Photo Essay of Alexandria's Club Med Days

I stumbled upon this neat little photo essay in Foreign Policy of what Alexandria looked like at the end of its most liberal, cosmopolitan days in 1959. Today Alexandria is considered a more conservative place in general, as the photo essay's introduction says, but that depiction is also challenged by Alex's growing cultural scene in music and visual art.

The image of Alex as a synonym for "devout, and deeply conservative, Islam" may seem to be reinforced by the fact that Alex was actually the site of greatest resistance to Mubarak's regime--the violence there during the revolution was more intense and more prolonged, and a much larger proportion of the population was continuously turning out in the protests there than in Cairo. Many people tend to position so-called "Islamic" forces against Mubarak's regime, because that was the binary he liked to emphasize (to justify keeping him in power)--but it's more complicated than that. I didn't mean to get in to this when I started this post, but suffice to say, the motives for Alexandrians'--or any other Egyptians, for that matter--involvement in the Revolution should not be simply boiled down to religion.

Anyway, check out the link for the rest of pictures of very affluent looking 1950's Egyptians kicking it at the beach. The pictures certainly do contrast with the markedly more conservative burqinis in the pictures I took at the beach in Alex last fall:

I'm pretty interested in the changing cultural milieu of Alex, so hopefully that's something I'll get to learn more about in the upcoming year.

This is How it Starts

The body of this post is the edited version of something I scrawled down all at once in the last half-hour of my flight to Cairo today. Cairo does seem to inspire me to write much more, it's true, but the particular inspiration for this bout of urgent scribbling was a little more specific. For those of you who don't know, this last week was hijacked by the sudden need to make a life-changing decision over where to spend the next 1-3 years.

Last Saturday I received a world-changing email from the University of Maryland about their very attractive Arabic Master's program. Besides being conveniently located in a suburb of Washington D.C. for the first year, the program would have me go back to Damascus for the second year, and therefore is pretty much guaranteed to make my Arabic quite good. I had applied (last-minute) back in January despite the fact that I had friends visiting, because I was very excited about the program. The application ended up being a gigantic hassle that involved hundreds of dollars in application fees and FedEx expenses and it also took away from some of my precious time with Dylan in Dubai. Nonetheless, I thought it was worth it because the program also came with the possibility of a fellowship to cover the full tuition.

Nonetheless, despite the awesomeness of this program, I wasn't crushed when I was put on the wait-list and then when my parents received a rejection letter in the mail for that matter, because I had decided that Damascus wasn't really the place in which I would want to spend a year in the Middle East. Hence the formation of my plan to spend the next year in Cairo. I booked my flight from Syria for Thursday, April 21st (the day I'm writing this--that is I just arrived in Cairo).

And so, given the rejection letter, and moving on to make new plans in another country, I was more than a little shocked to find two emails in my inbox first congratulating me on being accepted to the Masters program and being offered a $5,000 scholarship. As a bonus, I had to decide by...Friday the 22nd (i.e. tomorrow). Finally, the program begins May 31st, i.e. (i.e. very soon).

What's more, one of my best friends in Cairo, Nora, is in literally the exact same situation. We've been exchanging distraught messages pretty much daily, laying out every reason we can think of without either of us getting anywhere close to committing either way. In the end we had decided that it was best if we didn't tell the other if we had made a decision until we both had so as not to influence each other.

Hence the last six days have been a rush of trying to wrap up things in Damascus while trying to figure out if I wanted to still spend a year in Cairo, spend two years doing the MD Master's program in DC and Damascus, or defer MD for a year (and lose the money, but have have guaranteed admission) and stay in Cairo. The last choice has sort of lost out as a possibility, so it's come down to Maryland or Cairo starting right this summer. I am not exaggerating when I say I have changed my mind at least every few hours. And it didn't help that I had to keep saying, "Yeah sorry I can't do [insert inevitably cool thing that is going on the day I am leaving], I'm actually leaving this week..." Oh shoot where to? "Cairo..." Oh just for a visit? "No...well maybe...I don't know actually how long I'm staying there because...[insert quarter-life crisis here]." Oh wow I don't really pity you having such cool options. But I guess, if were as spoiled as you, I would...[insert piece of advice here]!

With a few dozen such conversations like that ringing around in my brain, I got on the plane looking forward to the solace that travelling on your own gives you and having a day and a half mostly to myself to think things through before I had to make my ultimate decision. After a quick nap on the plane, and a meal of EgyptAir's surprisingly consistently tasty meals (they still do meals on every flight!), I suddenly felt like I was about to figure something out if I could just give my thoughts somewhere to go. I grabbed the little notebook I'd been using to jot down Arabic words learned at unplanned times, and this is what came out:

It's becoming clear to me that I have two equally excellent options before me right now. Maryland would obviously be great for my Arabic, and it would also be so nice to be on the same continent as all the friends I haven't seen for the past year. It's been an undeniably disconnecting experience being away from them, and living on the East Coast near NYC and Boston where so many of them went, would be so nice. And I could use a dose of American comfort too, if I'm honest. It'd be nice if stuff--appliances, vehicles, lines, litter control, etc.--you know, worked. And all the while I'd be making my Arabic sick. What I would lose in the everyday little Arabic interactions, I would gain in the rigor of my program surely.

The fact that at $13,000 a year (after my fellowship), it's basically the cheapest Master's degree I could possibly get is also a pretty sweet bonus. I'd leave that program with my Arabic pretty baller and a degree from a good school to prove it.

So the question is do I want that degree? It's cheap, but it still means I'd have to go into debt of some kind. So is that worth it to me? The definitive guarantee of solidifying my Arabic is certainly appealing. Seductive even. All but one person I have talked to has acted like it's a no-brainer, that I should take the guaranteed opportunity now while I have it. After all, if I still want to go to Cairo or get a different Graduate Degree, I can probably do that more easily after I get the Masters.

So what is the opportunity cost then? Yeah, of course, I get a year of freedom and adventuring (on a cheap budget) in Cairo, but the real chance is getting to face a kind of life-test that I really don't think I've ever had before. Finding a job, a house, and the time to keep at my studies are really going to test my ability to figure out things on my own. I like to think I'm a fairly competent person generally speaking, but I've always acted with a safety net of some kind. In Cairo I'd be on my own.

The real question is: is there a way to survive in Cairo while also managing to learn Arabic? In theory, in Cairo I could have another year of Arabic, and I would be able to do so at least without indebting myself nearly as much as MD would, and I might even break even. Practically speaking, given the exodus of foreigners from Cairo, and the need for personal, face-to-face connections for professional advancement here, being here could both possibly even get me a cool job, or give me a better idea of what it is I want to do with my Arabic down the line.

The trade-off though, is that definite degree of security. Of certainty. No doubt, from the unsure perspective of an unemployed person in the present, as well as from the future non-Master's degree holder who must constantly justify his decision, it would not always be easy to explain myself when it evidently seems so obvious to everyone that I should take the guaranteed option.

But here's the thing, Maryland is the scared decision. It is just the thing that will definitely be just ok. And while sometimes that is better, I think that's been how I've living my whole life. Living in the safe confines of America's education system, I never had to take a real chance without the assurance that my parents would help me out and that my school would still give me my next step. So even though some people might think otherwise, I've never felt like any of my life choices have been anything but conservative and easy. When I'm honest with myself, I've never taken on a challenge that I didn't know I could or would actually take on. Some people might think I have taken chances, but having been the one in the driver's seat, I've always known I haven't.

So Cairo is a time to prove myself to be as competent and able as I think I pretend to be. I don't know what would happen in Cairo. I don't know how exactly I'll get a house and a roommate and a job, but I have ideas, and I think it's time I tried some of them out. And then the real challenge will be making the time to learn and study Arabic, especially if the only job I can find to support myself with takes up 35-50 hours a week of my time. That is the real thing that gives me pause now. It's the real reason not to stay in Cairo I think. At Maryland, my Arabic would most definitely improve a lot. In Cairo, that's not a definite.

But if I let an uncertain future cow me into taking the safe route every time, then I don't think I will be the kind of person I want to be. So there is quite a big psychological opportunity cost here were I to choose Maryland. Cairo is the bigger gamble with the bigger potential payout all around I think. Especially because I have to believe that getting into Grad School, if I am so inclined again, after a year of living in Cairo should be at least AS easy, if not easier. So why take the first Grad School offer I get in my life?

It seems like so many people from my generation are using graduate school or what are effectively volunteer positions to postpone having to face the job market (the NYT seems to have an article about this every week. This is not in and of itself a bad thing by any means as Grad School and positions in organizations like Teach for America, Peace Corps, Americorps, etc. can be really valuable life and professional experiences, no doubt. But I know people that applied for Grad School right out of Vassar, because they basically didn't know what else to do with themselves and it seemed the least threatening option. I obviously want my Arabic to reach a high level, and an Arabic Master's would be a pretty neat way to do that, because not only could I keep on living the fun, carefree life of a college student--with parties on the weekends, and arguing over which club to go to*--I would leave the whole thing behind with a degree and a network to advance my career with.

*(Perhaps a tad stereotyped there...)

But I'm not looking for a career that is entirely based on my language skills, and I feel no real attraction to the college party life, so why go for this particular Master's right now? I could certainly do without $26,000 (at the least) of debt. So more and more, Maryland's real appeal is that I would get to see all the people I miss back in the States, and it would give me something productive-sounding to do with my life for the next two years.

I've always felt the need to do something significant, something great with my life, and I've known since the days I was a cape-wearing preschooler obsessed with Superman that great achievements don't come without struggle. If standing up to the big bad job market is something scaring many in my generation, then that's where I'll start my one-man struggle to do something worthwhile. If the job market is even more imposing when you don't entirely know the language or the protocol of its locale, then that's something else I want to take on. Most importantly of all, if making my self sit down every night after a long day's hard work to force myself to really keep learning this language--this language that is harder and more frustrating than most other languages in the world--then that will be my trial by fire* every single day in Cairo.

*(Literally by fire, because I'd be staying in Cairo for the summer......)

I don't think any of that rings with Greatness, but I think I believe it's the start. I think Cairo would make me more resilient, self-reliant, self-motivated, and sure-headed a person, and that's what I want to be in my life. I don't have a real career direction yet beyond my modern-day Superman aspirations, but this is how it starts (listen while you read).

Cairo would be a test of my resolve and a test of why I really love it here so much. My wise, idealistic, and energetic Swiss housemate, Philippe (I think that's the wrong spelling, but he spells his name in some weird Swiss German way, and I’ve always been bad with double consonants) recently said to me, “some cities just bring you luck,” and something about that resonated with me. Perhaps I am accustomed to gleaning more meaning from simpler phrases given that that is how I am forced to communicate in my second language most of the time, but when he said that, I couldn't help but think of Cairo. As I have mentioned ad infinitum, something fundamental about me connected with that city, but will I after another year? I don't know if I ever really got around to writing about some of the bad things in this city, how it relentlessly grinds on you when you least want it. Nor do I think I've talked about how emotionally exhausting it is to go out into the streets and still struggle through all but the most basic interactions despite having spent three years on this god-forsaken language.

But this is the part of the world that I've fallen in love with, and place-romances, like people-romances can neither be changed nor questioned. So I guess I just don't really worry about getting sick of it after a year. The real struggle will be the small day-to-day efforts to keep learning Arabic. Cairo will mean a contract with myself to take this time time and learn the language even when I'm exhausted. Because doesn't greatness happen after point of exhaustion, anyway? I'm not saying I'm necessarily going to be great, but I want to see if I can do that. Whether it's in some small forgotten way in some organization or by myself and for the whole world to see. I want to see what I can do when I'm past my limits.

* * * * *

And that's where I stopped writing, realizing from the shifting in my language that even though I had genuinely set out writing as unsure about my choice as the moment I found out my Maryland acceptance, that I had decided. Just four hours of silence away from the advice and expectant questions of all the people I had asked, all of whom had expressed that Maryland was the right way to go, just four hours and the decision came pouring out of me like water behind a breaking dam. And when the water blew the dam away in a rush, and the river valley had filled up with the once-pent up water and settled down to the way it had been before the dam was ever constructed, there was a calm, as if nothing had even changed. Part of me had already made the decision, I realized. That was my gut reaction when I read the letter from Maryland, and this was it now.

And because, as cheesy as it no doubt sounds, I feel like that this city really will, to use Phillipe's phrase, bring me luck. I don't have a set job here yet, but from my singular attempt to get one at a school through a cold-call last time I was here, I had a Principal tell me that I looked very promising and that when I came back I would be having an interview with the owner (who makes the, quote, “final decision” about hirees) for a job teaching English and American History (perfect right?!). I don't know if that's really the job for me, but the odds for getting a job in Egypt right now seem good in this post-revolution period when all the other Ijanib have not yet returned. This is as good a time as any to get a job for which I am probably actually underqualified, right? So after this Easter weekend when people will be away, I'll start looking for houses and jobs.

There seemed a kind of higher confirmation of my decision in my conversation with Nora as I waited for my bags to show up at the baggage claim. She said she had made her choice, and a wave of doubt flooded through my system. I felt so thoroughly that she had picked Maryland. I remained sure of what I had realized on the plane, but why was Nora, who was in exactly the same position as me, picking differently? Still not wanting to influence the other unfairly, we opted to do the old 1-2-3-say your choice at the same time. I think I was excited because I sort of rushed the counting, or maybe it was the cell phone delay, but her answer seemed to come ever so slightly after mine somehow. I heard it it as if I hadn't said anything at all; we had both said Cairo.

My unnecessarily long bus-ride from the Airport to Tahrir in endlessly crowded traffic, and my exorbitant yet chatty and funny cab driver on my ride to the apartment in Zamalek only confirmed to me that this is where I want to be as the warmth of Egyptian humor and hospitality washed over me. This is how I want to learn this language, by being here. This is where I want to keep growing up and learning about people. This is where I'll become more like the person I want to be in my life. This is how it starts.

Come visit me!

* * * * *

And in honor of my decision and of being back in a country where I can post pictures to my blog, here are a few shots I got in Egypt on my brief visit last month. I'll try and make my blog posts pretty to look at again now.

One of the celebree/protesters in Tahrir square on the Friday I was there last month.

Part of a block of Jan. 25 themed murals I found painted over an abandoned building in Zamalek.

This graffiti sums it up pretty well I think.

"Bueno"

When I first got to Syria I experienced an added bit of linguistic confusion over one word. Whenever Syrians answered their phone, I was convinced they were saying "Bueno?" Most Arabs I have ever met answer the phone with "'Alo" (that's an approximation of "Hello," for all my slower readers) at least 50% of the time, so I wondered if this was like that maybe...

After all, I knew some French words have made their way into everyday Syrian parlance, thanks to centuries of French colonial influence and the lingering domination of the French language in Syria's richer, more cosmopolitan sister-country, Lebanon. Then again, Spain has absolutely no colonial history in or near Syria. Nonetheless, I was sort of excited about this evidence of cross-cultural linguistic pollination.

Turns out, this is a great example of my ear hearing whatever the hell it wants to hear--a recurring theme in my life, it would seem. Eventually I figured out that it was the combination of the Syrian word for "where" ("wein") and the pronoun for "you" (just a "k" added to the end of the word) which, pronounced in the Damascene way, sounds like "weinaaaaaaaaaaaak," meaning something along the lines of "where you at?" That's it.

It's a pretty lame language geek story, I know, but language geekery is really all I have left.

That, and I think I'm moving to Egypt in about three weeks for an indefinite period of time of at least a year. Nothing is for sure yet, but I've written some about all that a little already, so I'll post more soon as soon as I edit it.