Day 41

February 29th

On this lovely spring day, John and I decided to explore the area in Cairo know as the Citadel. The Citadel is an 11th century fortress built by Saladin, which is located on a hill overlooking of all Cairo. The Citadel grounds have had extension additions throughout the centuries, most prominently the Mosque of Mohammad Ali, built in the late 19th century and the National Military Museum completed in the last century. Since today is Friday many of the Mosques were closed to us until after prayer but we used this time to explore the fortress walls and the National History Museum. The funny thing I noticed about the History Museum was that many of the murals that depicted their Military showed them actually killing their enemies. In D.C. the monuments to the wars of our History never show us actually killing our opponents. The Monuments in D.C. seem to be much more understanding of the costs of humanity that war entails, and never seek to glorify the death of people, no matter what side they are on. I guess this might stem from differences in reasons for fighting. The rationale for Wars in America comes in order to protect and promote that which is intangible that which can not be painted: the ideals of freedom, liberty, and democracy. While, in Egypt they might because a menacing enemy threatens to eliminate their country and they must defend it. I wonder if Egypt ever becomes a free country if they will take down those murals.
The Mosque of Mohammad Ali was definitely the highlight of the trip. This Mosque is absolutely huge and dominants the skyline. Its gorgeous on the inside and the outside, with a massive dome that features beautiful gold decorations. I personally wondered how and how long this Mosque took to build.
Later in the day we got to talk with the man who cleans our room. This was one of the more interesting conversations I have got to have, while I have been here. This man graduated from college with a degree in social work. He speaks English very well, seems bright and friendly, and yet he works as a custodian for AUC for about 300 pounds a month. This salary is barely enough to survive on these days. This is just a snapshot of the problems that face Egypt. They have way too many people, not enough jobs, and far too many restrictions eliminating the possibility of new markets. It's hard to even know where to begin to address these issues. Is education the answer, clearly not for this man, so it is the lack of jobs. Well yes, but where does that come from? A lack of opportunity and growth, but where does that come from? This issues are so difficult and its so hard to think that change is even possible in this country.

Day 40

February 28th

If you want to get depressed about the state of America, please feel free to read this article:

http://sweetness-light.com/archive/obama-wore-muslim-gear-during-kenya-trip

Sometimes you just have wonder about the state of the American education system. These comments were made by scary, scary people. These comments were blinded by prejudice, hatred, and ignorance. I can understand why people can have such low opinions of America, if these are the people they are interacting with. I mean these people clearing have never traveled to Muslim world and clearly don't know the first thing about politics. They can make you depressed and almost mad. I am ashamed that these people who eyes are colored by all that is wrong in this world represent America. We are better than the comments on this board, we can be a country that actually is it's brother keeper and follows out the word of the lord. Intolerance, its just one of those things that makes you sick to your stomach.
I firmly believe that America can be that city set upon the hill and that we need to do everything in our power to build that better world. As my dad said, its a shame that so many people in America have been given so much, and just throw it away. That's another thing that makes me sick, complacency and indifference.
At the beginning of Boondock Saints, the Priest talks about the sin of the indifference of good men. I think is absolutely true and that the saying, "to much has been given, much is expected" is absolutely true for America.
On some levels I hate it when people don't care. When they don't care to speak out or even care about the injustices that plague this world. But then on the other hand, its hard to blame them. I care deeply about these people's fates and I get depressed and riled up when I hear about the state of the human race. But what good does it do me. The issues are so complicated, so vast, that what is one man's struggle against it.
I think I finally been able to figure out this problem. It's the realization that I am not the Saint or the single-handed savior of the world's problem. It's the realization that I am not God's gift to man and specially gifted. But this does not mean I am not a part of the solution. I think the thing that I have realized is that these problems are going to require a lot of effort and a lot of hands. I think its my duty to not only do all that I can personally, but also to get other people to fulfill their duty to humanity.
I think that's it. I think I may have just discovered what I want to do with my life, or at least gotten one step closer. I mean, I know I want to eliminate suffering and injustice. I also know that to do this requires a effort on so many people's part that the problems that face the world will require the participation of the world. I think my part in helping to reduce the pain in this world is too organize and get other people to care and get involved in these issues. I don't know in exactly what position this means, from politician, to community organizer, to teacher, to administrator to even the military.
I mean I don't want the people who wrote these comments in the military. The United States Military has the ability to inflict the most injustice on the world and it has the opportunity to reduce a lot of suffering in the world. This is a great need in America, well educated, informed and passionate officers and leaders. We cannot have a military that fosters distrust, violence, and hatred, he need a military that restores hope that respects culture, that does what it does not because we can, but because we want to build a better world.

Day 39

February 27th

Today was a long day. I was up too late last night and had a really long day of classes and work. Wednesday's are like this. I still feel my Arabic is terrible. I wanted to move back to get a firmer grasp of vocabulary and listening and speaking, and I feel that none of these have really improved. Its really frustrating. I can't tell if it's because I am not studying enough, or if it's because I am just bad at languages. Anyways, I start my tutoring tomorrow and hopefully that will start to improve my skills. I just want to be able to understand my teacher when she gives instructions or when people ask me questions, is this so much to ask for me.
In other news, other than a rather disappointing skype conservation with "renegade" my day was pretty uneventful. It's tough. But I think that the smoke is cleared and that's good for both of us. I think I finally understand the platform that renegade stands on. Knowing this, I think kind of gives me some freedom.
Speaking of Obama, he's up in Texas. People in Egypt love Obama. They really hope he is elected. I think there is inherent value in the fact that he does have dark skin and that he has a Muslim name. I think the fact that so many people from around the world can relate to him is a huge bonus to whatever his foreign policy is. I have read several op-eds about this, one from the Post and one from the Times detailing his effect and his story on the world. I mean the fact that his Grandma is illiterate and lives in some rural Kenyan Farm and that her grandson can become the most powerful man in the world really says something about the nature of America.
Also related to my subject. Every time I walk around Cairo, I am continually affirmed in my belief that I am one of the luckiest people alive. I have been given so much, and despite how bad I may be at Arabic or at school in general, I still have a life that many can only ever dream of. I think its my job, to make those dreams into something a little bit more substantial.

Day 38

February 26th

So I had my first English class today. I thought it went really well as were well organized and had a lot of fun with the students. I think they will enjoy coming to class and hopefully they will learn a lot from us. It's kind of weird being at the head of the class, knowing that all these kids are depending on you to teach them how to speak English, especially when English is so important to getting anywhere in the world. Its actually quite daunting, as the responsibility clearly lies on my shoulders to get them through. Their future depends on me. That's a tough concept to grasp. I sure hope I don't let these kids down.
The other interesting thing we heard, is that the students, or one actually that we know of, is not at all proud to live in Cairo. He cannot find one good thing about living in Egypt, even when we brought up all the culture and history. He just finds it suffocating and lacking. Which I can't blame him too much, I would not want to raise my kids here. I really appreciate what America has to offer me, and I am so blessed to be where I am in this world. I don't know why I got this blessing, but I had better not waste it.

Day 37

February 25th

So I will be teaching my first English class tomorrow. I am actually quite excited about it. My roommate and I have made up copies of the syllabus, gone over and edited what they thought we should teach the students (they being the center) and made notes to stress what we thought was really important in class. John and I are both super-pumped for the first class, as we have made additions including Dan Lindley's Myths/Fears of Classroom Participation and we are going to have them watch Lebron James: Be Better than Me, on youtube. Basically its going to be sweet.
The real interesting thing I found while reading though the packets was information about American culture. They talked a lot of myths of American people, and the one that stuck out the most was the one that said all Americans think that their culture is superior to all other cultures. I then began thinking about all the comments I have been making lately and I was wondering if I would fall into that group of people. So then I really began to think about Arabic Culture or Cairo Culture, and I realized that there are a lot of things I don't like about it. I don't like the fact that there is so much poverty and so little chance of social mobility in this country. I also really hate the pollution and the lack of caring for the history of Egypt. Or the fact, that you can never really trust a person to help you, how you can never tell if they are honestly being a good person, or if they just want to scam you. I also hate how I have to barter for everything, how I have to be a hustler, or be hustled. It's really frustrating, and I wish it wasn't that way. Does that mean that I think American culture is better. I am not sure, because at the same time, I really like that religion is prevalent, that the family is so key to their identity, that they drink tea all the time, that they know how to relax. I genuinely enjoy a lot about the Arab culture, but I must make a point to not get mad or complain, just because something doesn't work the way it does in America.

Day 36

February 24^th

Sunday for me is a day of homework. Thus, I spent most of the day doing homework, mainly studying for my test is Fusha Monday. At the time of writing this, I actually feel quite confident about the test, lets hope this isn’t overconfidence. I did take time to go to Boxing today. Boxing is quite a rush, except I need to get my technique down. I tend to want to hold the other person’s arms down with my left and just go at them with the right. This is apparently not good boxing, but I think it’s smart. I also will use more of a roundhouse punch to get around their defensives, but the coach yells at me because A. I don’t think we are there yet, and B. I have terrible form in the punch. Regardless we only do this for about 15 minutes or so, and the rest of the time is spent in conditioning. Otherwise life is going well, we are trying to get our plans sorted out for all our travels. Places I want to go include in Egypt: Luxor, Siwa, the Western Desert, the Red Sea, Memphis. Outside of Egypt: Jordan (Petra and Amman), Dubai, Greece and Turkey, Jerusalem, and maybe Beirut. This is a lot of places and we are going to have to plan if I am going to be able to see everything I want.

Day 35

February 23rd

Today I spent a lot of time sleeping. It was awesome. First I didn’t wake up until 11. Then we went and had lunch with a bunch of Notre Dame Alumni in Khan-al-Khali. These people were on a tour sponsored by Notre Dame, and hosted by David Burrell, a former Professor at Notre Dame. Burrell was very smart, as was everybody at the table. They were also all quite sophiscated and kind people, people who you wouldn’t mind sitting down with and really getting to know. I really like people from Notre Dame, and I love the fact that simply being from the same school has built a network that allows us to get together on the other-side of the world. It really is a Notre Dame family.

However, I also got the feeling that because they were on a tour they were only exposed to the small ritzy part of Cairo. Only Burrell could speak Arabic, or at least of the people I meet, and they only got to spend 10 days in the country. You can’t hope to see a country and truly get to know it in 10 days. Hell, I can’t hope to understand the country and I will be there 5 months. The one comment that I did remember most of all, is that they thought the children here were just so happy and carefree, especially compared to China, which a few had visited. While, I cannot compare to China, I would hardly say the Children here are especially happy. Children in general are a pretty resilient to whatever life throws at them. However, I don’t think these people saw the kids who were living on the streets, or those who were working in the shops and living in total filth. I am not saying that these people are wrong at all, I just think they didn’t get to see enough of Cairo, as they only got to see the Kids who were in a Church Choir. I think the important lesson for me is to also make sure that I am not making generalizations for a country which I really do not know.

The other thing that one of the nice ladies told me was that I really needed to soak in everything. It will be over before I know it, and then I might not be back here for a long time. Time is fleeting, and she said this would be on the formative experiences in my life. Its nice to hear that again, because sometimes you can get so bogged down with class and what not that before you know it you are gone. Thank God I am staying for the summer as well.

Day 34

February 22^nd

Today John and I decided to walk to Islamic Cairo. Islamic Cairo was Cairo about 1000 years ago, before they turned the land by the Nile into the center of the city. What this all means is that the Mosques and monuments we were seeing were all at least 8 centuries old. We got to see the north gate of the city, which is this massive wall that was on the outside of the city, built by the Fatimid Caliphate in 960. Here let in inform you of a little bit of Cairo’s history. Cairo before the Fatimids was called Fustat. When the Fatimids came in they took the city from the Abbasid Caliphate and renamed it Al-Qahira, (Cairo) which translates from Arabic into The Triumphant.

We got to go into two Mosques, the Masjid al-Hakin and the Masjid al-Aqmar. The Masjid al Hakin is almost built into the northern wall and is a beautiful white marble mosque on the inside, making it almost too bright to look at. Regardless we stayed in the Mosque for about 30 minutes just enjoying the tranquility and for me the Sun. John sunburns easily, so he didn’t enjoy that as much. The Masjid al-Aqmar was built in 1125 and is the oldest stone built Mosque in Cairo. The cool part about this mosque was that we got to climb up in the minaret and see over the entire area. This is actually kind of depressing view, because all what you see all squalor homes stretching for as far as you can see. At least on the street, you don’t really get to see the living conditions of these people, just their workshops. But here we got to see all the tiny apartments or in some cases where they were missing a roof or a wall I got to see right into their homes.

Even more interesting than hitting the tourist sites in Islamic Cairo was the walk over and back. I think this goes along with the saying that half the fun of a trip is the journey over. Here it was definitely more than half the experience. We went through places where foreigners/white people never go. You see Fatimid Cairo also features the well known Khan-al-Khaili market, a must see spot for tourists. The major streets in this market are those geared for precisely for tourists and are fairly clean, have a lot of security and just tons of people trying to get you to buy their stuff. However, if you go just a few streets out of the way you get into how the majority of Cairo really lives. The streets are small, dirt roads and are just filled with small shops, lots of people, motorbikes, donkeys, and cars. It’s a complete zoo and these things stretch on forever. The shops are all small and don’t have much stuff in them, nor do they have many costumers, but instead everybody seems to hang out in the streets or the myriad of hole-in-the-wall food places. I personally thought it was eye-opening to see the absolute poverty and lack of opportunity or job fulfillment that pervades most of Cairo. I mean this is how most people live in the world live. Just scraping by, selling just enough things to keep their tiny shop open and them alive. In these shops, I don’t see any chance of moving up in the world or actually feeling good about your work, infact I wonder how these tiny shops provide them with enough to get by. It’s actually quite depressing to think about how these people live their lives day and day. You see kids working too, and you wonder what kind of future lies ahead for them. It’s times like these that make you understand why Capitalism and free-markets can be a good thing in comparison. It also makes you realize again just how blessed you are to be American.

It’s a strong incentive to actually do as much as I can with my life. I have been given a lot of opportunity not only as an American but even compared to many other Americans. I shouldn’t sell these gifts short and settle for just having a happy family or raising children. I mean these are important but this can be accomplished in many contexts. If I had grown up in Egypt you can raise kids and give them opportunity to succeed.

I also watched Saving Private Ryan last night. This was a depressing movie, more depressing than I remember. But now one of the messages that the movie conveyed is starting to resonate more with me. Tom Hanks told James Ryan, as he dieing, to “earn it,” earn the fact that all these people just died for me to get back to America I feel that I also have a duty to earn the fact that I am so blessed, that I have a responsibility to do something special with my life, to really do as much as I can to make this world a better place because so many have died to get me this ability. I have also been blessed with the potential to do so much. Over ½ of the world, over 3 billion people don’t make over a dollar a day. I for some reason, some twist of fate, won the genetic lottery. Now the question is what am I going to do with it. If I hadn’t won the lottery I still could have developed relationships and raised a good family. But since I have this ability to get a job where I can find fulfillment, where I can make a difference in this world, and more than just scrap by, I had better not fail, better not just settle for adequate. For too many people have given too much to make America a country where I could have this opportunity. I had better “earn it.”

Day 33

February 21^st

Today has been a good day. A really good day, an “amazingly good day.” Two good things happened to me today. First of all, when I went to work at the DDC, I found out that they weren’t going to get funding from the Canadian IRDC for water research anymore. Instead they said all the money was in research for Energy and Environment. So the DDC kind of has to change their game plan for the grant proposal. This is kind of unfortunate for them, but it meant that I got to research alternative energy sources in the desert, searching for success and failures, analysis of maintenance costs, and whether not these kinds of power can be applied to a small developing communities. Basically Its right up my ally, and I really enjoy it, because I see not having electricity is the number one reason for their lack of development. I’ll inform you on my findings later.

The second great thing that happened, is that I was chosen for RA in Keenan Hall. When most people hear that, they wonder why that’s so exciting, because in most schools RA have to be enticed into taking the position. However, at Notre Dame, it is one of the most prestigious and important available, especially in Keenan Hall. It’s going to be awesome.

Day 32

February 20

Well the internet is down again. I can’t get any browser to work and my friend Kieran has the same problem. Kieran, who has studied here for the entire year got his acceptance letter for the summer program at Middlebury. This program is one of the best in the world and after it he gets done, he should be a complete stud when it comes to Arabic.

As for me, I am still punching away at my Arabic. I think that either languages might just be my weakness or I might just be slightly retarded in general. I have trouble remembering all the vocabulary and properly pronouncing it. I think the two are related and both stem from my complete lack of phonetic ability. This doesn’t mean I won’t get better though as I am counting on my ability to unremorsefully forgo fun for studies. It hasn’t let me down yet.

In other news, I went to my orientation for Better World today. Better World is an NGO that teaches normal (thereby underprivileged compared to the West) Egyptian kids how to speak English. I am really looking forward to this job as not only will I be able to interact with non-AUC Egyptians, but I will also get to see if teaching appeals to me as a suitable career path. One of the leaders for Better World asked us all, why were here in Egypt, and what we wanted to do while we here. When people answered to learn Arabic and the Arab Culture, she responded with the why do we want to learn Arabic culture or the Arab culture. She said that if can’t answer that now, we should make that a point to answer it while in Egypt. Although this was a simple request that seemed easy enough, it struck me as notable because I don’t know what I want to do with my life. I feel like I should be using this hiatus form the stresses and inebriating (in all senses of that word) culture of Notre Dame to really get time to find myself.

One thing that I have found that the person that I am at Notre Dame and the person that I am back home can be two quite different people. The high-stress, zero-time, little fun environment of Notre Dame makes me serious and studious but also much more reserved in my interactions with people. While back at home, where I don’t even bother doing Arabic studying over an entire summer, I am much more confident, relaxed, and personable. Being in an environment such as AUC allows me to feel like I do in Spokane, but in a collegiate environment. This matters, because I know realize that it is not the people I hang out at Notre Dame that cause me to be so serious and as some, mainly Pete, would say “a bitch, on the weekends.” No its not that the culture/personalities of Notre Dame make me this way, it’s the fact that I stress to much about academics, or suck too much and have to spend so much time doing it.

I think its about finding a balance between the Spokane Me and the Notre Dame Me. Like Mrs. Groesbeck told us in her “so what really is important list” after AP U.S. (which I still carry with me, in an envelope, wherever I live) all work and no fun makes jack a dull boy, but all fun and no work makes jack a playboy. I’m still working on getting that balance. In-shah allah.

Day 31

February 19th

I am studying for what will amount to be one of the hardest geography tests I have probably ever taken. This coming from me. I will continue to study throughout the night, and God Willing come out alive on the other side. I have to be a Hammer and not a nail.

Day 30

February 18th

The culture of this country is very different from the culture of America. This culture difference manifests itself in many ways throughout Egypt, but the one that is most noticeable to me at this hour is the actions and attitudes of the young men and women at AUC. In case you didn't know, the American University in Cairo is supposed to be the Ivy League of the Middle East. You either have to be really rich or really smart to get into this school. It is supposed to be one of the best educations you can get in the Middle East. However, I think my high school was better than this school. The teachers that I have for any class that isn't Arabic either can't teach or struggle to get their kids to care about teaching. Today in my Art and Architecture class a girl walked in 30 minutes late, like it was no big deal. It's really a joke, and it makes it hard for me to take this place serious. What's scary is, if this is the good university what are the bad one's like.
The high school mentality of the students is quite visible in the Egyptian students that live on my floor. They are loud, at all hours of the night. They bang on doors, blare their music, whistle to get each other's attention at the end of the hall-way. Keep in mind, carpet is very hard to keep clean in such a dirty city, so everything is tile which just reverberates the noise. These kids have no self-awareness. Granted some of the study abroad students don't either, but I think that's one of the things I have appreciated at Notre Dame and not really realized. For the most part, people see how they fit into the world. They see how their actions and words effect others and they try to adjust them accordingly. At the every least, even if they lack this level of maturity, at least at ND people take what they do seriously. Here you have to search to find that.

Day 29

February 17th

Tomorrow is the day of my first test in two months. It is actually the day of two tests, both my Arabic and my Colloquial. Since they are the first tests and since not much information about them was given ahead of time, I really don't know what to expect. As such today was devoted to studying. Yes, it was quite uneventful.

I did however have a conversation on the bus ride back from Boxing with somebody who is in 212 Arabic. 212 means he is starting in Book 3 Chapter 5, well ahead of me. This guy has spent two summers at Middlebury College, solely studying Arabic. This is mighty impressive, especially with the reputation of Middlebury. However, the disappointing this was even after all this Arabic, he still could only get the gist of what was going on in newsreels. How much Arabic does one have to go through in order to actually be considered fluent. I was hoping on learning Arabic and then moving on to some more languages, ideally Spanish and possibly French. However, I don't think I will ever be able to move on them if I can't ever get Arabic done. I am really lucky that English is the lingua francia of the world.

Day 28

February 16

I got to spend today with the family of my survival Arabic teacher. This was an absolutely marvelous experience as we were able to build a real relationship with not only people who grew up in this country, but also kids who are growing up in this country. Although today we didn't get to spend much time talking about their thoughts and opinions, we did set the foundation for hopefully a long-term relationship. Both Magdha, our survival teacher, and her two boys speek impeccable English and are quite social and willing to talk to us. We got to eat a home-cooked meal and enjoy the company and a welcoming environment.
On the drive over, Magdha pointed out the place where Sadat was assassinated some 25 years ago, setting off a chain of events that eventually led them to the place Egypt is in now. I sometimes wonder what would have happened if Mubarak had not taken power 25 years ago, would Egypt be a better or worse country.
Magdha lives outside of Heliopolis, a much quieter, less hectic suburb of Cairo. Although the subsurb still consisted of apartment buildings and shops rather then houses. I have yet to see an actual single-family house in Egypt yet. Unless you consider the cardboard shacks that are on the abandoned lot by AUC.
We also got to drive through the City of the Dead today. I had much about this area, a huge cemetery, where actually 1000's of poor people live amongst the tombs. Although we didn't really see much from the drive, I find the whole idea of it fascinating and worthy of more investigation.

Day 27

February 15th

It's been nearly a month, but today I finally went to see the Great Pyramids at Giza. These things are incredible, from a far. First, of all they are absolutely massive, the largest one being 230 meters on each length. They were also the world's tallest building until the 19th century, when the Eiffel Tower finally surpassed it after some 6 thousand years. The pyramids also sit on a little plateau that overlook the entire city. I can only imagine how amazing they must have been in their prime, when they were covered in smooth white limestone and capped with Gold. Simply incredible.
However, once you get close to the Pyramids you kind of find your disgusted not only by the state of them, but also the complete lack of care by the tourists and the Egyptians. On the tourist side, it seems that everybody wants to just go and capture that cliche photo of them standing in front of the Pyramids or them walking like an Egyptian, or them playing with Camera angles in such a way that they look like they are doing something funny. I would say few care to learn anything about the Pyramids other then the few tidbits of trivia they can use to wow their friends who didn't get the chance to go. What is the point of going to these places if all you are going to do is take a picture that is worse than one you could have bought in a postcard. If they just did this they could save a lot of money and not crowd the pyramids for those of us who actually care.
Second, on the side of the Egyptians. The pyramids were covered in filth. Trash was everywhere, mainly bottle-caps, cigarettes , and decaying plastic bottles. Granted there were no trash-cans, but in reality there wasn't much of anything at these places. There weren't any information boards that told information about the pyramids, there were no visitor centers or most importantly signs and fences that kept people from climbing all over them or going someplace where they shouldn't go. Also at Sakkar (the oldest pyramid in the world) structures to the south I would routinely pick up pieces of the columns that were just lying around covered in litter and perfectly capable of being stolen. I also miss American culture. Everyone at the pyramids is trying to screw you over and take your money. They are not ever being nice simply for the sake of being nice, they are being nice because they want to rip you off. I was constantly barraged with offers for stuff. These are easy ones, because you can simply say you don't want 100 times and keep walking. The worst are the ones who come up to you and put something on your head or in your hand and bascially force you to buy stuff from them. Or the people who ride the Camels and say take a picture of me, but then ask for money. You cannot be nice to these people. If you even make eye-contact or slow down a bit they will not stop pestering you. For one person, when he came up to me, I said No Hablo English. However, this dude spoke Spanish, and i didn't have a chance. The one that has worked is saying I didn't bring any money with me. People generally stop caring then. But I just hate the fact, that you can't trust anyone to give you the straight deal of what's going on, and unless they are your friend they will screw you over for anything they can get. I guess from now on, I will have to be more of a hardass and less of a kind Midwestern student. As the Egyptians call to you as you walk by, "Welcome in Egypt"
On a different note: I love America. I really do, absolutely love America. Traveling through the rest of Egypt that isn't Zamalek, you realize just how different the rest of the world is from America. I am not talking about the lack of water-fountains, or the climate or the cleanliness. I am talking about the fundamental nature of America that sets it apart from the rest of the world. In Egypt, everybody lives in the same shoddy housing, doing the same work that they have always done and will always do. They have zero opportunities to improve their lives or their status in life. There is really no such thing as social mobility in this country or ideas of equality and opportunity. In America, the norm is that there is an option to move yourself up in life, to be anything you want to be. In Egypt, there are no options, and when you are in poverty in America there are support groups or you can have homeless shelters. In Egypt there is almost nothing, and those in poverty get nothing form the government. Its a country where the phrase "Yes We Can" simly does not exist.

Day 26

February 14th,

I have grown to love Thursdays. Not only do the represent the end of the week and the start of the three day weekend but I also only have class for 2 hours. This gave me the opportunity to finally search for internships in Cairo. I had heard that AUC offered internships or volunteer opportunities through the Desert Development Center. So after my first class I set about on a mission to find this place.
Nothing in Cairo is clearly labeled. If people thought finding addresses in America was bad, they haven't seen anything until they came to Cairo. No one uses addresses, instead they use relative locations, like next to the shesha store or in my case above the garage. I honestly have no idea how delivery or the mail system works in this country.
So I set about looking for the Desert Development Center, knowing that it was on Youseff el-gendi street across from the AUC library entrance and above a garage. I found the garage and found the stairs next to it going up. I started going up and could not find it. However, what I did find was how the rest of Egypt lives outside of AUC. Nobody on these floors spoke English, and this office building was not what I would say most people conceptualize an office building to look like. Instead it looked more like the building in the first Matrix where Morpheus gets captured. Everything was dirty, covered in trash, dark, and had a certain reek to it. It looked like it was built rather quickly in the 20's and never cleaned or renovated since then. However, there were legimate companies who had their offices in this decaying building, including the Arab Foreign Trade Company. The real threat still waited when I got to look out of the windows on the stairs onto the large open- air-shaft that is in the middle of most buildings. This place was absolutely disgusting. It looked into the adjacent building's staircases, which from the looks of it were never completed. Instead the entire staircase was just filled with trash. You would look down the shaft and every possible horizontal surface had trash on it. I think people just throw stuff out the window and if they can't see it then its dealt with. The building looked like an apartment building, but I hope to God that no one has to live to conditions like that. This experience also made me realize how the environmental movement that is picking up steam in America doesn't stand a chance to make an effect on the world as a whole, unless developing countries are included in this changes.
After going back down the stairs and into the building next to the garage I was able to find the Desert Development Center. Let me tell you, as soon as I told them my last name is Water, they said that I had to work here and that a summer job would be quite easy to come by. Let me explain what exactly the Desert Development Center is.
97% of the 80 million people of Egypt live on just 3% of the land. This Land is the Nile River Valley, where the land is fertile enough to farm. Agriculture accounts for 60% of the Egyptian GDP, but as of late the booming population is putting a strain on the food supply and I believe know that Egypt actually imports more food than it exports. At the same time 80 million people are putting an extreme strain on the land itself and many have become dependent on the socialized nature of government hand-outs.
One prominent solution to this food problem is de-desertification projects, or plans to develop the desert into actual arable land. The AUC department is one of the fore-runners in this approach, trying to research and train ways to use the desert water efficiently and effectively to produce sustainable development. This is so important because it deals with harnessing the most important liquid in the middle-east: Water. Water is critical to survival and critical to producing food. Food and Water issues have been pin-pointed as a major cause of many of the conflicts in the middle-east and Africa including Darfur and Israel. A country that can't eat or drink is a country in a deep crisis. So the AUC project could potentially solve all problems in the middle-east if it can develop a way to provide food and water to lacking countries.
In other news I also got an arabic tutor for 2 hours a week to help me with my colloquial. Once I start this, I will be taking 17 hours of Arabic alone.

Day 25

February 13th

This day was actually one of the rougher ones I have had in Cairo. First of all, I woke up and wasn't feeling too well. This probably had something to do with the kinds of food I have been eating as of lately. My stomach did not improve in throughout the day so that made an already long day even more difficult. I also didn't eat any food so by the time the afternoon crunch hit I was tired, really tired. Luckily my classes are really easy right now. My Comparative Politics class has some of the worst pedagogy I have encounter in my time as a student. We are supposed to be learning the geography of the middle-east, so at Notre Dame, the professor would hand out a map with a list of places we need to know, possibly go over it for 15 minutes, and then have a test in a week. If the map wasn't already labeled, then we would have a term list and would then need to go find it on our own time. At AUC, the teacher has spent 3 1 hour 20 minute classes blabbering about Geography, pointing to the straight of hormuz on a map (that only he had as an overhead) then going off on a tangent which would connect to another tangent. If you already knew the stuff it didn't matter, but if you didn't his way of teaching the information would have proved completely ineffective. It just shows a lack of caring on his part to actually sit down and even think about a lesson-plan. If I could only write a TCE for this professor. I guess I didn't realize how much I appreciate good professors until I lose them. The other thing the Professor did was when two kids showed up 5 and 10 minutes respectively he wouldn't let them into the class and pushed out of the room. I thought this was a little extreme until I got to the next class. In this class we were about 10-15 kids short at the time class started. Over the next 15-20 minutes, Egyptian students would show up and interrupt the whole class as they came in. Now I think the first professor was using a little bit of deterrence to make sure the students showed up on time.

Day 24

February 12th

Well it was another day of class. I am starting to fall into my routines and pick up on the inns and outs of day to day life at AUC. I sent in my passport for my visa today, only to find out that the student type only lasts until the end of June. This is unfortunate, but it just goes with the territory of Cairo. You can't expect everything to work smoothly or the way you want it to. In other news, I got to see a whirling dervish today at a welcoming party held in Zamalek. Initially I was quite happy simply because there was free food. Then the whirling dervish sufi came in, and let me tell you, they are mighty impressive spinners. I think I can now understand how the spinning supposedly connects you to God. The man is spinning for at least 20 minutes, at that point he must be losing sense of the world around him and thus when you start to overcome the physical world and the lower self you are able to connect in with God. It's kind of like fasting, but really quickly.
I also joined the boxing team today. They only have practice two times a week, but it looks like a lot of fun and its a pretty good workout. I learned from my first day though, that I should probably just avoid all fights because, well, I suck. Other than that, all well in Cairo.

Day 23

February 11^th

So I have decided that I want to learn at least five languages before I die. I think it’s important to be at least proficient in this many languages to be a truly educated person. Granted, I should probably shouldn’t get too ahead of myself, because this second language sure is tough to get down. However, I feel I am finally starting to make progress in both MSA Arabic and Colloquial. The foundation of any language is vocabulary and I am finally starting to be able to pronounce the words correctly and be able to understand what is going on in my class and in the listening drills. As for the other languages, I am thinking Spanish, French, and possibly Italian. These last two are not as useful, but they should would be cool to know and I hear Italian is one of the easiest languages to learn.

This day was one of my intensive class days. This means I have all four of my classes and 4 and half hours of Arabic. Mondays and Wednesday’s are draining to say the least. So nothing much happened today other then classes. I did find free food at AUC for lunch and let me tell you I made the best of that.

Since this day was so uneventful, I think I will cover some things from the past. I have been going to Church here. I enjoyed mass at Notre Dame, but never really had the time to make it to the weekly mass. Unfortunately, the Priest in this mass isn’t as good as the ones at Notre Dame and they use different translations. I think the very fact that different translations in the same religion shows how just how short-sighted literal interpretations of the Bible are. The Bible was not written in Hebrew and Greek, whose vocabulary is a little bit more vague and can be translated into different words. This is why taking the word of the Bible without any rational thought seems absurd.

Since the Mass is given by a Priest who is kind of hard to understand, I find myself thinking about morals and theology and kind of zoning out the Priest. This last Sunday I was thinking about the idea of whether not killing is ever justifiable. I think this is a very tough question and I don’t think there is a black and white answer. It’s a quandary in my mind and I understand how the idea of pacifism provides some sort of relief from this dilemma by providing a blanket response to any circumstances of violence. However, I don’t believe that blanket statements ever are the right answer. I mean there are circumstances where the immediate threat of an individual who can not be stopped otherwise. This is a very tough call to make in my mind. I mean we are talking about a human being here, no matter how twisted or influenced they are still a son of God, and they should be treated as such. But regardless, in many cases the lives of thousands if not millions of other lives and be greatly harmed if not ended by the action of a few. Therefore, I feel that military service can be morally justifiable. I don’t know if this means I want to do it, but I am not morally opposed to it anymore. I also think that the Military needs people who understand the moral dilemma, people who will be able to see the necessity of restraint or the imperative of action

Day 22

February 10^th

Today was a pretty uneventful day and intentionally so. I woke up late and after messing around on the internet looking at the politics and a little bit of information on the middle east, I settled down into a nice day of homework. This didn’t take long as the homework is still relatively easy. I also used the day to go back and review vocab, learning words that I never knew how to pronounce before and listening to them in order to improve my listening comprehension. Hopefully this extra time I put into reviewing will pay off. As for Egypt, they won the African Cup. This is a huge deal for Egypt as the whole country has been brimming with energy until this day. I however did not partake in the festivities and instead went to mass, dinner afterwards (which took way too long) and studied Arabic. I however am really susceptible to getting drawn into news stories about Obama and the Middle East. The former more than the later. I think this is a good indication that perhaps I should go into politics. So the point of this story is I didn’t get as much studying as I wanted but I did have a rather enjoyable night. I didn’t get to see the mobs at Midan Tahrir, the center of Cairo, but I think it might have been safer for me to avoid that in the first place. Soccer riots are generally not the best places to be the night before an intensive day of classes.

Day 21

February 10^th

To add a final bit to the Alexandria story for yesterday, we got to see the new great library at Alexandria. This library is very modern and gorgeous complete with a highly sophisticated roof that not only regulates heat and sunlight but unless makes it so that there is never any shade on your reading papers. This roof in the main gallery is also supported by columns that feature a remote destruction device where the roof will collapse in order to create a cocoon to save the manuscripts from another fire. We also needed up renting chairs and buying some tea and just sat by the Mediterranean Sea watching the tide roll on in. You could also see the stars above the beach. It was a scene right out of a Otis Redding song. It was pretty awesome.

Today we went out and hit all the other major sites. We traveled around in a three big coaches and stuck out for miles like tourists. In fact, when we first got into America we got a police escort because apparently whenever Americans travel in this large of a group, the law requires us to have a police escort. I really didn’t see the point of it as the escort really didn’t do anything and turned around as soon as we got into the center of the city. The amazing thing about this bus was the ability of the driver to move it around corners. He knew his turning radius down to the inch and would often make u-turns in the coach that I would hesitate to make in my truck. My favorite maneuver was the U-turn on the main road that took of 4 lanes of traffic. It was incredible. I also found out that when people park there cars so close together and 2 wide into the street, they leave their cars in neutral, this way people on the street can move it to either allow a car (or in our case a bus) to get by or to let a car get out. It’s really quite a system

The sites we hit were the Roman Amphitheatre, the Pompeii Colum, the catacombs, and the Qaitbay Castle. The best part was definitely the Qaitbay Castle, which was a beautifully preserved or restored Castle overlooking the docks and harbor of Alexandria. It was a picturesque day and the castle was fun to explore, despite its lack of decorations or informative data. This seems to be a pattern in Egypt. They have these amazingly old sites that date back to the time before Jesus in some circumstances and that are considered important as every tour guide comes to them but there is no American style reading material or even guards or even signs telling you not to climb all over everything. Trash litters the site and potentially priceless materials lie out in the open for all to play with and destroy. I found a part of a clay pot just lying on the ground that was just left out and looked to be several hundred years old. It’s rather sad that these, some of the most famous ruins in the world are being taken care of so poorly.

I have also discovered another one of my Pet Peeve’s that annoys me about being/being around tourists. It seems that every single person who got off our buses walked 10 feet and immediately started taking pictures. They didn’t even take the time to soak it in to experience it for themselves. Tourists are so caught up taking pictures in order to remember the experience that they forget to even have the experience.

Day 20

February 8^th

Today we went to Alexandria, the second largest city in Egypt. Alexandria’s population is about 3 and half million which puts it about the same size of Los Angeles, in city proper of course. It is a very linear city as it runs down the coast for about 12 miles. The city is some ways radically different from Cairo and at the same time very similar. On the one hand you could actually deeply inhale the air and not break out into a fit of coughing. This is because the city is much less crowded, I mean crossing the street was a joke. Remember that I think crossing the street is only legal in this street if you j-walk as no one uses the crosswalks, unless of course it was green. Thus, when we did actually come into some traffic on the same road, we were quite confused as to the source of this congestion. We soon found out, as we noticed the second difference: two cars had gotten into a fender bender ahead of us and had actually stopped, blocking traffic, in order to exachange numbers. This would not happen in Cairo, mainly because no one has insurance. Also because of the spacious nature of the city the air was clear and we could look out onto the Mediterranean. It was a gorgeous day, with the sun shining and just a few clouds in the sky. However, the city was the same as Cairo in that once you got off the scenic road that drove by the ocean, you saw the same sort of poverty, filth, and lack of suitable living conditions that you saw on the streets of Cairo. It is a not a European resort town, with cute well maintained ancient buildings. This is a city with 3.5 million people in it, who need some place to live and thus hundreds of same style cramped apartment buildings were built to house them. Judging from the levels of cleanliness in any of stores, I would guess that the apartments are not much cleaner. No wonder every one hangs out in the streets, why would you want to live in those kinds of conditions?

The water was a welcome sight after a four hour drive through the desert from Cairo to Alexandria. Once we got out of downtown Cairo, we got to see what the rest of Egypt lives like. In the rural and poorer suburbs most houses looked to be unfinished. They often had support beams sticking out of the top, like there was supposed to another layer. This might in fact be the reason for in Cairo I often see buildings that look like they were simply added right onto again and again. Rural Egypt looked more like the exotic Egypt many imagine when they hear the word Egypt. Although the climate was more arid and the soil more sandy, there were a lot of agricultural farms on the way to Alexandria. We also saw a lot of the little village children playing in the fields or by the buildings used to sell the produce. You often wonder what becomes of these children in the next 15 years. The economy of Egypt sucks. Their population is too large for their agriculture to support and their growth is slow with little possibility for expansion and improvement.

I have become addicted to the music video by Will.i.am called “Yes We Can,” featuring the speech of Barack Obama. It’s a very powerful video, calling not for any specific policies, but simply calling for Americans to once again believe in their nation. The most moving line goes “we have been warned by a chorus of cynics to not offer the people of this nation false hope. But in the unlikely story that is America, there is nothing false about hope.” He asks us to come together and believe that together as a choir of millions we can change the country and the world for the better. The thing that I love so much about Obama is nothing to do with the man himself. It’s the fact that he uses the term We. This race is not about him, he is merely a vessel for the hopes of millions of Americans who that we can do better as a nation, who think that just because an issue is tough and complicated doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be solved. He is not asking for us to see him as the panacea to the perils of America, he is asking for us to believe in ourselves. As it says at the top of his webpage, “I am not asking you to believe in my ability to bring about real change in Washington… I am asking you to believe in yours.” Barack gets young voters fired up because he taps into those idealistic juices that flow in the youth blood, those often called disillusioned notions that we can save the world. He makes us believe that if each of us just does our own part to make a difference in the lives of others then we can bring about real change in this world.

Now this is where my tangent about Barack ties into the main story. In Barack’s speech he talks about the hopes and dreams of a little girl and Dillon and a little boy in Los Angeles. He believes that it is our responsibility to them to all our children to give them the opportunity to actually attain these dreams. I have no idea what the dreams of these children are in rural Egypt or even what the dreams of the Children who come up to us on the street and don’t stop saying money, tekul (to eat). I don’t claim that we should force our ideas of what success is, but I don’t think anyone dreams of living a life of poverty, begging, and suffering. John-Paul, the kid who has been showing us around told us that the kids were too well dressed, and that it was a scam. When I looked at them, I saw clothes that hadn’t been washed in weeks, covered in dirt and filth and kids, albeit not emaciated, but begging for food. When we went to the ritzy mall to order our American food for 20 pounds, I couldn’t possibly eat knowing that we just denied kids a few pounds and dropped excessive amounts of money. I believe in a world where there is never a child who has to resort to beg on the streets. I believe in a world, where the idea of poverty is something that is only in history books. I believe in a world where every child, in Dillon, Alexandria, Los Angeles and Cairo can dream of a life of opportunity and prosperity a life without suffering, without hardship. I believe that I have a duty to help these children, to help all children, all people of the world. But as Barack says, this is not a problem that is to be solved by me or him, it is a problem to solved by us. Each of us should find our own voice our own tune and together this symphony of actions can solve any problem and together we can meet any challenge.

I don’t know what exactly my voice, my tune, will be in this, but I am finally beginning to realize that I am just one piece in a much a bigger puzzle. I wonder if politics could be the course for me. I wonder if I could be the one to inspire change, to inspire people to take part in the movement to lift this world up. I enjoy politics, I think it is a part that cannot be excluded from the solution and requires people with a passion to back up the direct action workers fighting the battle on the streets. I just don’t know if I have the traits to be a good politician. I feel you have to be a people person you have to know how to be social and have an A+ personality that people want to be around. I don’t know if this is who I am. Maybe I should be a community organizer maybe I should be an officer maybe that will give me the confidence I need to do politics

Day 19

February 7^th

Thursday has come at last. Thank God. This first week of classes has been brutal and at the same time remarkably easy. I think the fact that I am in Arabic for 3-4 hours each day and not seeing that much improvement is the brutal part. Hopefully though I will get better as I pick up more vocabulary and improve my listening. The classes are remarkably easy because, well they seem to geared towards kids in high-school. Most of my classes are with foreigners so I don’t have first hand stories of Egyptians complaining about having to read 10 books in a semester for a literature class. In fact, in my Comparative Politics class which has two Egyptians, one of them came off sounding quite educated, and the other one quite, well passionate. I look forward to seeing how the semester will progress.
I am going to stay the summer in Cairo. I will take Arabic classes through an institute and also try to get an internship. I am really disappointed that I was rejected by the State Department. That would have been an ideal experience for possible future career paths. Now I am getting involved with a program at AUC that teaches English to students. This should help me see if teaching is a possible job path. I think I also want to get involved in development issues in Egypt and maybe I can get involved with an organization for the summer. My goal for next week is to A. find a institute to study Arabic at for the summer. The one I found is only 200 dollars and for 2 and ½ weeks in July. I also want to find a job.
I look forward to getting back on the road and having a three day week-end. Being so caught up in my Arabic studies, I sometimes forget that I am in Egypt as I have my eyes so fixed on studies that I lose sight of all knowledge that surrounds me. Hopefully a trip to Alexandria will reinforce the sensation of awe.

Day 18

February 6th

Mondays and Wednesdays are my long days of class. I start class at 8:00 AM and have Modern Standard Arabic until 11:00. I then have classes from 12:00 until 4:20, starting with Comparative Politics of the Middle East, Islamic Art and Architecture, and capped off with another hour and half of Colloquial Arabic. By the end of the day I am usually pretty beat up from the Arabic. The other two classes aren’t bad yet, and it looks like I might actually learn something in my comparative politics class despite warnings that it would be the worst class I ever took.
When I got back to Zamalek after classes I came down with a headache. It turns out that the bottled water I have been drinking Baracka water, has very high levels of sodium. I am not quite sure it has it, but because of the sodium I am actually becoming less hydrated. Anyways, I got some other water and immediately felt better.
Today I went to the library and checked out my textbook for my Islamic Art and Architecture class. Nothing runs as smoothly here as it does in the states or especially at Notre Dame. Everything, including buying books, getting supplies, making copies, is more complicated and slower then in the states. I never realized how much America is built around comfort and convenience.

Another thing I noticed about AUC, is that everything of value has a USAID sticker on it with a note saying it is a gift from the American people. Apparently, Egypt is the largest recipient of non-military aid in the world from America, and now I am starting to see where this money is going. These are American tax dollars in action. I think they are pennies on the dollar and being put to good use. Although not going to directly helping the most needy of the individuals in Egypt it is investing in the education of the elite. America can’t really afford to fund all education for Egypt and solve all its problems, but it can help to train the next class of Egyptian leaders who have the knowledge and wisdom to help pull the country out of its dire economic condition. Whether the school actually trains the people for this task is another question, but at least the effort is being made, which is always an important first step.
This weekend I am going to Alexandria. Apparently Alexandria is much less polluted and crowded then Cairo. Its supposed to be a gorgeous city and I am looking forward to getting out of the haze that is Cairo.

Day 17

February 5^th

As I finally start to settle into Egypt I am beginning to finally internalize the differences between our cultures. The countries are quite different and I think it’s important to actually analyze the differences thoroughly if I wish to truly understand the two.
First there is the fact that we live in a country that is not only 90% Muslim, but it also the state religion. So that means we get to hear the Call to Prayer five times a day which is beautiful, but if you think about it you can never hear Mosques in America. Religion is very widespread and deeply inbred into the Egyptian society. I have had several instances where I have walked into an office not seen anyone and then was surprised when the dude stood up and I realized he was in the middle of prayer. However, I must stress that it is there is diversity in adherence to beliefs. Apparently, a building doesn’t have to pay taxes, (or less taxes) if there is a mosque in the first floor of a building. Therefore, there are a lot of mosques around. However, at the time of prayer, life does not really come to standstill at all during the time. In fact, it’s the exception not the norm for people to stop working and prayer. But I guess, you can put all your prayers together at the end that way you don’t have to stop working. It’s kind of a way of combining the demands of western culture and the restrictions of Islamic culture.
The second is gender-relations. If you travel anywhere away from AUC, the number of women you see goes down dramatically. Most of them stay in their homes and are “house wives.” Then almost all the women that you do see are wearing the hijab. The nijab is a little bit less frequent, but not at all rare.
There is also the notion of the evil eye. Apparently, there is a belief that if you are doing well and feeling good or somebody thinks that you are going to be successful then the evil eye is going to get you and ruin your success. So whenever you talk of success or someone’s kids then you have to say maasa-allah. Its apparently something that is quite prevalent in Muslim society.
Okay I want to write more, but I am tired and kind of discombobulated so I will talk about this in more depth tomorrow. I will have more classes to rant about too.

Day 16

February 4^th

Today is the day before Super Tuesday. I won’t find out the results until probably Wednesday, but tomorrow is a big day for America. With that said, let me move on to the big day that I call to call Super Monday.

Today was my first day of class at AUC. It was also my first day of class since early December. It was also the first day of class, when I walked out of the classroom feely confident/self-assured/sure-of-myself since high-school. It was the first time when I actually felt like these classes were going to be easy and not require ball-busting amounts of work. As I said I haven’t seen that since taking high-school classes. It’s a complicated feeling. On the one hand, you feel awesome, because A. You don’t feel like a dumbass all the time and B. you realize you might have free-time and actually live a balanced life. On the other hand you feel kind of disappointed because the amount of knowledge I will probably get from both of my non-arabic classes could be taught in about a week at Notre Dame. However, it is the only the first day of class, syllabus day as I like to call it, so I shouldn’t get my hopes to high. However, the fact that neither Professor was ready to start class the first day shows that they will not really hold us to high standards. Maybe my knowledge/growth will come in other forms during my time in Cairo.

Let me give you a run-down of my classes. First I had intensive Arabic at 8:00 this morning. They are starting us in Chapter 13. I have finished Chapter 20. So everything is review to me, but this time I am actually learning how to say and speak the language. I don’t feel like the worst student in class anymore, even though I still get lost when she speaks quickly or in colloquial Arabic. I also don’t understand when my classmates use colloquial in class as many of them are full-year students or are graduate students who have been around Egypt and know their colloquial quite well, but don’t know their MSA.

My next class was Comparative Politics of the Middle-East. This class was entirely made up of Foreigners, and taught by a Professor who has a terrible reputation. I could probably switch into a different class and have a more worthwhile experience, but the material looks interesting and although the class-time might not be all that productive, I should be able to gleam a lot from the readings. Also, this way I can keep my three day weekend for trips outside of Cairo.

My next class is Islamic Art and Architecture. This class will fulfill my fine arts class, plus it looks interesting, has a sweet professor (meaning she actually cares) and has Egyptians. It should be fun. I did notice though that only Egyptians showed up late to the class, why all the study abroad students were on time. We’ll see what kind of differences emerge between the two groups of students. I also can’t buy the book for that class because the bookstore ran out and they won’t have more in for 3 weeks. 3 weeks, nothing takes 3 weeks at Notre Dame. This is a ridiculous amount of time, but its just a part of the culture.

Finally my colloquial Arabic class looks pretty easy. There are three of us, my roommate, my and this kid Nick who are significantly better then the rest at colloquial Arabic so we basically run the class and have a good time doing it. It’s quite enjoyable. I never really have fun in a class (joke around, talk much) if the class is a bruiser, now I am able to be a might be jovial and outgoing. We’ll see if it lasts.

Day 15

February 3^rd

Today was the first day of class. I however was excluded from the festivities because I do not have class on Sunday. I was however on campus and it was crowded. I went to campus for lunch with some friends and to do some of reviewing of Arabic because my intensive class starts tomorrow, and the once tranquil and quiet campus had turned into as much of a zoo as the rest of the city. Moreover these people were all the regular Egyptians and I didn’t know any of them. It was actually quite depressing because the oasis that I once enjoyed was now gone. This loss forced me to go searching for more tranquil stops and to my delight I found a rooftop patio on the library that overlooked the city. There was however a little too much in the form of sun-shade’s, but it was empty and quiet and had a pretty sweet view of the surrounding buildings. Plus in the summer, when I will be sick of the sun, I think the shade will be a blessing.

The patio also provided me with the ability to look into an undeveloped lot next to the campus that normally is blocked to public view by a wall surrounding the lot. However, with my bird’s eye view I learned that the lot, although undeveloped, was not abandoned, as there were several squatters living in homes made of boxes and wood. Basically, it was a mini-shanty town, but it only occupied a corner of the lot. For some time I watched a mom and the child who lived there wash dishes in a wooden bucket. I soon realized that the real pain of living in that manner is not that you have such cramped conditions or that you don’t have any possessions. No, those are things which well nice, are luxuries. The real downside about living in these squalors is that you don’t have any running water or electricity or plumbing. In the summer when it gets really hot those homes most turn into ovens and they have nothing to keep down the stench or the insects for that matter. I don’t want to believe that this is how people live. For me, It’s a reminder that even though I might not be the smartest or the most gifted, I still have already won the lottery twice. I think realizing that puts in a good position. Forget accolades or G.PA.’s, or life-plans, I think realizing who you are and how you fit into the larger puzzle of humanity is much more important. I might not have my life planned out and I might not quite understand who I am, but realizing just how lucky I am is a good-step. It’s important to be aware of this, especially when a new environment can throw you for a loop as Cairo has done.

On another note, I went to mass today. Ash Wednesday is the next Wednesday. I am going to be a gentlemen for lent, in that that entails. I really like Catholicism, even though I couldn’t understand what it was really about. (The Priest didn’t speak the best of English). I think I will rear my family with a religious emphasis, I think the word think. This also means I need to find a wife, one who values the importance of morals and also community. I will keep my eyes open. I also need to talk to my roommate about this whole Sermon on the Mount thing (the topic of today’s mass. Apparently it’s a big deal.

Finally I got to talk to a Pakistani about Butto’s death today. She really didn’t like Butto and saw her as corrupt, and thinks Musharraf had done a good job. Her family is from Northern Pakistan and she is a Punjabi, so its important to keep her perspective in mind, but I did enjoy hearing about the politics of Pakistan. She scored really high on her Act, like 34, and said she was disappointed with her 1400 SAT scores. (Yes, she is one who dropped those scores. I don’t know why people do it, but once again reaffirmed my belief/relief that there are a lot of smart people out there.

Hoorah.

Day 14

February 2^nd

I figured out what I want to do with my life today. As I have said in the past, driving in Cairo is crazy. It often reminds me of the scene in the Bourne Identity where he is racing through Paris in a mini-cooper. As I was thinking about this, a brilliant idea came to me. I would buy a new mini-cooper and put some extra bumpers on it, kind of like the ones you find on a Jeep, you know to protect the frame from fender benders, then I would get my taxi license and just be a cab-driver in Cairo. Since there are not any traffic laws in this city I could drive anyway I want do. This would be really fun and I would guarantee the fastest delivery time and thus make a ton of money. Okay that’s the first part of the life-plan. Second part: Cairo reached its heyday in about the 1930’s and so they have a lot of gorgeous building built in the Victorian style. Well unfortunately, most of these buildings have become dilapidated and run-down. There are some gorgeous homes in Cairo that just need a little renovation. So my life-plan comes into play because I want to become a real-estate developer in Cairo where I take these old Victorian houses and renovate them. Alright it’s kind of whimsical but at least it’s a life plan.

Today was also the last day of Survival Arabic. It went pretty well and I think my pronunciation is finally getting better. I only have classes four days a week, so that means I don’t start real classes until Monday. I also found out that my Politics class is taught by one of the worst professors at AUC. Great just my luck.

Day 13

February 1^st

Okay after being pretty down yesterday about life in general, today is looking up. I think most of it has to do with the fact that I am finally getting over my cold and that is allowing me to see things in a slightly less depressing manner. I thought about going back and changing what I wrote yesterday in order to sound not so depressing, but it’s how I felt yesterday and I want to keep a track of my feelings here, so I am going to keep it.

Today was a pretty uneventful day. The internet is still down, which means I can’t get on to check my email or communicate with anyone outside of America. However there is one good thing about the ship hitting the wire in the Mediterranean: if it hadn’t happened I would have never learned how the internet functions across the world.

I am starting to get a feel for AUC culture, and what I hear from everybody is that it is nothing like the culture of the rest of Egypt. AUC culture is very Western and I would every wealthy. People who go to AUC have to be rich so you get a lot of people who want to be Western but can’t be. Egypt is a very twisted society as it is on one hand open to the powers of globalization and western media, but at the same time closed as it is in the Egyptian Constitution, that Egypt is an Islamic State. Atheism and all other forms of religion that are not descended from Abraham are banned in Egypt. Seeing a constitution that is written in that language really makes you appreciate the American Constitution.

I am becoming home-sick for America. Not only because I miss sidewalks and things that work well, but I miss being able to understand what is being said around me. I also miss American standards of cleanliness. I miss garbage cans and even the concept of Recycling. They don’t have a recycling system in Egypt. I think they reuse the glass bottles at the soda stands, but you have to return to the glass bottles to these soda stands. Otherwise it gets trashed. I haven’t seen anything for paper or plastic. I now completely understand why George W. Bush refused to sign the Kyoto Accord unless developing nations were brought into it. He is right, global warming and other environmental problems cannot be solved without these countries. Do I think it’s a cop-out by Bush for not doing anything, yes. But is it a valid argument, yes.

I also found out that being in downtown Cairo for the day is the equivalent of smoking 30 cigarettes. How can we except people to live in these kinds of conditions?

Day 12

Day 12

January 31^st

Let me preface this next blog by stating I got sick last night. Nothing major just a cold. I decided the best remedy would be sleep, so as soon as I got back from survival Arabic at 8:00 P.M. until 9:00 the next morning I slept. Granted I didn’t get much chance to study Arabic, but I felt more alert and my mind felt clearer.

I learned something very important today. I am nobody special. I am not exceptionally smart or gifted or destined for greatness. I do not have a knack for languages or have great people skills. Writing for me is difficult and quite slow as is reading and comprehension. I don’t have natural talents that allow to excel in life. I think before I was under some delusion that I was special and I was going to be somebody really important and potentially even famous.

I was wrong. I don’t know why I felt this way. Perhaps I was under some delusion because of the minor achievements I had in life. Earning a decent GPA at Notre Dame, being recognized as a Notre Dame Scholar, being a Valedictorian and all. But now I realize that these aren’t that big of achievements. So, what if I have a 3.9 GPA that’s nothing to write home about. More importantly, these minor achievements weren’t achieved because I was smart, they were achieved because I simply worked harder then anyone else. I don’t absorb either, I am not improving, I am merely scraping by. People say political science is an easy major, they say I have taken easy classes. These classes were not easy for me, I put in countless hours into making my work just about average. And what were the opportunity costs of this time. Because I have devoted so much time into my scholarly career, I have completely neglected every other part of my life. Is this any way to live? I don’t know, but if I give any less time to my academics, where will I end up them. I am already a nobody, what happens if I stop trying?

This is why I think I struggle with what I want to do with my life. I want do end suffering I want to stop injustice. I cry at the thoughts of how the majority of the world lives and how nobody seems to give a damn about them. It’s really tough for me to walk by a beggar on my way to buy food and not feel sick to my stomach. I don’t care if they are begging for all the wrong reasons, they are none the less beggars and how insufferable would that existence be. At the same time, I don’t feel like I have the skills or the drive to be the one to actually do anything about this. I mean if I can’t even get a measly internship with the state department, what does that say about my chances of being able to alleviate their suffering. I have never really done anything special with my life. I have just been on autopilot, taking whatever road my path leads to me too. I haven’t done anything out of my own initiative or found myself really driven to make a difference anywhere. So why do I think I can make difference? In reality, I can’t.

Day 11

January 30th

Today I heard the internet went out across the entire country of Egypt. At first I thought it was just a problem in Zamalek, as the internet has never been that good here. However, when I got to school I found out that all of Egypt was affected. It’s crazy but it’s Egypt. It comes with the territory.
Orientation started today. For us, this consisted of going to a lecture on academic life at AUC. I learned only one thing during this orientation: why Notre Dame is awesome. AUC is poorly managed and doesn’t run smoothly. The Academic Advisor then proceeded to give us a lecture about how beautiful Egypt is, and how everything is going to work out, saying that there is no need to stress and we will get into all our classes. We just need to relax and know that things will work out. Note that she didn’t say this anywhere as concisely as I just did, instead she mixed this message in with a story about a wedding and some other AUC professors that made zero sense. She said that when she gets problems she doesn’t get stressed and try to fix them she just waits until tomorrow and hopes that it will be fixed then and if not tomorrow then perhaps the next day. If it never gets fixed, oh well, that is life. She said this is the culture in Egypt.
Well, to some degree I agree with her that stressing out too much doesn’t do anything to solve the problem, I also think that this is the reason there are so many problems in Egypt. Just hoping the problem works itself out doesn’t mean the problem will solve itself. People need to get a little stressed, a little annoyed, and then do something to solve the problem. You cannot just put off until tomorrow what needs to be fixed today. Problem solving requires people being active not passive.
Now let me relate this to why Notre Dame is awesome. A lady like this wouldn’t last 10 minutes at Notre Dame. She wouldn’t be hired for a secretary and she certainty wouldn’t be the head Academic Advisor. At Notre Dame, people take their jobs seriously and they want to do a good job. As of today about 75% of the people had registered for some classes. She considered this a great success. This is not a great success. It might be some of that East-Coast, American mentality that has been drilled into me, but I expect people to do their jobs and to do their jobs to the best of their ability. I don’t accept half-ass work from myself and I don’t think it should be approved of elsewhere. Americans might work too much but there is a reason that America is the country it is.
Egypt has an illiteracy rate of 45%. This is not a problem that can be solved by waiting for tomorrow.