And into Gaza!

Accounts of a brief journey undertaken by an AUCian

Picture taken from Sabkha's Facebook profile

A beautiful valley with well built houses aligned aside each other. Just take a few more steps ... a few more … and there’s nothing. On the other side is a wasteland, a washed away area due to “intentional” flooding and years of struggle.

For some, this is new. For others, it is familiar. Ashraf Sabkha, an accounting freshman at the American University in Cairo (AUC), tells us his very brief encounter with life on the other side, Palestine.

“It was an obligation for me to go there.”

Being a Libyan, he’s had to endure a long and painful six months of war back home. He was given the opportunity to study at AUC on a full-ride scholarship, a dream for many. 

Behind the gates of a university

A few weeks ago, Gaza was struck with an unfortunate set of events, bombings, no surprise. People lost their lives, their homes and their families. An initiative was taken to collect donations and contributions from the communities of AUC and the German University in Cairo (GUC). Everything was collected in a large truck that contained roughly 500 KG of medicine and thousands of pounds worth of blankets and foodstuff.

This truck was to be accompanied by over 100 students from different backgrounds and cultures. Students from Sweden, Algeria, America, Egypt and many others joined this trip despite the risks posed against their citizenship and future travels.

They left the dawn of November 22. It was a long trip, from New Cairo through the massive lands of the Sinai. 

A little fuss in the Peninsula

As the bus drove towards the Sinai crossing bridge, they were stopped unexpectedly by security. The students managed to make every possible phone call. To the presidential office, the ministry of defense, the ministry of interior and many others with the success of receiving permission, and yet, they were not allowed to pass.

What followed next were frustrated students who took the matter into their hands. They sat in the middle of the road blocking passing vehicles in an attempt to create a protest of their own. Unwanted words were accidently thrown back and forth when finally they were allowed to cross. What was interesting is that they were also provided with a security truck to follow them to the Palestinian borders.

Here are your passports!

After what seemed like days, they finally reached the Egyptian side of the city of Rafah. They lost a complete day due to the previous encounter in the Sinai crossing bridge, a heavy hailstorm on their way and the hours spent waiting for their passports.

Rafah is part of or connected to the Palestinian city in the Southern part of the Gaza strip. This part of the journey made the international students worried. What were they to do if their passports were to be stamped? It was a risk. A risk Sabkha was willing to take.

“I told my father and he said it will be okay because it was the previous regime and hopefully it will be okay.”

Their passports were brought back. And to those who thought they were getting a copy stamped, were only left disappointed. But again, it was a risk everyone was aware of.

And they finally stepped into Palestinian land.

A story of resistance after 65 years of occupation

“I swear, it was just indescribable.”

Sabkha was shocked. The moment they left the bus, they were welcomed with open arms. They were hugged, they were thanked. People were happy.

The men spent the night at the mosque whereas the women were taken to the school just nearby.  In their brief stay, they manage to visit the heart of the Gaza strip, Gaza, as well as take a trip around their area.

Sabkha met various people, all with a different story.

On his first day, they visited the funeral of two men who lost their lives in the bombing. They met the father of one of the deceased. The old man welcomed them and served them tea. He told them his story.

“It was horrible, I met his father, he was just … he wasn’t crying, you can see sadness in his eyes.”

On another day, Sabkha spoke to the security individual at the mosque who had a 9mm gun. It was mainly for security as it would otherwise be a “waste of bullets”. This old man misses his family very much. He wishes to see his daughter in Turkey one more time before he dies. He has a son that he always imagines in a coffin whenever he hears of the news of war.

In their last day, Sabkha and the others were taken to a demolished house, or rather the barren land. It belonged to a Palestinian man. This man had a big family. He had daughters, daughter-in-laws, sons, a loving wife and infant grandchildren! This man lost all of them in one night. He was only left with two sons, one that was abroad and the other who followed him to work on the day of the tragedy.

“Three young men just lost their family. Three generations of human beings died unlawfully under one airstrike.”

Finding warmth in a war zone

The morning they had to leave, Sabkha left the mosque and decided to visit the school nearby. He was astonished with what he saw.

“You can see how persistent they were. They were all living normally.”

The students at that school smiled, played and talked amongst themselves. It was the first day after the three-day war. As Sabkha put it, they had “normal facial expressions”.  But what added to the impact of his shock was finding out it was not any regular school but a school for orphans.

“It killed me from the inside.”

Words could not describe what Sabkha felt from there on. He only had some pictures and souvenirs to keep with him, to go back to that memory left in Gaza. He knew this was something he had to do, to visit the Palestinian lands.

Sabkha is no stranger to these conditions but what he found different was what he experienced in six months, they had to endure it for 65 years. He will take these lessons and experiences with him wherever he goes.

“It was inspiring but in a tragic way.”

Profile: The non-Egyptian Egyptologist

Picture taken from pbs.org

When she’s not analyzing of what could have been the possible lives of the petrified bodies found below Egypt’s sands, she resorts herself to reading fiction and tasting cuisines of the world.

Imagine taking an undergraduate level course on Egyptology where you have to mummify animals. Yes, real, live, animals. Salima Ikram, professor of Egyptology at the American University in Cairo (AUC), co-taught a course on the rituals taken during a burial of the ancient times. 

Ikram, who was born in Lahore, Pakistan, fell in love with Egypt every since she was nine-years-old. How many of us can say that we’ve already decided what we want at age nine, and actually accomplished it.

“It’s never a career that will make you rich but you do it because you love it,” said Salima in an interview given to the Caravan in early 2012.

From there on, she worked on several internships, jobs, scavenger hunts, traveled around and even underwent a year of study abroad at the AUC.

Picture taken from cd-cc.si

Her adventure started at the age of eight when her parents gave her a book called “The Timelife Book of Ancient Egypt”. At the age of nine, she visited Egypt with her family and was mesmerized by the country’s great history. 

Soon into her life as an undergraduate student, she joined Bryn Mawr College at the United States receiving a degree in Classical and Near Eastern Archaeology and another degree in History. She later joined Cambridge University in England where she received her M. Phil. in Archaeological Method and Practice as well as Museology. She didn’t wait long and decided to pursue a Ph.D.

During her undergraduate year, she was able to yet again, travel to Egypt as a study abroad student at AUC for one fruitful year.

Ikram’s stay at the AUC confirmed what she wanted to do and so ventured into that path. In addition to having Egypt as a working environment, she did manage to intern at museums in the United States.

However, this road is not always paved smooth and straight. 

“Always challenging working as an archeologist, because of funding challenges. Also, to balance the work in the university particularly administrative duties,” she said in her interview in early 2012.

In the long run, all her efforts paved off to be where she is now, an associate professor in the department of Egyptology at the AUC. Not to mention her marvelous adventures into different countries like Greece, Turkey and Sudan where she was one of many to work on important excavating projects.

She managed to work in museums and historical sites around Egypt, not only Cairo. Ikram would be recognized as one of the co-directors of the project Animal Mummies in the Egyptian museum, where she also gave her students the opportunity to participate in.

All the time she spent in being familiar with Egypt’s ancient past made Ikram a successful figure in the field of history. She has been interviewed several times and has a Bio page on the National Geographic. 

In this bio, she had been asked about her most cherished experiences to which she replied, “Finding new rock inscriptions, being the first to enter a tomb that has been sealed for over 2,000 years, trying to piece together the precise process of mummification.”

So what makes her so engrossed and dedicated in this field of work?

Picture taken from dailymail.co.uk

“Their (Egyptians) worldview and aesthetic sense resonates strongly with me, and it is never dull trying to find out how they lived, what they believed, and the technologies that they invented or adapted.”

History will continue to benefit from the discoveries made about this marvelous and vast ancient civilization, so long as historians like Ikram do what they do, for the fun of it.

LEAD: A scholarship for memories

Picture taken from Elias's Facebook profile

Who knew having all eyes on you would make you feel so different and unique? Caroline Elias, an undergrad in Communication and Media Arts at the American University in Cairo (AUC), feels exactly that when she’s on stage or in any of her theater classes.

“The LEAD program helps you to strengthen your character and your leadership skills,” said Elias. 

The Leadership for Education and Development (LEAD) program is a full ride scholarship that is given to accomplished Egyptian students every year to pursue an undergraduate degree. It covers tuition, housing and also provides a monthly stipend. This scholarship promises to enhance the student’s cultural experience, academic life and leadership skills.

The LEAD program has an office to cater to the student needs, in addition to their semester evaluations of their academic and community service components.

On the AUC website, the LEAD program’s webpage states their vision as “to prepare Egyptian students for the 21st century and qualify them to lead a positive vision of Egypt's future.”

“We learn how to develop ourselves and then our country. Also, we meet students from different backgrounds in Egypt, which helps us to be flexible and understand how people around us think,” said Elias.

The program gives the Egyptian students the chance to experience a vast array of activities, a different view on the world and the abilities and skills to equip themselves for the future.

Reem Khedr, a LEAD alumnus, who graduated with a Journalism degree on Fall 2011 had been impacted by this program by helping her spread her wings.

“During my high school days, I felt that I have a great deal of energy that's imprisoned and needs a space and a cause to fly. I felt different than many people I meet,” said Khedr.

Now that she’s a graduate, she explained that her studies at AUC has confirmed to her who she is, her beliefs and interests.

In addition to being granted this wonderful opportunity to undergo an education in one of the schools considered to be at the top, the LEAD program does require something in return from the students.

During their four years, or more, at the university, the LEAD students are expected to participate in community service, conferences, extra-curricular activities and much more. And yet again, another opportunity.

“I'm changing now and it's because of my work with street kids and underprivileged children in Cairo,” said Khedr.

She now works as a program assistant at the New Horizon Association for Social Development. She prepares activities and mentors street and working children. In addition to that, she has also received a fellowship, which is mentored and sponsored through the John D. Gerhart Center for Philanthropy and Civic Engagement at AUC.

Elias shares the same feelings about such activities. It is not merely additional work that overwhelms them, but an experience, a lesson in their lives.

Elias however would like to point out that it was not only AUC that has sparked the change in her, but also her friends who remained along her side for years, and the community services that she willingly participated in.

“The community service I have done has changed in my personality and has introduced different Egyptian social classes to me,” she said.

She has participated in mostly children-related causes, in addition to serving the Anti-Cancer Team and the Orphanages’ Teaching programs (both at AUC) for one year each. 

Elias graduates in the Fall of 2013. She is currently taking Mass Communication and Theater course. She writes a book called “Thoughts of Feelings”, which she explains as “a kind of a conversation between the heart and the mind”.

Aside from all the scholarship related work, Elias shares wonderful memories from catering to the needs of street children to the many friends she has collected over the years. 

The AIESEC internship in Ukraine and the study abroad semester at SUNY New Paltz makes it to the list of memorable moments in Khedr’s life as an undergraduate.

“The LEAD program prepares students who have the potential to be leaders, to become ones. It gives them the space to be freely creative and ambitious. It helps them realize that dreams do come true,” she said.

Pottery, pottery everywhere

A design class, of the American University in Cairo (AUC), ventures into a colorful village in the district of Fayoum in order to integrate life experiences to course content.

Certain courses at the AUC attempt on creating class trips to enhance a student’s talent or knowledge on a certain topic, or simply increase one’s interest in a class. However, we will describe this particular class’s journey and decide on whether it was indeed useful.

This design class embarked on its trip on November 23, a “Friday” at 8 AM, to which grunts and displeasure were expected from the students

The bus, which was the transport organized by the Department of the Arts, had two stops before it left to Fayoum.

The first was at AUC’s New Cairo campus to accommodate the students who lived there and the other pick-up point was Al Remaia Square in Giza at around 9 AM. From there on, the students made themselves or at least tried to make themselves comfortable as the toll gates and empty deserts zipped along in the background.

As they got closer to their destination, one cannot but help notice the change of landscape and architecture. The surrounding was calmer, brighter, and cleaner. The buildings were more simple and easy on the eyes. The clouds were grouped together in perfect unison against the light blue sky, as the reflection was perfectly imitated in ripples on Lake Qarun.

It was a good day. And so they reach the village of Tunis at 11 AM.

The students, feeling exhausted, slowly left the bus one after the other. After some time spent soaking in the sun and taking supposedly-professional photographs of landscapes and objects, they were asked to go to a small hall, which was filled with illustrations and creative writing.

The illustrations were all based on the work of the late artist, Hegazy. The author who spoke at this place explained how she integrated her writing based on his work instead of the traditional way of illustrating based on writing.

Later, the students entered the Caricature Museum, the spot light of the village, which is what usually reels in visitors.

The museum, needless to say, was spectacular. There was nothing special about the architecture of the building or its surroundings but the works displayed. There were different rooms that held several caricature displays. They were simply wonderful.

The students, as part of the course, were supposed to imitate the works that appealed to them and later their surroundings.

Hana Wahby, a Business Marketing senior, though she enjoyed the mood that was emitted from Fayoum, she however did not share the same views of her professor.

“It wasn’t related to the course. For the caricature museum, you could see it online,” she said.

Several students shared the same feelings but some simply saw it as an opportunity to see Fayoum and the museum.

However, Wahby is enrolled in this class because she “wants to be a graphic designer one day.” She does not think it will be through AUC but she feels that this course might be one of the first steps she takes.

The next highlight of their day would be to venture into the village of Tunis, famous for its potteries. They left the museum in a pack and explored the neighborhood and its pottery shops. Each held similar yet different works of art.

What drove the students to a state of awe were the wonderful sceneries of the lakes hidden behind some shops.

Back to the pots!

They were colorful, they were simple, they were pretty. The professor bought several pots and asked the students to pay attention to the designs. Other students purchased several items as well as there was actually nothing else to do.

“Pottery, three bowls, are they pots or clay, I don’t know,” said a disgruntled student.

After a long walk back to the museum to where their bus awaits, some students suddenly slept on their seats awaiting to leave.

They were able to reach Cairo at around 7 PM. Some satisfied with their purchases, others indifferent.

However, would they ever participate in such trips again?

“As long as it is called an art trip, I won’t,” said Wahby.