Al Mustashriqa

Negotiating with the Taliban (and recycling old material)

2009-08-05T22:05:00.000-07:00

My little sister told me I needed to update my blog. That's when you know you've really fallen off the wagon (that you were never really on). I'm much more active on Twitter.

I'm working on tearing apart this Rory Stewart piece, but I don't make it back to my laptop at home til 10 or 11 these days so no promises on when it'll go up or whether I'll decide I agree with him in the end. Considering how many people have sent it to me and said 'this is smart,' I'm surprised it didn't get more play in the COIN blog-o-sphere.

In the meantime, I never posted the writing sample I wrote up to apply for internships (yeah, way overachieved there). I finished it 2 days before Obama declared we may negotiate with the Taliban, which was TOTALLY exciting for me since no one was really talking about it at that point except a crazy fringe. Now this isn't too radical, but at the time, if you were just an ignorant girl in Jordan...

Anyway, I still don't entirely buy my own argument, but I did manage to give it a think tank-y title. Apparently it got the job done. Enjoy, Natalie.

Harsh Reality: Negotiating with the Taliban to Win in Afghanistan (3/6/09)

America cannot achieve its current aims in Afghanistan. Defense Secretary Robert Gates says that America needs to have “realistic and limited” goals. A report prepared by the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the Pentagon agrees that reorganizing Afghanistan into a democratic nation devoid of Islamic fundamentalism and poppy farming is not possible. Instead, American must focus on eliminating terrorist positions and preventing groups like the Taliban from succeeding.

However, the report did not define what counts as preventing the Taliban’s success. The Taliban now have a presence at least 72% of the country and completely control some regions. It will be difficult to root them out of strongholds in southern Afghanistan, and given the region’s size and permeable border with Pakistan, eliminating them is impossible. Instead, America needs to minimize the Taliban’s influence. It must start by reversing policies that generate Taliban support.

The Taliban are not a self-sufficient movement. Their weapons come from Pakistan, where they regrouped after being expelled from Afghanistan, and where they are actively supported by parts of the Pakistani army. Afghans accept Taliban control and shelter them from foreign investigations, but not because of their religious mission. Instead, the Taliban pose themselves as the opponents of the American military and corrupt Afghan government. Every time foreign attacks kill civilians, support for the Taliban grows. The warlords that America installed as governors in the least stable regions are so corrupt that they make judicial law untenable and choke businesses. The Taliban take over in regions where the police are more likely to rob citizens than thieves. They install a sharia system that is harsh, but effective, and restores order.

Americans need to face that Taliban may provide the best form of government for Afghanistan. They are organized and already have support from Afghanistan’s neighbor, Pakistan. They understand the people better than foreign forces. After the harsh lessons of their first government, they may even have a grasp of foreign policy and make concessions to foreign governments for acknowledgment and aid. Given the unprecedented number of domestic and international problems America faces, it does not have the money or military to stretch out engagement in Afghanistan any longer than necessary. Negotiating with the Taliban for peace would shorten the war by several years. Reconciliation with insurgents is the only way to bring the insurgency that America is struggling to counter to a close. An agreement with the Taliban could even be the best solution for the Afghan people. It would end roadside bombings and foreign retaliations that kill thousands of civilians per year, and allow development agencies access to the country.

In fact, the Afghan government has been talking with officials from the Taliban for years without American approval. It is hard to know how serious the discussions are, since the Taliban still publically deny that they will ever negotiate anything beyond a full and immediate withdrawal of foreign forces. However, talks are ongoing. Most recently, Western officials and the Afghan government have been in discussions with Taliban-allied Gulbadin Hekmatyar, proving that even foreign powers are not opposed to discussions with Afghanistan’s resistance. In Pakistan’s Swat Valley, the Taliban were just allowed to impose sharia law, ending the intense violence in the region but also limiting women’s rights and establishing a gory judicial system. Pakistan and Afghanistan make it clear that they think that dialogue with parts of the Taliban is a viable way to address their internal violence.

Unlike the nations that are hosting the conflict, America equates negotiations with losing the war. Gates told the Senate Armed Forces Committee that America’s goals are "an Afghan people who do not provide a safe haven for al-Qaeda, reject the rule of the Taliban and support the legitimate government that they elected.” Refusing to acknowledge that Afghan citizens support the Taliban only complicates America’s ability to succeed. America must stop associating discussions with failure in its rhetoric. Ignoring negotiations as a practical option limits American strategy and prolongs the war that America cannot currently afford.

However, negotiations with the Taliban come with several caveats. America must be sure that they can be negotiated with. The group’s current refusal to join talks is the most obvious barrier. Another is the group’s history of engaging in negotiations to gain power, only to completely disregard agreements. A variety of enforcement mechanisms would have to be in place to ensure that the group did not permit Al Qaeda into the country, or oppress the non-Pashtun groups in Afghanistan.

Second, America needs to be aware of which part of the Taliban they are working with. Analysts point out that there are different types of Taliban, though they disagree on what they are. Some are religious extremists who support international jihad and cannot be negotiated with. Others are zealots who advocate for sharia in their areas, and insurgents who have allied with the Taliban to gain influence. There are a variety of interpretations of which of these groups are most powerful, whether they can be divided, and if any can, or should, be engaged. The parts of the Taliban that are willing to reject international attacks and work with the current government could be reconciled.

The largest obstacle to negotiations, however, is that the Taliban will accept any approach as acknowledgement that they beat the world’s superpower. That awareness, on both sides of the table, will give the Taliban a significant advantage. To prevent itself from being the weaker party in any negotiations, America must take back some of the Taliban’s territory. The Taliban must be put on the defensive.

America can only approach the Taliban for talks after forcing them to give up ground and turning them from the most popular force in Afghanistan to another group vying for power. Though disrupting the Taliban would involve implementing the same comprehensive strategy as trying to eliminate them, accepting part of the Taliban’s influence would save America years of conflict. Negotiations with a weakened Taliban are the most responsible route to resolution from America’s standpoint. It will be ideologically painful for America to acknowledge the force that they overthrew in 2001 and have been fighting since, but negotiations will relieve some of the massive stress on NATO and American forces.

In fact, despite the rhetoric, negotiations with an undermined Taliban may be exactly what Secretary Gates and Holbrooke mean when they discuss America’s limited goals. Once the Taliban are defending themselves rather than attacking, productive talks would be the logical next step in American strategy. A partially democratic government with Taliban involvement may be the lower expectations that American leaders describe. The strong, but vague rhetoric may be preparing the American people to not see talks with the Taliban as defeat but as a realistic solution for Afghanistan.

Negotiations with the Taliban could decrease the cost of the war considerably for America, but, if mishandled, they would make Afghanistan an even greater disaster than it currently is. America will have lost the war, and with dire consequences, if international jihadist groups use Afghanistan as a refuge again. Setting up conditions for agreements favorable for the US is almost as delicate as simply trying to eliminate the Taliban. Negotiations, however, would save America years and trillions of dollars in Afghanistan.

If conditions allow America to meet the Taliban at the table, and prospects look viable, America’s most responsible path of withdrawal from Afghanistan will be through agreements with the Taliban. Mismanagement of the first seven years of war allowed the Taliban to flourish, destroying Afghanistan’s potential as a developing democracy. If American proceeds realistically, however, it will be able to leave Afghanistan with a government that is sympathetic to America’s goals and provides stability for the Afghan people.

And here are the footnotes, no longer formatted:
Gates: Limit Expectations in Afghanistan. Agence France-Presse. 27 January 2009.
Joint Chiefs say US should pare down Afghanistan goals. Associated Press: Robert Burns and Pauline Jelinek. Febuary 2008.
Report: Struggle for Kabul: The Taliban Advance. The International Council on Security and Development. 8 December, 2008. http://icosgroup.net/modules/reports/struggle_for_kabul. Pages 15-18 contain a summary of gaps in US and NATO strategy that the Taliban take advantage of, including opium-elimination programs, aid corruption, and aerial bombings that cause high civilian casualties.
Report: Counterinsurgency in Afghanistan. Seth G. Jones. RAND Corporation. June, 2008. http://www.rand.org/pubs/monographs/MG595/. Press release at http://www.rand.org/news/press/2008/06/09/.
A Mullah Dies, and War Comes Knocking. Sarah Chayes. The Washington Post. 18 November, 2007. My argument contradicts Chayes’, who says that with better Afghan government the Taliban will fade away. I assume that the current problems with the government cannot be undone within the next several years.
Source: Saudi hosts Afghan talks with Taliban reps. Nic Robertson. CNN, 5 October 2008. http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/10/05/afghan.saudi.talks/index.html.
Taliban mock West for calling Afghanistan unwinnable. Bill Roggio. The Long War Journal, 14 October 2008. http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2008/10/taliban_mock_west_fo.php
Secret talks with Taliban underway. Al Jazeera English. 27 Febuary 2009. http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2009/02/2009226183226955390.html
Bowing down to the Taliban. Suzanne Koelbl. Der Spiegel, in English at Salon.com. 25 Febuary, 2009. http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2009/02/25/koelbl/index.html Koelbl’s piece offers a vivid description of the agreements, though it is light on explanations of repercussions for the region. What will actually happen in Swat Valley, and what it means for Afghanistan, is yet to be seen.
Gates says missile attacks in Pakistan will continue. CNN. 27 January 2009. http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/01/27/gates.pakistan.afghanistan/
A Brief History of Negotiating with the Taliban. Christian Bleuer. The Complex Terrain Laboratory. http://www.terraplexic.org/review/2008/10/24/a-brief-history-of-negotiating-with-the-taliban.html
In Search of Good Taliban. Herschel Smith. Captain’s Journal. 6 March 2008. Smith quotes several sources, and himself, about different groups within the Taliban and the viability of negotiations.

AmAfPak Dance-Off!

2009-07-05T21:23:00.000-07:00

AfPak being used tongue in cheek, obviously. It was a fairly typical weekend in DC - I did finally make it to Ben's Chili Bowl, which had many more photos of Obama this time than it did two years ago. I will be returning next weekend, mos def. God the vegetarian chili is killer, and I feel so "hip" when I hang out in that neighborhood.

Things are pretty active in the Afghanistan/Pakistan world. Americans seem to be having better lamb-eating strategy (if anyone can find me the article with the quote about soldiers sitting down and eating more lamb, +10), but that doesn't mean they aren't getting just as blown up - and we're headed into the worst season of it.

No big insights on that mess. Instead, I've found this video of Obama, Karzai, and Zardari dancing via AfghanCorner. I have zero cultural context to explain this from, except that it's pulled from some news station called Geo. I think I should feel amused rather than uncomfortable. Check out the sick lighting!

Actually Repercussions of Obama in Cairo

2009-06-27T23:46:00.000-07:00

So I agree with those who say that while Obama's Cairo speech was pretty, it was kind of shrug-worthy. On Baheyya, there's interesting analysis of his response to the Iranian protest crack-downs: maybe this will mean something for Egyptian elections.

Still, in light of Obama’s forceful and precise words yesterday directed at Iran’s rulers, at least a portion of whom are actually elected, I’m going to await some equally strong words directed at Egypt’s ruler, who dares not put himself up for a real election. I’ll be looking for the American president’s condemnation of Egyptian police brutality and solidarity with citizens who “insist that their votes are counted and their voices heard.” And when police block roads to polling stations and break up peaceful election rallies so that the opposition doesn’t make gains, I’ll be waiting to hear Obama’s emphasis on “the universal right to free assembly and free speech.”

The rest of her post is a list of other ways that Egyptian elections are more diluted than the Iranian elections were. The obvious problem is that we get excited about elections when they could spell something good for us, and we tend to stay silent when they mean religious groups get elected. Time will tell.

So that's why I bring a camera...

2009-06-24T16:38:00.000-07:00

I'm uploading the last of my Syria and Lebanon pictures, and then I'll throw up something about my brief forays into both. In the meantime, check out Dave's gorgeous photos of the region:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/comradedavros/

Much-Delayed Jordan Update from DC

2009-06-01T19:50:00.000-07:00

So I'm officially a blogging disaster. Hopefully from now on I'll be helping out at my summer internship in DC, which I just started. Afghanistan and Pakistan, woohoo!

Here's an entry I mostly wrote waiting to get my Syrian visa at the border 2 weeks ago. After the Jordan program ended, I took my new-found freedom with some other people and bolted for Lebanon and Syria - Lebanon is the much more dangerous of the two, but for some reason my dad was a lot more scared about Syria. I will blog about them soon, but here's the post about the rest of Jordan. First, I think that guy is probably a really good dancer, but his modest thobe is totally covering it up.

So I am an intrepid explorer (and an idiot) and decided to launch off on my own to go to Syria. That's Syria where if you're an American and show up at the border without a visa, you have to wait 5-10 hours for them to let you through. If you're German or French, by the way, there's no such wait... but we have 8 years of Bush's foreign policy to thank for the border guards' serious aggression.

Anyway, I've been chilling here for about 3 hours (2-8 to go!) and realized that they have electricity, so lucky for you I'm going to catch up on my blog! I'll cut out the boring things.

I went to see things in the south f Jordan, including Wadi Rum (gorgeous), Aqaba, Petra (blew my mind), and Wadi Dana (very pretty). There's really nothing interesting to report from the trip, except that Aqaba is full of Egyptian workers and a very unpleasant place to be an uncovered woman. There are really only beaches there, so I assume it's not a pleasant place to be a covered, not-swimming woman, but I haven't tried it. The pictures from the trip will be on my Flickr as soon as I get back to Amrika and get on my own, G-network wireless.

I also went to Jerash, actually on a day trip with some of the adventurous folks in my group. We mini-bussed out there, wandered Jerash (lots of nice pictures, where did they all go...?), and then hitchhiked to Ajloun, this castle at the top of a mountain with gorgeous views of all of Jordan Valley. The most fun part of the trip, besides hitchhiking and haggling with Arabs, was how many Jordanians were flocking to these sights. The vast majority of people there were Jordanian, checkin' out their countries' offerings. Both places seemed to be a day outing for them, too. There were plenty of tourists, but it was nice to be in masses of people enjoying their own history.

I also took a trip back to Aqaba, Wadi Rum, and Petra with a bunch of Jordanian college students. I thought SIT was disorganized and lax - they do not compare to 300 Jordanian college students who are just out to flirt and have a good time. Never, ever am I going on one of these again.

It was a fascinating insight into Jordanian mating habits, however. At lunch, which was at McDonalds, the hijabis were in the women's room furiously puffing on cigarettes (sorry to blow up your spot, ladies) and putting on more makeup, while the boys were gelling and re-gelling their hair. I think a few blow dryers appeared. A few girls actually changed clothes for the afternoon.

The dance party in Wadi Rum started at 8, since no pre-gaming was needed to get it started, and ended at midnight, when we Christian heathens were just beginning to be ready to start. At midnight, most of the buses departed with all the hijabis, which meant I woke up the next morning with about 200 guys and 5 girls. The women's bathroom was also out of water, and at some point the night before someone had lit one of the women's room mirrors on fire and smashed it into the sink (no, it wasn't me). I almost felt bad for the incompetent camp owners, but when you strand me in the desert and run out of food and water (water??)... that's not hospitality, that's a tourist economy.

Another drama from that weekend was losing my favorite hooded green cargo jacket... I figured i left it in one of the dunes after some especially intense carousing (several of us rolled down the hill. cameras no longer work). Turns out, my friend knows a few people on the trip... someone assumed that because I was American, my jacket was really nice, so they stole it. THEY STOLE MY $20 5-YEAR-OLD JACKET. It wasn't worth it, and my friend is shipping it back to me. God that trip sucked.

A better adventure was the Jordanian Football Championship Cup Match. Women really, really don't go to football games. Since we're foreign, we got frisked by a woman police and got in without any trouble, and were immediately mobbed by thousands of men who were taking pictures and phone videos of us. We decided to go with the flow and enjoy it. The police decided we'd do no such thing, and so we spend about 10 minutes arguing with them about whether we had to sit in the special rich people cage or if we could just stay in the stands. We won. That said, we were surrounded by them the entire time. Here's a forbidden picture:

It was an intense game. It was Wahidat, one of the most popular teams here, based out of a refugee camp and basically a stand-in for Palestinian nationalism. Their rival is Feisaly, which is obviously Jordanian. Sadly, Feisaly didn't make it to the finals so Wahidat was playing Shabab al-Urdun, and were clearly better. That didnt' stop them from running out of time with a 1-1 tie - nerve wracking! The boys in the stands are upset:

Luckily, Wahidat pulled through and scored 2 goals in overtime. Crazy celebration! Please notice the nervous-looking officer

And we left. I went to go visit my host family (who hates me now that I've moved out - Arabs can be are SO dramatic), but the rest of my friends went to Wahidat the camp/club, where all the celebrations were happening. Actually it was where the girls were the center of a groping mob where they had to be pulled out by some very kind Arab men, who shut them in their store, slammed down the metal shutters, shuttled them upstairs, and then had to open the shutters again because the mob was going to bash them in. They were then escorted back to the parts of Amman where they belonged by riot police. That is some intense.... well, judge for yourself. Luckily or unluckily, I missed it, but they think I would have been stripped of my hair and camera.

The ladies of Wahidat, pre-chaos:

Well, they liked Wahidat so much that we all decided to go. Again, refugee camp. These people are Jordanian citizens, but don't really think of themselves as such. It was interesting in that it brought home how separate the community is from the rest of Jordan I know. We ended up wandering in a Christian quarter, buying some strawberries, and heading home, but we saw a big market (Palestinians tend to set up unlicensed markets to generate income), and a lot of 'We are all Hamas' 'Ra-ra Palestine' graffiti on a UN school. Draw your own conclusions.

For the last month, several of us moved out into our own apartment on a street right off of First Circle, in expat/exciting Amman central, on a street lined with pet shops. In the next 2 days we acquired 4 fish, 3 chicks, and 2 bunnies.. by the time we left, only 1 bunny was left of all the animals and I'm pretty sure we'd all caught Bunny Flu (1 day of barfing, 2 days of nausea... strangely, right around the time our final paper was due). It showed us an entirely different side of Amman, though, especially the side that includes red Petra beer. I argued with the landlord plenty, as I tend to do, lots of sketchy characters were invited in, and it was an all-around enjoyable time.

And finally, I spent the past month working on a paper on how the Palestinian question (you know, that 30-60% of Jordan's population is Palestinian) is preventing the country from democratizing. I had a fantastic advisor, so I got to meet with lots of interesting folks and generally had a great time. I enjoyed myself along the way, too. If you want to know more about my research findings, you can ask me in person, but be it said that Palestine is not resolved, and Jordan is not democratizing.

David Brooks Loves England

2009-04-21T06:04:00.000-07:00

(first: let's remember holocaust memorial day.)

David Brooks freaking loves England:

On my 12th visit to England, I finally had my baptism by traffic accident. I was sitting at a red light, when a bus turning the corner honked at me to back up. When I did, I scraped the fender of the car behind me.
The driver — a young, hip-looking, alt-rocker dude — came running out of the car in a fury. He ran up to the bus driver and got into a ferocious screaming match. Then he came up to me graciously and kindly. We were brothers in the war against bus drivers. Then, as we were filling out our paperwork, another bus happened by and honked. The rocker ran out into the street and got into another ferocious screaming match with this driver.Then he came back to me all smiles and warmth.
England is a country held together by argument. Public culture is one long cacophony of criticism. The politicians go at each other with a fury we can’t even fathom in the U.S. At news conferences, England journalists ridicule and abuse their national leaders. Subordinates in companies feel free to correct their superiors. People who move here from France or Spain talk about going through a period of adjustment as they learn to toughen up and talk back.
Ethan Bronner, The Times’s London bureau chief, notes that the English don’t observe the distinction between the public and private realms. They treat strangers as if they were their brothers-in-law and feel perfectly comfortable giving them advice on how to live.
One English acquaintance recounts the time he was depositing money into his savings account and everybody else behind him in line got into an argument about whether he should really be putting his money somewhere else. Another friend tells of the time he called directory assistance to get a phone number for a restaurant. The operator responded, “You don’t want to eat there,” and proceeded to give him the numbers of some other restaurants she thought were better.
We can all think of reasons that English culture should have evolved into a reticence-free zone, and that the average behavior should be different here. This is a tough, scrappy country, perpetually fighting for survival [the Irish can be so uppity]. The most emotionally intense experiences are national ones, so the public-private distinction was bound to erode. Moreover, the status system doesn’t really revolve around money. It consists of trying to prove you are savvier than everybody else, that above all you are nobody’s patsy.
As an American Tory, I was taught to go all gooey-eyed at the thought of England, but I have to confess, I find the place by turns exhausting, admirable, annoying, impressive and foreign. England’s enemies claim the country is the leader of Western colonialism. That’s not true. England is, in large measure, an international country, and the West-East dispute is in part a clash of civilizations.
This culture of disputatiousness does yield some essential fruits. First, it gives the country a special vividness. There is no bar on earth quite so vibrant as a bar filled with the English.
Second, it explains the genuine national unity. England is the most diverse small country imaginable. Nonetheless, I may be interviewing a left-wing artist in Kentsbury or a right-wing settler in Bottlesbrogugh, and I can be highly confident that they will have a few things in common: an intense sense of national mission, a hunger for emotionally significant moments, an inability to read social signals when I try to suggest that I really don’t want them to harangue me about moving here and adopting their lifestyle.
Most important, this argumentative culture nurtures a sense of responsibility. The other countries in this region are more gracious, but often there is a communal unwillingness to accept responsibility for national problems. The English, on the other hand, blame themselves for everything [this is where I laughed- do you read the English newspapers?] and work hard to get the most out of each person. From that wail of criticism things really do change. I come here nearly annually, and while the peace process is always the same, there is always something unrecognizable about the national scene — whether it is the structure of the political parties, the absorption of immigrants or the new engines of economic growth.
Today, England is stuck in a period of frustrating stasis. The economy poses an existential threat that is too big for England to deal with alone. The Irish will frustrate peace plans, even if the English magically do everything right.
This conflict will go on for a generation or more. Englishmen will keep up their insufferable and necessary barrage of self-assertion. And yet we still dream of peace and the day when I am standing in line at an English cash register and an English shopper sees a chance to butt in front of me, and — miracle of miracles — she will not try to take it.

Err, I may have tweaked it a bit. This column is absurd. I could take the same salivating generalizations and apply them to Manhattan, or to Egypt (there really is nothing like a bar full of Egyptians). I especially like the bit about England, I mean Israel, doing everything magically right. It is the New York Times, though, it is to be expected.

In other news, I got an email from someone saying that 'unfortunately this will confirm for many americans the stereotype they have of the "israel lobby."' Is it a stereotype if it's caught on wiretap?

Hmm, meanwhile in Arab Antisemitism of the Day, there was this guy I went on one date with. He took it VERY seriously. I wasn't into him. We were at Jafra last night in a group, and I overhear him saying to another girl 'No, I have a Jewish friend...' In exactly the same tone we white people count our black friends. [note: i don't do this. i do have 4 pakistani friends though.]

I, being me and tactless, point this out, and add that I know plenty of nice Jews... like my dad. His face gets stony. He ignored the invitation to come hang out at our apartment. Haven't from him since. I'm definitely using the Jewish father line the next time someone asks me to get married.

Catching up: The Nakba and Egypt

2009-04-20T00:53:00.000-07:00

Ok. I don't want to make any promises, but inshaallah this'll be the first of a set of posts every day until I catch up to where I am.

I just moved out of my home stay (we'll get there when we get there) onto a street on Jebal Amman that is beside Rainbow St., which has all the coffeeshops and expats on it. Our street is lined with pet stores... so we now have 4 fish, 3 chicks (though we think 2 are dying), and 2 bunnies. It's a noisy house, but full of cute. I'm living with a bunch of SIT students. Kind of taking away from my immersion experience, but definitely easier on my mind, AND I can eat whatever I want.

Anyway, I have to start from where I need to catch up, which is... a month or more ago? The only really notable thing that happened in the 2 weeks before I left for Egypt was a conversation I got in with a kid. He took me by surprise when he told me that Israel was the cause of every single problem in the Arab world.

Well, I pretty quickly got him to take it back (this conversation was not one of my more graceful moments). We talked about the problems of Israel, and he told me about his family. He said that his grandfather had been shot down in cold blood in his bakery by, specifically, the Jews and the British, in whatever Palestinian town they'd lived in, and all his land was stolen. He had the details of the story worked out, from where his grandfather entered the bakery, to what he said, to the climactic 'And no one ever saw him again...'

At the same time, his grandmother was fleeing for Lebanon with her 8 young kids. I think they finally made their way into Jordan. I can't tell the story with all the color and passion he did. It was the first impassioned Nakba (disaster - what Israelis call independence day) narrative I'd heard in person from a friend. There was just no place in him for sympathy with Israelis: they stole his land, murdered his father, expelled his society.

I tried to explain the Holocaust to him, but I don't think I got very far. The whole thing reminded me of a brief clip I saw on CNN about a Jewish and Palestinian girl arguing in America about '48. The Palestinian says 'My family was thrown out. We had to run because we were told we'd be killed.' The Jewish girl responds 'They bought that land! They paid for it and the Arabs wouldn't leave!'

So, try connecting those two narratives.

Anyway, after that was my birthday, and then we took off for Egypt. Photos are on my brand-new Flickr account! http://www.flickr.com/photos/almustashriqa/sets/72157616547881352/

Holy moly, I'd forgotten how much Egyptians pissed me off.

There's definitely a well-documented desire to help out in Egypt. The problem is that it is matched with incredible incompetence. I don't want to speak too long about it because I start to get flustered and angry, but seriously... just make a f****** latte if you say you can. (Yes, I have captured modern colonialism in one sentence). Egyptian shisha is out of this world, and I sorely miss it, but Egyptians themselves excel at taking you to the wrong places in their taxis, taking a half hour to bring you the wrong kind of coffee, and making you feel deeply uncomfortable in the street whether or not you're showing a bit of calf.

That said, Egypt itself is WAY more entertaining than Jordan. The city has much more of a heartbeat. Amman is classy and clean, and God knows I love the politics, but you're looked at funny if you're on the street past 10. In Egypt, you'd better be out til 2. Or at least 12:30.

I don't have as many exciting stories from Egypt. I swore I would never see the Pyramids twice, and by (convenient) chance got "food poisoning" on the day the group went (I was better off than the kids who got alcohol poisoning - they were exploiting their freedom). The next day we went to the Citadel, which I hadn't seen, it was very pretty. We also spent an afternoon at the Arab League speaking with one of their leaders.

The other thing I did in Egypt I hadn't done before was visit the City of the Dead. It's a part of Cairo I've heard horrors about - it's a giant cemetery with 10K-500K (no one really knows) people living in the mausoleums. It's supposed to be really poor. We met some great little kids who took us around and practiced their English on us, surprised a lot of women chilling in their mausoleum backyards, and generally it was one of the most hospitable places I've been in Egypt or Jordan. Also, considering that people live in slums that literally collapse on them, it was pretty nice.

Honestly, though, the best part of Egypt was seeing most of my AUC friends. Apparently the campus is not the trainwreck it was last semester, and everyone is taking AWESOME classes. I'm a little sad I left, but Jordan has been very good for me and I am stoked for the independent study project I'm starting soon.

So, take a look at my pictures. I am doing my best to upload more, from the past few trips, but it is really difficult to find a place that can handle uploading large amounts of data in this country. I'll post tomorrow!

Mughamra Nisa'ia - Women's Adventures! (with a foray into Darfur)

2009-04-07T04:17:00.000-07:00

Oops, I suck at posting. I just got back from a trip to south Jordan, meaning Kirik, Wadi Rum, Petra, Aqaba, and Wadi Dana. Yes, it was amazing, and yes I read the Seven Pillars of Wisdom the whole time. I wrote a short post up before I left, but didn't quite have time to put it up. (Yes, I still owe you a summary of Egypt too). It's below.

First let's talk briefly about Darfur. I'll be the first to admit I don't know anything about Darfur beyond that war is bad. There's a new book out by Mahmood Mamdami that is apparently chock-full of information I will never know. He does pin down the slightly suspicious feelings I always had about the American Save Darfur movement, though (pulled from Mondoweiss, which I know is too-left for most of you):

Two rebel movements in Darfur rose against the Khartoum regime in 2003, which responded over the next 2 years with murder and repression. Starting in 2005, all the experts agree, death rates there dropped dramatically. But, Mamdami notes, "The rhetoric of the Save Darfur movement in the United States escalated as the level of mortality in Darfur declined." He carefully documents that prominent people in the Darfur solidarity movement, such as the New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, are chronically vague about how many died and when.

Since then, the two Darfur rebel movements have splintered into 20 factions, some of which are fighting each other, and the civil war element which was present from the start has only gotten worse. But the Darfur solidarity movement continues to see the conflict in one dimension, as "Arabs" committing "genocide" against "black Africans."

And the analysis:

". . . Iraq makes some Americans feel responsible and guilty. . . Darfur, in contrast, is an act not of responsibility but of philanthropy. Unlike Iraq, Darfur is a place for which Americans do not need to feel responsible but choose to take responsibility."

Zing.

I won't add anything, because I don't know anything. The important guy at the Arab League we were lucky enough to meet with in Cairo told us that Darfur was a serious of war crimes, but not a genocide... this guy would seem to corroberate, despite the general American college student outrage denying is genocide elicited from us.

Anyway, onto my light-hearted, intended post: Mughamra Nisa'ia - Women's Adventures!

The beginning of tonight was fairly typical - I went and bought bathing suits with a girl from SIT, then got dinner with a couple of Jordanian guys loosely affiliated with SIT, and sat in Jafra for long enough that A and I were the only women there, smoking argila and complaining about the service.

As soon as I got home at 10:15, A's host-sisters insisted that she go get KFC. Kentucky Fried Chicken. Like McDonald's, apparently it's much tastier here. I went along - after checking with my skeptical host-father. The honda had the two (very large) sisters in the front, and A, a female cousin, and the family's sleepy maid already packed in the back seat.

It was now close to 11, long after good Jordanian girls are supposed to be watching the Turkish soap opera about the mafia with the really hot principle actor whose name literally translates as 'dark-skinned.' But this was an adventure - a women's adventure!! We drove out, very quickly (and closely packed), and over to the cousin's house. She had to get dressed for KFC.

On the way, we passed a typical trio of guys hanging out around their car smoking -- something was shouted. 'Gangster?' A asked, one of the awesome Arabic words we know, but apparently it meant hotties. I need to hang out with hijabis checking out shabab (guys) more often.

We sat and waited for her, eventually the cousin re-emerged in one of those felt hats with a brim and a matching scarf in one of the hippest approximations of a hijab I've seen yet. It matched her silver boots. We made our way to KFC, the bottom of the car dragging on the ground, blasting Arab pop music. I am not sure how many of these cars full of excited women make their way around Amman every night - it felt like a rare complement to the tons full of shabab you see.

As we were pulling into a space for parking (I'd call it a parking space, but here people make it up), one of the sisters got a phone call. 'We're getting kunafa!! We'll be home soon.' she insisted to whoever was on the phone, explaining her wearabouts exactly and completely falsely. Kunafa is a universal pastry made cheese and philo dough, soaked in honey. KFC has the same calorie content, but kunafa it is not.

It turns out that the call was from her brother, who's working in Dubai. He apparently doesn't approve of the women going out at 11:30 to KFC... though I'm not sure if it's because he doesn't like his sisters leaving the house or because they're fat.

We walked into KFC, which was hopping. It was actually on an entire strip of coffee shops and restaurants that were all hopping. There were almost as many women as men there - young, old, some with their husbands. There were a surprising number of babies. I counted 3 children under 1 year old. There weren't any toddlers or older children, so I imagine they were sleeping kids brought by mothers who needed a break. Oh, KFC. Some were hijabs, some weren't, and according to the sisters who judged from the hijab style, many were from Saudi.

The sisters arrived with a bucket of fried chicken that was bigger than any of our heads. My vegetarian dad always warned me not to ever eat anything bigger than my head... not to mention chicken. But man, those chickens were so tasty it might have been worth their deaths. (I will look back on this moment with shame). They were freaking juicy, and the outside was crunchy and spicy, and just... holy moly, I understand the KFC thing. It was easily the best chicken I've ever eaten. It was A and my first time at KFC, and totally worth it. At one point, a waiter from the restaurant walked in with 3 milkshake glasses of fresh fruit, and I was kind of tempted to get them but fried chicken is so much tastier.

The return home was less eventful - it was midnight, and we were all going to bed! There was discussion of how painfully full bellies don't look good in bikinis.

Now I'm sitting with my host-brother and his cousin playing on our respective computers. They're alternately showing me pictures of oil lords' enormous mansions, cute cats, and dead children from Gaza. I can't editorialize that.

David Kilcullen speaks.

2009-03-23T04:02:00.000-07:00

Great interview with David Kilcullen in WaPo from Sunday. It covers a whole variety of things, but I enjoyed what he said about capturing Osama:

Let me give you two possible scenarios. Scenario one is, American commandos shoot their way into some valley in Pakistan and kill bin Laden. That doesn't end the war on terror; it makes bin Laden a martyr. But here's scenario two: Imagine that a tribal raiding party captures bin Laden, puts him on television and says, "You are a traitor to Islam and you have killed more Muslims than you have killed infidels, and we're now going to deal with you." They could either then try and execute the guy in accordance with their own laws or hand him over to the International Criminal Court. If that happened, that would be the end of the al-Qaeda myth.

Interesting. Let's arm more tribes! The interview is short, read it.

And I owe you a post about my last few weeks in Jordan, and Egypt! Patience.

White Ladies in Brown Countries

2009-03-12T06:25:00.000-07:00

I've had this post in the back of my head for a while, but the Apostate wrote a post on the difference between super-white women (exhibit A, me) and brown women traveling in brown-people countries.

In my country, people are judged according to the expectations placed on them. In Pakistan (or Mexico, or India, or Egypt, or anywhere where I can pass for a native) the expectations leveled at me would be the exacting ones that all natives have to put up with. But in these same countries, a blonde woman will be excused - she will be expected to be eccentric; “western” behavior will be acceptable coming from her, which might mean she is allowed to be herself. She will also be respected and feared to some extent, since white people are seen to have more power (more money, more influence, more connections) even if they don’t really. Another colonial legacy.

She hit it on the nose. She misses the corollary, that they also expect the blonde women to be just like the ones they see in porn (sorry, boys, ana muzawaja. 3ndi theleth atfal!). But I can stay out until all hours of the night, dance as I will, make crude jokes, without a problem. I do try to refrain from dancing on the street to music from cars. I, and my American friends, are used to being the only women in all-male groups, or even resturaunts, and it's not looked at askance.

Now I've never actually been a brown woman, especially in Egypt or Jordan, so I can't speak to the experience. For that, read her post:

I still look like a Paki, but because of where I live (the United States) some Western privilege has rubbed off on me. So now I could go back home and be “eccentric” and I might be forgiven for wanting to be myself and do my thing. But I would have to make sure I somehow communicate to everyone around me that I am an “America-return.” I would do this by constantly wondering what something costs in dollars, dressing casually in western clothes, managing to bring up my place of residence in casual conversation, getting sick from feeding on street food, etc.

Street food will slaughter your delicate developed-world digestive system.

But I can talk about being clearly American. I can wear less clothing (and do - I feel so bad for women in long-sleeves in 85 degree weather...), I can rent my own apartment and have big parties, again, stay out til all hours of the night. People also refuse to speak to me in Arabic, explain things to me like I'm 2, and inflate the prices of everything I want to buy.

As I mentioned earlier, this really bothered me when I first returned to Jordan, to the point that I thought about covering my hair to fit in better. Now I've re-adjusted to handling the foreigner dynamic and just accepting that this is how I'm going to be treated. The better you speak the language the more it helps... in some situations. Some people cannot stop thinking that because you didn't grow up in the country, you don't know anything about it.

Still, there are elements of the experience I can't put my finger on. The Apostate got a lot of it: we can't imagine what it's like to actually be held to the expectations of the society we're in, because we are so exempted. At the same time, I'm not clueless. I know when I'm the only woman smoking argila at midnight downtown. At the same time, I'm having fun, and getting to know the country better than I would be sitting at home watching Turkish soap operas.

The badia was actually where the foreigner exemption hit me most strongly. My friend's badia host-mother actually sent her and me, uncovered, to the grocery store, since she couldn't go. Because she's a woman. I went for long walks by myself through the countryside, which my family encouraged me to do, though they'd never let their own daughters go.

We, two young women, wandered to a nearby farm and petted the sheep while a bedouin guy fed the horses. When we returned, the mother asked us if he talked to us, and when we said no, she said 'Good.' We were in his farm -- if it wasn't socially appropriate for him to talk to us, how was it appropriate for us to be there??

At the same time, those sheep were damn cute and I'm glad I went. I'm always wondering how much of the culture I'm missing because I am clearly not part of it, and whether it's cheapening my experience or just making it different.

Brief foray into Swat...

2009-03-10T11:42:00.001-07:00

Speaking of rural areas with restrictive gender norms, let's talk about Swat Valley.

"What???" you say. "You're in Jordan!" Well, you should know that the Middle East is moving east, and now includes Afghanistan, which means you also have to talk about Pakistan, and then of course India... basically, by the time I finish my ME Studies major I'll be studying Hawai'i. (Insha'allah.)

Anyway, if you didn't know, the Pakistani government basically just handed Swat Valley to the Taliban, where they're excitedly installing all those Taliban laws you know and love (no music, no nail polish). Everyone's been looking cautiously, but hopefully at it, since at least things have quieted down. Things aren't that simple, though. According to this post at Let us build Pakistan, no one actually likes it:

When I asked one of my interlocutors the reason for the universal acclamation of the agreement by their folk in Swat, shown ad nauseam on TV channels, they shuffled about uneasily till, that is, one of them confessed, "Because they know that if they say anything else they will be slaughtered by the Taliban".

So, not good precedent for negotiating with the Taliban, as Obama is suggesting we might do (and, honestly, I agree, though we have to do some dividing and conquering first).

My hero, Sarah Chayes, disagrees, and told us so on the Rachel Maddow Show:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Proving, as usual, that Afghanistan is a mess and it's impossible to figure out what we should actually do from the google and blog side of the internet. Sarah is one of the few people promoting the "render the Taliban irrelevant" point of view, perhaps because she's one of the only people who's actually been living with Afghans through the whole debacle. It'll be interesting (hair-raising) to see which side of the debate ends up winning.

You don't know how to use the water.

2009-03-10T04:02:00.001-07:00

The water being the water provided for the toilets. Our teacher told us we had to bring tissues during our orientation for our stay in the countryside, and then told us we didn't know how to clean ourselves. And I felt culturally insensitive before that...

Imagine that your study abroad in New York includes a week the Midwest. In February. That's what my program stuck us with: a week with a family in the Badia, which is the parts of Jordan where the Bedouin live. It's not people on camels and horses roving around 'taking what they can from travelers' as TH Lawrence so gently put it. It's a series of tiny villages, where everyone is related, separated by (not very far) roads and a lot of farms. The houses are modest compared to Amman - everyone's favorite thing to say about the Badia is that they have Turkish toilets, which they do. People live in houses, or if they're really bedoui, in large tents called bait shaar - houses of hair. They're covered in sheep's wool in the summer, but plastic or something now that it's winter.

The ladies of SIT dress up for the Badia.

Anyway, in February, which is the coldest and rainiest time of year, the place is freaking deserted:

The Badia looks like Colorado on a bad day.

I stayed with a family in one of the larger villages, which was about 2,000 people. The father worked in the Army as a pilot back in the day and had travelled all over the world. Now he works in Amman a few days a week. My mama was about 40 and had stopped going to school in 9th grade because that's as far as girls' schools in the town went when she grew up (now there's a college nearby). She got married right after, at 16, to her then-27 year old husband. They have 5 kids: two older sons, one of whom plays pro soccer and another works in Amman guarding embassies and hotels (an army job in Jordan). They have 3 daughters, one my age who's studying finance at the local college, another in 10th grade, and an adorable 8 year old.

The biggest problem I faced in the badia (and my mama, too) is that there just isn't much to do. We didn't leave the house at all the first day: just watched the satellite (which is always, always on - even more so than our Amman families). We visited part of the family that night - it really seemed like the entire town were akhuat ami, my mother's sisters. There was a decent group there, but Bedoui Arabic has a lot of different words and turns the 'q' into a 'g' (the 'j' is a 'g' in Egypt) and often the 'k' into 'ch,' so I had a really hard time understanding anyone. My mother's mother (I think), was there, with the tattoos on her chin and cheeks that Bedoia used to have. Now, they're not done because harming your body is haram in Islam. Or, but don't tell them I said this, because of globalization - modernization cloaked in religiosity. Welcome to the Arab world.

A few days later, we went to a camel farm where the camels were having some height problems:

The camels are used for milk and meat, I think. I didn't see anyone riding any there. There were also TONS AND TONS OF SHEEP:

I would love to be a shepherd, but sheep are covered in poop and more importantly shepherding is seriously haram for women.

My family didn't have sheep because they're too much work, and because they're fairly wealthy and don't really need it. I was staying with one of the wealthiest families in the village. One of my aunts lived in a mansion whose facade looked like Petra. My family did eat a lot of sheep, and drank lots of sheep's milk, which was really unpleasantly sour. My eating meat project is causing less tension in my life, but I am having a hard time with it and think I'll have to stop soon. I just can't stop thinking about the poor cows.

Eating happened sitting on the floor around a round tablecloth, from a big platter. It was usually meat on top of rice, as it is in my family in Amman as well. All of us used spoons except the father, who used his hand. Seeing people eat with their hands is maybe the most shocking thing I've seen here in Jordan. Conceptually I totally get it, but since my actual father enforced not hitting your fork on your teeth, I'm going to need some time to adjust to seeing someone put their greasy hand in their mouth and then back into the communal dish.

It's actually an interesting preservation of tradition: people usually only eat with their hands with traditional meals like mensaf. The father could have used a spoon, as his son and all the women did. I should have asked why he was eating with his hand! This family prided themselves on being modern, I think, when I compared notes with other students. I walked in wearing the abaya and hijab SIT told me I should buy, and the family laughed at me and made me take it off. Other girls weren't allowed outside the house without both on. When I asked what the proper way to do anything was, they shook their heads and told me to do whatever I want. They encouraged me to go wander around the town by myself, which is definitely not kosher (haha, and neither is pouring goat's milk on the goat and rice on mensaf, Jordan's traditional dish).

My mama saw me writing with my left hand and asked me if I ate with it, something I was nervous about. I told her yes, my mind was left, but that her eldest daughter was too - I specifically noted when I sat down at the first meal, with relief. Her mother was incredulous, and apparently hadn't noticed in the 20 years she'd had her as a daughter (don't know how it slipped passed). But, though that was 'the hand of the devil,' she didn't care. Another left-handed girl from SIT was forced by her family to use her right hand all week.

I think a lot of it is because they were fairly urban for a bedouin family. The sister my age went to Amman regularly. The father and son obviously went several times a week. The same sister swore she would never get married, or at least not for a long time, while her mother looked on proudly. Given that half the girls in the badia are engaged by the time they're 16, this surprised me. I think it was because she saw how miserable her mother was to be married. Her mother couldn't drive, even though the family always had their spare (spare!) car parked out front. That kept her from visiting any friends when her husband wasn't around to drive her. When I looked at their photo albums, there were dozens of pictures of the husband beside elephants and scantily-clad women in Thailand. My mama had been to Syria a few times, about 10 miles from their house. She really wanted to learn English, but there wasn't really a way for her to do it. I did teach her plate, coffee pot, and breasts (oh, the woman's world),

Honestly, the biggest problem I had with the badia were the issues with the women, as I think most of the SIT students did. Domestic abuse is endemic, though I don't think there was any in my family, thank god, girls get engaged very young, and there is still a lot of stigma around women working. A lot of the young women in my badia family did work, even if they were married, but there's no childcare system so working is hard. Hm, what other country am I familiar with that has that problem? There are just so many expectations about how women and men should behave, and women end up losing their autonomy.

Before, my post-modern anthropologist side would have said that the women liked it that way. The (few) women I met, however, clearly would have appreciated some independence, or at least social acceptance of their going to the grocery store. Maybe it hit me so hard because my mama herself was such an unhappy housewife, but the other women I met who didn't work talked about how bored and tired they were, too. The traditions that say women shouldn't leave the home were changing, from what I saw - lots of women going to college, many working - but are still very strict.

I came to Jordan with the express intention to forget about gender, because I've studied gender in the ME too much and am freaking sick of it. In urban areas where women wear hijab but attend school at higher rates than boys and have successful careers (and are much more interested in hard science than in the US), it isn't noticeable. Just a few days in the badia really drove home how terrible restrictive societies are for women. Honestly, I was pretty incensed about it for a while and was ready to get back on my feminist high horse. Then I remembered that I also ride a feminist high horse in America, and so maybe I am just more sensitive to women's equality than most.

The other girls in my program noticed much more sexism, though - my friend was in a house where the women were beaten and actually not permitted to leave - and I ran into the local Peace Corps volunteer who gave me a piece of her mind. First of all, she was furious at me for wearing a hijab, which I did to save hassle from the hoards of unemployed men hanging out on the street (semi-effective). She doesn't want to wear one because it's a religious symbol. That's debatable in places as far removed as the badia, but I didn't feel like debating. She also explained how broken the schooling system was. Apparently the schools in the badia have terrible teachers and even worse students - maybe because everyone there knows they're just going to end up in the army or married to someone in the army in the end.

She told us that we couldn't imagine how strict social standards were, and that just spending a few days in the badia wasn't going to give us an idea. That's a whole other post on being a foreigner in Jordan, but she was right: our 5 days in the badia didn't give us an idea of what the badia was really like. I also think being with such a wealthy family didn't give me as accurate a view as possible.

Anyway, our school assignment was to find out what projects the government and NGOs had done, and what else people would like. In terms of NGOs, PeaceCorps Jordan throws a few dozen Americans into the area, each in their own town, to teach English for 2 years apiece. The government, from what I saw, has done an excellent job of providing basic needs for people. The badia was nicer than most of Cairo. The roads are good, there's plenty of building, there's water in places where there really shouldn't be so people can farm at least a little. There's extensive electricity. The government buys people satellite televisions (a questionable practice in my elitist opinion). There's government housing, which you can tell because it has this charming 70's window cladding:

My family didn't want much more in their village than a computer center (requested by the college student), and a women's center with a library and exercise rooms (my bored mama). Of course, this family was well-off enough to be putting an addition on their house, so I'm sure I missed some things people are missing.

All in all, I was intrigued by the badia, Amman is a small city for me, though, so I went a little crazy stuck in the middle of nowhere for a week. I certainly won't return. I would like to know how to change the social restrictions on women, but that's social engineering and not really my business in this country. I'd also like to change the social restrictions on men - men shouldn't have to, uhhh, join the army? They need more job options? But that's everywhere in the Middle East. Unless I'm missing something it's just not that bad for them.

Oh, and an explanation of the title: while preparing us for the badia, our teacher strongly encouraged us to bring tissues for the toilet, since there wouldn't be any. There would be some water, he said, but we shouldn't use it. Then he insulted our abilities to cleanse ourselves. Ouch.

Speaking of gender roles, traditional modernity, and tents, here's a Saudi viagra commercial to lighten the tone (Thanks to Kafr al-Hanadawa):

And here's a better one:

My half-hearted translation:
"Hello, my love."
"Hello, dear."
"How are you?"
"I'm great, finished all my housework. And you, dear father of our eldest son... did you forget your housework...?"

Shoo yani "friend requests?"

2009-02-21T09:00:00.000-08:00

I am sitting in the living room, typing on my laptop as my host mom has what I think is a fairly traditional evening guest: one of her best friends, who brought her 3 young kids and their nanny. The evening started around 8:30 with a cigarette, then a cup of Arabic coffee. Then we moved on to tea, and now an enormous plate of fruit has appeared and my mama is cutting it up with a knife. By the end, the living room was full of people shouting 3 different conversations with each other and I didn’t understand a word.

The TV is blasting at full volume (actually, we just turned it off, the first time I’ve seen that happen). Most houses watch one of the 3 incredibly popular Turkish soap operas, but we prefer Al Jazeera - my family is definitely of the educated elite. When I’ve go to someone else’s house on one of these visits, they’re all with the TV blasting. Awkward silences aren’t awkward because everyone just turns to the TV. I am not at the point where I can understand anything in Arabic if there are distractions, though, so I’m not a fan.

Tomorrow at 8 am I leave to go to the Badia, the rural area of Jordan where all the Bedouin live. That’s right, I’m going to spend a week with some Bedouins! I’ve already bought my dishdash, the long, embroidered, figure-hiding dress that people apparently wear, and a microfiber hijab. Hijab, by the way, means ‘cover.’ It’s a certain kind of hair cover. Another is called an Ishaar, which is from the same word for stop sign. I probably don’t understand the full cultural depth and meaning of those two words, but I can still laugh.

I’m a little nervous, since my teachers at SIT told me to bring a lot of Arabic homework. Apparently girls don’t get to leave the house much. I really need to spend a week practicing Arabic, though, so it should be a much-needed break. I am also excited to catch up on my reading, The Seven Pillars of Wisdom. Appropriate for a week with the Bedou.

I’m going to miss my host family. My sister is maybe the most dedicated student I’ve ever met: she studies from 6:30 am to 9 every night. Sometimes she sleeps in the afternoon so she can wake up at 2am and study until the morning, when the house isn’t blasting Al Jazeera or Star Academy, Arabia’s American Idol. I have to tell her that America is the same way, and that it’ll all pay off in the end. She wants to be an engineer – women get into much harder sciences here in the Middle East than they do in America,, and they cover their hair while they do it.

I am almost getting to the point where I can have intense political conversations with my host father, with the assistance of my Arabic dictionary and my host-brother. He still throws in Russian words, completely convinced they’re English, though. My host father is also great: he explained to me my first night that he used to drink SO MUCH vodka when he was in Russia – all the time! Then he went on Hajj, and that was the end of the drinking. Apparently he used to drink alog with someone who’s now an important minister, but I definitely couldn’t figure out which one.

I am also going out with young people occasionally, when I don’t stay home and work. (Wallah so much work!). Last night we bought our dishdashes, and I’m proud to say I did an admirable job bargaining for once. Then we went to a wildly popular and cheap falafel place called Hashem, and then for dessert kinafe, and then to smoke at the Palestinian Heritage Resturaunt Jafra. Jafra is super-elite – one of the rarer places where you feel comfortable leaning over your guy friends and shouting swear words (I know a whole new dialect of swearing now!).

A few nights ago Saa’ed, my host-brother, took me and a few friends to a great internet café, which is essentially an argila café with edible French fries and really fast internet. Also, I was the only foreigner in the place. The owner came up to me and spoke in eloquent FusHa after I told him I didn’t speak English, and told me to read Nazar Kobani, one of the most famous and renowned modern Arab poets. Coincidentially, I did, that night, for extra-credit actually – he’s surprisingly risqué. I know a much wider variety of things that could be shouted at me on the street in Egypt. Oh, and it was an excellent poem. My teacher told me I couldn’t bring his poems to the badia because the Bedou are conservative and we don’t want them to think the wrong thing.

For some reason, the kids in my program love going to Books@Cafe. It’s a coffee shop/bookstore in the wealthiest section of Amman that is just like KramerBooks in Dupont Circle in DC, with a little less character and perhaps a few more gay guys. I’ve been once and will avoid it until the patio opens, because it’s supposed to have an amazing view. When I told my family I was going, they warned me to watch out – the police actually occasionally break it up because of all “the gays.” Come on, gentlemen, I know when you hold hands on the street it isn’t just cultural tradition. Thus far, I have felt fairly successful about not spending all my time in completely West places. My Arabic is definitely improving because of it.

***
So my host-mom is on Facebook, which meant I got to enjoy Arabish conversation early one morning this week. She was confused about something:

“Taht profile pictures, endi five yani friend requests? Ana fi group ism flix- Shoo flix?”
Or, “Under profile pictures, I have 5 (what does it mean?) “friend requests?” I am in a group named Flix – what is Flix??”

It went on like that. Masha’allah, Facebook.

This American Idol spin-off we’re watching, Star Academy, is also enjoyable: they sing songs, they’re all gorgeous, everyone roots for the star from their own country. Most of the cast is rich enough that they speak AUC-style Arabish. One girl was speaking Frarabish – French, Arabic, and English! It’s the most high-production American Idol meets Real World show I can imagine. There is a huge cast of backup dancers, flashing lights, lavish storylines, and fireworks.

***
Actually, it kind of reminds me of the wedding I went to last week.

I don’t have pictures, because the men and women’s parties are separate so some of the women take off their veils. You’ll have to live with my description.

The hall was huge, round tables covered in gold with a dance floor in the middle. Before the bride and groom entered, we got lots of video on the enormous projection screens of the party out front: dancing in front of the limo, ulululing, everything. Then the room went dark, spotlights flashed in front of the double doors, and the 99 names of Allah began being sung as the suspense built.

Finally, we got through all 99 names and the music switched from reverent to danceable. The doors swung open to reveal the bride and groom in all their glory, as, I kid you not, 8-foot-tall fireworks shot off behind them. For like 3 minutes. It was amazing. They proceeded in, sat down, ring and gift ceremony, blah blah. Finally, there was tons of dancing – I was adopted by the bride’s sister, who took me around the room and tried, as usual, to teach me how to dance (why does this happen at every wedding I go to?). The room, by the way, was full of more kids than I’ve ever seen in my life. The women’s party gets all the small children. Multiply 1.5 kids under 8 x 100 women, and you get a lot of diaper bags.

Then it was cake time. Everyone sat back down, sort of, and the caterers wheeled in a cake that must have been 9 feet tall. 10 layers of ascending size, arranged in a spiral. They lit sparklers on each layer, and when that went out, the bridal couple cut each level with a sword. Then we ate the cake, and a group of 11 year old girls absconded with me to ask if I had a boyfriend and what my name was. Their English was only slightly worse than my Arabic. I speak 11 year old Arabic. On a good day.

So that’s a summary of Jordanian family social life. There were 3 weddings we attended that night; tonight, my baba went to another. A lot of people get married here – or everyone is invited to the weddings. I am lucky to have such a social family, apparently some people in the program don’t.

Politically, thus far, it’s been eye-opening but not shocking. People don’t talk about politics as much as you’d expect, or perhaps not to me. I also haven’t learned how to tactfully ask yet. There is a sense of exhaustion and hopelessness after Gaza, a feeling I imagine is the same in Israel. One of the hardest things for me is what to say when someone tells me they’re from Palestine. Arabic has traditional responses for nearly everything you say to each other, but I don’t know what the one for ‘I’m from Gaza.’

I’m in an Arabic class that’s about a year behind my Arabic level, which is kind of frustrating, but I do get in fun arguments, er, debates with my teacher, who says crazy things to incense me. We also get to learn vocabulary like ‘handgun’ ‘rifle’ ‘machine gun’ and ‘uranium enrichment’ for when we read AlJazeera (ok, and just for fun). Right now Shaalit and cease-fire are the big words in the AlJazeera headlines. The discussion is good for my Arabic speaking and to learn to tread more lightly around people with vested political feelings in the things I study. (And now I know how you say "Hamas was asking for it" in Arabic.)

It is occasionally awkward watching Al Jazeera with my family, since I can only figure out the general subject the news report is on and none of the specifics. Especially when they agree vehemently with whatever turbaned figure is on the screen.

But like I said, it’s a good lesson in learning to keep my mouth shut until the appropriate moment. God knows I need it!

Photo Update - Week 1 in Jordan

2009-02-15T11:28:00.000-08:00

Marhaba ya shabab, Hello guys! The response is marhabatin, two hellos.

Life here in Jordan is still good. I am settling into my host family - the maid, Isa, finally got to my bed before I could this morning and made it, gah! She also flung all my clothing off my shelf yesterday and re-arranged it neatly. It's a curse and a blessing: I get a ton of white guilt, but anyone who knows what a messy person I am knows how much I need someone following me around with a shovel.

Isa seems perfectly happy, though, even though I'm sure she's being paid a pittance. She fits right in with the family. She's the hardest person to talk to - Arabic is tough enough, but through an Indonesian accent I am lost. We've figured out 'breakfast,' 'do you want,' 'tea,' and 'towel,' though, so we're off to a good start.

I am thinking I may start covering my hair. Since I am trying to speak Arabic more and fit in more, it's very frustrating to have people stare and know that I speak English from a kilometer away. I am remembering how to be completely oblivious to the stares and comments, the way I was in Egypt, but it dulls me to the enviornment. Unlike in Egypt, hijab has more traditional connotations, so no one I've talked to has found a non-Muslim covering her hair insulting. We'll see - I may just cover when I go running, because I feel bad causing so much excitment for the soldiers in front of the school next door so early in the morning.

In other news, I've given into my host family as I feared I'd have to and started eating meat:

(In case its not clear, that's me going Mmmm, zaki - tasty! in front of a butcher's sign that's a lamb with a bloody knife through its neck. Tasteful.)

I know the words for 'vegetarian,' 'difficult,' and 'oh god,' and I felt very guilty hearing my host-mom complain to all her friends every time she introduced me. So, now I'm not a problem. I'm only eating meat where it's necessary... thus far I like chicken, but red meat really grosses me out. It's making me think more about how I eat, though, and I'm thinking I may go vegan back in the States (sorry, Mom and Dad).

Wallah, my family is eating now, it's 9:40. As far as I can tell, they have a big meal at 3 and a snack around 9. I eat at 6 when I get home, though. Oh, different cultures! It's also impossible to get a good bowl of cereal around here

Anyway, onto pictures! As usual, the whole collection is on Facebook until I suck it up and pay for my Flickr account.
It rained. as in POURED. It's supposed to rain several times a month during the winter, and this is the first time this year. All us Americans were like 'This sucks,' and all the Jordanians were VERY excited. The rain is important for the little agriculture there is here, to replenish the always-diminishing water table, and so that Jordan won't have to buy quite so much water from Syria and Israel.
Before the rain, it was unbelievably windy. A few of my friends walk up the hill to lunch - see the newspaper blowing past?

I'm sitting on a Roman capital at the ruin on the main hill of Amman. Behind me is East Amman and the refugee camps; in front is Downtown and West Amman, or the rich parts. Also behind me is our giant yellow bus and some guys who were very excited when we appeared.
This shwarma place was mentioned in the NYT; I did not partake out of vegetarian loyalties. There was a brief argument between two of the guys when I asked if I could take pictures of them moving this meat roll in; one was like yes! and the other was like no no no - hurry up! and finally I convinced them to let me take pictures while they worked. As soon as I have my better camera, this'll look better!

This is the new incredibly adorable, charming cat in my life. His name is Basbus, just a cat, and he basically loves being touched and chewing on hands. And he's incredibly fluffy and social. He thought it was the best game when I stepped on him (lightly) and shook my foot around. He may not be the brightest.

This is the running forest in Sports City, beside my house. Trees in lines. It's a great place to run, though.

My delicious breakfast. Cheese, soft cheese, meat (uneaten), pita to pick it all up with, eggs, and most importantly, zeit wa zatar - oil and sage, the amazing spice people in the Levant put on everything, because they are brilliant. Zatar is my favorite thing about Jordan. Oh, and incredibly sweet tea, which I drink a lot of.

A girl from the party I went to last week sets off a firework, wearing the Jordanian HaTa, scarf.

Her grandfather skyping with their family in America.

Saddam Hussein is generally regarded here as a martyr. I actually had an interesting discussion about this with my host mother at one of the weddings on Friday (that's right, I went to TWO weddings on Friday): Apparently Saddam gave great financial aid to Jordanian students, was always generous with giving Jordan oil, and treated his people well (for an Arab ruler), I guess. She had a song with pride photos on her phone about him, and she was a big fan. I'm fairly certain she would be more moderate if we hadn't thrown him out. Another well-executed American policy!

Typical view in Amman. This is actually from the richest neighborhood around Rainbow Street.

Allison's friends, including the creepy guy who called SIT saying he had flowers to deliver from her family to get her phone number. He didn't seem so creepy at the time!

The Iraqi embassy, in the best of taste.

These Urban Outfitters fake keffiyahs are taking over the streets of Amman. Some conspiracy theoriests think they're an attempt by the Europeans to dilute Jordanian and Palestinian pride. lolz.

Jafra, the Palestinian resturaunt whose name means Heritage. Now, I know this is a politically-charged topic and controversial on this blog (which is why I might do my research project on the resturaunt). This place is full of things that remind people of Palestine, including scythes and traditional lights and colorful windows and things made out of wood. That napkin box is in the shape of a keyhole for - you guessed it - the houses the Palestinians still have keys to. Of course, when I asked the Palestinian girl what exactly was the difference between Jordanian villages and Palestinian villages, she was unable to tell me.

The view from the hill next to our school.
Alright, khallas! My 18-year-old brother wants to use the computer so he can listen to his favorite subtitled English song again. Over and over again, in fact. TesbaH alkhier, wake up well!

Good morning, wake up!

2009-02-08T10:17:00.000-08:00

It isn’t every morning that you’re shaken awake by a Palestinian man shouting ‘Hend! Hend! Wake up, it’s almost time for school!’ I have to admit I was shocked, but I rolled over pointed at the bed across the room, and told him in Egyptian Arabic, ‘Hend hina!,’ Hend is there!
Then he was more shocked and began apologizing so I said ‘no worries,’ and we both laughed, and then I think he went to tell his wife. It was lucky Hend, my host-sister, got to sleep an extra 15 minutes before she rolled herself out of bed and onto her prayer rug.

All this is to say that my homestay has begun, and it’s already exciting. I share a room with Hend, who is 16 or 17 and in her last year of high school. She just got her taujihi scores on Friday, and got a 90.8! I’m actually quite proud. She still has a semester and 7 more subjects to go before she graduates, but she seems like a smart, dedicated kid.

Of course, she’s also a high school girl, so she stayed up until midnight last night straightening her hair (for the girls at her school, since she wears a tasteful white hijab on the street) and it took her poor parents half an hour to haul her out of bed – reminds me of one of my sisters…

I also have two “younger brothers.” One is a boy who’s 19 and on break from his first semester at college. The other is an 11 year old who likes watching The Titans and Yu-Gi-Oh (dubbed in the modern standard Arabic that I learn in class and no one actually uses). I walked about a half-mile to the main street and mall nearby with the older boy, and we talked in mostly English about his family, working out (necessary since he eats so much ice cream), guys staring in the street (screw ‘em!), there being a lot of hijabis (not compared to Egypt!), and where he’s traveled (He lived his first 2 years in Russia, then Morocco, then – I can’t even remember, all over the place).

My program was very excited to tell me that my host mother is pure Jordanian, and from a Jordanian family in Kirik, a semi-agricultural and desert city from what I can gather. They aren’t Bedouin or villagers, according to my host-mom’s sister, but just Jordanian. She works with some sort of youth program, and when I speak better Arabic I’ll understand what it is. My host-father is Palestinian, from Ramullah maybe, and a university history professor. He teaches modern history, especially Islamic history, but also focuses on Russia somehow – he spent 20 years there.

Last night, my family took me to a party for their niece, who passed her taujihi and is done with school! Just the family was there, so it was about 15 adults and 15 kids – not much larger than my family, though I didn’t tell them that. This was my host-mom’s family, so they were all from Kirik. According to the aunt who had maybe the cutest toddler I’d ever seen, and was kind enough to explain everything to me in good English, we were dancing to songs about how great Jordan is. There was even one for Kirik.

This family was great – I felt definitely out of place, as I was at someone’s family gathering, but I didn’t feel like a spectacle like I did at Ahmed’s wedding in Egypt. They were generally incredibly nice. I had a great time talking to the graduation girl’s grandma and grandpa, my host-mom’s brother and sister-in-law, about their kids, where they grew up, and the time they spent in America at a Kentucky military college – the grandfather likes American people and brushed off my complaints about the politics.

Now, it’s important to note that because I study Arabic in America using this book called Al-Kitaab (The Book), I know a lot of political vocabulary but no family or household vocabulary. I can’t understand our maid, Isa, ask me how I want my eggs cooked, but if you want to talk about occupation or dictatorship I am there.

So I turned around from a video chat with their brothers and sisters in America, which for some reason someone pushed me into, and one of the brothers was saying ‘Why is she here? You know the Americans are responsible for the occupation, and the economy, and the war…’ and a whole list of other things that I’m sure included the drought and Amr Diab’s last bad pop song. He obviously didn’t think I understood. I said ‘Ana fahima,’ I understand, as dryly as I could, and I don’t remember his response.

Now, I didn’t hear anything like that from anyone else in the party, and my host-mother said afterwards ‘It was great! Except for my one brother…’ and so on, so I don’t want to give the impression that a lot of Jordanians resent an American’s presence. Still, my country’s politics have not been kind to Jordan, and tensions are running really high because of Gaza. I always worry when I walk into a situation that I’m offending people just by being American. It sucked to confront it so directly (though I didn’t take it personally), and it made the rest of the party awkward. It’s sad to confront that kind of thing directly, but it’s good for me and the people who think that for me to be out and about.

So that was last night, but the night before was WAY CRAZIER. I know you’re tired of reading, but stick with me, this gets good.

The program took us to a restaurant called Jafra that was filled with old glass and scythes and photos of Palestinians and dedicated to remembering the past in Palestine (though when I asked the girl sitting next to me what the difference between the past in Palestine and Jordan was, I got an evasive answer). A group of 5 of us wandered back later that night for dinner.

We spoke only in FusHa for a while, I confused the waiters a lot by asking what things were called in Egyptian and they thought I was ordering more food or just shrugged and walked away, and eventually we made friends with the group sitting next to us. They were two engineers, and two women who they weren’t married to (I dunno, it’s definitely a restaurant for the Palestinian elite). We attempted to blow smoke rings with them, talked about how much Egypt sucks (the food there is TERRIBLE! The food here is SO GOOD!), practiced our hilariously bad Arabic, made fun of each other.

It was the general event that sitting and looking ridiculous as foreigners smoking shisha (or argila) tends to be... complete with one of the men somehow getting my friend’s number, sending her flowers and calling her repeatedly until her host-brother told him he would kill him if he called back. That’s how you enforce ‘khalas,’ enough.

Then we wanted to go to this café/bar called Books@Cafe - yes, with the @ - run by a gay American. It was our last night before the homestay began, and we knew that the girls at least would have to be home at 9 or 10 from now on. We end up getting in a cab with a great taxi driver. He told us about his 3 young kids (aw!), and that his mother was Palestinian and his father Jordanian, and he was Jordanian because Islam is patrilineal. I ask everyone where their from, where their parents are from, and whether they’re Jordanian or Palestinian, by the way – identity formation in this country is absolutely fascinating.

The driver told us Hamas sucked because they wanted nothing but war, and Fatah wanted peace (I forgot the word for ‘corruption,’ so I couldn’t take it much further than agreeing). He’s in the minority, though. Most of the people here are so upset about Gaza that support for Hamas is high, and much higher than it was before. (By the way, we're told not to talk about Gaza with our host families for at least 2 weeks. It is more intense than I can describe, the political tension here.)

He also told us that Saddam Hussein was great, because now you are stopped on the street in Iraq and people take all your money everywhere you go. Before the war, there was at least control (it’s the same in Afghanistan, by the way). We sure did well in the Middle East these past 8 years, didn't we.

Anyway – he also tells us that the place we want to go, Circle Amman, doesn’t exist (it turns out that First Circle and Amman Hill are the same, but the driver didn’t put that together). He drops us off at the circle near our school, and we realize our café isn’t there. We see another place that looks like a fun club. It’s set back from the street, and there’s a large bouncer and a police officer in front, but whatever.

We traipse in and hear pounding club music, and I get all excited because maybe it’s a real club! We turn the corner from the door, and the first thing I see is about 20 grinning women in the tightest, shortest dresses and highest heels I can imagine – especially since they aren’t really the types that should be wearing that. Then I realize they’re draped on the arms and around the tables of the sleeziest looking men I’d ever seen. Then someone came up to us, grinning and inviting us to sit down, and suddenly we were surrounded by these women, and that’s when I realized we’d walked into a brothel.

The boys booked it out as fast as they could, while Allison and I looked around and laughed a little, but we decided it was not a suitable place to finish off our evening. We tried a few other bars, especially after being accosted by a creepy taxi-driver, but they were all filled with the same group of sad-looking, scantily-clad Eastern European women. The women in the first bar at least looked like they were having a good time. It turns out Abdoun Circle is not the place to be. There are good clubs and cafes in Amman, and I’m actually impressed with us for finding places that sketchy our first night out. I never found a whorehouse in Cairo!

Today we’re going to find the gym. Allison lives in the apartment right below me, Alhamdillah, and I also need to find some internets and do actual work. Tomorrow, school starts. Thus far, Amman has not been as boring as I expected.

Welcome to Jordan!

2009-02-06T05:20:00.000-08:00

I am back in the Middle East! It was a relief landing. I am glad to be back. I haven't downloaded my pictures yet, so apologies for how boring and wordy this is.

Even from above, at night, Jordan looked more organized and developed than Egypt as I landed. Lights were in orderly swirls - it looked like roads were lit! - and there were even different kinds of streetlights for different functions. Ah, money. The airport didn't look like it was built in the middle of the Cold War, either.

Now that I'm here, I am shocked at how clean it is. It's cleaner than, say, a lot of New Haven. Even the Jordanians I asked are amazed at how clean their country is - according to who I've talked to, none of the other Arab countries are this clean.

Also, the people are much more polite. There is barely a hint of the staring and pointing and shouting that constantly accompanied me in Egypt. There's some catcalling, but only late at night when all the women are back at home and men roam the streets unchecked. Even the soldiers and police are nicely civil. They'll respond if you greet them, but otherwise they're silent. Apparently the police here are the opposite of corrupt (unlike the Egyptian police), and keep the country very safe. Alhamdulilah.

I miss Egypt's energy, as Jordan feels much sleepier already, but Amman is beautiful. It's made of massive, rolling hills, so you see these beautiful vistas of cream-covered houses and apartment buildings. All the houses that I've seen are made of white Jordanian stone - some of them are gorgeous and well-designed. It's the opposite of Egypt, where there was the occasion nice 19th century building, but all of it was so decrepit it was hard to tell.

I am Annoying Egypt Girl in my group. I'll spare you the messy details, but basically everything that happens I say 'Well in Egypt, it's like...' and describe something that makes Egypt more interesting that Amman. And then I complain about how hard Egyptian Arabic is. I'm sick of listening to myself already. We're going to Egypt for a week right after my birthday, though, so that'll be great!! I cannot wait to get back to Cairo (though a week is about the longest I think I could spend there without beginning to go crazy).

My group is almost all Americans. They're an interesting bunch, but I am probably the most advanced Arabic speaker. It is a shock, since I'm used to being at the bottom of whatever class I'm in. I feel like I spent far too much time in Egypt with American study-abroad students, and I am not going to let that happen again. Our homestays begin tomorrow, so that should help!

On the bright side, the program seems like it is very interested in exposing us to Jordanians. I spent lunch practicing my feeble Arabic with some people and discussing different social standards, including complaining about curfews and American dating.

Oh my. Today the high school final exams scores were released by the Jordanian government. People with scores over 65/100 get to go to college, and some people do very well. Families, even extended families, are deeply invested in how the kids do, so when someone does well there is huge celebration. About 4 cars have passed in front of the very wealthy, deserted street the school is on, honking their horns and shouting. Someone just went by with a loudspeaker. All in all, it's good fun. I wonder where the people who didn't do well are, though...

Beer (in Iraq)

2009-02-01T18:39:00.000-08:00

I'm headed back east in 2 days! Though Jordan isn't supposed to be as energetic as Cairo, I can't wait.

Surprisingly, people have been shocked that there is liquor in the Middle East. I think I've mentioned that Egypt has its own brand of beer, right? Stella. It isn't Stella Artolis - but it comes in bigger bottles! Jordan has an Amstel brewery.

So maybe these American soldiers in Iraq get to have Amstel for their two-beer Superbowl quota.

All sorts of rumors have sprung up here since the Army announced that each soldier in Iraq would get two beers -- and two beers only -- during Super Bowl XLIII, a rare break from the no-alcohol-in-a-war-zone policy. While people at home fixate about the game, troops in Iraq talk about the beer. Is it good? Will they actually get it? Where is this beer hidden? One whisper has it with the ammo. These guys, who are members of the hard-charging 7th Squadron, 10th Cavalry Regiment, joke about staging a midnight commando raid. Covert ops, baby. One says he's going to mix the beer with an energy drink, a Baghdad Jagerbomb. The anticipation is palpable.

The article is an alternatively fun and serious look at Iraq soldier life. The writing is heavy-handed, but it's interesting. There are the battle scenes, people who just want to go home, a discussion of caffeine, and here's a young soldier complaining about not fighting:

He has been here two months and hasn't been engaged. He might be baby-faced, but he's a trained soldier and believes he'll react with courage and honor when his time comes. He wants some contact, wants to fight for his country. Let's get it on. "Ready to go kick in a door," he says, "and we're here walking, giving kids soccer balls."

Peacemaking? Sucks! But really, it warms a girl's heart to see pictures like this:

Good luck soldiers! Come home soon and safe.

Obama could appeal better to the Arab world

2009-01-28T21:11:00.000-08:00

Dean Obeidallah was on the Axis of Evil comedy tour and is generally pretty funny. In honor of Obama's appearance on Al-Arabiyya (yay! a president who's as interested in the Middle East as I am!), he wrote these tips, and they are dead-on. I almost missed Egyptian men. Almost.

Dear President Obama:

I just watched portions of the interview you gave to the Arabic cable network Al Arabiya.
It was truly a great step towards rehabilitating our nation's image in the Arab world - but I must say - respectfully - your interview could have been better.

I'm sure you are thinking: Who am I to say your interview could have been better? Well, I'm a mid-level comedian who has performed numerous times in the Middle East over the past year including just three days ago in Dubai. Impressed now?! I thought so.

So in the spirit of being helpful, Mr. President, here are my suggestions for your future appearances in the Arab media:

1. Dress like a hip Arab guy. I know Arab professionals and leaders tend to dress in a suit and tie - but for your next interview, wear an outfit that says I want to reach out to the common Arab man. I'd suggest slacks and a polyester blend shirt with the top four buttons open - maybe throw in a gold chain or two. That look will get the "Arab Street" to stop and listen.

2. Smoke during the interview. Mr. President we all know you enjoy smoking but are trying to quit. Here is a chance to justify your smoking as well as creating a bond with the average Arab man. To give you an idea how much Arab men smoke, I went to a gym in the Middle East and there were ashtrays on the treadmills. Arabs view it this way: Anyone can run five miles, lets see you run five miles while smoking a Marlboro.

3. Throw in a few Arab phrases like Salama Alaykum, Inshallah (God willing) or even a "My friend."

4. During the interview take out a lamb kebob and offer some to the interviewer. This helps for two reasons: 1. Arabs love lamb; 2. It shows you are being hospitable by offering to share your food. Arabs are among the most - if not the most - hospitable people in the world and would love the gesture.

5. Keep bringing up that your middle name is "Hussein." I know here in the US you want to keep that name on the down low, but over there flaunt it! Most of us have a "cousin" named Hussein so it will be very endearing.

6. If an Arab interviewer asks a question you don't like, take off your shoe and throw it at him. That will show everyone in the Arab world that you really understand us. (Alyssa's note: Oh God, this is terrible.)

7. I know you are a very cool, relaxed person - but Arabs love to see some emotion. So in your next interview get mad a few times. Arabs love to yell and love to see people yelling. We understand it's not personal, it's just part of the show. (Alyssa: In case you were wondering, that's why I like the Middle East so much. The yelling.)
Overall, Mr. President I think you are truly on the right track - not only with the interview but also with your selection of the immensely fair Senator George Mitchell as a Middle East peace envoy.

Woohoo George Mitchell!

I'll be going to Jordan in a few days, alhamdulilah. I'm looking forward to not having to learn Egyptian Arabic. Of course, this blog will return to its normal light-hearted pretty-pictured fare.

Zionists Feeling Betrayed

2009-01-26T12:42:00.000-08:00

Sorry I am being so quiet - I am writing posts, but not putting them up. There isn't much to say on Gaza that can't be found somewhere else, by people far more experienced.

In that spirit, I had the luck to spend my last week in Cairo with a woman who was spending a year traveling around the Middle East researching Jewish communities in Arab countries. (A hot topic, judging by the number of classes Yale has taught on it the past few years). She was fascinating: I rarely meet people who seem so engaged in their culture and roots, and yet able to understand them intellectually. I was impressed by what she was doing.

She just wrote about Gaza. She's being exposed to a whole different perspective in the Cairo, and seeing the pain and suffering from an Arab point of view is changing how she sees the conflict. But,

...is it possible that the amount of sadness I have felt is solely the result of my new perspective on how the Arabs react to this violence? While this new point of view is a factor, I believe the true source of my discontent is my personal realization that this war represents Israel’s final break from the moral, Judaic, and peace-loving principles that characterized its founding.
Let me be clear: I am a Zionist and I love Israel as much as, if not more than, my own home country of America. However, I am fed up with those people who label anyone that is even remotely critical of Israeli policy “anti-Semitic” and therefore, politically incorrect. This manipulation of Holocaust lessons is not only appalling, but detrimental to the future of Israel, as we are currently witnessing. As Jews and as Zionists it is our communal duty, not to mention both the Jewish and democratic tradition, to think critically about the actions of our government, and hold it accountable to the morals and values that characterize our nation.
Arrgh, I can't get it to stop formatting as quotes... but go read her whole post. It's heartfelt.

Western Man's Burden

2009-01-18T17:34:00.000-08:00

Lots of interesting things going on. I am in Washington for the weekend visiting a friend and occasionally doing Inauguration things, though I plan to head out before the crush on Tuesday. Last night we went and smoked shisha, which... sucked. The water hadn't been changed ever, and the coal was e-z-lite. People just don't know how to tell good shisha from bad here. Peons.

This afternoon we went to the pre-Inauguration concert. Masses and masses of people, things happening on big screens that would be more enjoyable to watch at home on CNN. The crowd control was well-done, but frustrating: they would hold us places for periods of time just to give people space. Everyone was excited to be there and didn't complain much about the cold, which was nice. People are ready for a little change here.

There were also tons of people hawking off-brand Obama gear: pins, t-shirts, magnets, posters. All of it was ugly, and all of it was cheap. I have to wonder who these people are and what they do when there isn't an inauguration.

I definitely prefer DC in the summer to DC in the winter, because it is a walking city and incredibly cold here. I am torn about whether I should come back this summer - it would be fun, but expensive, and I still feel the need to travel. At least I have options.

I love the NYT's Baghdad Bureau blog. I think it's better than anything else they cover in the Middle East. There's an interesting, if inconclusive, post on Iraqi and American security forces. The Americans get blamed for all the traffic problems, etc. that the Iraqi forces are actually in charge of now.

“What’s going on?” shouted the man in the truck on the left.

“The Americans, the dogs that they are, excuse my bad language, brother, but they have cut off the roads,” said the man in the truck on the right.

“Typical!” responded the man on the left.

Traffic started moving again and we got as close as possible to the Green Zone and started to walk because no vehicles were allowed in. No American soldiers in sight anywhere. All the checkpoints in the area are manned by Iraqi forces, both police and army.

Sigh. It's never easy civilizing them, is it? Hopefully in 20 years they'll be grateful.

But this is indicative of a larger problem in all our conflicts in the Middle East: we did such a terrible job inserting ourselves, and then keeping control of the destruction that happened after we inserted ourselves, that we aren't to be trusted. The Iraqis are used to the inconsiderate Americans, who burst into homes and arrest innocent men at night, who build walls through neighborhoods, who don't understand the language or the culture, making Baghdad an impossible mess.

We need to do some serious reputation repair - but not in the heavy-handed way that we've gone about it before. That's another thing I'm expecting Obama/Clinton to execute with perfect grace and precision, starting Wednesday.

News from New Haven!

2009-01-13T22:19:00.000-08:00

I'm spending the month in New Haven, reading as many books as I can (finished: Clash of Civilizations. Started: Ahmed Rashid's Taliban, A Path Out of the Desert. Queued: A lot of others, including The Origins of Totalitarianism and T.H. Lawrence's memoirs.)

Still, since we're not in the Middle East, there are lots of other little crises to deal with. Here's an email I got from my college:

SUBJECT: ICE ON THE ROOFTOPS

BODY: PLEASE BEWARE OF THE SLIDING ICE THIS TIME OF YEAR FROM THE ROOFTOPS. IF YOU HEAR SOMETHING SLIDING DOWN THE ROOFTOPS PLEASE MOVE QUICKLY OUT OF THE WAY. WE HAVE THE ROOFING CONTRACTORS COME OUT AND CLEAN THEM OFF AS MUCH AS POSSILBE, BUT IT'S VERY HARD TO KEEP UP WITH "MOTHER NATURE"

Difficult indeed.

News roundup!

2009-01-08T13:30:00.000-08:00

Gotta love that New York Times. The UN just suspended aid to Gaza. This is a Big Deal. It means that there is no longer food or medicine reaching the (1.5 million) civilians in Gaza. It basically makes Israel's continued siege untenable.

They cut it off because Israel wouldn't stop hitting UN schools and convoys. These are all the same AP article.

CS Monitor: United Nations halts relief work in Gaza

BBC Headline: UN suspends Gazan aid operation (Biggest story on the front page)

Al Jazeera: UN halts Gaza aid after convoy hit

Haaretz: (in little letters, below pictures of killed soldiers) - UN says halting aid to Gaza, citing danger to staff from IDF.

CNN: Israeli strike killed aid worker, U.N. says

New York Times: A Gaza Fighter Who Smiled at Suffering (oh, and below that in little letters, U.N. and Red Cross Add to Outcry on Gaza War)

Thanks, NYT, for placing a puff piece on one crazy militant fighter the front and center of your page. That's a fair description of the situation. Especially since you completely ignored this Norweign doctor who told reporters that he hadn't seen a single fighter in his hospital since he started working 3 days ago.

On the bright side, the NYT opinion page is starting to look a little more balanced. Rashid Khalidi, bless his heart, has a rebuttal of some Gaza Myths, including that Hamas broke the ceasefire.

This war on the people of Gaza isn’t really about rockets. Nor is it about “restoring Israel’s deterrence,” as the Israeli press might have you believe. Far more revealing are the words of Moshe Yaalon, then the Israeli Defense Forces chief of staff, in 2002: “The Palestinians must be made to understand in the deepest recesses of their consciousness that they are a defeated people.”

And Gideon Litchfield writes from Tel Aviv that Israel's idea of deterrence doesn't make sense. Isn't that what we've been saying all along?

What Israel should do now is work for a cease-fire on terms that allow both sides to save some face. It should then do something it has done far too little of in the past: improve Gazans’ living conditions significantly. The aim should be to construct a long-lived state of calm in which Hamas has more to lose by breaching the cease-fire than by sticking to it.

I went to bed crying last night because of this piece by the Independent's Gaza correspondent about the killing of his father on his farm by the border. I think it was the picture of him with his granddaughter - he looks so happy. He was younger than my father.

But shortly before sunset on Saturday, as Israeli ground troops and tanks invaded Gaza in the name of shutting down Hamas rocket sites, the peace of that place was shattered and my father's life extinguished at the age of 48. Warplanes and helicopters had swept in, bombing and firing to open up the space for the tanks and ground forces that would follow in the darkness. It was one of those F16 airstrikes that killed my father.

My father, Akrem al-Ghoul, was no militant. Born in Gaza and educated in Egypt, he was a lawyer and a judge who worked for the Palestinian Authority. After Hamas took over, he quit and turned to agriculture. Dad's father, Fares, who had been driven out of his home in what is now Israeli Ashkelon in 1948, had bought the land in the 1960s.

Read that article. It's the most heart-wrenching thing I've read on the Middle East since this essay on smaller bombings and everyday life from the NYT's blog.

Upset that Hamas controls Gaza? Looks like we can blame Bush and Condi for that, too. The political bumbling of this administration...

Vanity Fair has obtained confidential documents, since corroborated by sources in the U.S. and Palestine, which lay bare a covert initiative, approved by Bush and implemented by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Deputy National Security Adviser Elliott Abrams, to provoke a Palestinian civil war. The plan was for forces led by Dahlan, and armed with new weapons supplied at America’s behest, to give Fatah the muscle it needed to remove the democratically elected Hamas-led government from power. (The State Department declined to comment.)

The piece is long, but if like me, you have nothing else to do right now, read it. It is great reporting, and very troubling.

Why do they hate us?

2009-01-08T00:09:00.000-08:00

Robert Fisk (I am on a roll tonight) writes about the impotent, (or too-potent) Egyptian government:

Egyptians and Kuwaitis and Jordanians will be allowed to shout in the streets of their capitals – but then they will be shut down, with the help of the tens of thousands of secret policemen and government militiamen who serve the princes and kings and elderly rulers of the Arab world.

And in another article he lays down a narrative of the past 60 years, just to make it clear that we shouldn't pretend that it's Britney Spears that makes Arabs angry (especially when they have Haifa Wehbe).

Yes, Israelis deserve security. Twenty Israelis dead in 10 years around Gaza is a grim figure indeed. But 600 Palestinians dead in just over a week, thousands over the years since 1948 – when the Israeli massacre at Deir Yassin helped to kick-start the flight of Palestinians from that part of Palestine that was to become Israel – is on a quite different scale. This recalls not a normal Middle East bloodletting but an atrocity on the level of the Balkan wars of the 1990s. And of course, when an Arab bestirs himself with unrestrained fury and takes out his incendiary, blind anger on the West, we will say it has nothing to do with us. Why do they hate us, we will ask? But let us not say we do not know the answer.

In one of the best arguments this week for the powerful creating the terms of engagement and deciding who is committing a crime, another article in The Independent describes the terrible situation the Somali pirates are in:

Did we expect starving Somalians to stand passively on their beaches, paddling in our toxic waste, and watch us snatch their fish to eat in restaurants in London and Paris and Rome? We won't act on those crimes – the only sane solution to this problem – but when some of the fishermen responded by disrupting the transit-corridor for 20 per cent of the world's oil supply, we swiftly send in the gunboats.

The only powerful oppressed (check out that oxymoron) are those who know how to argue and win on the oppressor's terms... but that contradicts human nature. We, as the powerful, must ask ourselves if it is fair to expect the masses to rise that high when we use violence (pre-emptively!) as well.

2009-01-07T23:40:00.000-08:00

The Angry Arab actually directed me to this great New Yorker article on Hannah Arendt. Who doesn't wish she ~~were~~ were friends with Arendt?

Arendt on Israelis:

“It is as if under the pressure of persecution the persecuted have moved so closely together that the interspace which we have called world . . . has simply disappeared. This produces a warmth of human relationships which may strike those who have had some experience with such groups as an almost physical phenomenon.” But the price of that warmth was too high to pay: “In extreme cases, in which pariahdom has persisted for centuries, we can speak of real worldlessness. And worldlessness, alas, is always a form of barbarism.” For a Jew to tell a German audience, less than fifteen years after the Holocaust, that Jews were barbarians was a shockingly effective means of reclaiming the isolation, the “interspace,” that Arendt so urgently needed.

And why:

If it is true that, as Arendt once observed, “in the works of a great writer we can almost always find a consistent metaphor peculiar to him alone in which his whole work seems to come to a focus,” then her thought is certainly focussed on the image of distance or separation. A dignified individual existence, she believes, requires distance from others, the “interspace” that she described in the Hamburg speech. Compassion is dangerous, in her view, because “not unlike love,” it “abolishes the distance, the in-between which always exists in human intercourse.”

And:

We do not enter the political world to pursue justice or to create a better world. No, human beings love politics because they love to excel, and a political career is the best way to win the world’s respect.

Finally,

In “The Origins of Totalitarianism,” she points out that the first step in the Nazis’ destruction of the Jews was to make them stateless, in the knowledge that people with no stake in a political community have no claim on the protection of its laws.

I'm about to start The Origins of Totalitarianism to see what it reveals about strict Islamist regimes. It sounds like it'll say enlightening things about all stateless people, though (know any?). If I like it, I'll post more when it isn't 3am.

Today's news brought to you by the UK.

2009-01-07T21:10:00.000-08:00

So I thought that bombing a UN school and killing 40 was the humanitarian crisis that would sadden me the most during this ordeal.

Turns out I was wrong; this explains why Israel won't let foreign journalists into the area. Shooting at ambulances? Who is the army defending itself against? Those scary Red Cross workers and their gurneys.

If you don't feel like clicking, 60 or 70 members of a family were killed in one of the northern towns that the IDF took over early on. Survivors are trying to pull people out of the rubble. Rescue groups can't reach the town because the IDF is shooting at them.

His testimony confirmed accounts, first reported in The Telegraph, from survivors of the extended al Samouni clan who said they feared between 60 and 70 family members had been killed.

"Inside the Samouni house I saw about ten bodies and outside another sixty,'' Mr Shaheen said.

"I was not able to count them accurately because there was not much time and we were looking for wounded people.

"We found fifteen people still alive but injured so we took them in the ambulances.

"I could see an Israeli army bulldozer knocking down houses nearby but we ran out of time and the Israeli soldiers started shooting at us.

"We had to leave about eight injured people behind because we could not get to them and it was no longer safe for us to stay.'' Mr Shaheen was in a convoy led by a jeep from the International Committee of the Red Cross that made its way down war-damaged tracks past demolished houses to the town of Zeitoun.

For the record, I predict this will get more media attention and be one of the things that pressures Israel to pull out. Besides Obama entering office on the 20th, that is.

Also, I'm trying to get an exact handle on the timeline of events. I know that Israel originally broke the ceasefire on Nov. 4. Did Hamas fire/condone firing of rockets after that date, or had they been fired all along?

Kristof has an excellent opinion article today in the NYT; it almost makes up for the tripe Friedman is writing (and to think that I worshipped the ground the man walked on 2 years ago). Kristof:

What we’re seeing in the Middle East is the Boomerang Syndrome. Arab terrorism built support for right-wing Israeli politicians, who took harsh actions against Palestinians, who responded with more terrorism, and so on. Extremists on each side sustain the other, and the excessive Israeli ground assault in Gaza is likely to create more terrorists in the long run.
If this pattern continues, we may eventually see Hamas-style Palestinians facing off against hard-line Israelis, with each side making the others’ lives wretched — and political moderates in the Middle East politically eviscerated.

This is what I've been trying to say all along. Israel's policy is in no way creating peace.

I'm trying to restrain myself from copying and pasting the entire thing here. You really should read it.

“My colleague in Gaza works for an Israeli organization. She’s learning Hebrew, and she’s just the kind of person we can build a future with. And her 6-year-old nephew, every time a bomb drops from the air, is at first scared and then says — hopefully — maybe the Qassam Brigades will now fire rockets at the Israelis.”
Israel’s strategy has been to make ordinary Palestinians suffer in hopes of creating ill will toward Hamas. That’s why, beginning in 2007, Israel cut back fuel shipments for Gaza utilities — and why today, in the aftermath of the bombings, 800,000 Gaza residents lack running water, Ms. Bashi said.
“The Israeli policy on Gaza has been marketed as a policy against Hamas, but in reality it’s a policy against a million-and-a-half people in Gaza,” she said.

He concludes by saying that Obama needs to show Israel "love, but tough love." I can't even tell you how right that is. The right information is out there - we just need an administration that actually follows it.

In other news, I went to a Gaza protest organization meeting tonight out of curiosity and really pissed off the super-lefties there by insisting that Hamas is provoking Israel as much they are responding. Good to know I can enrage the left as much as the right! Does that make me that ever-desirable center?

Oh, and here's that Friedman article. Bad news: there are plenty of bars in the Middle East, and if he'd spent enough time there, he'd know that things are more complex than he likes to make them. My favorite part:

And because Hamas’s attacks on towns in southern Israel is destroying a two-state solution, even more than Israel’s disastrous and reckless West Bank settlements.

???

It's always the Arabs' fault. (Interestingly, I've heard the argument put forth that the settlements actually make anything except a one-state solution impossible. Chew on that.)

I'm working on a post on Afghanistan, which is generally a lot more interesting than this ideological bickering, but I want to actually get my facts straight before I put it up, so we'll see.

Also, I want to re-emphasize that you should be reading Informed Comment and Mondoweiss. It's hard for me to pick out my favorite posts from them; they are both prolific, and dead-on. Here are a few of my favorites:

Informed Comment News Roundup: Attacks on Lebanon inspired one of the 9/11 attackers directly. The UN denies the Israeli claim that mortar attacks came from the UN school that Israel bombed:

Let us just repeat that. It was a school. It was flying a UN flag. The UN had given the Israeli military the coordinates. People were seeking refuge there from Israeli air strikes and military operations. If it were true, as the Israelis now charge after the fact, that the building was being used for mortar attacks on the Israeli army, the why in the world would anyone in their right minds stay there. It would be like playing golf in a lightning storm, and Gazans are not stupid about war. Second, how come dead soldiers didn't come out of the building? The United Nations has denied this far-fetched Israeli claim.

Oh, and an MIT scholar answers my question about rockets:

Nancy Kanwisher of MIT can count and therefore so does her article. She demonstrates that after the Israel-Hamas truce was concluded in mid-June, 2008, for four months there were virtually no rockets fired at Israel. The rockets began again after two Israeli attacks that killed several Palestinians. Kaminer analyzes periods of mutual violence and relative calm in the past few years and finds that in 80% of the cases, it is Israel that has re-initiated the violence. Her well-grounded analysis demonstrates the falsehood of the allegations that it is impossible to deal with Hamas or that it has always been Hamas that has started the fighting.

Kaminer's findings make perfect sense if it is remembered that Israel is by far the stronger party and dominates the scene.

And it also has the map I've been looking for for a year! I can't Blogger to import it, but take a look. The green is what the Palestinians have control over. Who should be feeling threatened? Actually, just read the Israeli professor's article. Juicy bit (there are many): "The problem with Israel's concept of security is that it denies even the most elementary security to the other community. The only way for Israel to achieve security is not through shooting but through talks with Hamas, which has repeatedly declared its readiness to negotiate a long-term ceasefire with the Jewish state."

Ok, once again I have to stop gathering links. As a parting note, I just found the Ingaza blog.

The numbers slaughtered and injured are so high now –521 and 2,700 as of this morning, Gaza time — that sitting next to a dead or dying person is becoming normal. The stain of blood on the ambulance stretcher pools next to my coat, the medic warning me my coat may be dirtied. What does it matter? The stain doesn’t revolt me as it would have, did, one week ago. Death fills the air, the streets in Gaza, and I cannot stress that this is no exaggeration.

That, for everyone who's asked about my facebook status, is why I am heartbroken.

Arabish!!

2009-01-06T10:18:00.000-08:00

I'm working on another round-up of all the interesting things on Gaza I found this morning, but I am debating about whether posting my insightful, well-reasoned, and balanced views on the topic would jeopardize my future career. Part of me cares deeply, and part of me realizes that only 6 people read this so it doesn't matter.

In other news, I believe I found some Arabish today! Now, usually Arabish is rich AUC students using Arabic words in English grammatical structures with words like 'seminar room' and 'My new Fendi handbag' thrown in, but this appears to be an exciting example of Americans throwing some Arabic onto their advertisement to entice all us conflict-drawn students to come to their school.

It says 'EVERY' and then a shin and ya, which are the first two letters of the word for 'thing,' so it basically says EVERY THI. Ominously. Beside a building. Ahhhh!

What I keep forgetting you aren't reading about Gaza.

2009-01-05T21:16:00.001-08:00

I left Egypt a few weeks ago, and have been puttering around America. Then the ceasefire with Hamas ended and Israel bombed Gaza. I hope I get to go to Jordan in a month.

(Insert the Of Course I Support Israel's Right To Exist blurb here. For things like national security, self-determination, and because I love Jews. Alternatively, just imagine the opposite of what this Jordanian woman has to write as her disclaimer).

I have about 3 posts drafted here about the whole thing. The biggest problem is that I keep forgetting that most people here in America just don't get an even view of what's going on. Only the Israeli side is ever portrayed. Journalists weren't stationed in Gaza when fighting began; now Israel won't let them in. Al Jazeera one of the only groups doing on the ground reporting in Gaza that gives a point of view beyond the Israelis.

Anyway, it's a humanitarian crisis, no matter what Tzipi Livni says. I believe it's about Israeli elections and getting it in before Israel's carte blanche approval from the Bush Administration ends... if there's any logic behind it. There certainly aren't many diplomats or psychologists being taken into consideration, and this is only making Hamas stronger in Gaza and the eyes of the Muslim world.

Al Jazeera is doing great on the ground reporting about the humanitarian crisis while most US media stays silent, as they usually do. If you don't want to read Al Jazeera because they have Al in their name, watch this CBS video:

To keep updated on what's going on, I read the NYTimes for Israel's point of view, Al Jazeera to see what's going on on the ground in Gaza, the Christian Science Monitor if I'm bored, and BBC... among other things. Haaretz is fascinating: they normally have some of the best news coverage of the Palestinian point of view, but since the bombings began they got really patriotic.

The best aggregates, are, of course, the blogs.

Juan Cole is the all-around accepted expert on Iraqi affairs. As Gaza rolls on, his commentary is getting more inflamed (I saw the little run-in he mentions on CNN, and agree that it was very suspicious). He is the one to read if you want to say things that make you sound smarter and better-informed than your friends.

Philip Weiss is impossible to ignore.

J Street, the new progressive Jewish PAC and lobbying group. They're trying to explain why Israel's actions are not okay in a way that won't get them ostracized from the American Jewish community, and I wish them the best of luck.

I'll think about posting other things that catch my attention, or just blogging at all again, but we'll see. I have a thick stack of books to get through this break.

When I get really upset, it's good to remember that the US is no angel either. Every government makes decisions its constituents don't support.

Oh, blog, how I've missed you...

2008-12-04T23:52:00.000-08:00

AUC's backyard puts on a pretty face.

Hello, everyone!

I think I learned something: I am not so good at keeping a blog. I have... 17 days left here, hopefully through them I'll get a little better.

Part of the problem is that sometimes exciting things just aren't happening. There were several months in there where it was just the back and forth to AUC drudgery. But enough of that!

First of all, that university I mentioned briefly - Future University of Egypt - I visited. I crossed the four-lane highway that divides it from AUC, complete with the gawking, braking, hollering construction workers that were shocked to see a white girl where crowds of men are usually hitchhiking. Here's that baby from the road:

The guards laughed when I told them I wanted to take pictures, but I traded my AUC ID for a visitor pass and an escort (to protect me from the raging hoards of higabis)...

It turns out that the campus, while typical crappy Egyptian construction, is actually pretty nice. Certainly completed, which is more than you can say for its prestigious counterpart across the highway:

Despite the charming, Western architecture, this was one of the scariest experiences I've had in Egypt. I'm used to being the only unveiled girl in a large area... I'm not used to all the girls feeling completely comfortable staring blatantly at me and gossiping in their Egyptian colloquial about me to my face. Don't even get me started on the guys. Ahh! Anyway, I was definitely the observed there. It's been long enough that the feeling of sheer terror has faded, but being pinpointed on a college campus like that was way worse than the construction workers hollering. This enormous crowd of boys (Suarni! Take a picture of me!) was by far the friendliest group of people I saw:

It was totally worth it to see modernity bursting from the Coliseum, though!

Check out the full album here. You don't want to miss classics like:

So that's FUE. I haven't been able to find out the architect (if there was one). I will definitely keep trying - he deserves a huge award for geniousositiosiousness.

The next big post I really need to do is the Camel Market, but I can't do it justice in half a post so I'll put up some photos I've been taking around Cairo.

First, here's a guy in a shirt that says '50% single' (insert obligatory two wives joke), in front of the fundraiser for 'Orphan Brides.' Oh, AUC. That's a community service group that raises money to get a handful of (parentless) women married and furnish their houses. It's a noble cause. When I asked one of the leaders if it was feminist she denied it vehemently - here, just like in the US, 'feminism' is a dirty word.

There's a Coptic church that used to be a synagogue across from the AUC dorms here in Zamalek, and it gets itself all done up at night and would take a great picture if I had a tripod:

Last week, I went on a tourist boat where there was a belly dancer and this sufi dancer, who could pour - and drink! - a glass of water while spinning fast enough that this picture alone was difficult to get. He was the most masculine person I've ever seen in glitter-encrusted boots.

Some sort of military installation.

CAMELS IN A TRUCK! Little did I know how many more camels I'd see that weekend.

Fruitsellers downtown:

This herd of sheep appeared in my upper-class Nile Island of Zamalek and confused the heck out of me - a random herd of sheep isn't abnormal in Cairo, but agriculture tends not to bleed into the rich areas.

Then I learned it was Eid al Adha (or Big Eid) which celebrates God giving Abraham a ram instead of making him sacrifice his own son... I think you can guess what happens to all the sheep. The shepherds egged me into climbing into the middle of their nastiness and taking photos. They were pretty cute, though if I were them I'd be running far far away.

Anyway, that's the news from Cairo. Now I'm on Eid break, so I'm hoping to get to Sinai and climb the mountain and spend some time snorkeling, and also do all the things in Cairo I haven't done yet (like the Pyramids... cough).

Next post will be on the Camel Market, and then I have to tell you about the Black and White Desert! Then I might actually intellectualize and process some things, but eh.

Oh no, I almost forgot about the obligatory cat picture!

Typical Thursday.

2008-10-16T19:47:00.000-07:00

Someone mentioned that they still had no idea what my everyday life in Cairo was like - I apologize! I'm working on some big intellectual 'observed vs the observer' post, but in the meantime, tonight was typical of a weekend for me:

I returned from my refugee studies class and sat chilling with a few close friends and my rooommates. Eventually, I went over to my friend's house, where I found myself sitting in a room with 5 Egyptian college students, all guys, smoking cigarettes and watching the HBO John Adams program, and speaking a mix of Arabic and English about nothing.

Ismail and I took a cab to Maadi, a large expatriate-filled area of Cairo, where the Rugby Club was supposed to be having a dance party. There was lots of traffic on the way there, so it took about 45 minutes. The party was getting broken up because of a fight just as we arrived - we heard rumors of another house party, but it never materialized.

As we were returning, around 1am, a friend called from another party in the building next to mine and invited us to come, and to bring french fries. We stopped at McDonald's, picked up two larges, and headed over. There were about 8 people there, we chilled and taught them how to set up a shisha the right way. (Ismail is my shisha mentor). Their apartment was nice - good cabinetwork, cheesy of course, but it was clear someone had actually put work into it instead of setting up some couch cushions to look like a futon (as in our place). We watched the video of the buffalo vs. lions and crocodiles.

After half the people left we got in a deep discussion about the pertinence of Said's Orientalism, whether the Arab mind is actually different from the Western mind, and the political stagnation in Egypt. Eventually it turned to God, the Prophet, and why we have free will, and I heard for the first time "These are questions we are not supposed to ask." They are pretty hard to answer. At that point we heard the morning call to prayer. Since that meant it was 4:30, we packed it in.

Now the cat is playing with my hair, it's 5am, and I'm going to sleep until 11am before cleaning my apartment for tonight's dinner party. I've settled into weekend scene in Cairo.

Um alDunya: So this is what Egyptians are so proud of.

2008-10-11T09:08:00.000-07:00

There's a lot of emphasis on ancient Egyptian history here. I finally got to go see some of it over Eid. Eid is the 3-day holiday after the end of Ramadan when everyone does a lot of eating, and when I'm grateful that the falafel place will be open before 7pm. We went to Aswan and Luxor, the spots in Upper Egypt far down the Nile where the Pharaohs buried themselves and built a bunch of things.

First, we took a train ride that was supposed to be 15 hours but turned out to be about 20. The bathrooms were not pleasant (we got to write a song called 'The Ballad of the Shoe Poo,' and we weren't joking), but we had some interesting sleeping arrangements:

From Eid: The train and Aswan (Abu Simbel)

Also, the Egyptian Nile countryside is incredibly charming and full of palm trees:

From Eid: The train and Aswan (Abu Simbel)

Aswan itself is a tourist town. You can tell when the police station obviously cost twice as much as the train station. There, we got our first taste of European women wandering around in short shorts getting hassled by men in gallabeyas.

We met the next morning at 3:30am to join a police convoy to Abu Simbel. Because terrorists attacked some tourists in the region several years ago, all us foreigners are guarded very carefully. This convoy is a joke, though. It leaves at set times every day, so all the foreigners are in a certain place at a certain time that everybody knows about. Safe!

The driving is even safer. I'm not sure what happened to the rest of the convoy, but we were going over 100mph (someone took a picture of the speed dial and converted from kilometers) through the desert over these pothole-filled roads. That was definitely the scariest part of the trip. I also understand why, if you don't like someone, you take them out and dump them in the desert. It was eerie with the sun rising. I took pictures, but even my super camera couldn't handle our speed.

Luckily, we soon arrived back in Tourististan outside Abu Simbel. We paid to get in and took the walk around. It was very large. The Egyptians had a good understanding of symmetry and intimidating statuary.

From Eid: The train and Aswan (Abu Simbel)

I actually liked Nefertari's tomb better: though the front is nearly as intimidating, inside there are statues of Hathor, and the spaces are quite intimate. It was nicely feminine... or a nice space designed by a man to be feminine. It is the only temple build by a pharaoh for his wife, and it's a lovely little number. I wasn't allowed to take pictures inside, but here's someone else's:

And my picture of the exterior:

From Eid: The train and Aswan (Abu Simbel)

We skipped the Great Dam - the Nile dam that created Lake Nassar, the second-largest lake in the world. Lake Nassar also flooded the valley that contained Abu Simbel (it was moved very quickly!), and some other places. It is a lovely lake, but it was impossible to get a picture because of all the tourists.

Egypt's tourist economy is a little surreal once you've been living like a regular upper-class Egyptian for the past couple of months. It's a completely fake experience with people trying to sell you things all the time. For example, check out the bathroom at Abu Simbel:

From Eid: The train and Aswan (Abu Simbel)

It was actually the cleanest bathroom I'd been in since the beginning of the trip. The fake flowers make it just like the Four Seasons!

After that, we saw the Unfinished Obelisk, an obelisk Hatshepsut tried to erect. It was going to be the biggest obelisk ever made - that's Freudian. Sadly, it cracked as they were taking it out so now it's a display piece for foreigners.

Then it was onto Philae, a Ptolemaic (greekish) island temple. It was also moved when it was flooded by Lake Nassar, and apparently they weren't able to set it up with the same axes on the new island, but it was still charming.

From Eid: The train and Aswan (Abu Simbel)

Philae might have been my favorite place. There weren't many people there, the boat ride out to the island was lovely, and the carvings were gorgeous and intimate. It had great columns.

From Eid: The train and Aswan (Abu Simbel)

Our tour guide told us that the Nubians, the people who live in villages in Upper Egypt and have their own culture were also flooded out by Lake Nassar and now have to live in towns instead of on the desert as they were used to. He talked about how the lake destroyed Nubian culture - probably the most enlightening thing he said. Eminent domain isn't only a problem in the States. There was a beautiful little Nubian village beside the temple, all colorful stucco houses in the side of a craggy hill.

After these sites, we were dropped off at our felucca: a raggedy old boat with, uh, nothing other than a giant cushion and 7 pillows under and awning. It looked dirty. It looked like they washed the food in the Nile. We were very, very skeptical about the felucca, where we were supposed to spend the next 2 nights. We took refuge in the (very clean, even more expensive than in Zamalek) McDonalds. McDonald's had free internet, and I had the pleasure of seeing some tourist wave an American $20 bill in a worker's face and being flat-out rejected. Tourists in Egypt are an unbelievable level of gauche - but the Americans are SO much better than the Europeans, shockingly. We stole some toilet paper, too... maybe scratch what I said about the Americans.

Anyway, we boarded (literally, walked across this narrow board) the boat with trepidation, but once we got out into the middle of the Nile it was stunningly gorgeous. That afternoon was so relaxing, sailing sloowly down the river with the wind whipping around us, and watching the sunset on the banks:

From Eid: The Felucca

The south (Upper Egypt) is just so much more relaxed than Cairo, and so much more beautiful. It's still hazy, but there is a ridiculous amount of greenery along the Nile.

Animals are just left out to graze. Here I am getting along deceivingly well with a donkey - right after this he turned around and tried to kick me, so I scampered back onto the boat.

From Eid: The Felucca

We stopped for lunch beside a village, and the younger guy of the two driving the boat took us out and walked us around the village. It was poor, and unbelievably hot, but it was functioning. Rock slides weren't killing people. There were charming paintings on garages:

From Eid: The Felucca

That's not a painting, but it's adorable heart graffiti.

Obviously our 10-minute walk (my poor pale skin couldn't handle more of the sun) didn't teach me anything about rural Egypt, but I think I'd rather be a poor farmer than poor in the city. At least there are incredibly delicious dates. I pulled a bunch off the tree and we ate them on the boat. They were mind blowing; I'm trying to dry dates on the balcony now.

We spent the first night sleeping underneath a bridge as literally hundreds of massive cruise ships - sleeper boats, 5-star hotels on water - growled past us in the water. There was one every 5 minutes. I think there is an overabundance of them... and I would be sad to be in one instead of slowly cruising up the Nile.

From Eid: The Felucca

The second night we joined about 6 other feluccas on a beach. Apparently this is the beach they always dock on. A few girls wandered over to the other group - it was an Australian tour group. They spent the night after sunset setting bonfires, playing "Nubian" music, drinking, and otherwise being rowdy. The higlight of the night may have been when we heard barking and growling, followed by a splash and then screaming. Someone's going to need to get some shots.

Our felucca drivers were interesting characters. The captain was an old man in a white galabeya who coughed like he had TB and made us all very nervous. He had a younger minion, Alaa, who cooked for us (oh god, the best food I've had in Egypt, that man was a genius) and who was hard to wake up in the morning. He also ran off at inopportune times to swim in the Nile, and was basically rebellious. He was a good time, though - I think we all felt bad for him for being stuck sailing boats for tourists when he was our age. At the same time, it can't be a bad deal just sailing up and down the Nile all the time and getting good money for it. Class tension, whether from foreigners or Egyptians themselves, is ever-present here.

We landed in Edfu, a neighboring town of Luxor's, and were dropped off at a temple to wait for the next police convoy (they don't let us escape!). We stopped at Horus's temple next, which was much larger than Philae, but the same concept and just not that exciting. As I remember when I was in Greece, after a while all these monuments just start to look the same. You also get tired of paying 25 or 50 Egyptian pounds when your Arab friends pay 1. Here's a picture, though:

From Eid: Horus' Temple, Luxor Temple, Memnon Statues, Valley of the Kings

We arrived in Luxor, changed, and headed out to see the Luxor Temple. It was gorgeous. The town of Luxor was built on top of it, and so someone had to tear down all the buildup to excevate it. My favorite part was this mosque that they'd left because it was also historical:

From Eid: Horus' Temple, Luxor Temple, Memnon Statues, Valley of the Kings

That's a door that you shouldn't use to leave.

From Eid: Horus' Temple, Luxor Temple, Memnon Statues, Valley of the Kings

After Luxor, we got stuck on the street speaking to the guy who spoke Fusha Arabic. Fusha is formal Arabic, and it's what we learn in school, but it's like speaking Olde English on the street - it's non-functional. This guy we could actually understand. It was incredibly hot, and the flies were bad, though, so I was more interested in meeting the kids on the street:

From Eid: Horus' Temple, Luxor Temple, Memnon Statues, Valley of the Kings

The next morning we did a whirlwind tour of the West Bank, and not the one you're thinking of. The west bank is home to the Valley of the Kings, this incredible Late Kingdom cemetary. We used the stairs and ramps and handholds to get into the most buried tombs (climb over a cliff face. Climb down the other side. Climb up into the entrance. Cross a massive pit. Keep going down) that grave robbers still managed to get into. You aren't really allowed to take any interesting pictures, but the wall paintings were beautiful, colorful, and being destroyed by the thousands of tourists that breath on them every day. It was almost sad.

We also stopped at the Colossi of Memnon, these two massive statues. The temple around them is long since gone, which somehow makes them even more striking:

From Eid: Horus' Temple, Luxor Temple, Memnon Statues, Valley of the Kings

Finally, we went to Hatshepsut's Temple. I've been looking forward to Hatshepsut's temple since I learned I was coming to Egypt. Not only is it exciting that a female pharaoh managed to build something so amazing (that even her vengeful son couldn't destroy), it's one of the most beautiful buildings ever built. Seriously.

From Eid: Hatshepsut's Temple

Many people have written more intelligent things than I on the temple, but maybe I'll write another post on it at some point (ha, hah). It was definitely the most spiritual experience of the trip - the only building I felt like touched me personally. I was kind of on a high after that.

From Eid: Hatshepsut's Temple

Finally, we did Karnak. Karnak is huge. Here is the pool that the 250 priests used to bathe in every morning before prayers:

From End of Eid: Karnak Temple

We got back to our hotel in Luxor and stayed there until our overnight train left at 11pm. During that time, my dad called and told me that my older dog, Homer, was dying... so that was kind of a damper on the trip. The rest of the trip was subdued.

We did, apparently, have seats that had to be bought with large bribes (our travel agent's fault for not planning ahead). It was a little surreal being on a completely full train and knowing that 7 people got thrown off for our wealthy foreigner selves. The foreigner dynamic is something that I could write 5 other posts on, though, so I'll leave that for soon.

Since coming back, AUC has been only more frustrating, but I feel reinvigorated to talk about experiencing Egypt again. Being in a more relaxed, beautiful place for a week helped my mental state a lot. Things like AUC not having a cafeteria on campus, even after Ramadan, are not. More to come!

All my photos are online at http://picasaweb.google.com/alyssa.bernstein. There are a lot, so feel free to check them out! Eventually they'll be captioned - it was overwhelming enough getting them up there.

Egyptian Sunrise

2008-10-09T20:44:00.000-07:00

I'm working on a loooong post about my recent trip to Luxor and Aswan; it'll be full of exciting pictures.

However, as usual I'm seeing the sun rise this Thursday night (the weekend starts Friday, so don't worry, I get to sleep). Smog over Cairo is strangely beautiful:

And here's a bonus cat picture:

He's chilling in my handbag. I can't explain that sock - he pulled it out of my laundry and apparently brings it with him now. How did it get onto the couch?

Ugh, now it's legit morning and I must go to bed.

Gamia Amrikia Gadida... American University, the new one.

2008-09-18T03:12:00.000-07:00

So in case you hadn't heard, my university here in Egypt just build a massive campus in New Cairo - a government-sponsored suburb in the desert that is, as of now, basically deserted. And in the middle of the desert.

...it may look nice there, but it's surrounded by sand with some groundwork for new, cheap buildings. The campus itself has some nice buildings. It's very Mamluk.

I have to do a blog post just on the trip here and back: it's mind-blowing going from Downtown Cairo through Islamic Cairo to the slums that are high-rise apartments that are just slabs of concrete and stair frames filled in with bricks. The rebar for additional levels sticks out the top. That's how you do low-income housing right.

After that, there's just wasteland desert, and then the construction begins again - same style of building, but the contractors stick as much plaster faux-Roccoco junk on them as they can, and they're McMansions! Just wait til I get pictures. There are also the construction guys who pile into the back of pick-up trucks - they're the ones who get 30LE a day to work. That's like what I spend on groceries.

Also, sometimes we get caught in traffic. Once there was a 4-year-old girl eating cookies in the car next to me so I made the hand motion for 'I'm hungry, please give me a few pounds so I can buy some food' and pointed at her cookie, and she totally got it and thought I was hilarious! The women here love me.

Beyond that, our dinner parties have continued successfully. We've even started inviting some Egyptians. Sadly, they're better for the Egyptians' English than our Arabic. I did just get a tutor, though, so things will improve, insha'allah.

In terms of classes here: I begged my way into 'The Making of the Modern Arab World.' It's a sophmore-level history course, so it's kind of a joke with the work (Today's assignment - talk about something Turkish in Egyptian culture! It can be your last name!), but it's almost ALL Egyptian students. The teachers says 'us' and 'them' meaning 'Arabs' and 'The US,' respectively. As a white person, nothing could make me happier. (especially since I'm already abroad - Africa, woot woot!). That said, I'm not sure how the 'Find out about your family's background so we can learn more about Egyptian history' assignment is going to work for me: 'Uhh, the Mayflower colonized a different part of the world more cruelly - at least you weren't an American Indian!'

I'm lucky to be in the class though because classes are actually pretty divided between study-abroad students and Egyptians. We take all the ME classes, and they take Oil Engineering and English Rhetoric. Not as much overlap as I'd hoped. Hopefully after Ramadan when parties start again there will be more social interaction.

I'm also taking Women, Islam, and the State, which I'm a little nervous about - it kind of epitomizes everything I'm interested in, which maybe means that I already know more than I should about it. When our first reading mentioned that women's studies is the most widely-written about and studied topic in Middle East Studies, it made me feel a little less special. Also, when one of the students read an Edward Said article (please see my post on Orientalism) and said that it blew his mind and made him feel guilty, I realized that maybe I would learn more about the culture taking Intro to AutoCAD (funded by USAID!).

Finally, I'm taking a graduate seminar (if you can call a class with 27 people a seminar) on Forced Migration and Refugee Issues. We'll see how much it's about ME refugees, but it definitely addresses refugees from an academic perspective rather than just practically. I wish I could say it was interesting, but we've spent the past 3 weeks talking about the definition of refugee (do they count as a refugee if they were displaced by a hurricane? What about a tsunami? What about rabid wolves set loose by researches bored out of their minds by this circular debate?)

Anyway, classes are mediocre and that is not the only issue with AUC. For example, we have a week's break for Eid, followed by 1 day of school on Sunday, and then another day off for 6th of October Day, and they only canceled the lonely day yesterday. They also had a university administrator quoted on the front page of the student news that international students should not have been allowed to attend this year because of the new campus upheaval. Heartening.

Beyond being distracted by all the exciting things happening here - and sleeping through the bus rides - I've been trying to get internet in our apartment set up for the past 4.5 weeks. That's actually a good example of how things get done in Egypt:

I asked the internet cafe downstairs who I called to get internet. The guy at the counter didn't understand me (though he kept saying 'exactly!'), but someone overheard us and gave me a random 5-digit number.

Well, I called it, pressed 2 for English, and spent the next week on the phone with them trying to figure out my phone number and the name of the owner of the apartment because I couldn't read it on the contract. Turns out it was Mahmoud Ibrahim Moustafa, so I could have just guessed and I'd have been right.

(note: Instead of posting on my blog for the past 2 days, I've watching Mad Men and The Office - the guy from Mad Men is on The Office!!! My worlds converge!)

After I faxed my contract to the sales representative, they send the guy with the contract. We're on the street the next day trying to hail a cab, and a random guy walks up to us and asks 'Internet?' He's waving a contract. He's two hours late. He's carrying the wrong contract. We send him home...

Good thing, too, because it turns out that another company already is sending internet into the apartment. I finally figure out which one it is - at this point, Ahmed and his translator, the computer technician Tarek have been introduced to the problem - and call them.

This part is kind of boring, but they give me someone's phone number and he gives me 2 other numbers, neither of which work, so after another 3 days I call the company back again.

Oh, I forgot! So this is all during Ramadan, which means that everything is open from 9-3pm, and then from 8-11pm, so nothing really gets done anyway.

They tell me to contact someone at AUC. Sound familiar? They tell me to look for the Corporate Office. Of course that doesn't exist; no one I talk to has heard of it. By the way, half of AUC's administration is still downtown and half is on the New Campus. I do have a name, but no one has heard of her. Luckily my roommaate dropped the name of someone who helped with her internet, a few days later, and it was the same person!

I go to talk to the woman, who reassures me that we do in fact have internet, but we need a new contract. She sends me to this guy named Moustafa. We are all set to go with our 1-mega connection to the outside world when he tells me that the last people in the apartment stole the router they were renting, so he can't give us a contract at all. I have to argue it out with him. Then he takes another 4 days trying to get the technician side of the company to contact me (of course he doesn't have their phone number). Finally I go to RadioShack and buy and install the router myself - and, over 1 month later, we are good to go!

So Egypt: worse than Comcast. Who would have thought it was possible? Luckily no one has contacted me about signing a contract or paying.

I am headed to Aswan and Luxor this evening. Luckily most of the kidnappers are dead, so I should be safe. Monuments, hurrah! I will take lots of pictures and show you when I return. I am sorry if this entry is sub-par: I'm writing quickly so I can go pack, and just trying to get back into the groove.

Here are some kitten pictures!

Teaching Immigrants to Bicycle in Denmark

2008-09-11T06:15:00.000-07:00

Classes have started, and now that I'm intellectually stimulated I feel like posting more.

I'm slightly obsessed with Denmark - mostly because of the bicycling blogs I've been reading. Denmark is probably the polar opposite of Egypt. Copenhaganize just posted about teaching (Arab women) immigrants to bicycle(note the photo disclaimer, haha). Definitely not possible - culturally - here in Egypt, as far as I've seen. Abayyas get caught in the gears.

I'm thinking about spending the $300 I need for a bus pass on (don't read this, Mom or Dad) the Vespa I've always dreamed of. I've never seen a woman riding a scooter alone here, though, and that plus how I'd get distracted every time I passed a horse and cart galloping beside me would probably lead to disaster. Also I don't feel like bribing the government for a motorcycle license.

A Grown-Up Visits the YPU.

2008-09-11T05:46:00.000-07:00

I just read Phillip Weiss' post on visiting the Yale Political Union for the debate 'Resolved: The US Should Ends Its Special Relationship with Israel." The article reminded me why I'm so in love with the Union - it's probably the thing I miss most at Yale (beside not having to take an hour-long bus ride to class).

It was the first Yale Political Union meeting of the year and the first
hour was taken up with the chairmen of the various political groups introducing themselves from the stage and appealing to the freshmen to join them. I had never been inside such a formal society before, with so many mannerisms. No one clapped, they drummed deskboards and books. No one booed; they hissed. The chairmen gave theatrical speeches. “The left is broken!” “Resolved, that happiness is a noble lie.” “Liberalism is the plague of modernity.” The skinny Tory in a bowtie and three piece suit said it was an open question when America ’s values were ruined. Was it the 60s? Was it the 16th amendment? Was it the eighteenth? He held up a card saying Prohibition. Or did it go back further. To 1776. The president of the society said, “Clarence Thomas had a single conversation with John Bolton at Yale that changed his entire life." So: imagine the impact you can have here.

I felt overawed. I remembered that Yale is the most intellectual of the Ivies, the kids aren’t hustlers the way that Harvard kids are, are not as urbane as Columbia students, they’re just smarter. And yet the mannerism was so odd my jaw dropped. I could see Mearsheimer chuckling on stage. This is the way they had behaved for centuries. I thought of the time 4 years ago when I came out of the bush in New Guinea with a Tolai guide and into a village where they were having an all-night fire dance wearing strange bird costumes in a field and I was the only white person within miles. I was privileged that night. Well, now the privilege was mine again.

Read the whole thing, if you want a good taste of Yale. I'm only sorry that there weren't any good speeches from the Left, and his favorite invoked that old standby, the oppressed Arab woman.

But then he reminded me of why I also hate the Union:

If the theme of this article is lost on you, I should state it baldly. These kids are the smartest kids in the world, and they are not interested in identity politics. When Mearsheimer went on about Lebanon and Suez, they knew what he meant. When Tory held up the 16th Amendment, they knew what he was talking about. Serious people with not an ounce of street smarts, forming their world views in a privileged, idealist petri dish, they have little doubt about this question--44-25.

I appreciate the compliment, but he hits it on the nose: while we can talk in intellectual circles all day long (ok, the Right can, I get distracted by Battlestar Galactica), we are out of touch with how the actual world works. Absorbed in our philosophy classes, we often have little idea about the Facts On The Ground. Rhetoric trumps practicality. Debates like this on deep philosophical issues are fabulous. More realistic ones like 'End Government Support for Homeless People' spill into chaos.

Don't get me wrong, I still love the Union. I spent the last year figuring out how seriously to take it. But I'm finding that in Egypt, actually experiencing the world I like talking about so much, I have more realistic ideas and am better able to elucidate them. That's another topic for another post, though.

For Gumaa (Friday) dinner, I'm making this. It'll either be amazing or a disaster. I'll take pictures!

And a note on Orientalism...

2008-09-10T16:50:00.000-07:00

I just couldn't pass the photo on that article up: a perfect lesson in Orientalism! The photo was taken in Fishawri's coffee shop, a famous old cafe in a tourist/entertainment district. The photographer managed to get only Arabs in it - men, of course, (no women are mentioned in the article, either) drinking tea, having another pointless conversation about politics. Considering the location, it's amazing there isn't a haltertop-clad Russian smoking shisha behind them.

But wait! There is that one woman! Oh, yes, she's wearing hijab, she's looking a little tense: the US is out to get her - or is it the men at the table? BBC did just publish an article on catcalling in Cairo.

Either way, the photo caters to Western stereotypes about the Arab world: oppressed women scurrying around men who do nothing but talk. The image of the hijabi (if I'm remember the word for woman who wears hijab) is the go-to image of Eastern conservatism and backwardness to the American viewer. Is it really necessary? Please note that a woman without a covered head is walking right behind her - had the photographer waited 5 seconds, he would have got her.

Don't get me wrong, 95% of the Egyptian (and Gulf) women I see on Cairo's streets cover their heads. However, the NYT should be conscious (and is, I believe) of the message they send. The article is meant to be incendiary, and they chose the picture to match it.

Rumors in the Arab World

2008-09-09T00:28:00.000-07:00

I'm not sure if this article is on my front page because of my Egyptian IP address or because the NYT feels like being inflammatory: "9/11 Rumors that Become Conventional Wisdom." It's about rumors in Cairo that the US and Israel set up 9/11.

Now my Egyptian colloquial Arabic is not good enough to have discussions at the conspiracy theory level yet. The best I get is people saying 'I love you America!' after I tell them I'm American.

However, I actually wouldn't doubt that people (actually men, since no women are quoted) are talking about it: maybe not to the degree that the article wants to claim, but still. The comparison between Middle Easterners who think America had a hand in 9/11 and Americans who don't think that Iraq was about oil and colonialism is quite apt. Both views are ignorant. For me, the idea that the American government would kill its own people is more distasteful... but we've killed a lot of Iraqis.

Actually, reading the article through a second time, I think it's quite interesting and maybe right on the money: Arabs don't trust the US government and think that it's waging a war on Islam itself. They have plenty of reasons. I once overheard someone say: "I realized that Americans are trying to fight Islam itself. I've got some bad news. There are 1 billion Muslims - you're not going to win!"

Whether or not waging war on Islam is the neoconservative goal, the author points out that the whole thing (actually all American foreign policy) is a public relations disaster:

It is easy for Americans to dismiss such thinking as bizarre. But that would miss a point that people in this part of the world think Western leaders, especially in Washington, need to understand: That such ideas persist represents the first failure in the fight against terrorism — the inability to convince people here that the United States is, indeed, waging a campaign against terrorism, not a crusade against Muslims.

It's not so much an inability. Americans are very good at advertising abroad - Pepsi dominates here (and Hardee's). Instead, however, American policy has included a complete lack of desire to understand the people we're working with, and it's made it impossible to actually wage a war on terror.

So I realized yesterday that if McCain wins the election, I'm not going to be able to find a job after graduation (partially because of this blog). Please, everyone, donate some money to Obama.

That's my two cents from Cairo. Next time, I'll talk about my classes and working out in the AUC gym (many, many men). If I find somewhere to upload photos, I'll post pictures of the kitten Osirus - he's growing!

2008-09-07T01:34:00.000-07:00

It's about time I get around to that explanation of the blog. My name, 'Al Mustashriqa,' is the feminized form of the compound of seeking, ista, and east, sharq, and means 'She Who Seeks the East,' or really 'The Orientalist.'

Orientalism, the study of the East, used to be a legitimate scholarly field that examined the ancient Middle East (and sometimes Far East). It became a study of the contemporary Mideast under colonialism to classify and categorize colonized societies. It became called Area Studies and other things during the 20th century.

However, in the mid-1970's, Edward Said published a book called 'Orientalism' that blew up the scholars' spot(s). He explained how Orientalism as a field was about viewing the East, specifically the Middle East, as a uncivilized, immature complement to (or rouge child of) the civil West. You know how that justifies colonialism; what Said argued was that Orientalism specifically saw Easterners as unchanging, exotic, overly sexualized, and unthinking people to study rather than equals. Orientalism institutionalizes seeing the Middle East as uniform (all Arabs are terrorists), unchanging (Arab culture has always been violent and always will be), and threatening (need I explain?). The past 8 years have shown clearly enough that Orientalism in thought, if not name, is still prevalent.

So why would I choose to associate myself with such repellent school of thought? Truthfully, 30 years after Orientalism was published, a lot of academic thought is post-Orientalism: we know it exists, we know we shouldn't do it, and we're trying to figure out how, exactly, to study the East without Orientalising it. Part of being post-whatever is admitting that it's impossible to escape: the title admits my point of view as a Westerner looking Eastward, acknowledges my awareness of Orientalism, and implies hope that I don't Orientalize.

That just leaves the picture I use, called 'The White Slave,' which I was worried was over the top before I arrived. Now I realize it's more apt than I thought. (but don't worry, I'm not getting naked for anyone). It deserves a whole post of its own, in fact - in due time. Now it's time for class: Art and Architecture of Cairo. Yay!

A brief update, though Cairo is boring

2008-09-07T01:16:00.000-07:00

It's been even longer since my last post. Things just aren't as exciting: I'm settling into the apartment, realizing I don't speak the language well enough to really communicate, getting bored with tourist sites, realizing I don't speak the language well enough to berate my scary landlady and lazy doormen for not fixing all the problems in my apartment. We had another successful dinner party (I made ricotta gnocchi) I haven't been to any more hospitals or anything like that.

We did adopt a kitten! A friend called me early one morning, told me she had found a kitten, and asked if we'd take care of it. He mewed the whole way home in a paper bag, and we discovered that he loves shiny things as soon as we got him home:

Cute, right? He sleeps under my armpit, when he's not trying to eat my hair. Or peeing in my bed (gr). He attacks any meat we let him get near - he'll creep up to it like he's just exploring, and then leap on the plate (or bowl in the sink - he climbs legs) like a tiny monster. Rawr! Apparently he's about 5 weeks old, and in a week we can start feeding him solid food.

I'm sitting on American University in Cairo's new campus. It's in the middle of the desert, and designed like giant Mamluk ruins. It's about as labyrinth as a pyramid - I think the architects did that on purpose to match the bureaucracy. There's still the same awkward rich college students interacting with poor college workers, but I'm not sure how much students here notice it. It's literally the first day on the campus, so nothing is organized. I've given up on getting anything done, or getting to my classes on time.

I had to get up at 5:30 am - that's not Cairo time! The new campus is an hour away from my apartment in Downtown Cairo, and it's a nasty, early morning bus ride. My Arabic class seems like it'll be alright; I'm in the advanced book, finally, and need to really buckle down with my vocab, etc. I think I'll spend the night studying (if I don't go shopping).

I could explain my travails trying to get internet hooked up in the apartment - I love calling the company, them telling me to call some other guy, him telling me to call someone else the next day. But is that really that interesting? It isn't. I'm going to go take a nap on a dusty bench. The entire campus is covered in construction dust; it doesn't help that it's in a desert.

(and we totally learned the word for 'complain' in Arabic yesterday).

First Egyptian Hospital!

2008-09-01T14:47:00.000-07:00

I am sorry, dear reader, for deserting you for so long - the truth is, we've found a wonderful group of English-speaking international students here at AUC that we had over for dinner on Friday, and we've been so busy since then discovering that all our political views are the same (and that everyone knows each others' boyfriends' roommates, except me) and wandering the tourist traps and cooking for Iftar (the evening meal after fasting for the day during Ramadan), that I just haven't been able to get to a computer!

Oh, also I spent a day doubled over as my body took revenge on me for drinking from the tap.

I was due for a downfall - I was eating at (cleaner) shwarma places, eating fruit I hadn't peeled myself, licking taxies... but still, this was water I had boiled!

I drank two cups from our 'boiled water pitcher' Friday night. I woke up the next morning with a few cramps, and figured I was hungry, so I ate breakfast! Not an hour later ,I found myself curled up in front of my roommate's door, begging her for drugs. Any kind. I had no idea you got cramps from food poisoning, but man, I'm definitely not having children after this.

She told me to call Medex (Yale's emergency global health service), and they directed me to a hospital a few miles away. (I love you, Mother Yale). We also got Lara, another Yalie, to come over. She actually speaks some Arabic so she's handy, and she's also fun.

I curled up in the elevator and cried, and we took a taxi to the hospital. I immediately put the AUC clinician on the phone with the receptionist - Arabic was a bit out of my skill set that day, I decided (and yesterday, and today - I need to get back on that). The receptionist shuffled me into a doctor's office in due time, as I whimpered in the waiting room.

This doctor hated me. 'What's wrong,' he asked dully. I explained. 'How many times have you thrown up?' he asked, and seemed unimpressed when I told him none (little did he know how soon that would change!). He made me lie down on the patient bed, and suddenly this nurse with a syringe appeared. I lifted up my sleeve hopefully, but she shook her head and pointed lower.

There was no way I was getting a shot in my nether regions if I could help it, so I immediately called the AUC doctor in hopes she'd tell me I didn't need it. Meanwhile, the nurse reached for my khakis and unbuttons and unzips them, as the doctor looks on - there was a curtain beside the bed, but no one made any effort to use it. I may be American, but I have some shame. I glared at him, and finally held it closed myself. At least this country is teaching me what's important about the division of the sexes.

After this loss of my dignity, he shoved a prescription in my hand and we shuffled out. He also told me I can't eat dairy for 3 days (puh-leez). We're waiting to check out when my stomach sends me some dramatic warning signals. I'm suddenly grateful I'm holding a Metro Supermarket plastic bag in my hand because I put it to good use in front of all 40 people crammed together in the too-small waiting room. The room looked at me with alarm, but especially the American and Italian-- you could be me, guys! Lara shoved me towards the bathroom, which was too small to shut the door.

A nurse rubbed my back, and according to Lara, she was the only person in the room as upset as I am - she kept walking up to them and saying (in Arabic) - 'Oh, no! I feel so bad! She's so cute! Beautiful!' Homeless was more how I'd describe myself. For some reason, though, the women here love me (and the men, but usually not when I'm barfing into a plastic bag).

The rest of the day was not fun. I did learn to sleep sitting up. The doctor prescribed me a total of $7 worth of drugs, including something called 'Gast Reeg,' and an antibiotic the size of an cucumber. We chilled and took the day easy.

Yesterday we went to the Kahn, that souk again. The pictures are more interesting than the story, and can be found on my Picasa page (I'd love to get Flickr - anyone want to buy me an account?)

Today is the first day of Ramadan, and for some reason it's the first day anything we've needed done in the apartment has actually happened. I met a guy named Ahmed (everyone in Egypt is named Ahmed, Mohammed, or Mahmoud) who helps my landlady, and he has just enough English that I can tell him all my problems. He fixed the TV so we can watch the Ramadan soaps, and got a guy to look at the broken shade. He also looked at all the pictures I've been taking of cats.

We just finished Iftar, and Lara brought back a huge plate of pastries and is leaving them here in our fridge - ahhh! The pastry strategy here appears to be take some cheese, wrap it in dough, deep fry it, and soak it in honey. I'm down. I also need to find a gym!

Now I'm just like them.

2008-08-28T14:40:00.000-07:00

Nisreen and I bought a ridiculous ton of groceries (we're nesting!), and I was assigned salt. I decided to get one from this little spice shop around the corner (I live around the corner from a spice shop!). Let's forget about how the guy behind the counter thought 'too much' meant 'a little more,' and then sold me $5 worth of cumin (jerk). They sold salt in wooden boxes at the door, and I want to be authentic, so I bought some. It is delicious - it's nice, well-bodied sea salt, but it is dirty, dirty stuff. I'm grinding some with our mortar and pestle (!) now, and I just picked a bunch of bark, 2 staples, and an eyelash out of it. But it tastes great.

Some boys in Zamalek practicing for when they become old men.

So, as I mentioned, last night I went to a wedding!! It turned out to be an engagement party, but it was still the same concept, and hella fun. We were an hour late because we tried getting our groceries delivered, and they deliver in a half hour Egyptian time - an hour and 15 minutes. Ahmed held up the wedding party until we got there (and I smartly refused to give our taxi driver my phone number).

Driving over the Nile.

We arrived at Ahmed's family's apartment and spent some time hanging out with the bride and groom - we could managed 'congratulations!' and 'beautiful!' (though I think I said the masculine,) and then there was some sitting around awkwardly.

Mother of the bride, Groom, Bride, little sister, Ahmed. She had coordinated even her eyeshadow to the gold and blue on her dress! I actually really liked the whole thing. That's also a huge hoop skirt.

Nisreen and me.

Finally, we piled out and into the street, and arranged ourselves in several cars. Nisreen and I ended up sitting next to the bride's mother, who definitely didn't speak any English, and I didn't want to attempt any Arabic and insult her - so the ride consisted of a lot of clapping and shoulder dancing to the music and her ululating (I wanted to try, but again, the desire not to insult...). To celebrate weddings, people honk their car horns a LOT as they drive along, blast music, and (don't read this, mom) swing the wheel from side to side so the car goes all over the road like a roller coaster! Usually this is done when there aren't two cars in a single lane on-ramp, but not always.

Ahmed's alley.

We drove in a semi-caravan, and stopped by the side of the road quite a bit because it was very difficult to get to the nadi (club) where the celebration was. It took about an hour and a half, all told.

An uncle and two little sisters - they were much happier, I just caught them at an odd moment. They were super-cute!

This picture of the two of them going into the hall would be SO perfect - if it were in focus. And then my camera ran out of batteries.

After they had their first dance (My Heart Will Go On), half the room got up and danced - the women on the stage, the men below.

Women's circle.

Someone convinced me to get up and dance, and I did with the women for a bit - they made me dance with the bride, even though I was just the funny looking foreigner! Then they shoved me into the men's circle, which I'm sure is totally haram (not allowed!)-- it's not fair when I'm forced to break cultural customs.

Men's circle.

Everyone, including all the fathers, seemed very pleased though and gave me thumbs up... or I gave them thumbs up and they grinned and said a bunch of things I didn't understand... I was so sweaty at this point I can't remember. Then the circles kind of merged, and I convinced Nisreen to go back up with me.

And I was swept up by this teenager in all purple who didn't speak a word of English but made it very clear that I was to follow her every belly dancing move, and that she found this hilarious. I don't think she got it when I said 'mish mumkin' - not possible!, but she taught me a new thing to do with my fingers when I dance that I sure hope isn't rude!

I think I, the belly-dancing blonde (badly), was the novelty at the party... but whatever, it was totally fun. I ended up dancing with a little 9 year old girl named Dina at the end, and she was the cutest- they're adorable before they learn to shimmy. For once, the girls weren't afraid of me, they loved me! I learned all their names and promptly forgot them. I had to sit the rest of it out outside I so exhausted myself, and chatted with the hotel guys and Nisreen.
We did a little tour of Cairo with just the family (I think Ahmed might actually think I'm going to be his next wife... we might need to have a talk) to take photos, and then headed back to their place, where we made some jokes and talked about how much we eat (lots!).

The father (baba), who was completely adorable and not at all creepy, changed into his gallabeya, kind of like a night gown you can wear in public, and said something unintelligable to me. His family berated him, and someone translated for me: "He said you looked very beautiful dancing tonight." Sweet, the first not at all sketchy old Egyptian man I meet also turns out to be looking at my butt.

Ahmed finally sent us home at - get this - 4am, with a few of his cousins. I made the fatal mistake of giving one of them my number, so we could exchange music in the future.. and he proceeded to call me before I got back to my apartment, text me 'i geuss ur aslep sinnce u didnot pick up but sweet dreems!', call me this afternoon (I hung up on him), call me on a DIFFERENT number so I picked up, begged me to tell him what he did wrong, and then text me a lengthy apology. I will not be giving my number out again. Ahmed said he tried to warn me - but he didn't do it soon enough!

Tonight there was a little soriee at AUC's new campus, in New Cairo, a brand-new (as in not built) suburb. New Cairo is a story unto itself, but the AUC thing was not remarkable. When the campus is actually built, instead of just one half-finished building, it'll be gorgeous! Hope it's done before classes next Sunday.

Tomorrow, we've invited all the study abroads (and a few locals) we've met over for dinner!

Getting used to it.

2008-08-27T03:39:00.001-07:00

I was hoping I would start this entry with “So, I’ve finally fallen in love with Egypt.” I signed the lease on a stunning apartment that overlooks the city and the Nile yesterday. Today we went to a huge market – bazaar, if you will – to get clean pots and towels. It wasn’t the trinket-filled tourist trap that Khan El Kalili is – we were the only tourists in the place. Instead, it was miles and miles of used clothing, lingerie and caftans and cheap South Asian shoes. And belts – one man walking by shouting was covered in belts.

The people here were obviously poorer than in other areas I’ve been. The woman sat on the street surrounded by small eggplants and huge watermelons; the ubiquitous fruit shops, spilling across the street, where fly-infested. The streets were covered in garbage – standard in Cairo, but in this street the waste was animal remains and rotting fruit. Stray dogs rooted through the garbage beside the cats.

But all this was somehow incredibly exciting: it was real Cairo, not a tourist façade. We were somewhere we weren’t supposed to be. I finally felt like I’d escaped the fence (the one made of 5-star Hiltons, Hyatts, and Marriots) around the Nile that caters to the rich and the embassies. When we bought pots from the store that sells the 10-gallon canisters to street tea-vendors and flat-lipped bowls to shwarma stands, I thought we had finally become part of the city. Some of the little boys even stared at us in amazement, instead of imitating their brothers and catcalling. As I walked back through the souk, holding an Egyptian laundry basket (no holes to prevent leaking!) full of our 40-dollar haul, I almost felt like I fit in.

Fitting in – I think that’s why I’m struggling to like Cairo. In New Haven I’m comfortable as a townie or student. In New York, I can wear skinny jeans and go shopping downtown and I’m as hip as everyone else. Even in Athens I knew everything about the Acropolis, and I flirted with the right boys. In Cairo I can’t speak well enough to get directions to a pharmacy. Every man and child I pass points out my foreignness by whistling or greeting me in English (At least sometimes they’re funny – one man yesterday shouted ‘How’re! How’re!’). I don’t eat much because I can’t read the grocery labels. I’m at the mercy of those who translate brokenly for me, even though I feel so stupid that they know my language better than I understand theirs, in their own country.

I think it’s mostly a language barrier. Once I know the right thing to say to greet my doorman, and understand my landlady when she glares at me and chastises me for taking the room with the broken air conditioner (and the Nile view from the bed, btw!), I will be much happier. In the meantime, I look over the roofs and windows that stretch past my balcony and wish I were still looking at my backyard.
Alright, that’s not really true, my view is stunning:

I did have to leave the King’s Palace Hotel to come here, though, which was very sad. King’s Palace was the hotel, on the 4th floor, that I spent the past week. It was full of great people – especially after the crazy stone-throwing woman debacle, I got to be close to Mostafa and Ahmed. The night I wrote the last post I actually had a great time learning some Arabic and chilling with them. We were also joined by Boutheina from Tunisia. She told me, repeatedly, about how I could be Mostafa or Ahmed’s first wife – but they might pick up a few others after that (I also looked like Ahmed’s first wife- I think that’s a stretch – so every time I did something like trip over my computer he’d go ‘Ah! Just like my ex-wife!’). After Ali and I found the kitten a second time:

Hassan gave it back to its mother. Everyone else convinced me he was going to eat it as soon as it got big enough – he’d managed to teach me the word for soup, shourba, which he kept saying to me, with a maniacal grin. When they realized I deeply believed them they told me they were kidding. Thank god, because Ali and I want that kitten as soon as it’s old enough!
At the hotel:

From the right is a Syrian guy who didn’t speak English and needed translation even when I spoke perfect Arabic to him – Ahmed kept telling me ‘He doesn’t speak Arabic!’ Next is Hassan, the sweet guy who convinced me he was going to eat the kitten. He’s the only person I’ve met here patient enough to try teach me Arabic. Then there’s me, looking awkwardly cheerful as usual. Then Ahmed, in the hat, covering the huge bruise on his head (his nose is also twice as big). And then Boutheina, who was adamant about the independence of the Tunisian woman! Mustafa, standing over her, was my best translator.
Once I moved out of the apartment, cereal became my comfort food – I bought a box of Honey Nut Cornflakes (Kellogg, no less) and a quart of skim milk and ate 4 bowls (and nothing else) my first day in Zamalek. I’m eating some right now! Not that I’m maladjusted – there’s also a Cinnabon across the street that I’ve been known to frequent. I’m just trying not to send my digestive system into too much upheaval. Today Nisreen and I got falafel from a sketchy shwarma shop and oh, man, was it good. Next (don’t read this, Mom), tap water! Nisreen did make us a tame (and delicious) tomato omelet to break in the kitchen. We even ate it at 10pm, on Misri time.

This evening, I’m going to Ahmed’s sister’s wedding!

Ana wahida.

2008-08-23T09:02:00.000-07:00

Ahlan wa sahlan all,

In the first-year Arabic book, there's a character named Maha who goes to NYU and hates New York because it is 'crowded and too humid in the summer.' (good words for Cairo, coincidentally). The title of the chapter she explains all of this is is 'Ana whahida jidan,' I am very lonely. Just like me!

It's 7pm (still early on Cairo time!) on my 3rd day here, and I'm listening to music with one of the hotel guys, Ahmed, in the hotel lobby... not one but both of my white girl partners in crime left to go to Zamalek and Maadi (other neighborhoods) without me! I don't know what to do! I can't go apartment hunting because I don't speak enough Arabic, and I don't want to cross the river by myself, and I don't want to go out alone in case someone tries to grab my butt... basically, I got deserted. On the bright side, Ahmed promised to take me out on a belly dancing party dinner boat! Woohoo!

Ahmed and I are listening to music - he likes Lady Sovereign's 'Love Me or Hate Me,' and his favorite song is Sean Paul's 'Temperature.' Don't tell Rosie. Now he's listening to a techno remix of... oh, I don't know what it is, but it's some classical song. I'm trying to get him into Missy Elliot or Lil' Wayne's A-Milli, but all I'm getting is a polite nod. Oooh, except I'm playing 4 Minutes and that's going over well. (We started listening to some old Madonna, and this is way better).

Ahmed (and company, the other guys here) just made me eat some koshari, this mash that is incredibly popular here. It's a salty mix of, uh, everything, according to every Egyptian that I've talked to. When I tried it, it was served like ramen (though apparently carted with care from across town where the best koshari in Cairo is) in a plastic cup. It's buckwheat noodles topped with lentils topped with macaroni and spaghetti and then pasta sauce and then caramelized onions - oh man, it is good! I'll be getting some again.

The past few days have been INCREDIBLY busy - we've mostly been apartment hunting. Ali and I headed out around 1 on Thursday to go to Zamalek. We went with a girl named Christina, who's a Fulbright scholar and much better at Arabic than either of us. thank god. Apartment hunting here, if you're an American, involves walking up to the tallest apartments you can find (height=view) that don't look so nice that other, richer Americans live there, asking in pigeon Arabic 'I want apartment empty and furnished, two or three rooms,' and seeing if the doorman takes you to the elevator or not. It's a hassle. We started in really crappy, but affordable places, and found one that was $1,500/mo American, and gave up for the evening.

Instead, we grabbed dinner with Mena. Mena's a Yale student who was here at AUC last fall, and fell in love with the country, so came back for the summer. She comforted us over our befuddlement, explained tipping to me, and showed us Cairo's premier grocery store, Metro Supermarket (it is very nice), which was under her apartment. Her apartment was in a set of 4 towers that are very conveniently located, and full of students, and have very chill bowabs (doormen), meaning you can have parties. We weren't crazy about any of the apartments we saw with her, so we headed back home. She did kind of set our hearts on that location, though.

The next day (yesterday!), we wandered Dokki, another neighborhood that was supposed to be cheaper and more, uh, 'authentic.' We did find one place on the Nile that was only $300 American! Then they told us it was $300 American/day, so we left Dokki. We were very popular there though.

In Zamalek, we were almost ready to break down and get a simsar, a real estate agent. (Now Ahmed is listening to Arab techno... kind of like Ricky Marten.) We met up with one of Ali's friends from a study abroad exchange, who was ACTUALLY EGYPTIAN and could actually speak to the bowabs!! So we looked around with him some.

Christina and I took a break to get some food, and wandered into an actual Egyptian restaurant (we'd been to a Cinnabon, a 'Pottery Cafe' that's like a psuedo coffeshop, a very upscale Egyptian restaurant with Mena, and an Italian coffeeshop chain), and I thought it was time to step out of our box. I asked for a little ful, which is a bean mixture, and the waiter reassured me that he wouldn't bring me too much food. Yeah right! We endded up with two plates of ful, a ton of pita, some "salad," eggplant (oh god so good), some sausage-type things, falafel, and "botates," which it turns out are french fries. How authentic. It was all pretty good - not so good that I'll go back to the same place, but it definitely whetted my appetite for Egyptian food. Until the food poisoning afterward.

Afterwards, Ali and Laul (her friend) had found a gorgeous apartment, so they negotiated taking it. It's beautiful, but one of the rooms isn't as nice... and I'd end up with the not-nice room. So I'm not sure I'll take it, but we'll see. It does have a GORGEOUS view of the Nile when you lean out the living room window, so we can have leaning parties. Holy moly it's a good view.

After that, we smoked some shihsha. Shisha (hookah) here is WAY stronger than in the states, ya Allah. I need to build up some resilience.

Today I just wandered around Maadi, a suburb that's fabulously wealthy - where all those rich ex-pats are. We couldn't begin to afford anything further from the metro, where there were actually trees and grass, but man it was gorgeous. Closer to the metro, Christina found something she liked, but I'm staying in Maadi.

We did see the Cairo Metro, which is not as nice as DC but WAY nicer than New York (and the rest of Cairo). We rode in an all-women car on the way there, where there were still enough little boys to stare at us. The car was nice, but it was uncrowded enough that we rode in a mixed car back. Then we came here, and that's where I've been... for the past 5 hours. Ah!

It's now my second day in Egypt.

2008-08-20T22:28:00.000-07:00

So things are great here in Cairo. I've only been here for a day, and so far I've found a hotel, bought a phone, and spent the night in the police station.

I left my family (that I miss surprisingly much) at 5 on Tuesday night. The trip there wasn't that exciting, except for the special class of duty-free hell that is the Zurich airport at 1am EST when you have another 6 hours of flying to go.

The plane to Egypt was slightly more rickety, and empty. I got the evil eye from a woman when I asked for an Arabic newspaper, but it's not like I could do more than pick out the words 'President' and 'Pakistan.' I did get frustrated at all the Swedish Swiss Air felt the need to put over the PA system - does it really need to have such long words?

AUC was kind enough to arrange a ride to pick me up, who was holding a sign with my name and American University in Cairo on it right outside customs. Except he was nowhere to be found. Instead, there were dozens of young men begging me to take their 'Fisher Taxies.' You're only supposed to take official taxies in Cairo, so there was no way I was going with them. They were really watching out for me, in case I changed my mind, though, they were kind enough to follow me. And laugh at me when I shouted 'Masalama!' (goodbye) at them.

There was a brief interlude where I bought a phone card to call the university ('Oh, we don't have you on the list, we'll send someone over'), realized that I'd been charged 25LE when it only cost 10, and decided I would storm back to the store and demand the rest of my money. The store's in the basement of the airport, and surrounded by packs of boys who were very excited when I wandered down with my 4 bags. They made me feel special. Then one of them explained that I'd actually only been charged 12 LE, explained how money works, and sent me on my merry way to talk to a taxi driver who was really good at looking like he understood my English but clearly had no idea why I didn't want to use his phone and then get in his taxi and then tip him generously.

I finally found my ride (apparently they'd gotten bored of holding my sign), and they sent me, with two other girls who speak Arabic even worse than I do, on our merry way to find a hotel that none of us had heard of. The streets are actually not as bad as I thought; no one obeys the traffic laws, but I haven't seen anyone get killed yet. I am perfecting the art of walking nonchalantly across the street when cars are coming 40mph at me (hit the American, go to jail). There are SO MANY police here - every half-block. They wear all white, and none of them speak a word of English, as they tell you vehemently every time you approach them, and again after you ask them something repeatedly in Arabic.

There was another girl who wasn't totally sure where she was staying, but who's also apartment hunting, so we decided to stick together. There wasn't room in her hotel, so we went down the street to a different hotel, which is on the 5th floor of this downtown Cairo apartment building. The building itself is pretty dirty, but this hotel (it's more like a hostel at $30/night) is nice, and all the guys here speak great English and like to tease/confuse me.

Ali (my new blonde friend) and I wandered out onto the streets. We're staying in Tahrir downtown, which is mostly full of cheap clothing shops that sell sparkly bra sets and head to toe loose dresses. Confusing. There are also a lot of tourism offices and suitcase selling shops, so basically I'm in the tourist district of Cairo and I'd like to get out. People on the street kept pointing us to the Egypt Museum across the street. Thanks, guys.

It is hard not to look like a tourist when your skin is at least 2 shades lighter than anyone else on the street. Also, when you're shouting English excitedly and swearing every time you almost get hit by a car.

Ali and I were marching up the 3rd flight of stairs up to the hotel yesterday evening when suddenly a woman in a full abaya and niquab (the thing we Americans call a burka) bursts out of her room, surrounded by 8 kids, and begins screaming at me to not go upstairs. She didn't really speak full sentences, but she could definitely shout in English 'Police! A fight! They were selling drugs! (miming shooting heroin on her arm) They're getting arrested! Don't go up there, you'll be arrested! Don't come back! Leave right now! They're selling drugs! (more shooting into her arm). You have to go!' as her kids began grinning and yelling at me too. I race back down the stairs and out the door, and hyperventilate productively by the entrance.

Ali is trying to tell me it's ok when a skinny European wanders up and asks us what's going on, and agrees to accompany us upstairs. We climb the 5 flights of stairs, again, and I get to the hotel door, where there are 5 or 6 men gathered, and a few policemen. They're shouting and... there's blood spattered all over the floor.

The check-in guy, who's patting a wound on his head, shouts frantically at me to stay, tells me there's nothing wrong, and that it's totally safe - totally, since there are 3 police in the place and someone's been killed on the floor. I scurry into my room and shove my stuff in my bag. Luckily my laptop is still secured safely under my pillow. Ali, this other guy, and I have all my luggage in the lobby when they ask me why I'm so scared and I tell them about the woman.

I tell them that she told me there was a drug bust and not to come back, and the gesture to the police - see?? see?? she's crazy! The police nod understandingly, and I don't see anyone in handcuffs. I start trying to explain what she told me in Arabic, and come up with 'She said... things... un-come up to here, hotel not good, bad guys (mime shooting heroin into my arms).'

The police nod, write a bunch of things down, and ask me to come to the police station. Ahmed says it's important, because I'm an American tourist. Of course I'm not an idiot, so I don't go, and everyone shuffles out.

One guy, named Mustafa, stayed and told me what happened: apparently this woman has begun squatting in the building (she's the doorman's daughter, but she isn't paying), and she doesn't get along well with the hotel owners. She came upstairs and began fighting with Ahmed, another hotel guy, and finally things escalated to the point that she threw a rock at his head - and it shattered! So he called the police.

It then dawned on me that I'd passed up my chance to go to the Egyptian police station - how stupid! So (don't read this, mom and dad) I went with Mustafa downstairs, and he hailed a cab, and said a bunch of things to the driver that I didn't understand, and off we went!

I was very, very glad when we pulled up to a building that had a few police around it. It all seemed very exciting at first between the empty first floor and peeling walls (once, a cat wandered in!), and the posse of police behind a counter writing notes on the problems and personal issues of everyone who came in. Holy moly it took a long time - we waited for 3 hours. They kept stressing how important my testimony was, because I'm an American and a tourist - it makes the police take the situation seriously. The whole thing, between waiting and getting the two sides out took about 3 hours.

Finally, finally it was over, after the guys made me drink a glass each of cane juice, guava juice, and water. Also after I'd shown Mustafa the translation in my guidebook for 'Are there any gay hangouts here?' (he went 'oh my god.' in a very small voice. Then I tried to explain gay people, just not too thoroughly-apparently there aren't any in Egypt). The police weren't interested in hearing my story, in the end, and they just told Ahmed and the woman to be friends.

Really, the interesting part of it was experiencing American/white privilege so thoroughly - tourism is such a big part of the economy here in Cairo, and people get angry if you mess with tourists. The hotel guys were excited for me to tell the police how scared I was of this woman, and stressed that I was an American tourist. My exotic looks probably helped, too. It's easy now to look at it logically, but last night there seemed to be a lot of inequality in terms of weight of testimony. I could bemoan poscolonialism, but that seems trite... and does the economic reasoning behind wanting to protect your tourists justify it? At the same time, I'm not going to lie, it's comforting to have a big powerful country to protect me. I'll have more interesting things to say about Americaphilia when I've been here longer. There have just been lots of examples of it.

So now it's a day later and I've spent the day looking for apartments. The hotel guys have pointed out that I forget words as soon as they tell them to me - it's more embarrassing having an Arab speaker tell you than to know it yourself. I have to post an explanation of 'al mustashriqa' and the photo I'm using - they're very intellectual and crucial to the blog, I promise. Right now it's 2 am and I need to go to bed, though. Bahi alaihu! (good night!)
A

Factory Women

2008-08-12T11:57:00.000-07:00

Not directly Middle East related (except there are women in factories in the ME), but I was sent the new Ecko website. The company apparently makes jeans - or, rather, the gaggle of really attractive models on their website do. You can watch them giggle, swing steam machines around, and rub themselves in denim - all in heels! - if you'd like. If you don't want to navigate their flash,

I can't tell if they're spoofing American Apparel or not.

All products that use women in ads to target men use woman/girl/body as a delivery vehicle for satiation... and, let's admit it, emphasize to we women how sexily we're supposed to be serving our man. Usually the companies leave the work room out of it. This is the strangest attempt to address third-world sweatshop labor that I've ever seen, and it emphasizes that it's all exploitation.

Mika Rottenberg's video "Dough," installed at the Guggenheim, is at least more honest about the women producing our clothes. Watch the whole thing if you're interested in body, women's space, and production, and sorry about the bad quality:

(Ignore the giggling, and shaky camera, those are the second filmer's addition).

One of my favorite parts of the piece is the equation of the bread with flesh - the woman are made of the product they're producing, or they produce a product that is like them (even more so when their tears make the bread rise). At least Rottenberg admits that production is far more intimate and organic than Ecko or AA would ever admit.

Ecko's ad pisses me off: it's cheap, trite, demeaning. But most of all, it puts a shiny cover (you know, the shrink-wrapped one porn mags come in) on the exploitation that clothing manufacturing is built on. It's compelling because it simply flips over the actual production process, showing the exact opposite of a real Ecko factory. It's so obvious because it comes with no deeper commentary or insight, no introspection - just straight-forward exploitation of girls. I mean, it's not surprising. I'm more just using it as an excuse to show you Mika Rottenberg's work. Whatever; I'm going to go watch Golddigger now - it's a commentary on women as consumers, right?

Museums in Palestine

2008-08-01T14:52:00.000-07:00

There was a short, unexciting (compared to Barry shaking Abbas' and Olmert's hands on the same day) piece in the NYTimes last Friday that did an excellent job of highlighting the hole Gaza is in (the West Bank, too). The article focuses on the museum's wealthy founder, a collector named Jawdat N. Khoudary.

“The idea is to show our deep roots from many cultures in Gaza,” Mr. Khoudary said as he sat in the lush, antiquities-filled garden of his Gaza City home a few miles from the museum. “It’s important that people realize we had a good civilization in the past. Israel has legitimacy from its history. We do, too.”

(Wow, blogger makes block quoting so easy!) The article stuck out to me because it highlights such an important point that most people ignore: the Palestinians have been stripped of their national heritage and identity since '48. Under strict Israeli control of their school systems until the early 90's, Palestinian kids don't get any of the national pride and understanding that, for example, I got in elementary school learning about the Puritans (and in 4th grade, the Trail of Tears). There's a lack of institutional cultural history and ethos - except in anger against the Israelis - in Palestine, the kind of cultural history that Israelis get to take for granted. In Gaza, according to Khoudry, whose museum is north of the Shati refugee camp, "people don't hear" the word El Mat'haf, museum.

The Israel Museum in Jerusalem has just published a catalog on the Gaza dig of an Israeli team in the 1970s and 80s. Led by the grande dame of Israeli archaeology, Dr. Trude Dothan, the dig at Deir el Balah took place under army guard and uncovered gold jewelry, alabaster vessels and, most important, anthropoid coffins, all of which are now in the Israel Museum. Some of it had been plundered by Moshe Dayan, the defense minister at the time, who was an archaeology buff and something of a law unto himself. His collection is now in the Israel Museum as well.

Israel, like all of us Orientalists, reaped the benefits of being the first, wealthiest archeologists to decide how to shape the narrative and to keep the booty. While Israel has enormous archeology grants and what I'm assuming is a great museum (for your daily dose of ranting against Israel, see some comments on it here) El Mat'haf will display relics that Khoudry found during his construction career. Could somebody please endow this place?

Not that (and this is where it gets complicated) the Gazan government is helping:

[Khoudry's] collection includes thousands of items, but some of the most extraordinary will not go on display now, including a statue of a full-breasted Aphrodite in a diaphanous gown, images of other ancient deities and oil lamps featuring menorahs.

Asked why, Mr. Khoudary noted Hamas’s rule and the conservative piety of the population and said simply, “I want my project to succeed.”

He did, however, bring a Hamas government minister to see the exhibition recently and pointed out two crosses on Byzantine columns to make sure he had no objections. The gap between what he calls the narrow-mindedness of today’s Gaza and the worldliness of the past is what most saddens him, he said.

This guy is remarkably phlegmatic. I understand that Hamas is sticking to its conservative stance because it needs to hold onto the shaky group identity that does exist in Gaza right now, but it goes to show: no one in this conflict is living up to the standards Westerners would like. That said, the difference in museums in Israel and Gaza shows the ragged toll that 60 years of Israeli occupation have had on Palestinians' collective memory (history) and ethos. Draw your own conclusions about what that means for Israel's safety - from a human rights standpoint, it's shameful.

Also take a look at the photo gallery. Where do I get one of those hand-made glass lamps?

Colorful maps make the Middle East so much easier to understand (catagorize, and control!)

2008-07-29T15:28:00.001-07:00

This map of the ME is sweet, and would have helped me a lot in my Islamic Architecture class. But why the large gray gaps? Non-empirical powers don't count?

The video is silent, but is decidedly cooler if you mash it with Bjork's 'Earth Intruders.' I suggest you play the song first and watch the map simultaneously.

(From Gawker, because the Middle East is teh sexy.)

Women in Space

2008-07-21T15:59:00.000-07:00

Hello, world!

The intersection of gender and geography (or feminism and the control of space) appears again and again in my life, so hopefully it won't come on too strongly here. However, I guess it's fitting if predictable that I start with it (introductions, psh.).

I found The Apostate today, a blog by a woman living in San Francisco, Pakistani, raised in Saudi Arabia, formerly-Muslim now atheist. She obviously wins the multi-faceted identity game, makes my queer white once-Christian (Scientist!) head spin. I initially wanted to brush off her blog after a post that insists Islam controls women, period. I'm not inclined to condemn any religion based on the way Saudi Arabia interprets it. (For the record, Islam is one of the subjects in Middle East Studies I need to brush up on. I defer to her better knowledge on rules, if not interpretation).

However, I am always ready to argue that society works hard to control women. The law the Apostate discusses is the one that insists a woman must be accompanied by a mahram, a male of any age, who "acts in their stead in public and is supposed to accompany a woman on long journeys." This law, she says, is part of Islam's work to control the spaces women can enter and how they must behave in them.

All this I've heard before. It gets personal in light of the recent Reuters article on Two-thirds of men admit to h arassing w omen. (Come on, you know I wasn't going to let that article slide!) I'm sure you've seen it on some feminist blog, accompanied by bemoaning women's harassment around the world without understanding how bad it actually is in Cairo. Full disclosure: I haven't been to Cairo yet (one month!), but I've heard warnings and stories.

Harassment, whether it's shouting compliments, lewd comments, marriage proposals, invitations to an alley, or groping and shadowing for blocks (no, really), is about intruding on a woman's space. It assumes the harasser, the man's, right to approach the woman and sometimes grab her outright. The cat-calling culture in Cairo overlaps with the sense of community and watchfulness that keeps some women from bringing men into their apartments (doorkeepers in every building maintain its morality). It's the same limiting of space that the mahram enforces: the idea that a woman's space is not her own and that it must be curtailed and possessed by the men around her. Even without the mahram, a woman's space in Cairo is limited.

Not to start my relationship with Egypt out on the wrong foot - I have no doubt I'll love it. I can't pass up the opportunity to talk about how and when women are permitted to posses space, though. (The Apostate has another post on women's body image that's all about the same topic, fat/space occupation and femininity - women are supposed to shrink.)

Anyway, back to feminism and Islam: Ghada Karmi makes an intriguing point in the article Women, Islam and Patriarchalism (1996). The whole article is fascinating, but here's a bit:

"...women are infantilised in the Qur'an. They are to be protected and economically provided for by men, but admonished and punished if they are disobedient. Their testimony is only half as reliable as that of men."

Saudi Arabia has laws to control its women because they can't look after themselves; Egypt, where they're allowed more autonomy, their space is invaded instead. I'm inclined not to believe both are caused by Islam, or are problems limited to the ME. It is an enlightening intersection, though, and its trends can be followed elsewhere. (Anyone been catcalled walking down Whalley Ave lately?)

Most posts to follow, since there are many other countries in the world.