DukeEngage | Duke Center for Civic Engagement

This morning, Cosette and I went to church at St. Andrew's. I know, it's Friday, but churches generally have services on Friday as well since Sunday is technically a workday. It was great going to church again (haven't been much this summer unfortunately), and we saw and spoke with Ann--she's the British lady who trained us to teach English, and she's here with her husband.

Speaking of which, I need to get a ring. No, not a husband--just a ring. Men here want American wives for some reason, and are willing to just strike up a conversation with a complete stranger to achieve this end. In any other country I've been to, it would be just a friendly conversation, but here, it's the beginning of a (short, in sha'a Allah) courtship. I find this male trend unbelievable and frustrating. The latter because girls can never become friends with men here--there are always ulterior motives. The doorman at the guys' apartment is quite concerned that he will get arrested for allowing us girls come over to study Arabic. Granted, he's always high or something, but even "normal" Egyptians have this fear of inter-gender friendship. The women we've met have really been great--friendly, caring, and interesting people--but there is of course a whole other side to the country and culture that I am afraid I will never understand simply because having a normal, candid conversation with a male is so difficult.

Example: today at church, there was first an older man who came up to speak with us and walked with us over to their fellowship hall for coffee and tea after the service. Friendly certainly, but everyone knows full well there was another motive. That wasn't so bad, besides being disgusting. But then we ended up sitting with Ann and another guy, who was actually pretty good looking. He's a semi-professional soccer player from Nigeria (he's been to Lithuania, Jordan, Germany, and some other places to play "football"). He basically asked me to hang out with him sometime, and gave me his phone number. Thank goodness I could honestly say that I don't have a phone! Again, a normal thing in America, but as Ann reminded me, there are so many men looking for wives. Why does the opportunity to really learn a lot and have an interesting conversation have to be avoided due to a necessary wariness?

In all, I cannot stand the male population here. The stares women get, the marriage proposals from men with three teeth...even looking a guy in the eye is a bad idea because OMG he might think he has a chance. But hey, at least they're looking for marriage and not just a quick hookup. Western culture is different; husbands don't have to lock up their wives like a collector's edition stamp for fear of other men looking at her. In my opinion, men here use "it's our culture" as an excuse to be disrespectful, unrestrained, or just plain gross.

We do it better in the U.S.--we marry for love, not for money, perception, or an American passport.

There is "how it's done" and "how it should be done."

Ustaadh Lo highlighted the difference in the little 30 minute chat some of us had with him after teaching today. The discussion started with our literacy program, and how we feel completely incompetent, almost to the point of failing to meet the needs of our students. Of course those observing are very affirming of our teaching abilities; they say we're doing a great job. But some of us feel like there's no real structure or progression in the material we're covering in class. To make lesson plans, I come up with a list of topics and creative ways to teach those topics, and then I pick from the list. The "book" we were given to work from seems scattered and doesn't fit any of their levels (not to mention that we only have 3 for our whole group).

Basically, we're concerned that we won't make a lasting impact on these students' educations, that we won't have produced better English speakers at the end of these 6 weeks. And from this frustration came the idea of impacting our students (in whose lives were are immersed every day) in addition to helping other Cairene communities like Ebnaty and Resala. I would love my girls to be fully functional members of society, whether that be here in Egypt or in America (where so many of them want to live).

Someone once told me that "the person who cares most about your welfare is yourself." I'd rather not have the girls believe this. And so, we are aiming to make "how it's done" and "how it should be done" the same thing.

I really should go back and thank all of my teachers from over the years—their job is hard! There are the challenges due to cultural differences—I can’t read the facial expressions of my burka-clad student, and I can’t teach the girls the hokey-pokey because they refuse to dance. Then I realized how impossible it is to explain “prepositional phrase” without knowing the Somali language. (In fact, I’m not entirely sure they ever really grasped that point.)
 

And who knew the difficulty of forcing students out of their comfort zone without embarrassing them? We taught directions (like “turn right”) at the end of the lesson. I was blindfolded and they had to direct me through a maze. There was one girl who refused to give directions—should I have made her stand up in front of the class?
 

At the end of the day we ask for feedback from the students, and they all say the class is too easy. However, a couple of them definitely haven’t learned the vocabulary yet. We’ve struggled endlessly to place them appropriately, yet one of our girls outshines the others by a long shot. The range of ability will certainly take creativity to deal with.
 

But still, I loved class yesterday, and I think our students enjoyed it too. Ayan gave me a twinkie and mango juice. I don’t even like twinkies, but that little act was the sweetest thing and much appreciated by a new teacher. I am afraid that I will get very attached to my girls.