Gender Sucks.

I'm sorry, but it had to be said. My personal experiences and aversion to categorization aside. Seriously. Gender sucks.

I can't speak to the Egyptian perspective. I'm not sure how harassment is different for Egyptian women than it is for American women. But all I can say is this: The strength of character required to be a woman here, maybe to be a foreign woman here in particular, is astounding. I applaud and respect those who have that, but I am also so so SO horrified and outraged that it's a necessity. I love Egypt. I love the streets of Egypt. However, I do not love—and I hate that I am forced to tolerate—the day in day out comments and worse my female classmates receive.

My experiences here are not theirs, do not hold a candle to theirs in terms of difficulty or frustration. I am a boy here, maybe even an Egyptian boy at first glance (though eventually the exclamations of "India!" and "Amitabh Bachchan!" win out). Parents? Sorry, but that's the way it is. People don't "mistake" me for a guy, they interpret me as a guy, and I am fine with that, and it's not a problem or cause for worry.

What is a cause for worry is the never-ending harassment the girls get. From the ceaseless "Oh my god!" "Fantastic!" "My future wife!"-type exclamations, to the being-followed-home-by-random-men, to the actual grabbing and being pulled into a doorway (that eventually ended with going to the police, a more or less farcical bureaucratic fiasco in and of itself), it's astounding any of the girls put up with it, and it's no wonder the more benign comments of "welcome!" or "spice girls!" are as a result also treated with suspicion. I have no idea if any of them will be able to maintain a neutral much less positive attitude toward Cairo as a place, and that saddens me.

This nonsense needs. to. change. Interpret it how you like. Men feel a lack of economic power and so they express their autonomy by subjugating women? I call BS. Everyone feels weak. That's one of the parts of life that is hard and uncomfortable, and that doesn't just hold true for financially impoverished men. Feeling weak is oppressive. Feeling weak is shameful, yeah, I know. However, feeling weak is not grounds to hurt others. And those calls? That they find funny, or empowering? They hurt. They hurt the people they're directed at and they hurt me as someone who desperately wants to love Cairo, who desperately wants to love its people, but who cannot love what all too often seems like a majority of its men, cannot even respect them.

There's a weird sense of survivor's guilt that comes with not being a girl here, and there's the frustration of not being able to do anything to help the others. Less than a week ago I wrote about not understanding the strength of the male-female divide and the comfort for women that came with gender segregation. I fear I understand now, and that sickens me so much.

Lord help me if I ever become a part of the patriarchy.

I can only hope that one day, for example, a guy in the girls' bathroom will be as negligible a threat as a girl in the guys' bathroom (though of course I hope for gender neutral bathrooms blah blah blah). Because no group of people should automatically be viewed as a threat, and no individual actors should behave in ways that enforce the perceptions that lead to that. It works both ways. And it boils down to KINDNESS and RESPECT and that's it. In the end, I can only hope that everyone, everyone, is respected and given their due as a human being. (Including animals, actually.) Is that really too much to ask?

Sorry to rant, but it had to be done. Cairo? For your own sake, change this. You want honor? You want pride? You want agency? You want power? You want respect? Change this.

Sigh. Anyway, interesting idea for a future project: become fluent in Arabic, wander around Khan el-Khalili with girl friends, question/record every single dude who says or does anything to them (good as well as bad things) about why he said/did that, compile answers, see if themes emerge and how said themes can be addressed. I'm sure people have already done this, though, right? Hm.

Wedding and Happiness are the Same Word

Just posted Siwa Part Two below, and Siwa Part Three is coming soon, I swear. But until then, chew on this, and possibly another gender-related post to follow:

At times you can feel the novelty of being here slough off like dead skin after a sunburn. (...let me if that's not an accurate simile.) You get tired of people thinking you're fourteen. You get increasingly wary of gender-segregated spaces. You get more and more frustrated by your failure to comprehend Arabic and your inability to figure out the best way to direct a taxi driver from your apartment to school. You can feel your identities shifting and that's a weird thing and you're not sure if you're okay with it. And Cairo? Cairo is exhausting.

But then there are times like last night when none of that matters.

So our friend Mahmoud (an Egyptian who does theater and modern dance and is generally awesome) told us his friends were having a wedding party in the streets and that it would be cool and we should go with him. After a little bit of reluctance—in retrospect, I have no idea why that was—we agreed. The group of us, which now included a bunch of Americans on the program, Mahmoud, and a couple of members of the Egyptian handball team (who I guess we met at a party and started hanging out with...?), headed a metro stop over, walked across a bridge, and ended up at this awesome street party. Music, dancing, et cetera. It was super cool. Then we were invited upstairs and given apple juice, hung out, chatted, were generally happy.

A bit later, it was decided that the [two recognized] genders needed to split up, and the guys headed back downstairs. After some waffling I decided to stay upstairs.

I felt a little guilty about it at first. The only reason I was claiming this exclusively female gender identity was out of some personal/anthropological curiosity about what exactly would go down in the absence of a perceived male gaze. I'm sure stuff like this is a hard enough moral dilemma for actual anthropologists, who have a real goal of increasing cultural awareness and such. For me though, it was almost shamefully disingenuous: I was staying to satisfy nothing more than my own voyeuristic curiosity.

At the same time, it ended up being really easy and comfortable and accepting, surprisingly so. As soon as I was like, "I'm a girl," there was no awkward questioning, no skepticism, no disparagement or confusion on the part of the Egyptian women—just a quick oops sorry, and then things were totally cool. They were perfect and gracious and really fun. I mean asserting an identity like that in and of itself is a little weird and uncomfortable, because ... I dunno, I like letting people believe whatever they initially read me as. Chances are I am everything they believe me to be and more. But whatever, because after that initial step, it was a really really awesome night. And the cultural observer in me was more than intrigued.

The men left but the kids stayed regardless of gender, a cohort of little boys and girls running around, dancing, playing, being fun. The second my camera came out they would not leave it/me alone, constantly wanting pictures taken of every imaginable combination of people making every imaginable combination of facial expressions and body language. Their giddiness was contagious.

The women were dancing too, and the sense of community in the room was just so palpable. There was so much happiness and warmth and trust that you don't usually get to see. And of course there were plenty of other things you don't usually get to see. For example, hair. Hijabs were stripped off; niqabs were lifted and burqas were hitched up to reveal skinny jeans and heels, eye makeup and smiles and smiles. I realized that night that never when passing a woman in a niqab on the street had I envisioned a smile under her veil. Stupid of me. That has now changed.

Anyway, that party was just a really interesting social situation, and one I'm grateful I was allowed to participate in.

Of course, it leads to some serious pondering: Why is the presence of men so oppressive here, why does it prevent an atmosphere of trust and openness like this? How can an entire gender of people be othered like that, be constantly perceived as a threat? How can gender segregation make these women so comfortable and at ease, when for people from my background the same thing is kind of weird and uncomfortable, disconcertingly homogeneous in a way? Plenty of other questions emerge, of course, but those were the biggies I think. Anyway, yeah. Food for thought. And a good time. Perfect :)

Siwa, Part Two

Sorry! Not sure why I didn't post this earlier. Um. I was going to embed photos, but that's a lot of work, so I suggest you just follow along at my flickr. Sound good? Okay thanks.

So Friday morning we headed out to see the ancient sites in Siwa. Cool cool. Also saw lots of villagers, donkeys, et cetera. Anyway, we bounced from place to place as follows.

(1) The Old City of Shali, and its mosque. I guess nowadays the city is used only three days a year, during the full moon in October or something like that, for tribal gatherings/reconciliations maybe? I could be way off … it’s SO HARD to remember all the information they give us :/ … um, also the guy either said the mosque was in use until recently or is still in use. Not sure. Either way, cool.

(2) House of Siwa Museum. Basically a model of old Siwan houses/life. We were shown traditional clothing, jewelry, other stuff. The guy spoke in Arabic and Dr. Randa translated, but I could understand an encouraging amount of what he was saying, so that was nice. Also, hey Mom and Dad --- does the oven remind you of the scary fiery water heater thing that used to be in Paati and Paata’s old large bathroom downstairs? Because that’s definitely the first thing I thought of…

(3) Gebl al-Mawta (Mountain of the Dead), a huuuuuge burial site. Just, tombs and tombs and tombs everywhere. (One of which Dr. Randa fell into, haaaahahaha. That maaaaay have made the trip.) But also there were just bones, everywhere, which was fascinating in a kind of creepy/awesome way. Like bits and pieces of human skeletons everywhere. Seriously. Probably the coolest thing we saw Friday. I maaaay have thefted a couple of small bones. I'm probably cursed. Oh well!

(4) Lunch! Mmmmm. Oh I forgot to mention the people here are Amazigh (Berber in non-PC terms) and speak a dialect of Amazigh they refer to as Siwi. Cool cool. That combined with eating couscous for lunch was very reminiscent of our Sahara trip in Morocco, which, heart. Only as you’ll see later (Saturday), this journey to the desert was maybe a little crazier.

(5) Temple of the Oracle. The oracle here was a statue rather than a person that moved left or right and answered only yes or no questions, I guess. Weird. But apparently it was pretty famous and Alexander the Great visited here and everything. Neat.

(6) Temple of Amun (Umm Ubayd). Not sure what this was, really. We only stopped briefly. Most of it’s not there anymore because someone decided he wanted the stairs for his house and tore most of it down.

(7) Cleopatra’s Bath. Supposedly Alexander swam here. Dr. Randa was super enthusiastic about going back to the hotel to get bathing suits and then returning to swim here haha. More so than any of the students. However, upon returning to the hotel people decided they’d rather just swim there than return to Cleopatra’s Bath … so they did. And hung out with random cats, et cetera. Y’know. Lounged around.

Then, shortly afterwards, we headed to (8), Lake Siwa. Basically just sat by the lake and watched the sunset, but it was one of the most beautiful, peaceful things ever. Pictures are better than words here…but yeah. Wow. After that, we came back to the hotel for dinner, which was delicious, and hung out by a fire and drank tea and chatted and listened to music. Also wonderful.

So that was Friday. <3. Great day.

Siwa, Part One

The following was written Saturday evening.

What a crazy weekend. Wow. I’ll update you on older stuff later, I know I haven’t written in forever, but … amazing. My eyes and ears are gritty with sand and parts of me are soaked from, um, falling in a lake. BUT. What an unbelievable experience. I’ll divide it into parts because I don’t think I’ve ever done this much stuff in one weekend before. Anyway, though, let’s start at the beginning….

Thursday morning, 7:30 am, I received a mass text from Matthew saying he hoped we were all awake, as our bus was leaving at 8. Oops. Somehow my intended 7-9 pm nap had turned into 12+ hours of sleep, and as such my alarm wasn’t set. So I woke up groggily and slightly panicked, took a shower, and hastily packed up a weekend’s worth of clothes, plus my camera and laptop and iPod and phone and all of the corresponding chargers, and headed out the door, reaching the bus at 8:10. So I almost made it on time…

Luckily they didn’t leave me behind, and Dr. Randa—the Egyptology professor who accompanies us on most of our historical outings and such—wasn’t there yet anyways so it wasn’t a problem. In a few minutes she arrived though, and thus began a twelve-hour bus ride to Siwa, a desert oasis and historical site in Egypt. So that was … something. Mostly I just slept and listened to music and ate delicious peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches and chips and drank a number of juice boxes in flavors like peach and pear and piña colada and other wonderful combinations that are sadly unavailable in the states. Oh, and also visited a bunch of shady rest stops and observed a lot of adorable animals.

Also on the way there we stopped at El Alamein memorial and museum. El Alamein was I guess a decisive battle in WWII where I think the Allies defeated General Rommel (aka The Desert Fox) and maybe changed the tide of the war? Something like that. I don’t think I actually realized that WWII extended all the way to Egypt before, but apparently it did. Oops. I am bad at knowing history. Anyway, the memorial for the Commonwealth soldiers was really beautiful:

 

  

  

 

And after that we stopped at the El Alamein museum, where they had old tanks and stuff. Also, it overlooked the Mediterranean, I think. Cool cool. They also had wax figurines of various soldiers, which were super creepy/cool, but I didn’t take any pictures of them. Oops.

 

 

After forever, and getting somewhat lost, we finally arrived at our hotel in Siwa. The rooms were simple but nice and had electricity and [kind of sulfurous] running water alhumdulillah. No internet haha, which … I can’t even REMEMBER the last time I went more than a few hours without internet, so that was a little crazy. Probably for the better, though. Definitely for the better. The campus or whatever it’s called … just, the grounds of the hotel were really beautiful. Trees and pools surrounding the hut-like rooms. Very serene. But yeah, Thursday all we did was eat dinner at the hotel and then crash. Which was fine with me. The real adventures began Friday and Saturday…