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.