Kaddee’s Cairo Chronicles

Today’s commute had an unusual number of unusual items piled in trucks.

Things piled in trucks is not unusual in Egypt. The piles are often WELL BEYOND what most (read: Western) would consider prudent. Still, life goes on and most of it doesn’t fall out of the truck.

Today’s list of “Things Piled in Trucks” includes some of the usual:

• Garbage - in bags, lashed to the truck, and piled more than 100% of the height of the truck itself!
• Eggs - more flats of eggs than you can imagine or count. They FILL a pick-up truck and are piled well above the sides of the bed. All flats lashed down to the truck, going over some of the worst roads in Cairo (Giza). I’d be amazed if half of the eggs make it to their destination
• Vegetables - onions, turnips, tomatoes, all literally overflowing the truck bed.
• Furniture - entire households worth on ONE truck frequently with the residents and family.
• People - workers on their way home from work. There are frequently so many men in the back of a truck that they are all standing up, holding onto each other, hoping that the guys at the front are actually holding on to the top of the cab. It is not unusual to see 15 to 20 men and boys in the back of a truck on the highway!

Today added a few new items:

• Sheep - filling the bed of a pick-up AND tied to a platform on top of the cab of the truck - with a boy standing in the back, tending to the sheep. (I WISH I could have gotten a picture - it was unbelievable)
• Sod - probably a hundred rolls of sod in the back of a flatbed. Being from Seattle this didn’t strike me as too odd, at first. Then I realized, Cairo is a DESERT! Sod isn’t farmed here, nor does it last very long here. Where the HECK is that sod from? going?
• Aluminum stock pots - I know this doesn’t sound odd, but imagine, if you will, pots large enough to render down small children. Now imagine them stacked in the back of a pickup - 3 high by 3 wide by 4 deep! All careening down the ring road at relatively high speeds.

Welcome in Egypt.

The much-touted US election has been blogged to death elsewhere, so I will add merely a little slice of Egypt to the mix.

All the hoopla and run-up to the election was felt here, but only for one candidate. As far as I can tell (and remember, I’m firmly ensconced in the proverbial Ivory Tower) there was “only one REAL candidate”, and it would be an “overwhelming, tsunami of popular vote” for said candidate.

Well, although that didn’t happen (even though otherwise statistically savvy academics are STILL claiming a landslide victory) the jubilation here was incredible.

In all that, I waited. And I waited. And I waited.

As a good democratic (not in the “Which party do you belong to” sense) citizen, I was prepared to exercise my right to express my opinion. I understand that in my state of residence, my vote is not really necessary, as the state ALWAYS goes one way.

Even so, I was patiently waiting to be a part of the process.

WELL NOW MY TIME HAS COME. My state and federal elections ballot was delivered to my desk today.

LOL - HMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM, who should I vote for?

Well, only kinda - I have the joy to be able to give my darling part of the Christmas season in Paris.

This year, Eid el Adha (the BIG Eid) is the second week in December. This ROYALLY messes up class schedules, as we have a week off and then come back for 3 days before giving finals! Malesh!

We have already planned our Christmas/New Year’s trip, and have been trying to figure out what (if anything) we would do for Eid.

We were avoiding other Muslim countries, as the Eid is a time when EVERYTHING shuts down for the feast - so vacationers are frequently left with few options.

Gozi expressed interest in seeing Paris (funny since every time France is mentioned in his presence he exclaims, “F**k the French!!”). The tickets are unreasonable, but so are the French! Besides, Christmas season is Paris is supposed to be MAHVELOUS!

So off we go - for the start of the Christmas season in Paris. We have our flight and a hotel, what else could we need. It is Paris, after all.

For those of you who know me, you know i adore my coffee. I drink all kinds of REAL coffee. I abhor what passes as coffee at many places in Egypt - Nescafe. That, my dear, is not coffee.

For the past 2 years, I have had the great joy and privilege of being treated each work day, upon my arrival at my office, to freshly made Turkish coffee (ahwa) delivered to my desk. This is a treat that I relish, and also about which I felt a great amount of middle-class-guilt. I have learned to get over the guilt, and just enjoy the coffee.

Since the move to New Campus, our labs (and therefore the alcohol burners that made the flame to make the coffee) have been in boxes, in chaotic messes, inaccessible to anyone. I have [sob] been without ahwa in the morning since school began!

*SIDE NOTE - I was so bummed by this, and so used to ahwa every morning (we’d been doing that in Dahab all through August) that I broke down and bought an alcohol burner for our flat! HEHHEH FIRE!

My coffee options on the New Campus have been less than stellar.

• There is Cinnabon - LE17 for a cup of coffee (outrageous!).
  • I don’t drink this in the States, I’m certainly not going to drink it here.
• There is Cilantro - LE19 for a cup of coffee (give me an aneurysm!).
  • Not only is the coffee stupidly expensive, it is TERRIBLE.
• There is Jared’s Bagels - LE6 for an 8 oz. cup of so-so drip coffee.
  • Obviously this is the only reasonable option!

So my options have been determined - even though all of them are decidedly American-style food outlets, and I would really rather have Egyptian-style, seeing as I am in Egypt!

Recently, there has been some problem at Jared’s. When I order my small (8 oz.) drip coffee, I am told, “No small. Only large (12 oz.).”

So I ask, “Hmm, why only large?”

“No small cups.”

At this point, my American brain and my Egyptian training go to war with each other.

• American brain - “That is STUPID, just fill the 12 oz. cup 2/3 full and call it a small.”
• Egyptian training - “OMG, don’t try to explain that to them. It will take 20 minutes, and you will never succeed in making them understand. Just take the damn large coffee!!”
• American brain - “But I don’t WANT a large coffee.”
• Egyptian training - “Then throw out what you don’t want. It is faster and less stressful in the long run. You are only wasting LE1.50 ($0.25)!”

Egyptian training won out. Jared’s has not had small coffees since we got back from Eid. I’m just getting large now - it is so much easier.

We learn to comply with ridiculous situations, because it is easier than trying to fight the battle. Unfortunately each small compliance solidifies the ridiculousness into normalcy.

Ramadan is over, the Feast (Eid) is now ending after 4 days of celebration, and a national holiday (6 October). Many AUCians “get the hell outta Dodge” during the Eid. In years past, we’ve been to Morocco and Lebanon. Friends have been to Thailand, Madagascar and other exotic places. For us, this year, we had certain criteria -

• First and foremost, we DID NOT want to be in a country that was ALSO celebrating the Eid. You may ask, “Why?” Well, just as in Cairo, other predominantly Muslim countries essentially shut down for the feast, making vacation and sight-seeing very difficult.
• Second, we wanted a direct flight. The Eid was only a few days long, and we didn’t want to spend most of the time traveling or recovering from jet lag.
• Third (and this was really just for Jack), we had to try to go somewhere that I had already been, but he hadn’t. Again, you may ask, “Why?” Well, he wants to “catch up” on the countries visited tally - in which I am currently comfortably ahead.

We chose Athens. Greek Orthodox, direct flight, my last visit was in 1987. Check, check and check. And for me, as with our trip to Rome, the years have been long enough that it is practically a new place for me. We planned virtually nothing, and simply got on a plane and left. It was a much needed break for both of us.

HERE are a few select photos from the trip.

7September - first day of classes, first day of the commute:

Leaving the dirt and chaos,
Delving into newness, construction
Hope in the desert
Making personal oases?

Rising dread and fear,
This is NEVER what I wanted.

7October - just returning from the Eid break, one month since classes began:

Daily the ride is the same
Trip distance is a constant
The distance that changes
by magnitudes each minute
Is that of my heart.

My dreams, my Egypt
that which I had come to grips with
Recedes rapidly as I am transported
to the desert mirage.

Feeling suffocated in the openness
Wishing that, like the mirage,
this would evaporate as I approached.

Transport-stupidity

After my nearly-aneurysm-inducing meeting with the Bb specialists, I decided it was time to go home. New Campus is in the middle-of-nowhere-Sahara-Desert. My commute is between 1 hour 15 minutes and 2 hours 30 minutes EACH WAY. It is Ramadan, so there are only 3 scheduled departures from NC to my neighborhood. However there are hourly shuttles to the old campus in downtown. I could bear no more, so I decided to take the shuttle.

I boarded a nearly full bus, which rapidly completed filling. Departure time was scheduled for 3:30pm. The bus was full by 3:10 or so. There were other buses also filling for the 3:30 run, so our driver departed once his bus was full. This has been standard practice for the last 3 weeks, as long as there are other buses to take passengers up until the scheduled departure time.

We had driven for about 15 to 20 minutes, the traffic was not too bad, and we were nearly at the Ring Road which leads to Cairo when the driver’s phone rang. He had to pull over to answer, as it is now a LE500 fine for talking on the phone while driving. After the call, he pulled a U-turn and started to drive BACK TO NEW CAMPUS!

Needless to say, much chaos ensued - all in Arabic. What was finally translated to me, by a student who was on the bus, was that the driver had left before the scheduled time and the dispatcher was going to reprimand him for it by making him return to NC!!! We tried calling the dispatcher from the bus to explain that if we returned to NC, the bus would ARRIVE there after the scheduled departure time - making the bus now LATE. We tried to explain that the bus was FULL, so in returning we could not take any other passengers. We tried to explain that people on the bus have other scheduled appointments in downtown that will be missed or severely delayed if we returned to NC. We tried to explain that this was an egregious waste of gasoline, time and resources. The dispatcher didn’t care - he must assert his authority and reprimand the driver.

So we returned to NC. When we arrived, I got off the bus to “have a few words” with the dispatcher. Of course, he spoke no English, or would not admit to speaking English. I asked for his supervisor’s mobile number, but, not surprisingly, it was turned off when I called. There were no English speakers available from the transport company to explain the rationale for why the bus had been turned around.

And the bus sat. Full of people with plans and destinations. The bus sat.

I eventually managed to get a seat on the 4:30pm bus to my neighborhood. The 3:30 shuttle bus, which had been brought back to NC was STILL SITTING THERE WHEN I LEFT AT 4:30pm.

I went to the transportation company’s website to lodge a complaint. I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised, but when I clicked on the “Comment/Complaint” button I got a “404″ error. I had to laugh out loud. That pretty much sums it up.

Techno-stupidity

I am frequently amazed to find that my “technical expertise” is substantially beyond that of others in my field (although the empirical evidence is vast), however I usually assume that the IT/ACT/Tech people know more about the systems and software than myself. I have been proven wrong.

The university has changed its “Classroom Management System” from, the now defunct, WebCT® to Blackboard®. (While moving to a new campus, etc, etc, etc - just to make life that much more fun for faculty, staff and students) This has been a VERY STEEP learning curve for everyone, aided by the fact that none of us were given access to Bb or our courses until after the semester began. So here we are with new technology that we know nothing about, no FM to use even if we WANT to, and a heavy reliance by many of us on the technology for delivery of content and presentation within our courses. Sounds like a winning combo! LOL

Having used Bb prior to coming to Egypt, I have an ever-so-slight advantage. However the product has gone through many upgrades since I last used it.

I am managing a 20 section class (although not teaching in it) and asked the Bb specialist to make me a “designer” on the class site. This seemed like a reasonable request, it was eventually granted, and I busily removed much of the outdated information and simplified the exceedingly laborious pathways (4 or 5 “clicks”) to access files. I had been doing this for over a week, thinking that it was being seen by all parties in the course. I WAS WRONG. Only instructors could see the changes, and only in an “instructors only” course that no-one looks at.

So I went to the Bb specialist and asked why this was happening. I explained that I wanted to be able to post “Global” content that would go out to all sections. All I received in return was a blank stare, and the response, “That is not possible.”

After 30 minutes, 3 phone calls to higher and higher levels within the tech support office, and the incessant repetition of “That is not possible”, my head nearly exploded. The final result was that I was told that there is no technology to support what I want to do and given a look that said I must be smoking crack.

My final effort was to go to the Blackboard webpage to see what I could find. On the front page of their Higher Education section was a banner, “Streamline multiple sections for large courses”. HMMMMMMMM how interesting. When I clicked on that banner I got:

The Blackboard Content System streamlines managing multiple sections of a large course. For example, an instructor may create a learning object for use in 15 different sections of a large course. On most campuses today, that would mean creating 15 different files, one for each section. With the Blackboard Content System, the learning object is created and stored just once. The instructor then simply links to it from all 15 course sections. The result: more effective use of the instructor’s time. When the instructor wants to update the learning object, he or she does it in one place and only one time.

I don’t know if this is going to work - or if I can get the techies to believe it, but I’ve gotta try.

Picture, if you will, the following New Campus vignettes:

Two faculty members bump into each other on the way to their respective classes. They exchange the usual pleasantries,

• Fac #1 - “So, do YOU have an office yet?”
• Fac #2 - “No, I’m camping out in [insert other faculty/department name here]’s office for now. They have internet and a phone!!!”
• Fac #1 - “NO KIDDING?? I have a room that locks, but no furniture, A/C, phone, internet or electricity.”
• Fac #2 - “Yup, I know how that goes. I’m hoping for a locking room by the Eid .”
  • October 6th is when we return to school after the festival - Eid. Classes began September 7th. Many of us are HOPING for an office, not necessarily having the same level of functionality that we LEFT on old campus, ONLY a MONTH after classes have begun.
• Fac #1 - “Good luck with the office - maybe you can get a computer too, insha’allah.” [Manic laughter from both faculty members as they depart]

A faculty member walks into their lecture room as another faculty member is finishing their class. The faculty member in the lecture hall is erasing the white board,

• entering faculty - “WHERE DID YOU GET THAT ERASER???”
• finishing faculty - “I was in the Provost’s office yesterday and they had them. I asked if I could have one, and they GAVE me one!!!!”
• entering faculty - “Really??!! Yesterday??? Do you think they have any more?”
• finishing faculty - “There were only about 5 when I got mine.”
• entering faculty - “I still have 5 minutes before class begins, I’m going to RUN to the Provost’s office to see if I can have my own whiteboard eraser [a faraway, misty expression crosses faculty's face]“

This is our current state on New Campus. Ahh how far the mighty have fallen.

UNCHARACTERISTICALLY PESSIMISTIC RANT TO FOLLOW - READ AT YOUR OWN RISK

I am just past mid-week of the inaugural semester at AUC’s “Gem in the Desert” New Campus.  According to the university website, the New Campus is:

Built at a total cost of $400 million and spanning 260 acres, the new campus provides a world-class academic environment to the university community and offers state-of-the-art resources such as modern classrooms, lab and studios, and lecture halls to support the latest teaching methods, curricula and educational technologies.

I do not dispute the cost or size of the campus - however I must take umbrage at the rest of the description.  Especially as it indicates a fait accompli.

Upon arrival at the “world-class academic environment” on the first day of classes (7Sept08), I entered my “state-of-the-art” science department to find a construction zone.  Construction workers milled about ineffectually, wearing hardhats and safety vests.  The halls were filled with garbage, food left-overs from the workers and globs of plaster and dust.  Laboratories had no electricity or insufficient numbers of plugs or bare wires at junction boxes, no equipment in place, and were stacked waist-deep in boxes and construction materials.  The science departments have been asked to “postpone” teaching our laboratories until after the Eid - October 6th.

Is this how a “World-Class University” functions?

The lecture halls, touted to “support the latest teaching methods”, range from having no computers, projectors, or chairs for the students or professors to being fully technology ready.  Of the 140 “technology equipped, SMART classrooms” that were planned, 48 of them are functional for the first week of classes.  This is one of the “success stories” of the move, however I must point out that such a success rate is not a “passing grade” in most university classes.

If I just focus on “me and my world” - I have no office space and no functional lab.  I have been assigned a room, but it is still under construction, there is no electricity, no computer, no wireless access, no phone, no air conditioning, and the door does not lock.  All of my teaching and personal items that would normally be in an office are in boxes.  Said boxes are stacked in one of the non-functional labs, however I cannot access any of my belongings.

So - I am squatting in a friend’s office.  She has a door that locks, a computer and furniture.  Still no A/C, but I no longer have to carry my laptop with me everywhere I go.

In the long run (read 1 to 2 years from now), this campus will be gorgeous.  It usually takes the better part of a year to work out the “kinks” of any new construction.  The biggest problem for this campus is that we are on a site that IS NOT READY FOR USE YET.  The university is trying to function on a campus whose basic academic facilities and infrastructure are only partially completed.

Insisting on beginning this academic year with the new campus in it’s current state was ill-conceived and ill-advised.  The construction/moving schedule had already slipped by 2 YEARS, another semester would have been a wiser move than insisting that students and faculty “make it work” on a new campus that is only partially done.  But alas - we are there.  Administration is telling us to “do the best we can under the circumstances”.  I have to ask, “How do I teach university-level science classes without laboratories and basic facilities?”