Imagination is more Important than Wisdom...

Hi! first of all - Daniel - I'm sorry that I'm bumping you're last post down. We all want it to stay at the top of the blog because all of your thoughts were so neatly composed and exquisitely summed up many of our feelings about teaching here over the past weeks. But alas...

PART I

Things are starting to wrap up here at AMlDEA$T as my teaching duties will be coming to a close this week. I have just a few more classes to teach, some exams to give, and then some exams to grade before I'll be finished and feeling perplexed with too much time on my hands. I'm officially cut loose from AMlDEA$T on the 27th, but I've managed to secure the guest house we've been living in for an extra few days. Then they'll really give me the boot on the 31st at which point I'll be heading to Cairo to do some tourist stuff, but they'll be giving me my train tickets and everything - they've taken pretty good care of us.

So, this is possibly the last message you'll get containing any details of teaching experience (although so far I think most of my messages have been concerned with travel adventures, foreign impressions, and cultural faux pas). Anyway, I avoid the teaching bit because it is hard to talk about all of the subtle pleasures of teaching as well as all of the tedious planning that goes into it. The classes for the adults ended up being far more structured than I expected, but on the other hand the children's classes were mostly improvisation. I don't think I talked about all of the early mornings (6:00AM) I spent getting ready for my 10:00AM class. I usually managed to pull it off with minimal stress, but the sleep deprivation often began to show by the end of the week. I like teaching. I don't know what my students will do with their knowledge - who will succeed and who will fail - but it's been a positive experience for everyone. They are all very motivated, and for most the Egyptian style of teaching seems to have failed them miserably. That's why, in the children's classes especially, we try to teach them creativity. As with most younger children, its not the content of the course, but rather the thinking skills that they develop that will help them in the future. This is something that the Egyptian schools seem to be tragically neglecting (from what I understand). There have been awkward classroom crushes, debates about politics and various discussions about the problems and solutions of countless topics relevant to Egypt and the world (global warming, unemployment, pollution, traffic...) As I mentioned, the students give presentations which are usually hit or miss (sometimes quite dull, but other times very intriguing and thoughtful topics). We begin every class with English idioms or quotes. Last time we did these:

"An eye for an eye only makes the whole world blind." - Ghandi
"Never look down on anybody unless you're helping him up." - Jesse Jackson

I explained what an activist is and we debated Hammurabi's "eye for an eye." The same expression exists in Arabic, and when I asked who agreed with Hammurabi and who agreed with Ghandi (in both classes) the only people who agreed with Ghandi were myself and one of my female students, Hanan (one of the brightest in the class). The debate that followed sort of embodied some important cultural aspects of the arab world (or at least my narrow impressions). The thought of forgiveness was much overshadowed by the concept of "revenge" or "punishment." One student who was quite firm in his opinion cited the benefits of this rule: in Saudi Arabia no one steals. The reason? They cut your hands off... Perhaps this rule does work more-or-less as a deterrence, but it only works by creating fear. I believe (and I should have thought to explain this to them), that people shouldn't be forced into behaving ethically by fear, but rather by education (or understanding, morality, whatever you call it). Perhaps I don't know enough about Islam, but I can imagine that is supports the "fear and behave" system, as most religions do. Anyhow, they had trouble grasping my point of view that if someone stabs me in the eye, I wouldn't stab them back because it wouldn't do any good. The the chaotic spiral of self-destruction... Any suggestions for some final quotes to discuss?

Well anyway, in my opinion the greatest thing of teaching is getting to know your students. I think a lot of people probably begin teaching with their ideals (I want to pass on knowledge, to empower these people, to end the cycle of poverty, to provide access to a better future, the ability to self-actualize, etc...) and end up either enjoying the job or not. Although you might be doing these things (or not) what will truly determine the quality of your experience is whether you like it or not. So I definitely took a bit of a gamble here as I am a bit of a romantic idealist. Anyway, as I already said, I am quite lucky in that I enjoyed my time here immensely. If you have a copy of Jack London's Cruise of the Snark lying around, there is a passage in the very beginning about the words "I like." There is no need to justify these words, or back them up with philosophical rhetoric, and thus they are beautiful. There is nothing to question about likes and dislikes, nothing to debate, or contemplate, or reason to ask "why." Sometimes people do ask why, and usually the answers are pretty poor (and if the answers are based on some sort of ideal or philosophy, the person is probably either being pressured or a good liar). Anyway, I found that I like teaching and I'm not really doing it now to save the world (even though for perhaps a few it will be a nice side effect).

(Note: this was written in two long breaths. The first one yesterday, and the second one today. Today I briefly did a little searching and found the quotation that I had referenced. I try not to quote often, but this is one of my favorites...):

"The ultimate word is I LIKE. It lies beneath philosophy, and is twined about the heart of life. When philosophy has maundered ponderously for a month, telling the individual what he must do, the individual says, in an instant, "I LIKE," and does something else, and philosophy goes glimmering. It is I LIKE that makes the drunkard drink and the martyr wear a hair shirt; that makes one man a reveller and another man an anchorite; that makes one man pursue fame, another gold, another love, and another God. Philosophy is very often a man's way of explaining his own I LIKE."

On Thursday, Christine and I took our usual night train down to Cairo. We woke up early in the morning in the Cairo team's apartment (about 6:45AM) in order to drink some tea, eat some bread, and get in Faraq's cab for yet another exhilirating ride - to the bus station this time. He doesn't realize that its not always funny to pretend as if he's going to hit you with his car as he swerves around the corner. Egyptian drivers must take pride in the precision, as the roads indeed require them to pass within centimeters of cars and pedestrians as they speed around like pinballs in the city, narrowly swerving to avoid tragedy every five seconds. Well anyway, we went to the hostel first to pick up our bust tickets (Mody had arranged this whole weekend excursion for Christine, Julie and I) and itinerary and then sped off to the station. We were there a little early, so we took the chance to stand around idly before sitting on the bus odyssey that would last for five hours in one of the most unforgiving, desolate, remote parts of the terra firma world. The Sahara!

Per usual we snailed through the Giza suburbs and then out to the desert on the road to Baharaia. It was unsurpisingly dull and I'm sure I thought of myriad topics while I balanced my backpack on my suffering knees and daydreamed of sleep (I'd only had a few hours of sleep in the last since the previous morning). By my standard I was exhausted. Sleep is one of my greatest pastimes.

PART II

Well I bored myself yesterday and stopped writing, but I'll pick up here again. Traveling in the desert is a bit of a romantic thing. Most things are when you have so much time to fill your head with dreams and such lack of stimulae that they become surprisingly creative and more and more distant from the things that anchor us to the world. The only trouble is that it's impossible to record daydreams, so it takes a truly good artist to capture one of them in writing. That's my theory on how the novel is born. We all must more or less be novelists on the inside though, we just don't all get credit for it.

Well we came to Baharaia. On the way there the terrain became more and more Martian until spurts of defiant greenery began to sprout magically out of the sand (although quite feebly at first). Pools of golden sand intriguingly collect in the depressions of rock and create fascinating patterns and textures for the eyes: a prelude to the magnificent displays of geology that were in store. Geology is a poor choice of word because it is so scientific, so pretend I've written it to point out the following. Much of what we saw in the western desert seemed like a supernatural being's (dare I say God???) laboratory of earth. With no natural forces at work but the breeze and persistent sun, strange fields of rock formation sprouted from the ground, different from one to the next, as if a (ahem) god had simply started to mold some prototypes, gotten bored, and left them in the most vast and remote desert in the world (discounting Antarctica...) for safe keeping. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

After a few false stops in green patches outside of the main town, our bus came to a final halt and we stumbled off into a dusty, ages old, infantile town. A settlement that has lasted forever and never developed beyond its toddler stages. We had pre-arranged this desert "safari," so they were waiting for us when we got there and we were immediately whisked away with a few others in the back of a covered truck with standing room for dwarves through the main stretch of town to the outskirts (about a two minute drive...). They fed us lunch, gave us water, and prepared our jeep for the weekend while we waited. By 3:00 that afternoon everything was ready to go and we hopped in for another ride.

The first stop was at the tourism police office (a small room in the side of a nondescript building near the edge of town) where we signed away our lives in a neatly written letter that stated: "We do not want a policeman to come with us into the desert. Thank you." After that we circled back, got some firewood, (at one point our driver pointed to some chickens on the ground and asked us if we preferred brown or white...), and set off towards the black desert. It was a quiet ride out as we took in the breathtaking vistas that this part of the desert offered. It takes a while of getting used to "ugly deserts" and "pretty deserts," so just take my word for it (and for those that are lucky enough, I have examples of each on my camera...) It is called the black desert because of the layer of volcanic debris (we were told...) sprinkled neatly and uniformly over everything in little chunks. Very mysterious and equally beautiful, it was just a treat to soak in the whole scene. We stepped out as well to do a little exploring and climbing a little ways up one of the slopes.

The white desert was inspiring as well and offered many opportunities to get out of the jeep to frolic in the sand... Our last stop of the day was the most delightful. We swerved off the road at some point into the sand and continued until we reached a little sea of oddities. The desert leveled off and was suddenly abundant with these relatively small (about 10-20 feet high) ivory-white sculptures: mushrooms, donuts, a "chicken"... It was just a curious field that looked as if it should have inspired Dr. Seuss. So wandering through was a bit like spotting clouds in the sky. Each white glob in an otherwise pristine surrounding curiously shifting shape as it moves (or you move around it). The area was simply a lost playground - what it was doing hundreds of miles from the nearest settlement, who knows?

This was our campsite for the evening. After a bit of roaming around in the jeep, Matha selected a suitable place (by what criteria, I don't know...) and we stopped and he quickly went to work while we lazed about. We offered to help, but I think it would have slowed him down if he had accepted. Within moments (it seemed) a vertical, colorful, shelter had been erected next to the jeep in the shape of an L, mats and a small wooden table had been delicately laid over the sand, and a modest campfire had been started. All in time to watch the sunset over the whimsical landscape, spot some desert foxes (apparently they were quite used to visitors), take some pictures, and scribble in a journal until the natural light was extinguished (even with the campfire it was a little hard on the eyes...). It was as peaceful and serene a setting that I'd even been in. Instead of the stars illuminating our dinner the moon quite rose on the horizon opposite of the sun in full enthusiasm and cast a curious glow over the parched land as Matha, announced "yallah" and we sat down eagerly for the feast he had prepared. It was truthfully the best dinner I've had in Egypt so far - cooked over a pile of hot coals in the middle of the desert. Perhaps it was the setting, the hunger (I'd been nibbling on bread "stolen" from the lunch table all afternoon), or the exhaustion, but it was absolutely delicious and prepared by the ever-talented and efficient Matha. We ate mostly in silence with the exception of some compliments to our chef: rice, potatoes, and some sort of traditional sauce based on tomato with roasted chicken never tasted so good.

We were "in sleeping bag" shortly enough, lying where we had finished dinner only minutes ago on top of the mats. Matha made us take our shoes with us so that the curious desert foxes wouldn't steal them. He smoked shisha and drank tea by himself as the last of the embers cooled and we prepared for sleep. He had his own little spot setup a few yards away from us on the other side of a long, white, flat stone. The sleep was brilliant (a little uncomfortable at first with my sweatshirt as a pillow and fully dressed), but as soon as it started it didn't stop for a good ten hours. We woke up for tea and breakfast and soon afterwards were packing up camp and off towards the road again.

We stopped on the way back to Baharaia at one of the springs for a little swim/bath. The rest of the day was filled with driving and wandering around Baharaia until we made it back to the monstrous city of Cairo which just slowly eats up people immigrating into the city in the early evening. Once we hit Giza it seemed to take forever to make it to our stop where Faraq was waiting to take us back to the apartment. I'd begun grading quizzes by then and was ready to eat and rest.

Saturday night was slow and uneventful. Christine and I were up early the next morning to catch the train back to Alexandria. I finished grading the quizzes on the train and began to consider the week ahead and how I would manage to plan everything. And so on.

This week has been much more relaxed without the children's classes in the mornings. I've had time to take things slow and have fun in town. I spent the other day in the Library of Alexandria reading and writing. I managed to find their collection of American literature from which I selected The Old Man and the Sea and The Great Gatsby. And then yesterday I had my final day of actual teaching which is a little sad. It ended very abruptly.

We started the class with quotations and idioms. I selected these two pieces of wisdom from Albert Einstein:

"Imagination is more important than wisdom."
"You cannot simultaneously prepare for and prevent war."

The first one is far more interesting and for all of the unconvinced students, I summed it up for them like this: Anyone can read books, but it's not worth a damn until you've tried to write your own. As for a final thought about each of them I said that the first would be good advice for Egypt and the second would be good advice for America. (As for Egypt's advice, they understood and agreed as I was speaking for the educational system. It is much more focused on teaching the facts than it is concerned with creativity...). From there we moved into our last lessons from the book which were about speaking about expectations for my level 8, and speaking about the future for my level 9. Interestingly appropriate for endings, I think. Anyway, I'm running out of steam for now. Sorry that I wrote this in two chunks, it might be a little disconnected... I might even give it a read through!

Jake