Constructing Kasun, Educator

I’m on the roof of a four-storey cruise ship on the Nile River.  I’m passing by date-bearing palm trees, corn fields, sugarcane, and other crops.  Water buffalo rest along the shore for a break from the heat, reaching nearly 110 degrees today (during this time of the year the temperature can go up to 120 here, so we’re actually lucky).  Occasionally we pass a village of adobe homes and a mosque minaret reaching above the rooftops.  Behind some of the fields,I see dry sand-colored mountains.  We pass traditional faluca boats on the river.  Their sails look like two bat winds extended into the air extending over what appears to be calm blue waters.  The ship has just changed the music from 60s soul to more traditional Arabic music with woodwinds and drums.  I welcome the change; it seems to complement the scenery better. 

The ship is extremely comfortable, luxurious even.  Our rooms feel like the inside of swanky Manhattan hotels with lush shiny fabric curtains, very soft mattresses, shades of burdundy, gray and black plush carpeting with simple geometric designs.  Those colors run through the ship in the restaurant and the large bar area where we wathed a belly dancer last night.  The belly dancer wasn’t the best, but it was entertaining for the sake of the novelty for those of us not used to seeing belly dancers.  On the roof, the couches are incredibly comfortable with plush white linen pillows on wicker.  There are linen tents above us and a small pool at the end of the boat made of thousands of neatly laid tiles.

I feel a bit uncomfortable about the luxuriousness of this trip.  I wonder what the local people think of our ship when we dock.  Is it the way I imagine the impossible lifestyle of someone like Donald Trump?  Do I deserve these accommodations, particularly at the expense of US taxpayers? 

***

I just left Edfu Temple, the most well-preserved ancient Egyptian temple with its 59 foot ceilings and columns and the preserved slabs of granite and marble above.  The temple is a monument to the falcon-headed god of Horace  On our way out, we passed by the stalls of several handicrafts merchants.  I tried on some shirts, wanting to bring one back as a souvenir.  I’ve noticed that the salespeople here are both very eager to be familiar and also extremely hungry to make their sales.  I wanted to buy a simple cotton shirt and scarf, and the salesman at one place, who had already had his arm around me, touched my shoulder several times as well as shook my hand six different ways quoted me the price of 380 Egyptian pounds, about $70US.  I offered a significantly lower price, and he refused to go lower.  Our bus was about to leave, and I left the goods on the floor of his stand.  He followed me and tried to bargain, all the way to the foot of the bus stairs.  The bus driver couldn’t open the door fast enough, and I felt desperate (as I suppose the salesman did to make his sale).  He and a friend tried to gesture prices to me from outside the bus, but I refused to look at them.  I felt bad about this, but I was tired of the touching (which they wouldn’t do to Egyptian women) and the dickering over the price.  Enough.  And then I remember the dollars and dollars I have brought here and the boat I don’t really belong on and wonder what I’m doing here at all.

I had lunch where I was able to choose among a vegetarian entrée, veal steak or perch.  I chose the veal.  The waiter brought out several pieces of silverware, made sure my water glass was never empty, said, “Yes, madame, is there anything else I can bring for you?” among several other polite overtures. 

Ancient Egypt is overwhelming.  I was inside the tombs of the Valley of the Kings as well as the Valley of the Queens yesterday.  I trekked down 300 feet to see the tombs, the paint that has survived 4000 years on the walls depicting the journey into death and the hope for a good reincarnation.  Rich indigo, yellow, and reds brought to life the king and queen in a gentle and modest embrace, a scene I have viewed now in the Egyptian Museum and other places—demonstrative of the importance of the loving relationship between men and women throughout the ages in Egypt.  I also visited Luxor Temple and saw how a Muslim mosque was built atop some of the ruins and how the mosque is still used today.  I marveled at the columns in Kunkam Temple, 134 of them reaching up 69 feet.

We travel to another ruins site soon.  I think I’ll go downstairs and cool off a bit.

“One cannot achieve true faith until one wants for one’s neighbor what he or she wants for himself or herself.”  When I asked the advisor to the Egyptian Grand Mufti what he thought was the most beautiful part of Islam, he offered this response, as written by the prophet Mohamed. 

That speaker ended a day of activity related to Islamic Cairo and Egypt.  I’ll come back to him in a bit.  We began with a lecture on Islamic art and architecture from an architect who explained that the art that comes from Islam is a “state of being.”  Heexplained that in Islam, all activities are meant to be contemplative and acts of art, even pouring milk over Cornflakes (his example).  Shortly afterwards we walked through the King Mohamed Ali Mosque and Islamic Cairo.  The mosque is a beautiful structure with many European influences, including basilica-like domes and marble column work.  The Islamic elements of geometric  designs in window screens and in marble work were also present.  Islamic Cairo has houses from the 1300s still as well as ancient mosques and sisterns for the poor to take water.  The sisterns are no longer used but were used centuries ago when there was no running water in the city—it was a way to make an offering to the poor.  There is also a large, touristy shopping district where I satisfied my desire to buy a nice piece of silver by researching the going rate for a gram of silver.  I finally settled in with Imar inside his tiny market stall, who insisted on offering me a cup of tea (the tradition in many of the market stalls here).  I didn’t take the tea but did manage to reduce his original asking price by half.  Some of the seminar participants feel we should just give them what they ask.  Maybe it’s the years of living in Mexico where negotiating prices was the norm that make me want to bargain down to market value.  There’s a lot more I could say about this, but I’ll continue with Islam.

After a quick swim back at the hotel, I joined the group in the Thebes Conference Room (inside the palace of the hotel, a room with grand ceilings and its own Islamic architecture with geometric shapes around the windows in shades of green and yellow).  We listened to a discussion about Islamic feminism.  The most important point I took was that, according to our speaker, women were not relegated to the role of staying inside the home until modernity.  It was only in the 19^th century, she said, that scholars began interpreting the Koran to say that women should stay inside the home.  She said that there are many other interpretations where women do have an equal status to men, and the Islamic feminists are trying to point to those points.  She said they have had some successes in Egypt, particularly in securing the rights of women in the workplace to offer, for example, better pregnancy benefits than offered in the US. 

Back to the advisor to the Grand Mufti (a mufti is a state-sanctioned wise person who interprets the Koran, somewhat similar to the appointment of a bishop).  The advisor completed his PhD with a dissertation on interfaith dialogue at Indiana and then lived in New York until 2004.  He explained the ten most important parts of Islam to us, many aspects of which are quite similar to Christianity.  Naturally, our group had a lot of questions about Islam in a post 9/11 world.  He explained that when he lived in the US, he wrote articles, even for the New York Times, spoke at over 30 churches and synagogues, and worked with other Muslims in the US to help explain that 9/11 was not a representation of Islam but rather an aberration of what he referred to as Islamic “exclusivists” or extremists.  He explained that Islamic people are just like people everywhere—with their own problems, wanting to please God, wanting to do their best in life. 

What struck me was that if we had had this dialogue with a great scholar of Buddhism, for example, our questions would not have been as political.  Yes, we’re in Egypt, a 90% Islamic country.  But it seemed like a pity for me that instead of learning more about Islam and how it influences the daily life of Egyptians, we spent our time looking through the lends of 9/11 and its aftermath.  I don’t want to discount the tragedy and the repercussions of 9/11, but I do wish we could get beyond politics and work toward understanding each other.  That’s why I started with the quote he shared.  Like so many religious traditions, there are sentiments and words of wisdom that resonate with us all.  And I left our discussion with the thought of trying to want for my neighbor what I want for myself and felt that indeed there are places of common understanding if we can begin to hear each other.

Yesterday the eleven of us who wanted to do an all-night hike to the summit of Mt. Sinai loaded into a small bus at 11 pm.  We traveled about two and a half hours through the desert, from sea level to about a mile high to arrive at the base of Mt. Sinai, the location where Moses is said to have received the Ten Commandments.

We had a private guide from a travel agency in Sharm el Sheik and met a local bedouin man who would help us get up the 2,500 feet of mountain as well.  I shook his hand and noticed it was calloused all over the palm but that he had kind eyes.  We received breakfast provisions which I quickly dumped into my laptop backpack as well as flashlights.

We couldn’t see how big the mountains surrounding us were, so we really had no idea about the scale of what we were attempting, as none of us are mountain climbers.  Several of us agreed in hindsight that it was good not to know how steep the climb was, as we may have been quickly dissuaded to attempt the climb.

For two and a half hours we ascended sand and rocks and the occasional high step on foot.  We stopped every 30 minutes or so and drunk in the stars and the Milky Way, as there is little light pollution in that part of the desert.  We also replenished fluids, I noticed that my back was soaked through and even penetrating my back from the work of the climb.  An Irish-born American named Dominick brought up the rear and chastised the rest of us for “loafing” each time he found us resting.  At one point he sang us an old Irish folk song recounting Ireland’s history between jokes about the climb. 

At our third stopping place we were finally able to see the moon, about only an eight full, and we could see the rest of the moon around that small part that was illuminated.  We also noticed the shooting stars.  It made me think of all the things we miss because most of us live in urban areas now. 

After those two and a half hours,our path converged with the more popular camel path which brought up about 100 other pilgrims, many of them on camels.   We waited at the starting point to the 750 stairs that lead to the top of Mt. Sinai.  In my head I thought, “Great, about the equivalent of two Central American pyramids—I can handle this, even if we’re at 7,000 feet.”  Little did I know that would be the hardest part of the climb.  The stairs were constructed specifically to be arduous so that the religious people who used them would focus more on being repentant through the difficulty of the climb.  At this point, the beginning of daylight was breaking through, casting a rich pink and orange glow above the other mountains whose peaks were now visible.

After stopping a few times on the stairs, I finally reached the summit.  Jagged edged-mountains surrounded us on all sides, mostly the color of chocolate with some rounding to the edges.  I hadn’t anticipated having any kind of special spiritual moment atop Mt. Sinai, but I found myself pushing back tears on several occasions.  The sun came up over the ridge in the distance, and the colors on the rocks transformed from dusty grays to reddish browns. 

I was so overwhelmed by the beauty, the simplicity of the mountains with so little human contact, the possibility of God revealing Himself there, the contentedness of the other people atop the mountain.  I just kept wanting to cry and even now find tears forming in my eyes as I write this.  I atemy hard-boiled egg and a roll with butter on the edge of the summit, looking out into the mountains.  I remembered that despite the complications of an oftentimes frustrating life, real beauty is waiting for us.  It was a real gift to experience this.

After about a half hour on the summit, I walked around the top and saw the large Ecuadoran group I had been traveling up the steps with.  They seemed to be on a religious pilgrimage.  I approached the seldom-used chapels (they were built for use a long time ago for the religious who used to climb the mountain for spiritual purposes—simple buildings of stone and mortar).  Another group sang a religious hymn I couldn’t recognize.  Finally, I descended about 100 feet to a small group of easily-constructed wooden shacks where coffee, tea, and hot chocolate are sold.  The bedouins who run these five or six shacks also have mats and blankets where you can rest.  Several of us piled into the humble accomodations and slept for a bit.  The owners were kind and seemed glad to have us there.  After a few short winks I went back outside and sat with another man on our trip who was also outside.  Many of the twenty or so bedouin who run the place were outside.  Some sat atop rocks and smoked; others helped donkeys bring large plastic containers full of water into their shacks.  The men were dressed in the traditional galibaya (long, dress-like cloaks) with head wraps which are effective in keeping the head and body cooler (I later used my beach sarong atop my head upon our guide’s advice and found myself cooler).  Some of the boys wanted to trade for my friend’s watch and his pedometer.  He wasn’t willing to give either up, but we had a nice conversation in the few words we could exchange (they knew more English than we knew Arabic) about our ages, our spouses, and if we had children.

It took us about an hour and a half, maybe a bit more or less, to desend the trail to St. Catherine’s monastery, a Greek Orthodox monastery dating back to the 4^th century.  We started our tour at about 11 am and saw their rich collection of theological texts, one of the best groups of religious texts in the world.  We also were allowed inside the sanctuary, which dates back to at least the 6^th century.  We finished with a traditional bedouin style lunch where a coop for women’s handicrafts thrived.  On the bus back to Sharm el Sheikh, the bus was silent as we slept.

Janet Jackson’s “When I Think of You,” thumps along as I sit inside the Movenpick Hotel’s internet cafe, just a few hundred feet from the sands of the Red Sea. We’re here for a couple days of relaxation and also probably to take in one of Egypt’s larger sources of revenue, the tourist resort of Sharm el Sheikh.

Unfortunately I’ll have to late-post my former blog entry that is waiting on my laptop. It’s all about education in this country and what I’ve learned about it so far.

 I spent the first part of the morning yesterday meeting with the Director of English Instruction for Egypt with another participant in the Fulbright Seminar.  We have the assistance of a professor for our curriculum projects, and she kindly made the connection with this woman.

The Ministry of Education at first glance looks like a white 19^th century palace.  To the right of the main building, we ascended the elevator with the director.  We walked down a hallway toward her office where a sign on the wall proclaimed that all people are responsible for preserving Egypt’s heritage, not just the government.  Her office was full of furntiture that didn’t match very well (reminding me of education offices in the US) and books that were piled high in stacks wherever there was room.  She explained that she is responsible for reviewing and approving all materials used in English instruction for both government and private schools.

We discussed how Egypt is trying to train its children to be good citizens as well as how it is trying to prepare students with any kind of international curriculum.  Egyptian students start studying English from first grade, and almost all the Egyptians I’ve come in contact with speak some amount of my native tongue.  What they can’t say in English, they willingly manage to communicate through smiles and warmth, and I’m grateful and impressed by this.

It appears that there aren’t strong measures taken to teach students to be responsible to their community or schools, let alone the rest of the world.  The odd thing is that Egyptians are so skilled at dealing with foreigners; maybe they don’t need an internationalized curriculum to teach them that.

The woman further explained the many challenges facing the education system.  Sometimes classes are up to 70 students.  Egypt has developed its own books with an international publisher for its own national English curriculum.  We were given copies of the fourth grade books (books are supplied to students for free here at the government schools, and the majority of Egyptian attend them).  Nonetheless, she explained that teachers are instructed in how to have students work in groups and how to do portfolio assessment instead of relying solely on written exams for grades.

Afterwards we continued with the group for a lecture about reform in the Egyptian education system.  The Ministry of Education has written and distributed standards for learning, and they are now beginning a system of professional advancement with raises so that teachers no longer have to rely on tutoring to support their salaries, which are almost unlivable.  They are rolling out these reforms this summer.

After  lunch we visited a non-governmental organization called iEARN which connects children in over 100 countries to make the world a better place, primarily through the Internet.  Children have then participated in international conferences and publications.  The results are impressive, and we met some students who have been participating in the program in Egypt who explained that these projects have changed their lives and their sense of ability to respond to the world around them.  Afterwards, I interviewed a government teacher for my project (I am trying to understand the Arab Israeli conflict from a teacher’s perspective here and in Israel and demonstrate similarities between them).  She told me she teaches 40 students per class and was glad her numbers were so low and that she loves teaching.  She was so warm and insightful.  Afterwards I hailed a taxi to the hotel alone and took a quick swim to work through my thoughts and energy at the hotel.  We followed up with a lecture about the nomadic bedouin peoples who used to live in Egypt (some remain, but very few).

Get lost.  In a souk (market).  That’s about what three of us did just yesterday.  We found ourselves in a former Greek enclave, watched a man sew together traditional Egyptian vests for tourists to buy, bartered for antique postcards, and drank tea with a man who suddenly became our “tour guide” in Alexandria without our asking for it.  Nice man, so we tipped him after all.  Then we returned for a concert of Latin music—as in Latino salsa, merengue, etc. 

The concert was at the Biblioteca (library) of Alexandria.  What an amazing facility.  It’s seven storeys of books, museums, and amazing architecture.  It integrates the feel of a pyramid, full sunlight, crazy angles and curves and makes you feel like all is well with civilization as you wander through the stacks and then among the manuscripts from 1500 years ago in the basement collection. 

We also heard a lecture with Egypt’s leading economist about prospects for the future.  We found out that Egypt’s level of foreign direct investment is increasing,though its expenditures on social spending are increasing—a not so encouraging sign.  There were other economists on the panel discussion, and it’s clear that the economists are doing the best they can to help ameliorate the staggering poverty that many Egyptians live daily.

We’ve been given a book by Galal Amin, one of Egypt’s best writers on Egyptian culture, and I’m learning so much about what is going on around me—just scratching the surface, really.  He laments that before the arrival of Westernization, most Egyptians, materially poor as they may have been, were content with life and the very strong family and friendly relationships they had.  I don’t think he’s arguing that Egypt should stop its process of modernization (for lack of a better word); rather, he’s describing a phenomenon.  The book is titled, “Whatever Happened to the Egyptians?”

Alexandria is on the Mediterranean… Amazing views and a clean city.  I miss it already.

Must run.  We’re being chased out of the closing Internet café.

We were supposed to go to the Suez Canal for the day, but the boat we were going to take was malfunctioning.  Instead, we went to the Egyptian Museum, a collection of the antiquities of the pharaonic eras.  I was most impressed by the remains of King Tut’s tomb.  It is the only tomb of all the tombs which wasn’t looted through the thousands of years that the tombs have existed.  The Egyptians, even contemporary ones, are very concerned with the afterlife.  The pharaohs were supplied with the things they would need in the next life by including those things in their tombs.  Even pets were mummified to accompany them.  King Tut’s tomb included four chambers built around each other, gold-gilded and elaborate.  He had three coffins.  The second one was wooden and completely coated in gold and stones.  The inner one is solid gold, weighing in at 110 kgs.  A headdress was also included, the famous one with the blue strips of lapizlazuli, again, solid gold.  I also enjoyed attempting to interpret symbols and understand the kind of life the ancient Egyptians lived. 

Back to modern times.  Cairo is immense.  It reminds me of Mexico City in its scale, pollution, and activity.  There are ruins throughout the city.  Many buildings have a French feel with ornate details along corners and rooftops, while others look like Russian communist era block structures.  Our tour guide said the way you can tell how wealthy a neighborhood is is to check if the buildings are painted or not and how many satellite dishes there are.  The city is alive all day and night, even moreso than New York City, it seems.  Streets are crowded with women and men along market stalls.  Some streets were just packed with people as we drove by.  I don’t think I’d ever seen anything like it. 

The group I’m with is sensitive to not projecting the image of the “ugly American” abroad.  People are careful not to be offensive when we’re traveling.  They have important and interesting questions to ask.  My roommate has been great so far.  She is from Arizona and teaches history in high school.  I’ve also befriended an English teacher with similar literature interests to my own from New York State.  Today at lunch I sat with a new father whose dad is Scottish Egyptian and whose mother is Cuban American.  He’s working on his PhD online in education.  These people all have unique stories.  I swam today with a woman who teaches in a small town in Ohio.  She has spent almost all her summers abroad.  For eight summers she was helping restore a Greek mosaic.  She has also worked on the ruins of Pompeii. 

Despite my group’s sensitivity, I feel awkward about being carted around in a big, air-conditioned bus while the majority of the people sweat it out in the cars on the street.  Yes, there are plenty of Mercedes.  However, there are Russian era, box-like taxis and all sorts of dying and resuscitated vehicles going around.  I also lament that I won’t have the opportunity to spend any time with Egyptian families or even just time to casually strike up conversations.  We are bound by a strict schedule which has us going almost all day long from 7:30 am until 9 pm at the earliest.

Nonetheless, I am thrilled at the quality of speakers we are exposed to.  Yesterday’s we listened to a scholar and writer about Christian Coptic Egypt.  We’re learning that Egyptians have a history of religious tolerance, and it seems that many academics and policy makers are working to maintain that tolerance.  Threats to it include the radical Islamic movements.  Part of the rise of the movements is from laborers who have gone to Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries and returned with a more fundamentalist version of Islam.  Many Copts hold positions of importance in business and government, and hopefully the trend of religious integration will be able to hold.

Tonight, we have two speakers about modern Egyptian history and also a discussion from an Iraqi photographer.

I had lunch today at Al Azhar Park, a former garbage dump-turned-palatial estate.  The entire complex is made from marble and limestone, complete with Islamic style geometric designs to accentuate the arches and high ceilings.  I ate several kinds of grilled meat and a rice and lentil dish after several appetizers including mint yogurt, a tomato tahini paste, hummous, baba ganoush, and several others.

Speaking of garbage, afterwards we headed toward a Christian Coptic monastery where St. Simon performed a miracle in the 10^th Century, changing a mountainside to prove his faith and avoid Islamic persecution, according to the story.  On the way, we passed through the garbage collectors’ neighborhood.  Probably around 25,000 people live there, sorting through Cairo’s garbage daily.  Alleys and streets are lined with enormous plastic bags filled with the stuff.  It gets turned into piles of plastics and cardboard, rubber and metal heaps.  The tour guide, an Egyptoligist who is very knowledgable, said that what doesn’t get recycled gets burned.  Add that to the sand of the city and industrial pollution, and your eyes start to water.

But Cairo isn’t trash, pyramids and palaces alone.  It’s a city comprised of incredibly warm people.  At the monastery, I met a woman named Mariam as the group checked out a massive 20,000 seat ampitheatre carved into the concave mountainside where the miracle occurred 1,000 years ago.   She brought her family for a special religious session being held there tonight; she was also surronded by about 30 kids who were either local or also waiting for the ceremony.

 She spoke about 30 words of English, far better than my seven words of Arabic.  She has three kids, and I met them all.  She had a robust figure covered in a black gown (though not a Muslim hijab, as she is among the ten percent of Christians in Egypt).  Her orange hued skin was accented by thickly lined eyes.  She was beautiful.  Her eleven year old daughter was very tall and thin, with gorgeous curly hair and clear green eyes.  She could be a model.  A tall and thin son stood nearby,shyly, and a small boy on her arm chewed up food and had bits of it hanging from his moutn.  She wanted to know, as most Cairenes do, if I was married, how many kids I had.  I was sorry to disappoint her by not having any, but I didn’t figure it was good to lie.  And where was my husband, anyway?  I said he was working, which is true, but only teachers qualified for this trip—too much to explain. 

We also went to a synagogue inside part of a now-historic section of town which used to be Coptic Cairo (now neighborhoods are more mixed religiously).  At one time, up to 20 percent of Egypt was Jewish, according to our tour guide.  Now there are only a few thousand Jews left in Egypt.  We then saw other Coptic sanctuaries and the Coptic Museum, a world-class museum housing various kinds of Coptic art, including reliefs and textiles depicting Christ, the ancient Eyptian cross turned Christian cross, grapes and wine-making depictions, stained-glass and Islamic-styled screens covering windows. 

You might be wondering about the pyramids.  Immense.  Larger than the pictures you’ve seen.  Two million stones in the largest pyramid, each stone weighing two tons.  It felt strange to be looking at such monuments to the dead; I admit that I enjoy walking among the ruins of formerly living cities in Central America far more than braving the fierce summer sun of the Egyptian desert. 

My favorite part of the Giza pyramids was making my new friend Ali.  I walked toward the city of Cairo from the pyramids, easily visible in the distance, just about five hundred feet from the pyramids.  I had been warned that men on camels in traditional clothing would tell me I could take a picture with their camels for free and that I’d later be harrassed for a tip.  So I stayed away and politely indicated I wasn’t interested to the numerous parties.  Sometime I would answer the common question of where was I from.  Ali talked more to me and eventually steered me toward a great view of a park beneath the pyramids.  Then he insisted I pet the camel.  I hesitated.  He swore it was for free.  I pet the camel.  Then we talked briefly,  and he insisted I take his picture with his camel.  “You have a good heart; I can see that.  It’s ok,” he encouraged me.  Then wetraded a gain, and I was shot with his camel.  He told me about his four children and his wife and showed me the inscription of her name and the date of their wedding on his ring.  “She is a great wife,” he told me.  I wished him many blessings and went back to my group.  And his camel had a name.  Moses.

I know these details seem so crazily strung together, but bear with me for just a couple more.  Last night I was the whirling dervishes.  I didn’t know what they were until I got here, so stick with me.  It’s worth it.  They are a troupe of men who are inspired by Sufism to perform in front of audiences three times a week [Sufism is a mystical offshoot of Islam}.  They play ancient instruments, a combination of several woodwinds and various percussion instruments.  They wear long robes that they whirl as they perform.  At first I was impressed by the music—these were skillful players.  But then I saw them twirling in their long gowns, some men wearing three enormous skirts that they twirled with a diameter of at least six feet.  They twirled the skirts while they spun and spun for up to 20 minutes at a time.  The performance was intoxicating, and I’m sorry I can’t explain it better.

We’re also listening to great discussions from a sample of some of Egypt’s great minds.  More details on that later.  For now, Salaam.

Cairo, Egypt, July 3, 2007

I’m looking out the window of my hotel room, with a distant view of the top of one of the ancient Egyptian pyramids.  I’m at the Cairo Marriott, a hotel that includes what used to be a palace as well as a casino.  Supposedly this hotel will be full of people from the Gulf who need a vacation.  Since Lebanon is less stable these days, they’re less likely to go to Beirut and come here instead.  Should be interesting.

This is the first day of my Fulbright experience in Egypt for three weeks.  From here I’ll go to Israel for another three.  We just flew in together from Dulles Airport after a two and a half day seminar and orientation at Geogetown University.  Experts who are regularly interviewed on CNN, NPR, and PBS and who write columns about the Middle East spoke to us.  I learned more about the history, politics, economics and culture of these two countries than I knew from all prior reading.  I have more questions about how these two countries can survive in light of the tense political situations in both places and also wonder where the Palestinians intersect in both lands and their policies.

I’ve also gotten to scratch the surface of the personalities of the fifteen colleagues from throughout the US.  So far, they have diverse backgrounds and experiences.  From religion teachers and professors to ESOL teachers (like myself), we have many interests.  There are folks from California, Arizona, New York, among other places.   So far I like the people I’m with.  Nine women and seven men of many age ranges.

It took us about an hour to drive from the Cairo Airport to the hotel.  We drove through Heliopolis, which is supposed to be a fancier neighborhood.  Our tour guide pointed out that Cairo suffers from Russian communist style construction in many locations.  True also in Heliopolis.  On the flipside, there are numerous mosques and Coptic churches I spied that do not lack in architectural flair.  I also noticed a subway system, buses packed with people who were very curious as to the contents of our air-conditioned bus, and street vendors selling all colors of fruits and other goods. 

Things are dusty here.  The well-manicured gardens of our hotel provide the mirage of green and calm; but the city is anything but.  I can’t wait to get out more and experience it.  Tomorrow we’ll go to the pyramids and other sights.  I’m sure I’ll have more impressions to share later on.