A Little Less Action

Ah, the much overdue post about work. The days have begun to blur together into this mass of stress and action. Everyone has at least 3 main jobs- teaching English at St. Andrews, working with the other NGO (Al-Kayan or Ana Al-Misri), and taking Arabic classes. 

The three tasks alone are pretty difficult to manage, but this doesn’t take into account lesson planning for both St. Andrews and Al-Kayan, the weekly lectures and “reflection sessions” we have, and the quite frankly excessive amounts of homework we are expected to do. This post is probably going to sound whiny, but I think it’s pretty well founded. We are enrolled in an Arabic language institution that caters to students who come here solely to learn the language. I understand the importance of making the most out of an experience, but at some point it begins to be counter-productive. When I’m in an endless daze from constantly trying not to cross the line between getting everything done and sleep deprivation, I’m not working at maximum efficiency. Like I said before, an experience isn’t complete without reflection, but our schedules here are so packed that there often just isn’t time to think about what you’re doing. Here’s an overview of our schedule:

 

Sunday: morning- class            evening- lecture and group activity (ex. AUC visit)

Monday: morning- Al-Kayan            evening- St. Andrews

Tuesday: morning- class            evening- St. Andrews

Wednesday: morning- class            evening- St. Andrews

Thursday: all day- Al-Kayan

Friday: Day of Rest (supposedly- though this has yet to happen)

Saturday: morning- class            after class: Al-Kayan

 

It may not look like a lot on paper, but we spend at least 4 hours at each place and each entails preparation. Honestly, I think the biggest problem is class. I know that it’s important to continue learning Arabic while we are here, and I really appreciate that DukeEngage is giving us the opportunity to do so, but if one thing has to go, it’s that. It’s not what I’m here for and to me it just gets in the way. I should point out that I probably have more reason to be frustrated because I am no longer going to be studying Arabic and thus these classes, while I find them informative, will not be as useful for me as for the people who are majoring. Still, the general sentiment is that it’s a problem.

I was discussing how absurdly little time we have with Zoe, our on-site coordinator (and really our savior) for the trip, and she made a pretty good point. She asked me simply, “Well who really has enough time to do service?” Which is true. We might be here because we happen to have a completely free summer to go help people in Egypt, but in the future, which is presumably what this is preparing us for, we will be working and have families and who knows what else. Everyone who wants to make a difference is spread thin, and it might be good practice to just learn to get used to it.

I’ll try to make this my only whiny post. I’m actually loving Cairo and really enjoying the teaching that I came here to do. But if I want to give a faithful account, I think this piece is important to include. Coming soon (hopefully)- a post about what’s actually going on in the NGO’s.