DukeEngage | Duke Center for Civic Engagement

Over the past seven weeks, I have spent four days a week teaching young Somali men and women English in a run-down, un-air conditioned vacated German school in the middle of downtown Cairo. We focused on teaching these students the basics--survival English, if you will. But, as I mentioned in my last blog, I believe that the young, modest, incredibly shy and introverted Somali women will not be able to use these words until they find a voice to speak them with.

Hence, the Somali Women's Empowerment Workshop I spent my last blog dreaming about became a reality, these past two days. We took them out of the heat and the dirt and the messiness of Cairo and brought them to one of our apartments. They marveled at the air-conditioned taxi cab, insisting that it was too expensive and giggling excitedly the entire way. We arrived and then ten girls, who we usually see are excited to learn but hot, hungry and exhausted, they relaxed. They took off their shoes, slouched into chairs, laid down, ate brunch, and became totally at ease and comfortable for the first time in who knows how long.

We spoke to them of women's history, asked them of their role models and listened to every one of them say it was their own mother, a woman most of them haven't seen in years and some may not ever see or speak to again.

We took them to a computer lab and taught them how to type, how to make a word document, how to create an email address and use it. Some of them knew exactly what they were doing, and some had absolutely no idea what they were doing. They each received a pen pal from the United States, a new friend to practice their English with, a contact from the world outside of Cairo. We helped them all to respond to their pen pals' first messages, and in their responses were words of happiness, gratitude; all of them wrote of how thankful they were to have a friend to write to. I honestly don't think we are even able to grasp how lonely these girls were before the beginning of our course.

We presented to them on the basics of women's health, hopefully correcting some of the cultural wives-tales that thrive in the Somali community. The most telling misinformation that these girls have had implanted in their heads is about female genital mutilation. All of them have been through it. And all of them believed, before our workshop, that all women in the world need to have their vagina cut open in order to give birth. We watched as the girls opened up about their worries about the problems that can happen because of it and their thoughts on the cultural pressures involved in the practice. I asked them " What would it mean for Somali culture if you were to choose not to circumcise your own daughter?" Some of them believe so strongly in the culture that, despite being informed of how bad it is for one's health, they are still for continuing it in order to keep their daughters from "shame" and "sin." Others were firmly against it. Though all of them must and will decide on their own, I am thankful that we could give them information, get them talking, and listen. Because of our bond and the intimate, comfortable and private environment, open and frank dialogue about the issue, its importance and its ramifications became possible. And these girls, shy and modest but curious and dedicated learners jumped at the opportunity to learn and discuss.

Lastly, we led a session on what it means to be a woman, what it means to be a refugee woman, and helped each girl present her own story in front of the group and create a mission statement about where they will go from here. These girls feel ambitious and strong yet powerless and alone at the same time. We asked them to volunteer to share stories about when they have felt powerless as women. Seven girls shared an experience they'd had in the past. Then we asked them to volunteer to share stories about when they have felt powerful as women. None of the girls spoke. We discussed the difficulty of having to prove yourself as a capable person when you're a woman, and how that difficulty is amplified when you are a refugee and a conservative Muslim living in a big, patriarchal city with no family or friends. It's a mouthful just to say, right? But we discussed the importance of finding strength in numbers and of these girls continuing to work together as a community of women, after we Duke students have left.

There's only so much you can do in two days, three days, six weeks, two months.. But yesterday, I saw the girls that came in the first day and sat silently in their own seats, lay on each other's laps and hold each others hands and get up in front of the group to tell their own refugee story. We heard the traumatic stories of ten lonely girls that are dedicated to learning English and finding a way to escape Cairo and succeed in the world. Even if we all we leave them with is ten new, strong relationships with each other and some new knowledge and skills, I think we have enabled these girls to start finding their own voice and to start using it.

I'm not a fan of picking favorites. I am sad to leave all of our girls at St. Andrews. But one girl, Asli, I have adored the entire summer and I knew I would miss her most of all when I left. And the two days of the empowerment workshop have made it almost unbearable to leave her here in Cairo and not bring her back with me to America this coming Wednesday. She is sixteen, beautiful, and so smart with a fiery spirit that shows. She always arrived to class early, came every day and learned with eagerness and never stopped smiling, and then played ball with the boys during break in the one-hundred degree heat. During the workshop, I listened to her story of having lost her family at the age of eleven and then having had to come to Cairo alone, not knowing whether her parents were even alive, and having to find a family on the street. She wants to be a doctor. And although I do not doubt her motivation or capability, I fear that Cairo as an oppressive environment for female refugees will possibly stifle her dreams.

For the celebration at the end of the workshop, we took the girls to a nice restaurant in Mohandisein. Asli sat next to me nervously and I asked her how many times she had even been to a restaurant. "First time," she said. I was floored, and just so excited to be able to give her the experience and so sad at the same time that it was her first and maybe last time too. She ate everything. She drank her milkshake and had chocolate cake for dessert. My kind of girl. And before the workshop she was one of the girls that had never used a computer before, never typed, never seen the internet. As I walked down the street to where we'd all leave in separate taxis, Asli held my hand and we walked without speaking. We exchanged phone numbers and I cried while saying goodbye. I just want to get her a passport, get her to America, get her a formal education, an apartment and let her live because I know she would do incredible things. But it's not possible, not right now at least. Can this girl take care of herself, will she take power over herself and her education and can she make it?

I said before this workshop that if we helped even one girl to be more capable of expressing herself, communicating with the world and finding the confidence to make her own life what she wants it to be, I would be more than overjoyed and proud of the work we have done.

I got an email from Asli today:

"Hi Leeza how are You. I love you ms. And i miss you. My e-mail is Aldkv2@aol.com"**

An email from the girl who was so shy, who couldn't use the computer, who has no family.. I've found a sister in her and I believe she found a sister in me. And I'm determined to one day help her get to America. That is, if she doesn't do it herself first.

** email address changed for confidentiality

  In America, we distinguish within our country three separate classes: the lower-class, the middle-class and the upper-class. For those that are really attached to status denotations, we could even go deeper and talk about the difference between the upper middle-class and lower middle-class; the lower-class below 50% of the poverty line or above; the upper-class with millions or the upper-class with billions. But in Egypt, what I have witnessed so far is that there are the extremely rich, the dirt poor and none in between. And no one is really speaking out to change it.

The first week was somewhat shocking to me. Our immediate exposure to Egypt was walking around the streets of every-day Cairo, the view of the poor. There are men sleeping in the backs of pick-up trucks, missing teeth and walking around idly every day in filthy gallabiyas; there are cars that are falling apart wobbling down the shawaariya (streets); women on curbs selling packets of tissues as toilet paper for pennies; there are little children that run alone through the busy intersections trying to sell string necklaces with jasmine flowers for ten cents, carrying an even younger sibling on one arm either for effect or out of desperation. In the ten by twenty foot supermarket, there are six men that help get your groceries from the aisle to the cart to the checkout aisle and into the bag--there aren’t enough jobs to occupy the time of all Egyptians, let alone pay their expenses. For breakfast, men gather around moving kiosks that sell 'foul'--a twenty cent breakfast that consists of mashed up beans stuffed into a sandpapery pita. The second meal is twenty five cent 'koshari--' an all-carb mashed up mixture of spaghetti, lentils, rice, macaroni that the poor rely on as a cheap, filling meal to get them through the day. Honestly, I cannot even stomach to eat either one of the basic meals of poor, Egyptian society. My body physically rejects it and just can’t take it. But many Egyptians are forced to. 

At first, I told myself, well, this is a third-world country. This is Africa. This is how people live here. But the second you step into one of the nicer restaurants or clubs of Cairo, you see that Egypt as simply a third-world country does not make sense. There is plenty of money in Egypt. But most of its people will never touch any of it. The money is concentrated among families that are just as well-off as any in the ‘developed world.’ They have houses in the nicest areas of Cairo, mansions out in the desert, eat nothing but the nicest food and scoff or gag at the idea of touching Tamiah (falafel) off of the street. They drive Mercedes Benz's, go to the gyms, drink alcohol, spend thousands of dollars at night clubs--the idea of poor, strict, Muslim society does not really apply to this small portion of the population. 

Out in the nicer places in Cairo, I have met some of these people. They are nice, educated, interesting, interested, many of them just college students like us. They all love and hate Egypt and want desperately to leave it, but call it their home, their mother. They insist that they are not Arabs: they are Egyptians. In the United States, wealth such as theirs wouldn’t make most people look twice. But here, in Egypt, the discrepancy between the richness of the rich and the poorness of the poor is striking. The other night, my roommate and I met a twenty year-old Egyptian boy that goes to school here in Cairo. I mused to him on the fact that although everyone in Cairo drives like maniacs, I have still not seen even one accident. I said to him, " I guess people here just know what they're doing and accidents don't happen?"

To which his response was, "Oh, it happens. I get in accidents all the time. I was in one just a while ago and hit a woman with my car. "

"What did you do?" I asked. 

"I called my dad's lawyer; I was too scared to call my dad. My car was totally wrecked. But it’s fine, the guys at the police station, they know my dad so, I paid 140 pounds to her family and got to go home." 

"Well, was the woman okay?"

"No, she died actually. It's pretty sad really." 

140 pounds is less than $30.

That was the moment I realized the incredible difference between the rich and the poor in Cairo. Not only do the poor live in horrible conditions and have a decrepit standard of living, but their lives are barely valued at the same price as a good meal. No matter where you are in the world, the people you know and the money you have--or the people you don’t know, the money you don’t have--can make or break your life. But as the daughter of two doctors, the distance between the 'lower-class' and 'my class' never yielded feelings of immense guilt; the stratification of wealth disparities are easier to excuse when they're not so spaced apart. But when an overwhelming percentage of the population is living at such a disadvantage, it makes it hard to believe that the few that do own fast food chains and ride around in Lexus' can do so with eyes closed so tight. I am no advocate of socialism. But an environment like this makes me think about humanity and government, especially democracy. What is the espoused democratic Egyptian government doing in the face of extreme poverty? Is it being bought? And how can some people so proudly say "Egypt is my mother" but at the same time let those living on the same streets as themselves suffer through life in the eyes of extreme poverty. Is it just reality? Or if it is a problem, who's trying to fix it? And do they even have the power to make a dent? 

 Daily life in Cairo has been harder to master than any other city I've ever been to, even Cleveland. It has taken patience, bravery, resilience (physical and emotional) and a lot of stepping outside of my comfort zone to get to the point where I am now. But I finally feel like the day-to-day is manageable and that I go home at night neither stressed out of my mind nor wondering how anyone can possibly live here. My strategy thus far has been to only do that--make it through each day, eating three meals (without getting close to any fruit, vegetable or dairy product that my body will immediately reject which almost everything in Cairo to be quite honest), preparing a good lesson plan every evening and trying to be the best, unqualified English teacher I can possibly be each morning, taking a nap in the afternoon, giving my homework a thorough look over a putting forth good effort to stay awake and alert throughout four hours of Arabic class each night. It's a lot, but I feel like by just doing everything that needs to be done each day, I have found a way to balance and feel at ease in my Cairo lifestyle. 

Of course, there are still up's and down's. The up's include our occasional meals to beautiful restaurants that cost about $10-$15 at most and viewing the beautiful sights of Cairo city. The down's (seemingly more plentiful) are something like.. air conditionning that gets shut off by our landlord, a power outage in half of our apartment and an ant infestation that our landlord swears is in everyone's home in Cairo (yet to be confirmed, this one). However, one woman said to me when I arrived here that Cairo is about a state of mind. It's dirty. And if you look at the dirt, all you'll see is dirt. But if you look at everything else, this can be a magical and sometimes surreal city, so modern and primitive all at the same time. 

Now that settling in is checked off of my list, I have switched out of survival mode and begun cranking those mental gears again.. the internal drive sets in and says to me, "when you're feeling like things are just going, why aren't you doing something else?" It's time to rethink our overall purpose here in Cairo and the potential impact that we could have on peoples' lives, to challenge our ability to speak Arabic and communicate with others and understand their culture, and to connect the people of this city in a way that will keep making it better when we are gone. 

Each of us has the chance to apply for a small grant fund in order to embark upon one in depth project while we are here in Cairo. It has been the topic of conversation for some time now, as people feel the heat of making a great difference, the right difference, but also satisfying what Duke Engage wants us to do within this very limited time frame. The immediate reaction is to jump at whatever pops up first, and if it looks good, just do it. But I feel a very different motivation to pursue such funding. My professor and mentor, Tony Brown, taught me about the life of a social entrepreneur and how it's not about creating a project or manifesting an idea, but in actuality it is about focusing in on the cracks in the sidewalk and choosing one that you will give your all to fill in. It's not just about fixing something that's broken, but about finding an opportunity to take a situation with potential and bring it to excellence. It's not about thinking of something worth throwing some moolah at, but more about having the cahoona's to say what's not right, right now, and getting people on board to help you make it right, whether it entails funding and praise or not. 

So I have been thinking.. And the options before us are to work with one of two Egyptian orphanage NGO's in Cairo that we have visited thus far. We have all made one or two visits to these places and pooled our ideas together,  to see what we could come up with. We came up with good ideas, of course. But every day I go to teach English to these young Somali women and I see them hiding within their hijabs, shying away from any kind of contact with men, hesitant in all actions; most of them speak with their fingers covering their mouths and some can only manage to whisper responses to questions in the ear of their teachers (us). Internally, these girls are intelligent, strong, ambitious. But externally they are weak and almost paralyzed at times. They have an enormous amount of potential, but no family, no mother or father to check their progress report and urge them onto bigger things, no one to teach them what it means to grow up, get a job, have good character, raise a family. And although I see the purpose of us delving into Egyptian culture by working with other NGO's, I am emotionally pulled by these girls that I see every day and their incredible need for empowerment. I am tentative to take one day a week to start developing a relationship with new girls; Somalian refugees, although not inherently Egyptian, are a part of its culture and Egypt itself is their new homeland. They are trying and barely able to become a part of Egyptian life, and, along with everyone else, need help to survive here.

My professor mentioned to me the other day that these girls may very well leave our classroom after 6 weeks with newfound role models and ambition. But I am hoping to focus my efforts --with a couple of other girls from our group-- on actively empowering these girls. They need anything to help them express themselves, give them confidence, teach them life skills, women's health information. They need to be able to speak their minds, as loud as they please with no physical or material interference. They need to read about other women role models and be exposed to the reality of their gender. They already know that an education and a grasp of English will help you survive in this life. But more importantly they must develop an understanding of their potential and their power as women in this world, even in the most oppositely culturally minded situations. 

Currently, no program exists for female refugee empowerment in Cairo. We cannot involve ourselves in the bureaucracy of the government's refugee institutions. So, St. Andrews, the private organization that we teach English at daily, is our way to touch a small group in the community. We have been building relationships with 20 of these girls and the staff at St. Andrews over the past two weeks and could potentially bring a distant opportunity to the forefront of these girls' lives. What we've done so far, and are doing, is fantastic. But I really think something even greater could happen here. 

We're working on it. 

Every morning, we wake up around 8:30am and begin our day by turning on the air conditioning. I look on my computer for the weather report on one of those calendars that shows you the weather with a picture of clouds, or a rainstorm, or lightning, or whatever the weather will be that day. This Tuesday through Sunday, what do I see? Sun, sun, sun, sun, sun sun sun. At first glance, this is a blessing, a true summer. But in Cairo, you know that when Mr. Sun, Sun, Mr. "golden" Sun comes out and starts shining down on you, he's going to be doing it at about 100 degrees. 

Picking out clothes in America would be easy: short shorts and a tank top, flip flops, maybe a bikini underneath if I was planning on going to the pool. Here, too, it's an easy process, but completely different. I choose between a long-sleeved white shirt that covers at least 80% of my upper body, or a short-sleeved blue shirt that covers 70% of my upper body. I choose between baggy long pants or cargo's. I put on close toed shoes and about three layers of deoderent. Anything less and the men that fill every street in Cairo will gape at you, longingly. They may even cop a feel. I've never seen grown men look like kids in the candy store until our group of 8 American women walked out of 12 St. Hassan El Marad. Modesty has never looked so good. 

Every day, we leave our apartment willingly, although I must say my heart always aches a little, leaving the air conditioning behind. The point is, it's hot. It's more than hot; it's sweltering. And Cairo is nothing like the Four Seasons hotel that sits in the middle of it; air conditioning is a rare component of places you will go (along with toilet paper), and the extreme pollution and 18 million people that live here and bustle around, bumping into each other on the street and in cars only make it even hotter. All the other women have at least 90% if not 99.9% of their bodies clothed, often in complete black. And alongside all of my mental pontifications about cultural differences and women's issues, I often merely wonder how these women are able to survive this heat in such dress, every day, every year. 

I'm getting used to washing my feet multiple times a day, sweating at all times, getting into taxi cabs that look like they haven't been cleaned since 1952. I'm still getting used to looking like a man though. Yesterday I couldn't tell if one of my students was verifying her grasp of the language or actually inquiring when she said "You are male or female?"--I'm guessing it was the latter. Is it worth being thought of as a man to avoid constant heckling on the street in addition to avoiding affirming the negative and promiscuous image of American women abroad? I think so, although it does make me feel a bit strange. 

The heat, the pollution, the traffic the business; these things all combine to form a large part of Cairo's "ambiance." At this point, it's wonderfully exhausting. We get out of Arabic lessons at 11pm each evening and wander the side streets of Garden City back to our apartment and, frankly, most nights we bee-line back to our beloved air conditionner. They say you get used to it after a little while. I wonder if this happens before or after the novelty wears off? Bring on the acclimation!

 Not long ago, we went for teaching orientation at St. Andrews, a refugee camp in the middle of downtown Cairo. We will be teaching English to small groups of unaccompanied minor (14-21 years old) Somali refugees. Some have had multiple years of English instruction. Others aren't even literate in their own language, Somali. 

At the orientation, our supervisor, Saed Aowad modeled a teaching class for us. He started with your basic, everyday introductions and general inquiries-- "What is your name? My name's so-and-so. How are you? I'm fine, how are you?" (these specific students had a basic grasp of English). Then he taught them vocabulary. But it wasn't just any vocabulary; the topic of the day was "jobs." I wondered to myself, why is he starting with jobs? Why not colors, or body parts or I, you, he, she, etc...? 

Obviously, I am not a (trained) teacher. But the fact is, most of these young men and women are not "students" right now. They may have been students at some point or another, but because of political unrest in Somalia, they have all been torn from their lives and moved, alone, to Egypt. They can't afford to go to school, nor can they become Egyptian citizens. They are without any family in a country whose language they do not speak. The majority of them live with random members of the Somali community here in Cairo who they call neither family nor friends. And their aid from the UN which is supposed to cover all their monthly expenses consists of only 180 Egyptian Pounds (roughly $35). Their only hope is the learn Egyptian dialect or English in order to join the workforce and support themselves. 

As the young Somali men and women started to learn the words on the board, they repeated back to Saed Aowad "I am a cook," "I am a house cleaner," "I am a teacher," "I am a doctor." I soon realized the subversive meaning beneath this particular lesson. These kids are not learning English to use it as a hobby, nor to fill a foreign language requirement, nor out of a mere passion for learning languages. They are learning it to survive. And as I listened to their lesson I envisioned these students using the same phrases in the future either in order to become employed or, hopefully, after the fact. These are the professions they will attain in life. Some aspire to just earn a living. Others aspire to continue their education beyond that of just language; yesterday, a girl told me that it is her dream to become a nurse or a news caster.

There is only so much we can do in eight weeks. No student will leave our program a qualified doctor or ready to go to medical school. But from the very first lesson, we are teaching these students of hope, achievement, and the possibility of creating their own stable lives in Egypt. Here, even the most basic of words bear immense implication and meaning.