Delayed Response
Update: 11.08.06
12:40
For those of you finding your way here from the Quest article link, my original article is below.
If you want more information, I just posted a good collection of links in More Stories about Cairo.
But, here are the relevant links:
Thanks.
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An article I just wrote for the school paper
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Greetings, fellow students.
I realize it is somewhat late in the year, but I thought I’d share with you a sort of “What I did this Summer” article. It’s writing has been delayed by a combination of the inevitable schoolwork and a blatant not-knowing-what-to-say. The subject feels rather removed from our present situation, which is largely my own fault. For, it seems that if I really allowed my summer to influence me as much as I think it should, this would hardly be a ‘What I did this Summer’ article, and more of a ‘What I am Still Doing’ article. Unfortunately, I have allowed myself to slip through nearly 10 weeks without writing this article. So in a spirit of ashamedly delayed loyalty to my friends and teachers in Cairo, an obligation to share information with my fellow humans, and despite the communicative and length restrictions of a Quest article, I come bearing stories.
Fifteen other college students and I went to Cairo this summer on a short-term missions trip with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, an international Christian organization. Proselytizing is illegal in Cairo, and though we did meet some lawbreakers, our purpose in going was not to convert the Egyptian masses, but rather to serve in schools for Sudanese refugee children. We prepared for our trip in part by reading Quest for Hope in the Slum Community (articles compiled) by Scott Bessenecker, Slave: my true story by Mende Nazer, and Dispossessed: Life in our World's Urban Slums by Mark Kramer. Many Sudanese have fled to Cairo, hoping to gain passage to other countries. Many have been denied refugee status and are encountering discrimination in Cairo.
There are no UN programs set up for the refugees to gain access to schooling or jobs. The UNHCR paperwork is nearly impossible to fill out and may never result in getting the refugees anywhere else. Many refugees are waiting for the promised phone call to inform them of their flight out. It was promised within weeks. It could come at any time. But, they have waited for years with no results. Many of the parents are not comfortable sending their children to Egyptian schools, for fear of either financial, religious, or racial problems. As a result, concerned refugee parents have gotten together in various locations and, often with help from churches or outside organizations, found the means to hire teachers and a classroom. I learned later that there are only 12 such refugee schools in Cairo. We served at 6 of them. There is no way that we met half of the refugee children in Cairo. I’m not sure exactly how I feel about paying college tuition for one of the best educations in the country when there are kids in the slum who can’t learn to read because their parents can’t afford the LE10 tuition (LE10 = 10 Egyptian pounds ~ $2 US).
We lived for 5 weeks in a flat in Heliopolis – a relatively well-off section of Cairo. We split into groups to volunteer at 6 different schools. Every weekday morning (except for Fridays), two other volunteers and myself wedged our way onto bus for the 30-40 minute drive out to the slum community in ArbaA-wa-Noos (Literally, "4 1/2"). Walking through the dust between constant construction and half-finished buildings (completed buildings are subject to a city tax) past donkey-drawn carts every morning, we reached the square compound that was our school – Central (emphasis on the -ral). The compound formed a square with a gravelly-cement open space in between, spanned by a volleyball net. The rooms formed the perimeter of the square, with doors towards the volleyball ‘court’. The teachers we worked with were all Sudanese refugee men, and we quickly developed good friendships with them. The students ranged from ages of possibly 5 – I5, and they’re pretty awesome kids. I usually helped Leonardo teach either music or English. Marko, Emmanuel, Bouquet, and James were others of our good teacher friends at the school. Although the atmosphere at the school is mostly laid back, these men do not lead easy lives. They work multiple jobs to support themselves or their families while attending school and completing with UNHCR paperwork.
We often wondered if we were actually helping in any way, since the teachers we worked with were more qualified to teach their students than we were. Emmanuel, one of the teachers from Central came to visit us early in the month at our flat to tell us how much he appreciated just the fact that we were there and cared about the Sudanese people. He told us that nobody had to care about the Sudanese people, yet we chose to come from America to try to help. He said it was things like this that gave him hope for his people and his country.
And, they do have hope. Many of the children at our schools were planning their hopeful future education around developing skills to bring back to South Sudan. Sometimes, I felt like I was watching an entire people group in the early stages of resurrecting their homeland and their way of life. I thought they would just want to get out and start their lives over, but most of the refugees we talked to sincerely hope to return to South Sudan and rebuild. Their conflict is the one between North and South Sudan.
The oversimplified problem is basically that the Arab government in the North wants all of Sudan to be Arab. However, something like 70% of Sudan’s people are black-skinned and not Arab. Thus, their villages are burned, their women are raped, their children are sold into slavery, and those that remain are taught to speak only Arabic. We actually met a man from Darfur who was pursued and tortured by the government for his crime of working to develop a curriculum to teach the children of the Fur tribe their native language.
Everyone’s been tortured. It gets a little unreal sometimes. Of everyone that told us the story of how they escaped to Cairo from Sudan, they’d all been tortured - their wives, too. Some of them still have family left, but it’s very hard to keep in touch. Near the end of our trip, Emmanuel was telling us about his family, his life in Cairo, and his desire to return to Sudan. He asked us, "When you return to America, what will you do for us?"
As Emmanuel told us earlier, ‘we must all lift each other up by sharing the things we know.’
That is what I’m trying to do, and admittedly it feels somewhat futile. Before we left, Emmanuel asked us not to forget him. I hope I don’t, but the world I live in here is so different, it’s sometimes hard to remember exactly what was important during the summer. However, earlier this year, I attended a Darfur awareness/fundraising event put on by the Save Darfur Coalition. Ethan Rafel was there. He’d gone back to Africa and was in Darfur at the same time as I was in Cairo. He brought back stories about the kinds of threats that my friends in Cairo were fleeing from. I still don’t know what to do, but the event becomes more encouraging to me with the passage of time.
So what can be done? I don’t know exactly. But, there are many good charities already set up in Cairo (and, I’m sure, in other cities filling with refugees). There are also many refugees with their blue cards (refugee status, awaiting relocation to a different country) who don’t have anywhere to go or anyone to receive them once they get there. I hear that individuals and churches can sign up to receive refugees, but I have yet to find out how this happens or where one can sign up. I have included a link to Tukul Crafts in this article. Tukul (too cool!) is run by and employs refugees, so anything you buy there will directly help refugees and refugee business. I might even know the guy who screens your shirt. There are many refugees relocated to America who are unfamiliar with the language and the customs. If you meet one, please be kind and helpful.
And, take Emmanuel’s advice – ‘we must all lift each other up by sharing the things we know.’ Spread the word.
Thanks for helping me pass along this information on behalf of others who are not here to tell you themselves. I hope that this article is a reminder to me as much as to you about the world outside the bubble, and even outside of America.
If you have questions or comments, I would be happy to hear them.
mehoket@reed.edu
And, if there’s something I don’t know about, I still can talk with my friends and teachers on Gmail chat from time to time.
I hope you’ll investigate the following links:
Global Urban Trek: Cairo, a recently-started blog-in-progress for the combined experiences and thoughts of the other student volunteers as well as the friends we made in Cairo.
Tukul Crafts, self-reliance for refugees in Cairo (I want the bookstore to carry some of these items).
A Long Walk Home – short documentary done by last years’ trek
The Lost Boys
and the film
an Article about Mokattam, the Garbage Village
I did not talk about Mokattam in this article at all, but it is one of the most efficient garbage recycling systems in the world, returning about 80% of trash into some use. This is great, except that the method is for entire impoverished villages (mostly Coptic, and the most obviously Christian section of Cairo) to sort through the garbage produced by all of Cairo. One city’s trash is another city’s unfortunate livelihood.
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