Day Three

January 23rd

First, let me clarify the inconsistency of the dates for my last blog. The internet went down the Zamalek dorm so I wasn't able to add my post last night. I don't know if this is a common occurrence in the dorms, but you never know with this city.

I registered for classes today. I basically got everything I wanted. I am taking Intensive Arabic (Fusha) in the mornings Mondays through Thursday for about 3 hours each day. This will be my hardest class, especially because I suck at Arabic. However, the class starts in chapter 13 of the first book and I am through Chapter 20 of the first book so the first half of the semester will be review. Hopefully I will actually learn the Arabic this time. Which brings to my feelings at the Arabic program at Notre Dame. I think it needs some serious work, because our students do not know arabic well at all. It needs more emphasis on listening and speaking and needs to meet more then three times a week for 50 minutes each. Granted improving requires good arabic teachers and those are hard to come by these days. However, the Notre Dame professors that I have had are not bad, and going to 4 or 5 days a week would be a big help. Also, I realize that some of it might just because I am really not that smart and struggle with languages. Talking with the other people here and seeing how easy school, not just arabic comes to them, makes you realize just how dumb you are. Its a good humbling experience.
Anyways... for my other classes I am taking Colloquial Arabic in the afternoons, which should help getting around the city and feeling less like an outsider. Okay, time for another tangent... I haven't really been hit by the culture shock yet. Maybe its because I am used to 3rd world (ish) countries from being in Bosnia. Maybe its because we really haven't gotten out of the nice parts of the city where all the foreigners live and Mubarak makes it feel as Western as possible. Maybe its because I assumed that it would be much worse. Or Maybe its because I have been with Americans so much and dealing with school stuff that I haven't opened my eyes up yet. I'll work on that for tomorrow.
Back to classes. Since Fusha Arabic is Intensive and therefore six credits, I am only taking two other classes. These are International Politics in the Middle-East, a 400 level class that apparently requires a bunch of requirements, but they just placed me in because I am a foreigner. Hopefully that should be fun. It's for 2 and half hours on Sundays only. Ballin'
Finally I am taking Introduction to Islamic Art and Architecture. Now, this wasn't my first choice but it was my second and it does fulfill my Fine Arts requirement for Notre Dame. Also I hear it's very hard to get into and they have field trips. I got lucky. Really lucky. But as I said last time, every day I wake up and thank God I am Man and American. I really am blessed to live as well as I do and should be more appreciative of the things I have.
Okay, enough about me, this blog is called live from Cairo from a reason and I want you to know how strange this country is. First of all, I have seen one fly in my time here. I haven't seen a single insect in Zamalek. In Bosnia the most awful thing were the flies. There were hundreds of them all around the food and the cafes. They were really annoying. But here nothing. Maybe the rain made them go away and maybe they will come when it gots hotter. I sure hope not.
In fact there is a surprising lack of wildlife. I have seen one dog. It was being walked by a german dude. However, Cairo does have a large amount of stray cats. They are even in the dorm. They stay on the mainfloor and are pretty adorable but we aren't supposed to touch them. Oh well.
Also, things move really slowly in this town. Nothing opens until 11 and everything closes at 1:30, in terms of administration stuff. Food and retail is open much later. The other thing is that nobody does any actual work in this city. The police just sit around and watch people. In the Student Visa office for AUC there were 7 employees. Two were chatting, two were staring mindlessly at their blank desktops, one guy was talking on his cell phone, one guy was staring at his desk and the other was actually helping us. And as you would except the one guy wasn't able to help us and just sent us to another office, which by the time we got there was closed. It reminds me of the Spanish term manana.
I have only seen 4 beggars so far. I imagine being unemployed in this city would be much worse than in America. Then again, the disparity of income is not as intense as it is in America. I have just as abject poverty in Indianapolis and Cincinnati as I saw in Cairo (so far) and in America you are poor but surrounded by great wealth. Here you are poor and surrounded by people just slightly better off than you.
Finally, apparently there were rumors of protests that were going to happen today. Since AUC is right in the heart of the town (Midan Tahir) the protests were supposed to happen right outside. Mubarak responsed in force and the downtown was just swarming with Riot police. I didn't see anything happen, but its clear that Mubarak rules this country with an Iron Fist. Its sweet if you are American because our dollars support him and he takes care of those who keep him propped up. However, Mubarak apparently is in poor health and might die soon. If he dies, who knows what will happen in this country. It would be chaos.

P.S. I am not writing with any sort of attention to grammar or sentence fluency. I am basically throwing down whatever comes into my head, stream-of-conscious. I would really rather spend more time actually experiencing and less time worrying about grammar.