Egypt fact:

About 95% of Egyptians live in Cairo.

Egypt fact:

Roughly 95% of Egypt is Muslim.

class list

Arabic: Modern Standard

Egyptology: Ancient Egyptian History

Art: Ancient Egyptian Art

English: Mediterranean Folklore

Anthropology: Peoples and Cultures of the Middle East and Northern Africa

Egypt fact:

Ambulance and fire engine sirens are largely ignored.

Shower Prayer

Will some sort of deity hear my cry? Bring me hot water. Bring me a shower curtain. Bring me a working shower head.

Taking a shower includes flooding the entire bathroom, considering the shower head doesn't fix to the wall and we don't have a shower curtain.

As of now, the little mishaps in our cutesy pseudo-Potemkin village flat are endearing. We have a faucet that doesn't turn off and a leaky window (?), our kitchen houses a portal to Hell, and our closets are chock full of mystery gear from years (and years) of mystery tenants.

Ana vs. Anna

This post is for Anna, my flatmate, who will undoubtedly read this at some point.

In Arabic, "ana" translates roughly to "I am...". Upon even the smallest of social interaction, most Egyptians inquire about your name, which requires a response like, "Ana Caitlin." Poor Anna is asked to repeat her, "Ana Anna" several times before the understanding Egyptian laughs and laughs at her unfortunate mix up.

We wonder if this will ever stop being funny. Luckily for Anna, most people think my name is Kevin.

AUC

Acquiring internet is more grueling than we thought - I'm writing from a cafe. This won't be the lengthy post I promised, but I do want to update about my school life at AUC.

Let me preface this post (and future posts) with an apology, because I'm growing more and more incompetent each day. I chalk this up the increased usage of a foreign language; I can barely speak gud Engleesh anymore, and my spelling has gone completely awry (e.g. "so" became, "os" and "built," "buitl"; I'm blaming this on Arabic's right to left read). Anyway, I'll scour this post for spelling/grammar errors, but please overlook the missed ones. Shukran!

To begin, AUC is a stark contrast from the rest of Cairo. Whereas Cairo is friendly, poor, and culture-rich, New Cairo/AUC is elitist, rich, and bland. The new campus is quite beautiful, but does not reflect Egypt in any way, which is a major disappointment. At the risk of sounding pretentious, AUC's educational standards are quite subpar to the University of Michigan's, and unfortunately class has been rather dull. I hoped to really increase my Arabic skills, but I'm beginning to question how much I'll actually be learning - my Arabic professor announced we could only miss 12 classes a semester (12?!?!?). With that said, despite everything, I'm still enjoying myself. The campus is brand new and is still working out various kinks; in addition, I'm in Cairo, where patience is the first virtue learned. I'm meeting wonderful people, and it's quite interesting to view Egypt's elite in a social setting.

All of my classes revolve around Egypt or Middle Eastern culture, and undoubtedly I'll learn something. For example, I've already learned that Egyptians are rarely on time, as my professor prefers to walk into class 20 minutes late. 

On a good note, some of my classes have several field trips planned - we may be going to excavation sites, which will be incredible, to say the least.

In other good news, the Obama craze continues, and one man actually "raised the roof" when he found out I was American. 

Also, I feel compelled to tell you that it's 80 degrees here - wah-wah!

Egypt fact:

No flushing toilet paper.

Egypt fact:

There are virtually zero public trash cans.