You Can't Make Mistakes.

Day 5

[UPDATE 25 August 2010: I have added photos and a slideshow of the sunrise. Enjoy.]

I got up at ten to six this morning. I just happened to wake up really early and then realized that the sun might have not risen yet. It was light out, but when I checked on my phone, I found that sunrise would not occur for another twenty minutes or so. I dragged myself out of bed and went up on the roof to watch. It was beautiful. Dr. Arafa said there were two times here that one should not miss: sunrise and sunset. He was not wrong.

Here is what I saw, sort of:

Sunrise in Basaisa, 5 August 2010 [AVI]

I got a bunch of work done after sunrise since no one else would wake for several hours. It was pretty good morning.

Dr. Arafa had to leave this morning again. He is a busy guy. After seeing the way we handled being left on our own in charge of the workshop the other day, though, he told us that he felt that it was in capable hands. Jeff spent the morning doing a free-association exercise with the kids. He put together a slide-show and then asked them to write down words and descriptions that occurred to them when they saw the images. I came into the room just as they were going back through the pictures telling the class what they had written. Free-association brings up interesting stuff. One girl, Gehad, described a picture of an American/English style house as “classic.” Where she got “classic” or why she would choose to associate it with that style of structure—which is unknown here—is beyond me. Probably movies or TV.

We took a break and then the students came back to review for a final assessment later in the afternoon. The plan was to have them all around for the afternoon and then take a break and administer a final evaluation after which we would take a break. After the break we would come back and hand out certificates and dismiss.

Of course that didn’t work out. Several students needed to leave a bit early and were unsure if they could come back or not. One told me it was because something terrible had happened at home. I didn’t press him on it. So we administered the test a little early to 5 of the students. Then there was the matter of the certificates. We wanted everyone in pictures, so we did the presentation of certificates before half of the students had taken the assessment, explaining that we were reversing the order of events now. They rolled with it. Everyone smiled and took pictures and then the rest sat their exam.

They did well. When we looked through their answers it was clear that they have all made progress throughout the week. The biggest hurdle we had was simply getting everyone to be less shy. By this point we have jumped it. A few were asking if we would play soccer with them this evening. Others actuallywanted to come and sit with us and learn some more words and have a chat in the evening. Perfectly fine by me.

Tomorrow morning we are all going to the beach in Ras Sidr and then Jeff and I are getting on a bus to head back to Cairo. I kind of dread returning to Cairo. I also have a ton of work to do there; there is an apartment to move into and a thesis to research. Also—and I can’t believe this as I am writing it—I am gasping for an ice cold Stella. It’s pretty dry out here in the desert.

Day 4

[UPDATE 25 August 2010: I have added a gallery of photos. Enjoy.]

Jeff wanted to discuss development with the kids today. I really didn’t know how to go about this, so I let him have at it. He decided to start—I’m not joking here—with a listen and read the lyrics exercise involving Jack Johnson’s “The 3 R’s” from the Curious George soundtrack. I was skeptical. It’s a pretty weird song. The guy obviously wrote it while stoned—he’s a frigging surfer turned songwriter; of course he is stoned—and the lyrics are pretty confusing and convoluted. There is all this math and then somehow we are discussing recycling? The song ends with the singing of a bunch of numbers? Really weird.

‘Reduce,’ ‘Reuse’ and ‘Recycle’ were the only three words that EVERY one of the students would remember on their final assessment the next day. Well done Jeff.

The day continued quite pleasantly. Dr. Arafa returned from Cairo and surveyed the progress. We continued to make spreadsheets of vocabulary words, which everyone seemed excited about—as this activity would provide a list for them to use as a reference for studying.

In the afternoon, pursuant to our chosen theme of the day, Jeff had the students decide on what sort of things that they would like to see in the future in New Basaisa. He used the map that the girls drew the other day as a base and had them draw new buildings and features on pieces of paper which they then tacked on the map in place. These included such frivolities as a hospital and a police station and such necessities as a night club and a cinema on the beach. It got everyone thinking forward though.

Meanwhile, I compiled their vocabulary lists and printed them. Immediately after distributing the lists, I was told, by everyone, that there were wrong translations, wrong words. I explained to them that these were not lists that I made myself, but rather the compilation of all of their lists. It took a few times explaining what I meant before they figured out that if there were mistakes, they belonged to the authors, and it was up to the authors to correct them. They proceeded to do so, collaboratively, arguing over words here and there. Eventually they came up with a decent list of errata which they shared between them.

After the students left we sat around and worked, preparing for the last day of the workshop, waiting for the sun to get a bit lower in the sky. Dr. Arafa wanted to take us on a walk to the beach. Behind the village, there is an expanse of planted olive and palm grove with several wells dug in it. Beyond that, he told us, there was an expanse of dunes and virgin beach.

So around six we began walking west. The groves are really pretty, even when they are out of season. The olives are coming into season shortly and we could see fruit starting to sprout on the branches. I hadn’t realized until this week that olives don’t flower. There are just buds and then suddenly olives are growing on the branches. Dr. Arafa and several of kids confirmed this. Odd plants that grow in the desert.

When we got to the edge of the dunes it was like stepping onto another planet. I realized that I have never really seen virgin beach before in my life. I have been around a lot of dunes, but they are mostly in preservation areas in the States where they have been destroyed to some extent. This was unreal. Like some alien landscape.

The scrubby bushes and tall grass were well rooted causing great huge hills and hollows in between. There were all sorts of animal tracks in the sand: some kinds of lizard, dogs, a few that I couldn’t recognize. The tracks that most interested me were the snake. They were everywhere. Snakes are apparently pretty busy when there aren’t folks around. Based on the size of some of the tracks, I was not particularly interested in coming across their makers.

We finally crested the last dune and came to the tide plain. It was like nothing I have ever seen. There were shells and pieces of dead coral everywhere. The reef is quite deep here, so the and the sea floor are quite bare and sandy for a long way. It is great for swimming: I’ve never been a big fan of reefs because I don’t tend to like the way that you have swim near them. This was ideal for my aquatic tastes.

Beyond the beach we could see ships approaching the mouth of the canal to the north. On either side of us a kilometer away, there were settlements or developments that went right up to the beach. Compared to where we were standing, they were ugly concrete boxes. They looked out of place.

We walked back into the village just as the sun set and wandered by a few more wells and were shown the site of a future desalination plant right in the middle of the tiny settlement. The walk to the beach and back was not an easy one, given the terrain, but it was a good time and place to be. I have seldom seen more interesting and beautiful natural places here.

Day 3

[UPDATE 25 August 2010: I have added a gallery of photos. Enjoy.]

Dr. Arafa was summoned back to Cairo last night so today’s lessons fell entirely on me and Jeff. We decided that it would be community day, so we wrote a fictitious letter from our friend Mike in the States to the kids here telling them about his community and asking about theirs. We then decided that their homework tonight will be to write a letter to our real friend Mike Creager, which we will bundle up and send to him. It will be amusing when Creager gets a bunch of letters from kids in Sinai, unexpectedly.

We learned how to use spreadsheets in the afternoon and everyone put their vocabulary words into a spreadsheet in two languages. The kids were pretty excited about this for studying purposes. My hope is that they will continue to employ this method in the future. It always helped me remember vocabulary words. Sometimes the act of just writing the words next to each other is enough to help retain them.

In the afternoon we asked everyone to collectively draw a map for us. Everyone was a little sheepish about drawing except for Shaykh Mubarak the Bedouin. He was a pretty fair cartographer, though almost completely disregarded the roads, save a few of the more obvious ones, preferring to just draw landmarks and houses with spaces in between. The kids would call out stuff and he would place it on the map. Good exercise for everyone.

After the mapping, we asked the kids to take us out and show us where everything was, so they did. The three girls mysteriously stayed behind; more on that later. We walked out toward the sea where most of the houses are concentrated. Everyone pointed out their houses along the way, and the houses of others. Moamen brought lemons out from his house for us. We stopped at Ahmed’s house for a water break. Mohamed showed us his family’s house near the mosque. Then we walked to the well on Hamed’s father’s land.

This was a good thing, because this morning we had a hell of a time getting everyone to talk about the wells. No one would say the word for well. We discussed the mechanics of irrigation yesterday at length, but this morning we were back to being told either that the water came from a pipe or—in the Delta—from a canal originating at the Nile. The visit to the well finally drove it home.

Then we walked through the fields and ate dates right off the palms. I have never liked dates at all. Eating them fresh, right from the palm makes all the difference. These were amazing. The olives were ripening as well. Apparently they will be ready for harvesting and pressing into oil later in the year.

The walk was a fun time. We got to see the community and its surroundings a bit closer. The place has even more personality now. These kids are really, really proud of what they and their families have here. They are not wealthy, but that is meaningless. Here they have a different kind of wealth: equity. They have houses and land to farm, crops that are suited to the environment that they are in. They have means to make happen what they need to and they are open to modes of doing all of this that are unorthodox in this part of the world.

I have been having a hard time figuring out what comes first. I don’t know if their surroundings and this community make these kids so enthusiastic and eager or if everyone here is enthusiastic and eager and that makes the community what it is. It’s a chicken and egg problem, but it doesn’t really matter. It is what it is.

And there we are. Jeff and I are sitting here in the main building with the kitchen listening to Dave Matthews Band and Creedence Clearwater Revival creating tomorrow’s lesson and I couldn’t be happier. This is exactly the kind of vacation I needed: a not-vacation. We’re working like dogs and loving every minute of it. I hate the regular, sit-around-and-do-nothing vacations. I’m always bored and feel useless. I always take work with me and never get anything done because I am in sitting-on-my-ass mode. Here I am actually getting some work done in the evenings for myself on top of what we are doing during the day and in preparation for the next day. I can’t ask for better than that.

Day 2

[UPDATE 25 August 2010: I have added a gallery of photos. Enjoy.]

Today is food and agriculture day.

They grow olives, date palms and jojoba here, all of which are particularly well-suited to the climate and soil—which is hot as hell and dry as a bone. Crops can be raised with little water and they are relatively saline-tolerant, which means that they don’t have too much trouble with the very salty water that comes from the shallow wells. The wells tap into the sea-water table about a kilometer inland and provide most of the water needed for irrigation. We talked this morning about putting together a grey-water system that would collect water from sink-drains and store it to be used when needed. Dr. Arafa was pretty excited about the idea and wants to introduce it to the kids.

Since this is a farming community, Jeff and I decided that it is probably a good idea that everyone know how to discuss their surroundings and what they do here. Being other than farmers, we are unsure about how to go about this. I thought that perhaps even a cursory discussion of what different types of farming is like in different places. We’ll talk about different crops and where they grow, soil types, irrigation methods and needs. Oddly enough, though not a farmer, I have spent a good deal of time on and around them. I love irrigation systems; probably more than is reasonable, considering. Perhaps this will be an advantage in attempting to construct a lesson around this concept. Hopefully this will work and bring the global perspectives angle in, which Dr. Arafa likes to incorporate.

Speaking of food and agriculture: I am not as hungry here. In Cairo, we are being continuously blasted by air-conditioning. I think that this has made my body think that we are preparing for winter, given the amount of times a day that I feel peckish. I will have to rectify this upon our return. I prefer this way of being. We have been eating a little bit in the morning with some tea and then something substantial in the late afternoon. In the evening we usually take a snack. I like it. Preferably my body likes it as well and will drop a few of the resentful kilos it is carrying around these days.

My favorite part about being out here—aside from great students, beautiful surroundings, fresh air, forward-thinking community, etc.—is that I am tired at the end of the night. Also the quiet. The two are not unrelated. Even in the most pleasant places in Cairo, I have only tricked myself into believing that they are in any way quiet. If I sit and make my mind quiet in Cairo—anywhere—I immediately hear the sounds of distant traffic, bicycle bells, a whistle, someone shouting, honking horns, etc. These things are impossible to escape there.

I have just moved from Mohandiseen to Maadi, and though I have high hopes that my new flat will be very peaceful, I know better. Maadi is terrifically quieter than Mohandiseen or downtown. I hadn’t realized just how utterly mind-bendingly loud my old flat was until leaving it. The noise of traffic on my street went on all night. Even though the bedroom was twenty or more meters from the street, the sound was still deafening compared with the new place. The problem is that now I apparently have a new standard for quiet. This place is simply amazing. It is not silent, of course: the wind is all but constant once the air begins to cool at night, but that is a different kind of sound altogether, and not a disturbing one.

The accommodations on-site are not bad either. They have constructed a sort of dormitory, with ample room to bunk about sixteen. There are plans to expand it further to house even more. It will be an excellent place for guest instructors to come and stay. Presently, it is quite comfortable. It is still a bit rustic, though the accommodations are modern. It reminds to some extent though me of living in a barn one summer in France. All of the students slept in bunks on a sort of mezzanine in a converted barn. This sort of living is a couple of steps up from camping. Big steps. I hate camping. This, I like.

Also, I may have to play soccer tonight with some of the kids. This should be interesting, as I have not played soccer since I was their age, which is approximately half my life ago, which is terrifying. If it is not so hot that I will die of heat-stroke, we will go ahead with this plan. Otherwise, it may be postponed until tomorrow.

[UPDATE 25 August 2010: I have added a gallery of photos. Enjoy.]

Day 1

The first day of the program at New Basaisa got off to an uneven start. We were unsure what to expect but figured that we would play it mosltly by ear. If we did not have enough students the plan was to reschedule the program after Ramadan over the course of three weekends instead of all in a five-day course. Several students arrived in the morning, and a few more trickled in.

At one stage we piled into a pickup truck Sinai-style and drove to another NGO community center nearby where we thought we might conduct the assessment exam since there were participants coming from near there. Jeff and I wedged ourselves in the back seat with two of the participants and the rest hopped in the back and sat around the edge of the truck-bed. Most of the students we had with us lived here in New Basaisa.

After some discussion regard what everyone was expecting and what they were willing to do, it was decided that we would go ahead with the program this week as a pilot and then continue with one after Ramadan as a follow up. We now had twelve students as participants and the three guys who work at New Basaisa with Dr. Salah Arafa—Nasser, Mamdouh and Mubarak the Bedouin—would also take part to improve their English skills. Everyone introduced themselves. There was a wide range of ages, from late primary school age to first-years university. Most of the students identified themselves as being in secondary school.

We eventually decided that in fact we would be conducting the program at New Basaisa after all so we all piled back in the truck—now with more passengers—and rode the few kilometers back to the village. Once there, we administered a basic skills assessment test and did a brief interview in two languages to get an idea of where everyone was at. We learned that most of the participants were starting out at a relatively basic level, though they were all quite enthusiastic. Sometimes this enthusiasm came across as shyness, until asked a question in Arabic and then the answers and explanations became effusive.

Armed with our new knowledge, Dr. Arafa stood in front of the group and gave a tremendous introduction. It was a vocabulary lesson, primarily. The theme throughout, however, had nothing to do with vocabulary and everything to do with understanding the ways we are connected to the people and the world around us. He started with “I/my” and eventually worked his way through “neighbors” and “community” to “region” and “world.”

Jeff and I were up next and went through the introduction to the computing component of our program. It gave us a pretty good idea of what level all of the participants were at and how to move forward. By the end of the day, we were ready with a plan for the rest of the week. We decided that since this is a pretty hands-on bunch and since they live in a farming community that we will do some outdoor excursion type lessons where we go out and have the participants describe their surroundings and what we do out of doors. Tomorrow we will water and tend to a garden and talk about it the whole time. Should be good.

The thing that amazes me the most about these students is how attentive and eager they are. I have dealt with students their age, younger and older both here in Egypt and substitute teaching, as well as at the university—AUC and Western Michigan—and I have never come across students like these. I had almost given up on the idea that anyone ever came anywhere to actually attempt to learn something. With these students, I get none of the sense of entitlement that typically accompanies university students these days, nor the affectations of not caring which is customary for high-school students.

I find it very likely that this phenomenon has to do with what I wrote about last time: living in a community which is based on self-sufficiency and self-sustainability. A number of these kids grew up here. Half of them live here. There other half are here visiting family, but live in Zagazig, where the Old Basaisa is. Theyse are folks who want to have a good, solidly happy life, but who don’t expect anyone else to provide it for them.

I love it here.

[UPDATE 25 August 2010: I have added a gallery of photos. Enjoy.]

Jeff and I are spending this week in a village called New Basaisa, north of the town of Ras Sudr, on the coast of the Gulf of Suez. We are both teaching at a week-long English and Technology continuing education program for local folks of varying levels of education and skill.

New Basaisa is a sustainable development project that started nearly 20 years ago by Dr. Salah Arafa (who is also a professor of physics at the AUC). He set up an NGO called the Kenouz Sinai (Treasure of Sinai) Development Program which is now engaged in activities like the one in which we are participating now and the continued development of this community.

New Basaisa was constructed after a similar development and education program was begun in the original Basaisa, a Delta village near Zaqaziq. Salah decided that what was needed was a new beginning for a great deal of people. New Basaisa is that new beginning. The idea is simple: create an environment which will allow a group of people to collectively build a community that is based of principles of sustainability.

Salah called this “building an infrastructure” yesterday, but he is not talking about what we think of as infrastructure in a modern major city. Those infrastructures are not flexible and adaptable. In many cases they are completely immutable. What he was referring to was a set of methods by which a community would decide, as a community, to use in pursuit of having a life. In this case, independence and self-sufficiency is a major part of the operation.

It is thrilling to see this sort of thing happening in a place where the common answer to questions regarding education and economic opportunity is: “Move to Cairo,” a city which can already not sustain the rapid geographic expansion and population explosion that is occurring at present. All future development plans for the city are equally unsustainable as they appear to disregard this simple reality, preferring instead to regard Cairo as a magic city just waiting for psychotically expensive hotels and shopping malls to be erected adjacent to historical monuments that span the run of human history. That is, of course, as long as the monuments are not in the way…

It seems that everyone is ready to take the magic pill or drink the Kool-Aid these days and live in blissful ignorance, able to dial the phone and have anything delivered at any hour, never having to life a finger to accomplish anything. If the Puritans and Calvinists who settled the United States taught us anything, it was that building something with your hands is valuable and hard work is the measure of a person.

This place is like a breath of fresh air, not because of its fresh air—though that doesn’t hurt—but because it is a return to self-sufficiency on a sustainable and maintainable scale. That is the measure of any community, and very few are measuring up these days.