National Pride and Identity I: Being German Outside of Europe

Though I never had major problems with my German identity – and my sense of patriotism is frowned upon by many Germans – I am somewhat astounded at the unanimous and outstandingly positive feedback (and I don’t think it is based mainly on people’s politeness) I get about my country. Come to think of it, that is probably due to the fact that I’ve mostly travelled to Eastern European countries and visited our direct neighbors – geographical closeness and the not only positive history of intra-European relations, especially concerning Germany, make for a perhaps more differentiated and definitely less enthusiastic view of Germany. But facts pointed out to me in combination with my own physical distance do show me some things I have taken for granted, and maybe many Germans do. Being a free time historian born in the Federal Republic of Germany with relatives in the GDR and studying in the former GDR, I’ve never taken freedom for granted. But while probably most people around the world complain about some aspects of their home economy, government, ineffective infrastructure, bureaucracy and the like, some remarks make me think again. I am told that UK media hails the German system and economic policy as a prime example of a balanced economy including a considerable production sector and of good governance during the current crisis. Egyptians and Americans point out how beautifully clean Germany is. And while I don’t remember any whole hearted and generally shared expression of pride of German achievements in Germany (apart from soccer maybe, single strong-hold of post-war positive self image) I constantly get complimented on my country and its contributions to progress, especially when mentioning my brother’s or my subject of studies: Of course, German engineering is top of the world, you guys are really unbeaten in medical appliances, of course, you know. Medicine wouldn’t be the same without Germany! And you really got the best orthopedic surgeons in the world and generally surgery is top in Germany. Especially for Egyptians it seems very strange that awareness of the country’s strengths and contributions is not generally facilitated in Germany.

A new Egyptian friend puts it this way: ‘I’ve always been somehow proud to be Egyptian, I mean, we got a great cultural heritage and so on, but still I found it hard until the revolution. But anyway, everyone should be proud of their country, no matter how small and meaningless it is, you will at once be more respected by others, even if they don’t think much of your country. And as a German, honestly, there is so much to be proud of, so much you contributed to the world, you got to be proud, you must not let anyone take that away from you!’

Really uncommon way of thinking for Germans, as strange as it may seem. And an unusual experience to be addressed as ‘you Germans’, and 100% positively at that.

Another example of this, though only ironically enjoyable, is the reasoning of a taxi driver – I do understand that much Arabic by now: ‘Germany, good, we love Germany! We don’t love America, because America likes Israel!’ Ah, well… Back to familiar territory, I guess, only from a very different angle…

WEEK V: Barriers

My last short stay is a return to Zamalek. Some friends have gone to the Northern Coast and are so generous to let me stay at their apartment! On the one hand, of course, I’d like to go to the seaside, too, but on the other hand, I don’t feel like doing anything much, organizing anything more, as some computers like to put it, the system is used to capacity (or so the annoying phrase on my laptop would translate). While I never understand, why this means that nothing works anymore, that is more or less the way I feel. But as I have the time to do nothing except for some chemistry, it does not feel as bad as it sounds. In the course of shopping for food or going to some café to use the internet, I take some more walks around Zamalek. I still get lost at times, but I usually stay oriented by now. And this is also true in other contexts.

After these many changes the second half and more constant part of my stay begins as I move back to Heliopolis to stay with my host family with whom I also spent my first two weeks in Egypt in 2009 and start my internship at Ain Shams University Specialized Hospital.

Specialized indicates here that patients pay, so the standard is quite high and it is not overcrowded.

No, it's not a space shuttle, it's the logo of Ain Shams University Specialized Hospital in the yard

I get a culture shock nevertheless and am surprised by that, though none of the factors were unexpected. It’s a combination of ICU patients, language barrier and, to German standards, a lack of security, the latter mainly characterized by different disinfection routines. Having to get used again to the sight of patients in critical conditions and with multiple tubes leading in and out was to be expected in any hospital, I never worked on ICU before. The language barrier is not so much of a surprise either, but I underestimated the paralyzing effect it has on me during the first days. I work mainly with the nurses and even though I mainly assist some who speak more than five sentences of English, the very limited communication feels suffocating until I get used to it and they to me – and I also learn at least some more Arabic.

Otherwise I get the impression that there are relatively more people working here than in a German hospital, and that there is constant communication going on between them. But that, of course, may also just be the impression of the literal outsider. I don’t have a language barrier with the doctors as medicine is taught in English here. Egyptians start college at 16 or 17, so I meet many doctors of my age who started working two years ago. Like everyone else they are extremely helpful and always ready to explain things to me and I am happy to meet some new friends!

Europeans on the Block

The week is not over before I move again, this time to Mohandeseen, there is a free room in the flat two of my class mates spent August in and it’s cheaper than the guest house. Apart from the close to non equipped kitchen (there is a stove and a sink, but no real pan and hardly any knives, just to mention some points) the apartment is perfectly fine and very Egyptian. One point about Egyptian apartments a European needs some explanation for is the presence of what looks like two living rooms, often within the same large room. If you take a closer look (and sometimes you see it dazzling from far away) you will find one of the sets to be much more luxurious with golden decorations or embroidery or larger armchairs, this is the reception used to formally welcome guests.

The other set with the more modest chairs and sofa is the one used in everyday life by the family. In this apartment regularly rented out to Western language students the both sets don’t differ much in standard, but while one is centered on the TV, the other is mainly surrounded by an array of quite large pieces of purely decorative purpose, most prominently an angel in a golden dress with silver wings. Including the base she is about 1.4 meters high and carries a lantern on her shoulders… I have the TV running quite a lot following the events in Libya on BBC. And here I also sometimes use the air-conditioning, in spite of the debilitating noise. It is very hot these days, so we keep the doors to the balcony shut while outside the blazing air and the prayer calls are wavering in seemingly the same rhythm, completely covering the neighborhood in a thick, yet transparent blanket.

Noon - not the time to be outside

It is a nice change to live in an ordinary flat in an ordinary house in a small side street, with a large tree in front of it, its whole top full of birds I never see, incessantly singing in a light tone. As far as I can see we are the only foreigners in the neighborhood, and I find it makes shopping in the small supermarkets next door more relaxed than in Zamalek, where a large percentage of customers are international. Our Arabic and the shop owners’ English are on about the same low level, but shopping for food was one of the first topics covered in the language course, so we’re doing fine. The course, unfortunately, is already over. This however gives us some completely free days. I use them for a mix of studying chemistry (no comment, but I have a retake exam five days after returning to Germany) and digesting this first month. Some evenings we just spent on our own balcony, while those of our neighbors are always empty, and I enjoy living close to the city center and thus being able to meet people for a quick coffee or to spontaneously go out in the evening without having to worry about how and when to get home. One night I accompany Jonny to meet some of his British friends in a roof top café in Doqqi, the busy quarter south of Mohandeseen. The Syrian embassy is right next to it, guarded by several soldiers and armed vehicles, keeping off some fifty protesters shouting against Asad’s regime. In the backyard of the embassy a concert is taking place, strange contrast. After a while we only hear the singer, the protesters left. Six stories above a large group of English as a foreign language teachers smoke shisha and drink beer. I can’t really tell which of the elements in this picture is the oddest to me…

Cairo at night and from a roof is great to look at, as it is similar and different in all directions, I really feel in the middle of this warm, sparkling organism, but the noise of the busy streets is pleasantly kept at a distance. I stand in a quiet corner of the roof top, some clean and tidy space all to myself and yet I can feel the buzzing life of the metropolis at a comfortable intensity.

WEEK IV: Inside Guest House, Too Hot Outside

The fourth week marks the beginning of my time between host families, the first stop being the guest house of All Saints’ Cathedral in Zamalek. Although it is a bit beyond students’ budget, I enjoy this unplanned stay very much, where else would I meet Americans helping to build a new community in South Sudan, a Californian professor emeritus of anthropology who originally is a refugee from Eritrea, by coincidence an anthropologist from Kenya whose father used to work with that very professor and many more people of very different courses of life all brought together in Cairo as the crossroads between Africa, the Middle East, the rest of the world. Sharing stories about our recent experiences, our different or similar views of Egypt and getting first hand information about things we always wanted to know (or did not know we might want to know) about each other’s native countries makes for animated conversations over meals or in the sitting room. One of the highlights for me was learning something about Eastern African thinking about psychiatry, medicine, how good and bad witchcraft runs in families and how these different systems are integrated today – or not.

This week is also the beginning of a heat spell, one just has to accept to come home soaked. Or look for an air conditioned taxi, but I prefer walking, now living 40 minutes by foot from the language school. By trying different ways every day I get to know more of Mohandeseen. This part of town at the western bank of the Nile is really much more diverse than I thought from the quite limited insight gained from walking the streets between the language school and Doqi, the next quarter, where my bus stops. Trying what looks like the shortest way to Zamalek on the map, I discover some beautiful little shops not at all far from the language school – but on the other side of one of the major streets in some small streets all protected from the blazing sun by trees I still do not know the names of. Some of them top their flat dark green crowns with thick tussocks apartment houses with the occasional modern café or some embassy in between to simpler houses and all of a sudden I feel like I entered a village. In the sandy streets I can hardly differentiate between workshops, extended kitchens and public space – if there is any, that is. People don’t exactly look very welcoming and I have the unpleasant feeling of uninvited and unintended having entered someone’s living room. So I take the fastest way possible between cars, chicken and bales of straw to get back to the roaring main street with its office buildings, large shops and hotels which is just around the corner. No shade here, however, but having chosen to walk instead of taking a taxi which would at least get me to my air-conditioned room much faster, I get used to ignore it. After crossing another huge street I reach the bridge across the western arm of the Nile and stop for a while to watch the rowers in their sleek racing boats, accompanied by a coach in a plump little motor boat. The backdrop, of course, is magnificent and maybe it is a bit cooler on the water, but I do not feel much like exercise right now. Turning my back to eight lanes of cars and motorcycles honking and speeding towards or our of Zamalek or the flyover, I enjoy the peace the glittering water and the trees along the corniche still have to offer, with another bridge, the broader river and more skyscrapers and streets in the distance being far enough not to add any noise from this side.

View south from the bridge, Zamalek to the left

On some days I still have some energy left to explore the part of Zamalek west of 26^th of July. There are not many shops here, mainly apartment houses, banks, and large embassies. Most of them occupy villas as in the other half of Zamalek, here they tend to be a bit bigger. Two more facts are remarkable about the Dutch embassy: One part of the massive, yet transparent steel fence is decorated with delftware and they have a plastic cow standing in the front garden… The guards don’t really look encouraging, so I don’t take a photo. Not far from there I also find the German embassy, not in a villa, very large (one of the largest German embassies in the world as I am told by someone in church who just started working there), but not exactly nice to look at although it does seem to have a nice garden behind the high fence. Across the street there is some kind of park, the skewed letters on the gate mention fish and a grotto, unfortunately it is closed. Some of the bollards at the street side of the German compound are decorated with revolution paintings – but here it’s the peaceful revolution that eventually caused the end of the GDR. They were obviously painted to mark the 20^th anniversary of the reunification only a few months before Egypt experienced its own people’s revolution – sadly not always peaceful.

On other days I just head home straight down 26^th of July, catching a glimpse on a small gathering of people waving flags of the free Libya outside the Libyan embassy down one of the side streets. World politics in the streets everywhere. The flags just appeared as a bestseller in the product range of the men selling flags on the green patches in the middle of main streets and roundabouts. Obviously made in a hurry, sometimes the white print of star and crescent is a bit smudged, but they outnumber Egypt, other Arab countries, Al Ahly (one of the most popular Cairo soccer clubs) and Bayern Munich all taken together.

After having passed soldiers on tanks in Tahrir square on my ride to school on a daily basis for nearly three weeks (and a machine gun some three meters away from my head did not exactly give me a nice feeling), it seems just natural in a way to stumble across some minor unrest every now and then.

Ramadan

Eating and not eating are, of course, the aspects of Ramadan most obvious to the non-Muslim. Apart from changed service hours in many (but not all) cafés and restaurants, decorations of streets, shops and houses mark the holy month. In this sense it’s quite similar to Christmas time in Germany, complete with special TV shows that return every year in the same or similar manner, and it’s high season for everyone involved in charity and raising money to help the poor or other worthwhile causes. More than once I meet a group of students not far from our house trying to get people to donate by holding up posters at the road side or even on the road. The bus drivers, however, are not very happy about this.

Mosque in Zamalek

Decorations are both colorful and glittery with the fanouz, a traditional lantern, being a good mix of both, they are made from golden metal frames holding colorful glass plates with pictures of the Ka’aba in Mecca, calligraphies of the creed, crescents and the like. As darkness falls early, they shine brightly at the time when people are allowed to eat. Especially impressive are the shops selling them with their whole front yard shining in the glow of lanterns ranging from hand size to shoulder height. Other shops use both fanouzs and draperies of colorful traditional patterns on their front walls, in the windows, wrapped around trees in front of the shops, in every possible corner. On top of all this glittering garlands and strings of flags and tiny lights are put up on some mosques and in many narrow streets. As the feast at the end of the holy month approaches mosques also start to further extend the temporary terraces with more fences hung with the same traditional draperies.

Urging people to buy sweets and gifts, many shops also extend their capacities to the sidewalk or open spaces between houses and large companies, of course, issue everyday food in seasonal packaging. I keep some of them as gratis souvenirs and I very much enjoy kahk, the rich seasonal biscuits, some with almonds or nuts, some filled with dates.

Living in a Christian family and in the last days of Ramadan with some class mates from my language school I am somewhat distant from the central meaning of this month, but it still influences my daily rhythm to some extent. In general I feel traffic is a bit lower than usual, probably a combination of summer holidays, heat and Ramadan. Shortly before Iftar, however, streets get really crowded as everyone is doing some last minute shopping and hurrying home or to wherever the day’s fast will be broken. Then all of a sudden streets get deserted as darkness falls.

Once I am in a taxi at that very time and see how the community cares for those who have to work during this hour: A young man is handing out dates, the traditional first bite, to drivers passing by. All the good host, the taxi driver repeatedly insists on passing his date on to me, I don’t feel it would be appropriate to decline it in the end…

The time of the feast is very quiet indeed, as many people choose to spend the holidays outside of town, if they can afford it. The club in the neighborhood I live in these days, however is overcrowded with children playing, eating sweets and riding ponies. In Zamalek, to where I return on the second day of the feast, I don’t feel much difference in the evenings, but it is very quiet during the day. Maybe I now have some idea how Muslims feel in Germany in December…

FOOD

I’ve been asked about Egyptian food a lot, so let me try to give you some taste of it:

Tasty food, eating, sharing meals and giving food to others all are of major importance in Egypt. The average (Western) European has to get used to quite large parts of oil and meat in the diet and to large amounts of generally everything. And it is very hard to refuse, so be prepared to eat a lot especially when visiting someone!

Continental Europeans will also notice a big difference in breakfast as ful, one of the most typical Egyptian dishes is often served in the mornings. It is best described as a stew of brown beans that re soaked for some hours and then kept simmering overnight with tomatoes, garlic and spices. It is usually served with or inside bread which is round, quite flat, about 20 cm in diameter and comes in a double layer so it can be filled. Most popular fillings apart from ful are Tameya, chicken, salad made from tomatoes, cucumber, green onions and cilantro or a mix of cottage cheese and tomatoes.

Staying with a Christian family during one of their vegan fasting periods I learn not only how to make ful, but also gain some experience in making pickels, mainly of eggplants and peppers that are fried and then stuffed with a very spicy mix of tomatoes, lemon juice, garlic, cilantro, chili powder, salt and cumin. Eggplants, bell peppers and vine leaves are also often stuffed with rice cooked with tomatoes, herbs and spices.

Another national Egyptian dish is also said to originate from Coptic fasting criteria. Koshari is a mix of noodles, rice, lentils, fried onions and hot red sauce. While vegetarianism is not at all common in Egypt vegetarians can definitely survive, especially among Orthodox Christians who eat vegan for one third of the year anyway.

 

Ful pot, fried potatoes, baked vegetables, rice

Some other specials not to be missed when visiting Egypt, in my opinion is Feteer, a kind of flaky pastry containing a lot of butter and served with various salty or sweet fillings. Water melons, several kinds of mango and dates, grapes, bananas, guavas, figs and teen shoki (‘figs with horns’, a fruit from the desert) are sold on every other street corner and after washing or peeling them I never had any bad experience with these very sweet fruits. You also get most of them as juices in the supermarkets or at juice bars along with sugar cane and pomegranate juice, definitely a worth a try!

Egyptians also have a weakness for sweets and sweet drinks, most prominently black tea with fresh mint and quite a lot of sugar. Apart from dates in different shapes and preparations and Arabic and Turkish pastries that are very delicious and really very sweet, cupcakes (I like these) have found their way to Egypt, especially for Ramadan being customized with traditional local toppings and an American company specializing in cinnamon buns meets the local taste. Yesterday Ahmed invited me to a place that as its specialty serves fresh waffles with the chocolate bar of your choice spread on it! Ingenious! Sugar shock and tryptophane boost guaranteed =), decide for yourself if this is Egyptian or I just didn’t run across it anywhere else.

WEEK II and III: Being There

 – I’ve been kept from writing for a while, but I hope to complete an overview of my stay so far this week. –

I got used to the heat (and to wearing long sleeves or at least nothing sleeveless) and the traffic and the new surroundings quite fast, even to not eating or drinking in public, as Ramadan started shortly after my arrival and breaking the fast before sunset is not appreciated.

The structure given to my days and weeks by six hours/day, four days/week of Arabic lessons surely helped that a lot. In my beginners’ courses in Kalimat (Arabic for ‘words’) we are only three to four students, so the lessons are quite intense. Having studied some Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) in Germany a few years ago, however, gave me a little head start and less exhaustion.

One thing I obviously cannot get used to is the southern phenomenon of sudden fall of darkness, a daily source of amazement to me. I make a note to check if the slow dusk will nevertheless surprise me when I am back in Germany.

And in the middle of settled in everyday business and an accepted level of feeling foreign it sometimes hits me quite unexpectedly on my way home from school as the bus crosses the Nile and the Gezira (Arabic for island, in this case THE island in the center of Cairo on which you find Zamalek, a major sporting club, Cairo Tower, the Opera, a metro station, some hotels and banks etc.) on one of the city highways: ‘You’re crossing the longest river in the world just like going to school! You’re actually staying in the freaking biggest city of the whole of Africa!!’

View north from the Marriot hotel in Zamalek: Cairo Tower, Opera House, Gezira Club

My evenings in this first period of my stay I either spend with my host mother and her friends in the club (though not in the corner with a public viewing of the day’s progress of the Mubarak trials), in my host father’s flower shop close to the church they attend or on the balcony, enjoying temperatures below 35 degrees and the possibility to wear sleeveless tops.  Quite often I also help my host mother in the kitchen thus learning how to prepare some Egyptian dishes.

A disruption in my daily routine is caused by another laryngitis (I blame the air conditioning in combination with demanding pronunciation exercises). Having experienced this before I more or less manage to keep my mouth shut for some days, not ideal during a language course, but it even starts to get better before I go to see a doctor who prescribes the expected antibiotics. Not being privately insured in Germany I find myself to expect a conditional connection between receiving medical aid and proving my identity – it does not, of course, work this way in the private practice not far from the language school. As long as I pay the fee I may be anyone, quite a new experience.

Languages

Some quick information about the languages, as there is not just one form of Arabic to study. I take Fus’ha or MSA for three hours in the morning, this is the language used in writing and official contexts. In the afternoon we study Ameya, the Egyptian Colloquial Arabic (ECA) which is used in everyday life and acquired a written form mainly in times of facebook, instant messengers and the like. The good thing is, ECA is much less complicated than MSA and it is understood all over the Arab world due to movies and TV shows produced in Egypt (Egyptians, on the other hand, can hardly understand e.g. Moroccans). The bad thing, at least for me, you cannot practice the spoken language by reading, something that greatly helped me both in learning English and Latvian. Apart from that the learner’s life is complicated by the fact that only text books for young children print the little signs indicating short – in regular print you have to more or less know the words you are reading before you can read them, quite a different story from learning European languages written in Latin or Cyrillic script. I measure my reading abilities by the number of words running across the news bar on TV I can read (without understanding) before they vanish from the screen. After seven weeks in Egypt I now reached a number of two to three, more if I recognize ubiquitous expressions like ‘Israeli embassy’ or ‘Israeli ambassador’. My understanding of spoken language miraculously grows little by little, I can more or less grasp the key points in simple everyday conversations I overhear in the hospital, on the bus or at home, speaking remains the hardest part.

School

All levels of Arabic as a foreign language are taught at Kalimat by an experienced team of teachers. I like the combination of my Fus’ha teacher who is enthusiastic about her language and its grammar, something I have no difficulties relating to, and a more practical approach in Ameya. The students are a mix of diplomats, students of political science, Islamic or religious studies, people taking a gap year at various stages of their education and the occasional crazy scientist. Apart from a high percentage of Germans there are Americans, various Europeans and a girl from China all meeting on the balcony during most breaks. Due to the Ramadan restrictions of eating in public we usually order in traditional Egyptian fast food, mainly ful and tameya (the latter known as Falafel in Europe) – definitely better and also healthier than McDonald’s. The teachers are fasting and prefer to watch the Mubarak trial on TV in the office. Opinions among Egyptians on this matter are much more varied than the outsider might expect. In short they range from ‘they should kill him’ to ‘he is a sick man who deserves respect because of his old age and also the fact that he used to do good things for the country’ – trust in the actual success of the trials, whatever that might be, is limited.