Monday 5-12-08:
Wake up at the Flamenco, breakfast, delicious. Load up the vans and head to AUC for the first day of classes. Arrive at AUC, it’s in a fairly nice neighborhood of Cairo, and we get to our classroom. Our room isn’t really a classroom; it is more like an executive meeting room. It’s beautiful with very comfortable old style chairs. 4 hours of fluids later and its lunch time. So far the class seems very interesting, a lot of the same mechanics as previous classes, just with different applications of fluids involved with it. We get lunch, and then meet up with the rest of the group for our first meeting about our civil service project. Everyone in the group was under the impression that we were going to be painting a bridge in a small impoverished community outside of Cairo. But when the meeting starts, the people working for the NGO tell us that that has actually fallen through and that there are new projects that we can work on. They tell us about there other projects that they have going on. The slide show they are running is pretty terrible, and Yousef, the guy running the meeting seemed like he had no idea what was going on. The other lady working with him seemed the same was as well. They have 3 main options for us to choose from: Help a small knitting factory by setting up a website and other things. Also, they would like us to help a small carpet factory build a website as well as other stuff. There is also a glass blowing factory that needs help. These 3 factories are being helped by the NGO apparently, and they help Egyptians with jobs and learning a trade. The last project they had for us was what they called “sanitation” of this community near the factories. They want us to pick up the trash in this neighborhood that is full of trash because the government denies there existence and refuses to help them out…so here are my initial thoughts:
I instantly thought that the factories were probably sweat shops, and that we aren’t going to be able to help them at all. All the questions we asked like “what are we going to do to help these factories” were answered completely vaguely, or by them saying “how would you like to help these people”. This made me realize just how unorganized this whole operation was.
and when I heard about the trash picking, I thought it was a joke…firstly there is no way in hell I am going to pick up trash in a community like that for obvious health reasons…secondly if I pick up the trash, its not like there is a system to keep the trash out of there, it will just pile up again…many people from the group asked questions about this and they were answered the same way as before...vaguely. I started looking around and everyone had the same look on their face as i did, it was a “WHAT THE F&^% IS GOING ON??” look...
Then the 2 people from the NGO that were running the excuse for a meeting say…OK! Now organize yourselves into groups of what project you would like to work on...we are all like…WHAT?! How the hell are we supposed to know which project we want to work on yet? We havn't even seen these places yet…they realize our mindset and they agree that we should see the places first thanks to Dr. Sullivan. By now I was so furious with what was going on I really just wanted to get out of there…
When I signed up for this, I was under the impression that there was a potential for some engineering community service stuff. But then that fell through before we came over and I was fine with it. I was cool with painting a bridge, which was the other plan, that seemed like something substantial to help people. But when that fell through, and they were asking me what I wanted to be doing because they had no idea what THEY were doing, man that fired me up…It was like they had no idea what they were doing and they wanted us to figure it out in 1 month…
After the meeting I thought I was mad and then I talked to everyone else and they were just as furious with the whole thing. So I guess I still havn’t seen the places, maybe it wont be as bad as I thought…after the meeting, we load up the vans, and head back to the hotel. Do a little of my first homework assignment and work a little more on the paper. Head out to dinner at a sweet little pasta place…full plate of pasta for 2 dollars American…ridiculous…back to the hotel, work a little bit more on my paper and then crash…
Being back in Cairo has definitely increased my stress level. I am no longer a tourist, and I am wearing thin. Class is almost relaxing because it gets me out of the city for 4 hours a day. But I feel like whenever I am with the whole group I go insane because nothing is planned very well anymore…when we were touring Upper Egypt, it was excellent, and everything ran smoothly. Now that I'm in class and the civil service portion is FUBAR, I'm getting pretty annoyed. 4 weeks ill be done and I'm looking forward to it…
More for tomorrow
Peace
-Al
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