Katie learns all about what it is like to be an animal in the zoo.

This has been a very interesting time since I last posted. I'll get right into it!!!

Monday, class in the morning. Arabic is still going. Ehhhh. Enough of that. After class, we went to Saint Andrew's, a refugee center located in downtown Cairo. It was such a cool experience and nothing like I had ever seen before. I'm pretty sure we went there in the first place because a lot of Northeastern students that are majoring in International Affairs or Middle Eastern Studies do their co-ops there. So basically Saint Andrew's deals with refugees from Iraq and Sudan, and a few from other countries in Africa such as Eritrea and Algeria. These people come to Cairo to escape persecution in their own country but in the long run, many of them are looking for resettlement into the US, Australia, New Zealand, or Canada, because those are the only countries that really accept refugees that are looking for permanent resettlement. At St. Andrew's, a big part of what they do is provide legal aid to these refugees so that they can claim asylum before they enter a country rather than going through the process of getting smuggled into the country and applying for asylum once they get there. It was a truly eye opening experience. Most of the people that apply for resettlement are Iraqi citizens that have helped out the US military and are having their lives threatened because of the help that they provided us. As we were talking to the lady, I realized how ineffective this whole system is. For example, to come to the US, a refugee must pass 4 background checks, from the CIA, FBI, DIA, and Homeland Security. These background checks all take up to a year. To be eligible for the checks, the refugee must have their fingerprints taken, but these prints are only useable for a year....so they can expire before the US government finishes the background check. That is just screwed up to me. These people risked their lives to help our military when they didn't even need to and this is how we repay them? We make them jump through hoops and finish a process that takes roughly 2 years? Absolutely ridiculous! Sorry. That is the end of my rant. On the other hand, the US takes WAY more refugees than any other country in the world. I think she said that the US took roughly 90,000 while the next closest country took less than 9,000. At least we are doing that. I'm not sure if I would be able to do my co-op here but it would certainly be an experience. The students here works just as caseworkers and have to hear the horrible atrocities that were committed to these people and have to tell some of them that it isn't bad enough to be able to get refugee status. It makes me sick and I just don't think that I could handle that. I would get way to depressed. After St. Andrew's nothing exciting happened.

Oh Tuesday. Such a weird day. After class (I had an Arabic test and forgot to study the prepositions so I didn't do so hot on that), a bunch of us went to the zoo. Little did we know what we were getting ourselves into. First off, just imagine the animal rights. Egypt has a hard enough time guaranteeing their citizens with basic human rights, just imagine how they treat the 15 full grown lions as their zoo. The lions were all in cages about the size of my dorm room, with some of the rooms having 2 or 3 lions in them. It was so depressing. Everything reeked because it obviously hadn't been cleaned in a very long time. Many of the animals had open wounds or sores on them and flies were buzzing all around these cuts. Gross. Also, there were cats in almost all of the cages! I haven't said anything about this yet, but Egypt has a huge problem with stray cats and dogs. And I mean HUGE. There are stray cats everywhere. They are alwyas going through the trash and other things. They don't bother people, but they are just always there. So it was weird seeing cats in the cages with water buffalo and zebras. Shows how good the security to get into the cages are. A small child could certainly climb into the cages without any problem or help from anyone else. Next problem....WE were the exhibits. I seriously felt like people were there jsut to look at us. People were taking pictures of us and having their children stand in front of us so that we would be in the background of their pictures. It was so weird. Everywhere we went, people followed us and stared. I am used to people looking at us, but it was way worse here than it ever was in any of the streets. SOOOOOO awkward. But our security guards were with us that was good =) We are so spoiled it is ridiculous. Our guards carry around M-8's with them at all times. At least I think that is what someone called them. No matter what they are, they are huge and it is absurd that these guys walk with us everywhere. Anyways, that was one of the most awkward experiences that I have had so far in Egypt. I don't think that I will be back to the zoo. Also, it cost Egyptians 1 pound and it costs non-Egyptians 20. What the heck?!?! So over the zoo.

Today, we had Arabic class and then we had a meeting with Sullivan to go over some readings and boring stuff like that. Then I came back and napped for like an hour. Then, a bunch of us went to this thing called Sufi music. It was awesome!!!!!!! It is these guys that play Egyptian instruments and they dance and then there are these people that spin in circles with crazy skirts on for like 15 minutes at a time. I have no idea how they do it. It is probably better for you just to google what I am talking about cause it probably sounds a lot weirder than it actually it. Google Whirling Dirvish or Sufi Music. It was amazing how they spin in cirlces for that long. I can't even get over it. So many circles. And then when they are done they don't even look dizzy! They Just stop and stand normally like nothing happened. It was completely mind-boggling to me and I couldn't get over how they did that the entire time. When we cam back from that, we went to Metro, the grocery store that is close by. Again, I had an incredibly awkward experience. To start this off, let me just explain something. I dress conservatively here. I try my best to always be covered, not because someone would say something to me but because it is more comfortable and we get less attention on the street. But this being said, guys are RIDICULOUS here!!!! It is like they think that just because you are a tourist, they can harass you. To be honest, I am completely sick of it. Guys just blatantly stare at your boobs and I really don't appreciate it, but I can't say anything. Even our trip leader has noticed though that I get a lot more attention than some of the other girls, we think because I have reddish hair, am really pale, and basically don't blend in here at all. I can't wait to get back to the US where guys won't star at me all the time!!!!! So....back to my awkward story, we are at the grocery store and this guy comes and asks me and my friends if he can carry our water for us, cause it is a really big box. We politely say no and he goes away. No big deal, this happens like every time that we come here. But then this same guy kinda starts following us. Then he comes and asks me if he can take a picture of me. I was so caught off guard and didn't want to be rude so I kinda shrugged and didn't say no. Then he tells me to start following him to this back part of the store (No Mother, it wasn't isolated I had people with me the whole time, and he wasn't going to do anything to me, don't worry). WHAT?!?!?!?! I will not let you do that creepy man!!!!!! So then me and two of my friends are in the back corner of the store and we start telling him that we have to leave. He kept saying no and finally we just walked away, but we still had to check out. We went to the check out and found our group leader that was with us and told her what happened. We kinda just all shrugged it off and thought that it was made further dramatic by the communication barrier. SO then we are in the check out line and here comes the creepy guy again!!!! He kept trying to get me to go back there. It was creepy and weird and I would have none of that. I finally wasn't so polite and told him to leave me alone and then he just stood there. And stood there. And stood there. I just kept avoiding eye contact and acted like he wasn't there. Then we left and checked out. That is the end of the story. Again, I will be happy to get back to the US where it isn't OK for people to do that. I know that I am a tourist but that still is not OK with me. After this experience, I will definitely be more upfront about just saying no and telling people to leave me alone. So that is basically the end of my story. Now I am sitting here in bed typing. I am going to go watch the new episode of Glee and then I will go to bed.

If you read this far, you get a gold star! Good job!
XOXO
Katie