Response

Amy left a great comment, what do Egyptians say when they meet you? First of all, I can only comment on what they say to me in English, what they say in Arabic is something unknown to me. When you walk down the street many vendors and even children will call out “Hello!” and “Welcome!” I have had more conversations with people outside of Cairo which makes sense; in the States it’s easier to talk to a local in the Mid-West than New York City.

1. Where are you from?
2. Who do you like better, McCain or Obama?
3. Do you like Egypt?
4. You have family?
5. How long are you staying in Egypt?

On the question of the presidential candidates, this question comes from men right away. You will literally be meeting with someone for less than three minutes and they will pull that question out. Overall, the Egyptians I’ve met are Obama supporters; they’re afraid with McCain we’ll be in Iraq forever. Like a taxi drivers in Cairo said, “I love America, but not George Bush.” From the lectures we’ve been attending at the Fulbright Office, there certainly are some Egyptians who are not happy with America, but they’re not happy with their own government either. Just like we have stereotypes of other cultures, they have stereotypes of us as well.

One thing that took a while to get used to as a woman, are the men who stare, leer, and honk. This has happened mostly in Cairo, and it is grating on the nerves. What’s odd is that men will exhibit the same behavior to traditionally veiled, Muslim women, as they do to me, a Western woman exposing her arms and hair. This really bothered me the first week I was here, but now it doesn’t; you just ignore it. I will admit I do like the “women’s only” cars on the Metro. They’re much less crowded and there no chance for public groping.

Our group is made up of ten teachers from the Jeffo School System, six high school teachers and four middle school teachers. They mostly teach geography, history, civics, etc., and have various topics for their projects. There are four of us from Metro State; an Islamic historian, a criminologist, a scholar with an international studies background who teaches with the Women’s Studies Department and me, the art historian. The Criminologist, Allison Cotton, is studying Female Genitalia Mutilation (FGM) and has been surprised on how open and honest Egyptian woman are on this topic. It is illegal to perform FGM here in Egypt, but the practice still continues. Arlene from the Woman’s Studies Department has been looking at the portrayal of women in advertising and the media. Paul is gathering information on an article he is writing (I can recall what exactly it’s on; his specialty is the Fatimid’s.). We're all really sponges over here, just absorbing everything and anything, even if it is not directly related to our work.

The big obstacle I’m hitting is that some museums I wanted to visit are closed (such as the Islamic Art Museum in Cairo and the Greco-Roman Museum in Alexandria) and those I am visiting don’t allow photography in the museum – at all. (The Egyptian Museum and the Coptic Art Museum won’t even allow you to bring a camera inside the building, even with pressure from the Fulbright office.) Of course, I can buy books in the gift shop, but many times those books focus on the popular pieces. The last thing I need is another image of King Tutankhamen’s throne; I want images of the odd, “unpopular” pieces that are not in the books. Of course, I’m still getting a ton of images I can use, but you always remember the ones that got away.