First Days of Classes

The honeymoon’s over, and classes have started.

My fasting was going very well until suddenly it wasn’t. A few days ago I got pretty sick and spent a day and a half in bed and miserable. Apparently my American immune system isn’t quite strong enough to handle the Ramadan fast, and so I have decided to take a break from fasting until I feel completely better. Plus, I have to be able to concentrate now on classes.

My first day of school at the new campus of the American University in Cairo was just as hectic as I expected it to be. Over the past couple of years, AUC has been in the process of building a completely new and much larger campus in order to accommodate more students and improve the quality of the facilities. The multi-million dollar project was largely financed by American aid, and the rumor going around is that the US pressured AUC to open the new campus this semester, despite the fact that much of the campus is not quite finished. The new campus is located in the middle of the desert outside of Cairo, and it takes somewhere between 45 minutes and 2 hours to get to it from Zamalek (where I live, part of central Cairo). There is nothing near the new campus, and the only way to get there is by AUC bus. What a nightmare.

Despite the awful location and transportation situation, the new campus is really very beautiful. I’ll have pictures posted soon, but for now I’ll just describe it as very ancient-Egyptian-palace-like. Finding my classes was quite challenging, but I managed somehow to make it to all of them although I can’t say the same for all of my teachers.

The worst thing is that nobody seems to know what’s going on. Ever. Where to catch buses, what times they arrive and depart, the names of the buildings, the locations of classrooms. All of these things were complete mysteries on the first day of school, and there was no one to turn to for help. Everyone, faculty and students alike, was clueless.

After I made it through my classes yesterday, I tried to obtain an AUC student ID only to discover that the ID center had just closed, at 2:30 in the afternoon. Then, when I tried to re-enter the campus the next morning, I almost was not allowed in because I didn’t have a student ID card. When it was time to leave the new campus to return to civilization, the parking lot was filled with hundreds of wandering students, and no buses to take them home. It was complete chaos, but eventually buses started arriving and after an hour they started departing with loads of sweaty and frustrated students. Basically, there are just a lot of things that need to be figured out on the part of the AUC administration.

One thing is for sure: I am becoming a very, very patient person.

I’m taking five classes this semester, and they all seem very interesting and worthwhile judging from the first day of class. The classes I am currently taking at AUC are: Intermediate Arabic, Arabic of the News Media, Government and Politics of Egypt, Comparative Politics of the Middle East, and Classical Arabic Literature in Translation. A very full course load, and a lot of work. I’m most concerned about my two Arabic classes, which seem to be a bit over my head, but I think if I study hard enough I can handle them. For now, I’m just looking forward to a time when things start running more smoothly at AUC.