Trip to a Nubian village- Aswan, Egypt

When I heard that the BSA was planning a trip to Aswan I was elated.  I had heard stories of how beautiful, peaceful and clean Aswan is. I was also interested in the stories about how much Aswan brings a picture of diversity to Egypt which is not usually seen being in Cairo and the rest of Lower Egypt. The other important aspect for me was to experience the Nubian culture and try to understand how these two cultures co-exist in a country with so much beauty, potential and contradictions.

The main purpose of the trip was to experience a part of Egyptian History that I had heard of and could not put into context.  It was enlightening to stay with locals, attend a Nubian Union meeting and understand the plight of these internally displaced people from their perspective rather than hearsay. My MA in Migration and Refugee Studies is concerned with Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) and so this was very insightful for me.  During this time, I had just completed my Theses and needed to get away from Cairo to clear my head. I was able to relax., live in a comfortable peaceful village, learn how farming is carried out in situations where rain is not a constant and see evidence of the high dam and how it has influenced both positively and negatively the lives of the Egyptian people.  I also desperately wanted to experience the Nubian culture, and see the sites in Abu Simbel and Luxor. 

The program of the trip entailed, viewing historical sites in Aswan and Luxor, eating at local restaurants, visiting locals and getting an understanding of what local Nubian Egyptian life entails. It also involved spending time learning from the Nubian Union Leaders about issues facing their people in Egyptian, which ended with a plea to us as students to highlight their plight to the National and International Community. 

The program also entailed restful and fun times; we spent some time talking and playing games before bedtime. It involved a lot of self-discipline because we had to choose what was most important to spend time seeing in on a short trip.  This helped us learn how to discuss our needs, desires and preferences so that we were able to accomplish our goal of both understanding the Nubian experience and getting some rest. We were all graduate Students who were really tired and therefore had to learn how to schedule out time to include what worked for everyone. 

As expressed earlier I was already interested in the Nubian culture. As a black woman I face several forms of harassment in Cairo. Sometimes it is as if people in Cairo have never seen anyone of my color and I get to be reminded of it every day as I walk the streets.  One of my desires was to understand why as a black woman I face what I face in a country that has a large population of other black people. I am still interested in the Nubian culture and what it has to offer to a newly emerging democratic state. 

I learned from this trip that Egypt has a wealth of potential in integrating two very different cultures especially in this time of democratization. I also learned that the Nubian people do recognize that they are fully Egyptian as the rest of those in Lower Egypt. I also learned that Nubians to a certain degree have been excluded and not recognized by the state for who they are and this is what they desire. At the Nubian Union meeting the leaders expressed the issue of the Nubian people being a forgotten and excluded part of the Egyptian society which puts them in a precarious situation. 

I was also able to experience a lot of history that I had only read about when seeing the Valley of the Kings, Lake Nasser, and the Aswan High Dam, the buried cities, displaced people, the temples ,  living in a Nubian village among a host of other opportunities. One of the greatest highlights for me was living with the locals and sharing a boat taxi with them every morning, It was enlightening to be away from a hotel experience and get down to the basics of local Egyptian Nubian living. 

At the moment I can only hope that one day I will be able to return to Aswan and spend time writing about my experiences, the people and their plight. Maybe do a research on the amazing contradictions on the people of Egypt.

Ends

In the past week, I defended my MRS thesis - which turned out great because I passed. For some reason I could hardly do much after that, and have since then been in a state of quagmire - more like slack. It’s been a hard rough road and oh! how am glad it’s getting to the end yet the end is only the beginning. For now am smiling and trying to get some more work done, never stops. In fact it’s getting addictive.

My teaching assistant work came to an end today, wonderful experience. Last week I had to be a judge for a moot court class which was a final exam for the International Dispute settlement class. The students had amazing confidence, what’s even more interesting is that I took this class two years ago and I never had that much confidence.With the tables changing so much in life, I recalled that I was once standing there being judged and there I was being a judge - things do get modified. 

Yesterday some of my friends and I went to Shoubra - interesting neighborhood in Cairo, what were we there for? In search of a baladi bar. We got off two metro stops before the bar and walked about 60 blocks to find the place - apart from wearing me out, the walk turned out to be interesting, we experienced  different dynamics being in a majorly Coptic part of Cairo than what we experience in other parts. A little bit of cat calling, however people seemed to generally ignore us. In part I felt slightly invisible to what I feel being in downtown Cairo. Well, well, the baladi bar was something else. There is no bathroom for women; the norm is that it’s only men who hit the bar in this zone. We also got served a huge amount of vegetables with Stella beers which I found rather boring. Why do I think animal and bird flesh accompanies the activity of drinking alcohol? Am not sure why this is my argument considering the fact that I am still a beer virgin. I resorted to the dear  Ol'Sprite which did pay off when my bill turned out to be 5le for two sprite bottles and my friends bills were three times what I paid for the same number. One lesson am learning from watching consumers of alcohol is that if I want to save up for the finer things in life - which Ida and I would agree revolve around getting around this  big wide world I might have to be an alcohol virgin for a long time.

Baladi bars appear to be the best places to have interactions with local Egyptians. This I must admit is something that we miss out on being at an American institution especially in the Gradate program. For one several of the tudents who attend grad school here are generally widely traveled or most of them in my program are from abroad. Because of this we tend to assume that we are having amazing mufti-cultural interactions, when in essence we miss out on the local Egyptian experience. So last night we got to interact with some interesting men at the bar, of course not I in particular. I have developed a concept of men in Egypt that stops me from desiring any kind of contact with them on any level. The old men sitting next to my table seemed pretty respectful, they insisted I follow my friend to the bathroom when she went to use it because there were men using the loo and it would be quite unsafe for her to be there by herself. They also said good night on their way out. This is the most interaction I appreciate.

One of us in the group got into a long conversation with the men across from the table told us we were the 'light of Cairo' basically meaning: We were welcome to Cairo. There is something about Arabic, the poetry of the language and the depth of it that sometimes makes me want to spend years learning it. I want to grasp Arabic, French and Portuguese and these I know I will learn before am 50 years old. If I can dedicate two years to each language starting January 2012 I will achieve this goal, sa?

  

We had a very long and in-depth conversation last night on culture, love, race and life. In two languages, French and English, it was stimulating and intense; we left the bar at about 12:30am. I want to have more of these; I wish I was here for much longer with the same crowd of people :). There were ideas thrown out by everyone about intrigues and concepts that I found deeply insightful. In so many ways it’s a wonderful way to end an era, sharing what we have learned over the years and from being together as well. We have been shaped by each other and experiences. I hope that I can go away a much better person than I was when I first came to Cairo.

I feel like this week is going to be the end of an era, we are having a farewell party for one of my friend's who is leaving Cairo for good. It’s going to be sad, yet I am never sure what leaving Cairo for good means seeing as everyone always seems to return at some point. What matters most is that we are having a party tonight and we are going to have fun!! - of this am sure.