The Question

I have noticed that most Egyptians ask me the same question: which one is better, America or Egypt?  There is a safe answer and a risky one.  The safe answer: either "both!" or "Egypt has the best people!"  Or you could respond that each person loves their own country best.  But offer reasons why America (or Egypt, depending on your personal opinion) is better, and the listener's ears will perk up.  They all have opinions about America: Obama is great, Obama is overrated, Bush is awful, Bush was a good guy, America has good people but a bad government, etc.

But seriously: does the average American, Joe Schmoe, know half as much about Egypt as the average Egyptian, Mohammed, knows about America?  Probably not.  When they think of Egypt, they probably think of elementary-school lessons about Pharaonic Egypt, not what Egypt actually is.  And it's difficult to define "Egypt", because Egypt is not a monolith, but this is part of our quest here.  We are here to learn Arabic, we are here to learn to understand Egyptians.  Sometimes I want to bang my head against the wall because I don't understand how things work here, what the inner workings of the society are, but I'm trying.

I maintain that there is no "right" way to live and that the best way to live is to keep your eyes open and see that people do different things different ways in different places and times.  In a meeting with my language partner today, I was delighted to discover that he knew that America hasn't always been the way it is now: America has gone through cultural development, too.  Not so long ago, America was much more "conservative", just as Egypt is "conservative" right now.  Who knows how Egypt could change in the next fifty years?

Keep your eyes open, keep your ears open, keep your mind open.  This is the key to Egypt, to the world.