Ma Salaama Cairo!

Desperation

So the day before we left, my good friend Jon and I were eating at our favorite koshari place one last time. He went up to the register to pay as I finished up my food. As he was paying, several people saw him from the street and came inside. They began questioning him in Arabic. He looked flustered, but I just laughed, thinking that they were asking for money and he was having trouble navigating a tactful refusal in Arabic. But they were persistent and growing more frantic. I quickly joined him and realized they were not asking for money, but interrogating him on his business in Egypt. It became clear that they had taken interest in us because we were American, and they were upset, but our Arabic wasn’t good enough to figure out much more than that. As they grew more excited, we decided we needed to get away.

As soon as we moved outside, people from the growing crowd grabbed us and would not let us move. They demanded identification.

Luckily I had my passport in my pocket, so I showed them and shoved it back in my pocket before they could wrench it from my hands. Jon had left his passport in his apartment.

He tried to explain in English and Arabic that he had a student ID only, and the passport was in his apartment. The crowd was unsatisfied, and some of the men began shoving Jon and trying to take things from his pockets.

A man was holding my wrists and refusing to let me help Jon. I scanned the crowd looking for help. People were running from up and down the street to see what was going on, most paused just beyond our aggressors, trying to determine how much of a threat we were.

I made eye contact with a tall Cairene who looked sympathetic. I started yelling to him that we were students, we did not know any of these people, and we didn’t know what was going on. He joined with two other Cairenes to help us break away from the men holding us.

“Run!” he yelled. We tore away from the crowd and dodged cars until we made it across the street. We ran another block with the mob following us, and then made our way to the nearest metro station.

The people who assaulted us were likely conservative Egyptians from villages outside of Cairo. Many of the less educated Egyptians from rural areas were gathering in the city that day for a huge rally the next day. That week there had been several statements from politicians and military leaders blaming foreigners (specifically Americans and Israelis) for inappropriate actions in Tahrir. Basically the government was trying to delegitimize the protests by painting them as a plot by foreigners to undermine Egyptian stability. For these villagers, likely illiterate with no experience or education beyond the dusty confines of their village, they were doing a noble service for their country by detaining us and hindering our “Anti-Egyptian” agenda.

What would it take to motivate you to assault a stranger on the street? I don’t see this as an issue of character. This event underscores the desperation many people are experiencing in Egypt right now. There are few options for constructive action, and things are not improving quickly, if at all…

The Question of Privilege

So I finally have the time to blog again-- now that I’m stuck in the apartment with food poisoning. I don’t know whether it was the ful and falafel sandwich from a very local hole-in-the-wall restaurant, the week-old pizza and dipping sauces that I faithfully enjoyed to the end (holy relics of my long-lost country’s cuisine), or just the fact that I rarely wash my hands between playing with the street children and eating the food they prepare for us in the desert. Regardless, I’m enjoying the break, despite the frequent trips to the bathroom.

Driven by hunger and my ancestral instinct to hunt and gather, I left the apartment mid-day today to forage for some food. In the course of my brief foray (the food poisoning has me on a short timetable), I saw a gattling gun mounted to the back of a pick-up truck, protestors camping in Tahrir square, and children sleeping in gutters along the side-streets. Then I found and devoured a McFlurry.

When we talk about third world countries, I see images of huts in Africa, nomads in the desert, or rural villages in South America. It’s disconcerting to see third world poverty and disorganization in a country where everyone wears jeans, owns a cell phone, and watches American movies.

During our first week in Cairo, I met one of the arsonists who set the National Democratic Party HQ on fire in Tahrir during the protests earlier this year. He’s my age, and he wants the same things I do: a solid education and the opportunity to work hard to build the future he dreams of. Due to forces out of our control, I found myself in America where I very much have those opportunities, while he was born in Egypt without the means for a stellar education at a time when a quarter of people 20-30 years old are unemployed.

How do I reconcile with the fact that while I'm on an all-expenses paid trip with my world-renown university, he is choking on tear gas and dodging rubber bullets because he has no hope for a better future in the world as he knows it? We were born into vastly different life experiences. The spectrum of possible reactions ranges from sickening guilt to ambivalent acceptance. Surely he protests for the right to the lifestyle I enjoy, so why not enjoy it? Yet in some way, I feel that that acceptance cements my privilege at the expense of his.

I like what our professor, Mbaye Lo, shared with us the other night. He said that as his father dropped him off for his first day of school, he told him, "this education is not for you to get a job, but for you to help those who cannot help themselves." The privilege I was born into has afforded me an education, like most of you reading this blog. The education we have does not denote any type of superiority and inferiority, but rather a disparity in opportunity. We may not be in control of where and what we're born into, but we are responsible for our ensuing actions. It is easy to come to terms with the third world from outside of it, but I invite you to consider how unsettling it can be from within.

Last Day in America

Tomorrow morning I drive to Orlando, hop on a plane to JFK, and settle in for the 11 hour flight to Cairo. The past two weeks have flown by. After returning from school, I spent as much time as possible at the beach, chilling with friends and getting my surf on. The slow, laid-back pace of Indialantic has been revitalizing. I'm excited for the next two months in Egypt, and I can't even begin to imagine what all is in store. Let the adventures begin!