I WAS IN EGYPT!!!

          In my last post, I was pretty harsh about my time in Egypt. It was true, that I did struggle with many things while in the county. However, I also had some amazing experiences and made some awesome memories! In this post I want to share a couple of stories, along with some pictures.
          First, my first full day in Egypt I celebrated my 25th birthday. This was especially exciting to me because I was in my 25th country! My group surprised me with a huge cake that night! It had tons of fruit on it and then they had me cut it into enough pieces for everyone in the group. I learned that I am not an expert cake cutter, but it was an incredible way to celebrate my birthday!

Our first few days were spent in Cairo where we met with a Christian service organization that does a lot of amazing work in Egypt, went to the Presbyterian seminary where my professor Safwat had gone to school, met with top Islamic scholars, and visited a huge Coptic church built into the rocks. At these places, we heard about some really great things happening in the country and people who were passionate about peace and trying to make Egypt a better place. I hope to write more about these specific experiences in later posts. But I just want to say that I was really inspired by the Egyptians I met and the work being done in this midst of difficult political and economic situations.
          My professor from AMBS Safwat was one of the leaders for the trip and since Egypt is his home country, he was a great person to have along on the trip. One of my fondest memories was going to a local cafe with him and four others from my group and just drinking tea and talking. We also had our own Egyptologist on the trip name Henry. Henry was really great and gave us so much information as well as told some really bad jokes. Having these two Egyptians really made the trip come alive.
          A trip to Egypt would not be complete without seeing the ancient sites. Going to the pyramids is an experience I will never forget! I got to climb on one (until security yelled at me), go in one, and then take a camel ride in front! Riding a camel had always been a dream and it was awesome being able to take a 30 minute ride on Michael Jackson (my camel's name). My mom also rode a camel and we both agree that it is better than horseback! My camel must have been quite old and well-trained because the boy leading gave me the reigns, while everyone else was led! Wow, I still cannot believe that I did that!

          After our time in Cairo, we took an overnight train to Luxor. I won't include much on the train ride, but I will say that I do NOT recommend taking trains in Egypt! I might be an adventurous person, but I think the whole group agreed that this is one experience that doesn't need repeating. In Luxor, we visited the Valley of the Kings, which once again was simply outstanding. We couldn't take pictures, but we could touch the walls with two thousand year old hieroglyphics! I have seen Egyptian artifacts in museums around the world, but experiencing it in person is completely different. I cannot describe in adequate words how awesome it was.
          After the Valley of the Kings, we boarded a four day Nile cruise. As we sailed from Luxor to Aswan, we visited a lot of ancient temples. Every one of them was unique and fun to explore. The cruise itself was also great! During the day, when the sun shone, it was so warm and I loved taking naps in the sun and while watching the banks of the Nile slowly drift by. Although at the time I was a little overwhelmed by all we saw in such a short time, looking back, I have such great memories of those explorations.

          After a day in Aswan, we took a train back to Cairo (this time the overnight train experience was even worse!) and then headed to Alexandria, stopping for lunch at a monastery. I really enjoyed hearing the history of the monastery and Coptic Christianity in Egypt. Alexandria was also a really neat city where I would love to spend more time! The new library there is magnificent and the Mediterranean Sea was beautiful, although it was kind of stormy while we were there.
          I have to say, though, that one of my favorite parts of the trip was spending it with my mom. I love my mom so much and to be able to see these ancient sites with her and have someone close to process everything with was just great. Who gets the opportunity to do something like this with their mom?!? I feel so blessed to have such an amazing woman in my life who loves me so much and is willing to put up with my travel crabbiness and go on such a crazy adventure! I wouldn't have wanted to do this trip with anyone else!

          There really are so many more stories to tell from this crazy journey, but I hope that this post displays just a little bit of how awesome Egypt was! One reason I like traveling is that things do not happen as you expect them to. Like in normal life, traveling life has its ups and downs and is not what you expect. But even in the midst of a changing identity and a structure of a tour group that I did not like, I saw some incredible things and met some amazing people and was able to do it with one of the most important people in my life.

A Change of Identity in Egypt

          It feels like forever since I was in the Middle East, exploring ancient ruins. My return back to the United States was kind of tumultuous and instead of being able to continue processing what happened on my trip, I thrown into a new, very busy semester, the end of my first relationship, and trying to recover from jet lag and some bug I picked up while in Egypt. Then, after feeling like I was finally better from that first week back, I just got caught up in the busyness of life. But I realize that I need to reflect on what happened, partly because I have a paper due on Egypt that I have barely started, but also because it is an unfinished part of the journey. When I travel, I want to be able to come home changed from what I have seen and done. This change takes reflecting on the good and hard parts. As I wrote over a month ago, my time in Turkey was amazing. However, I struggled in Egypt. Below are some reflections on the change of identity I felt when I traveled to Egypt.

      One of the reasons I love to travel is that travel brings out new parts of my own identity that I have not been aware of before. Every trip is different and every time I am in a new place, I learn more about myself. Egypt was no exception to this. However, my reflections of my identity in Egypt are largely connected to my experiences in Turkey, where I had spent two weeks before arriving in Cairo. In Turkey, I lived into the identity of an independent, world traveler. This is an identity I have developed over the past five years as I have lived abroad and done a lot of traveling. Often this travel has been done with one or two close friends where we decide what we want to do and see and independently make a trip happen. I arrived in Istanbul with only a vague plan of what I wanted to see and do. I was met at the airport by my college friend Bekah and we spent our first three days staying with a friend I had met on another trip in her parent’s small flat and from these making a plan of other places in the country we wanted to visit. We spent the two weeks, making life up as we went and taking time to try to immerse within the Turkish culture. We would talk to locals as much as possible, participating in traditional meals, and drinking a lot of tea with the people we met. We also took the time to reflect on our time and our lives back home. Our theme song was “A Whole New World,” from Aladdin, with our favorite lyrics being, “No one to tell us no, or where to go, or say we’re only dreaming.” I felt myself open up in Turkey as I reveled in the freedom of unscheduled days spent exploring, chatting, and simply being. This would be a contrast to my time in Egypt.

            The other major way my time in Turkey influenced my time in Egypt was the occurrence of a suicide bombing in Istanbul on my last day in Turkey. Bekah and I were not in Istanbul at the time, but the bombing occurred at the main tourist square in Istanbul, where we had been only a week before. The suicide bomber intentionally targeted a group of tourists. This news came as a shock and we felt our sense of safety violated. Although we had been aware of political struggles in the country and the region, Bekah and I were in Turkey as tourists on vacation. I knew that some sort of attack could be possible, especially after the attacks in Paris in the fall, but I did not think that anything would actually happen when I was gone. All of a sudden the world did not feel like a safe place. As I traveled the next day to Cairo by myself, I found myself feeling scared and insecure in the world. I no longer felt like a confident, independent traveler. I arrived in Egypt not knowing what my identity was as I was confronted with a new environment and unmet expectations.

            My sense of an unsafe world was heightened with my arrival to Cairo. My group had been warned that there could be a lot of government tourist police with us as we traveled to make sure we stayed safe, but I had not expected the level of security we had. An armed security guard was on our tour bus at almost all times. Often times our bus would have a police escort as we moved through Cairo traffic. There was always people in the lobby of our hotel and they would not let us leave the hotel in big groups and would send security with us even if it was just a couple us. There was also military on the street and security guards with huge guns seemed to be everywhere. Although the security is meant to protect us as tourists and keep stability within the country, it scared me because it reminded me that the world is not a safe place and that there are people there who wanted to harm me. My identity as a white foreigner was brought to the forefront. This is an identity I have struggled with, as I do not like to be defined by American politicians and how the media portrays Americans. I strongly disagree with American foreign policy and the consumerist, individualistic culture that people associate with the United States.  However, at the same time I am a white, privileged American. This is a part of my identity that I cannot control or change.

            My identity as a white tourist in Egypt was also different than this experience in Turkey. In Turkey, I was able to stay with a local host the first couple of days and then the rest of the trip, Bekah and I stayed very cheaply at hostels. We were in tourist places and seen as tourists, but we were not extravagant in our travels and tried to go to local spots and even tried to learn Turkish in order to be immersed in the culture. In Egypt, we stayed at fancy hotels and stayed within our group most of the time. A lot of this had to do with logistics and costs. I understand this, but the transition from a seven-dollar hostel room that included Internet and breakfast to fancy hotel rooms changed the way I saw my identity. I really struggled with what I saw as extravagance and also the distance I felt from the Egyptian people. I was on buses and train, in restaurants and tourist sites with other tourists, mostly from North America. While in Turkey, I saw myself as someone engaging in the culture as a conscientious tourist, in Egypt I saw myself as a Western tourist paying to see a local culture, but remaining at a distance in order to stay comfortable. I regret that this was the case and that I did not have discussions early on in the trip to find ways to combat these feelings and find better ways to engage within the structure of the tour group. However, our schedule was busy and I did not take the necessary time to reflect on my identity and the ways I felt I was encountering and being encountered by Egypt. I was also frustrated by the lack of freedom that occurred because I was traveling with a planned tour group. I also tend to not like large groups and became shy and uncomfortable at many times during the trip. All these feelings and my inner struggle with my identity both as a tourist and as a member of a large tour group influenced the ways I experienced the identity of the Egyptians I encountered.