!