Two Phrases

Ignorance is bliss

And

It's cultural relativity

Anyways, here's an article on the response to the current "epidemic" in Egypt.

Basically, Egypt's response to "swine influenza" is to kill 300,000 the pigs in Egypt even though there has not been a single reported case yet in Egypt.

Facts are facts. The absence of facts is ignorance. Ignorant decisions can't be justified by cultural relativity. And, everyone would be better off if they really knew what was going on. The clash with the theory of cultural relativity has been the study abroad experience, and this (swine influenza response) is just too easy an example to reveal the absence of logic that goes into some decision making.

Where's Matt

This wouldn't be a bad summer job.

Guys and Dolls

What's in the daily news? I'll tell you what's happening in the daily news. Double standards for pimps and hoes transgress cultures. A girls puts out in America a little too much, and she's a s**t. A guy gets a lot of action, and he's a pimp. A girl goes out with a guy in Egypt, and she's used. A guy goes out with a couple of girls, and well, that's not too odd.

Girls have high expectations to live up to in Egypt. Many guys won't marry a woman who has ever dated a man before. And, when I say dated, I don't mean slept with nor kissed. I mean the literal definition: going out on dates just the two of them. Why would a guy care if a girl he likes dated a boy in high school? Because the guy wants the girl just to himself, he doesn't want her to "know" any other man other than him. A wife is supposed to be the one thing in life that a guy can truly call his own. He won't just be her first kiss, but he'll be her everything, her provider. So, this is what guys want. Or at least, they say that.

Guys have tough lives until they get married. Most of them want to marry the innocent, untouched girl, but until then, they still want to get to "know" girls. A lot of guys don't want to kiss a girl before marrying her, but they wouldn't be opposed to dating a girl. A lot of guys want to actually get action (they rarely get it). And, there are guys that don't want to do anything but marry a girl -- these guys have the worst game and when they meet a new, single girl the first thing that comes to their mind is the possibility of marrying her. It's a rare case for a guy and girl to be anything more than acquaintances unless of course they're together.

Since a girl can't know a guy before marriage, she must try to avoid all guys trying to approach her. If she is seen talking with a random guy, people might talk (I'm using this logic's language). So, it's hard to meet someone when you're always on the defensive. Likewise, it's hard for guys to meet girls because they are always on the defensive.

It's cultural. It's relative. That's just how it is. ?. But is there hypocrisy? Many guys want to sleep with women before marriage, many just want to date before marriage, but the majority doesn't want to marry a girl who has dated before. It looks like people are asking for two contradictory things.

The Corniche in the Spring

Summer is approaching fast

Here's an article on the OLPCorps selection process and what went wrong. My team wasn't chosen. But, why not? I have a feeling that OLPC wasn't looking for projects in any of the 53 African countries, but instead, almost entirely in sub-saharan Africa. And, that's totally understandable, but why did the company say that students "can travel to one of the 53 African countries of their choosing" to implement their project? If they had limited the countries, I wouldn't have wasted 2 weeks writing proposals and talking to NGOs to establish our program. Clearly, this project sounded too good to be true. But, it's just unfortunate for all parties involved that it really was too good to be true.

The link above is an interesting article that sheds some light on why some proposals were accepted and others weren't, since there is nothing on laptop.org or the OLPCorps wiki.

So, I am back on the summer internship hunt.

Where's Joe the Plumber

There's been a big sewage problem in the dorms for the last month and a half. As a result, the street outside the dorms is filled with... well you know. And it smells like that too.

And when I say filled, I really mean that on bad days it looks like a pool filling up the whole road and on good days its just a big puddle on the side of the road.

Subjectivity

Here's a cherry picked translation of a mid-term that I took a couple weeks ago. The test was 42.5 % multiple choice, 37.5% true and false, and 20% long essay.

True or False Portion (with the teacher's answers)

10) الدين الإسلامي يشجع العمليات الإرهابية - The Islamic religion encourages terrorist works. (T)
12) الفراغ الديني مسؤول عن انتشار الإرهاب - The religious emptiness is responsible for the establishment of terrorists (F)
13) الإسلام هو الحل - Islam is the solution (F)
14) التنمية و العلم و الدميقراطية هي الحل Development, science, and democracy are the solutions. (T)

It's hard to teach Islamic Politics without getting too political, but I think you can see the professor's political leanings from these four questions. A more typical Egyptian answer would have been the exact opposite (although most people in Egypt believe that you need a combination of 13 and 14).

It was interesting to see the liberal side of Egyptian culture take on the same mannerisms of the conservative side. Those mannerisms can be summed up in the words wrong (ghalet), forbidden (harem), the not allowed (mumnooa). Just as the previously mentioned true and false questions gave no room for discussion or ambiguity, many ideas are often simply labeled wrong and not given a second consideration.

Here are a few anecdotes:

I wore a funny t-shirt showing a chimpanzee evolving to a human who devolves to a computer geek. The response: Darwin is a donkey. Of course, that's wrong. And then, we watched a video of Adam and Eve as evidence that creationism is how man came to be.

I was debating gay marriage with another American and Egyptian when another one of our hall mates overheard our discussion. He replied, Of course, that's wrong. (the Arabic phrase for of course, that's wrong is only two words, so it sounds a lot more coarse like CLEARLY WRONG).

A taxi driver called an Egyptian girl not wearing a hijab during Ramadan was called haram (forbidden by the Quran).

I want to enter a museum or certain path or some other thing. The response: not allowed. My response: Can you tell me when it's open or how else I can do this etc. The response: not allowed.

There's no idea of political correctness here. Calling someone Indian means idiot. An underdeveloped country is called a retarded country. Egyptians drop the n-bomb all the time when talking about Obama.

These black and white responses rejecting nuance or any tinge of ambiguity are part of the culture. And, it comes from both sides: liberal and conservative. But wait, what is liberal and conservative. Well, that's a subject for another time, but it doesn't mean prius driving, hippy, pro-choice, big government liberals vs. pickup driving, red blooded, pro-death penalty, small government conservatives. The line is cut in a much different way. But the point here is that discourse often starts off in a much more confrontational manner.

So there's some Egyptian culture from a 20-year-old American's point of view. Someone else would probably explain it to you differently, but if they did I would simply say, "clearly wrong."

Now, we might ask, what might lead people to a black and white world view? And, I'll refrain from answering that now because it's what we say is a "loaded" question.