After our unbelievable day in Giza, we had an incredibly busy day in Egypt. Wednesday, May 12th, I had my first Arabic class which teaches us Egyptian colloquial, which varies greatly from formal, written Arabic. Our class is awesome though. The people in my class are great and I love my teacher, Hasnaa. She is a bit crazy, but a wonderful teacher who makes the four hours of class bearable and enjoyable. Most of the things we have learned this week are very new to all of us. They are very useful things too, as I have used what I have learned to speak to regular people in Cairo. I love just talking to people, as Egyptians are extremely amiable people. They are also pleasantly surprised when a foreigner attempts to talk to them in Arabic. Anyway, I love the language and I hope to learn so much more while I am here.
That Wednesday, our group went on a visit to the US Embassy. I was a bit disappointed by the experience, as we just listened to a diplomat telling us the same rhetoric about free markets and democracy, while ignoring key subjects like political and human rights. Anyway, it was still really intriguing to go to the embassy, and go through their rather tight security.
On Thursday of last week, we went to the American University of Cairo. The campus is about an hour out of the center of Cairo. Before arriving there you see miles of villas and mansions being built. The university itself is walled off and in the middle of the desert. It is beautiful and massive, but it is also a perfect example of what is wrong in Egypt and across the globe. Egypt is a country of water shortages and extreme poverty (I saw this first hand in the Zabbaleen trash village and in the slums surrounding Cairo). Yet AUC has perfectly groomed gardens, water fountains, and simply too much extravagance. We talked to the students, and what you can sense is that it is a school for the upper class and foreigners. Middle and lower class youth have little to no possibilities of attending AUC. The university and the area leading up to it shows the significant income disparity that exists in Egypt. That being said, it is once again very impressive both aesthetically and academically, but some crucial issues are extremely visible.
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