A favorite weekend pastime of students in Egypt is taking out feluccas on the Nile. Feluccas are small boats with bright lights and floors of varying durability. We walk down the river to the docks, negotiate a price, and have them for a few hours. Besides the river view and the good company, music is the best part of a felucca excursion. Either one of the Americans plugs in their iPod and we sing along to our familiar favorites, or we get an Egyptian playlist. I don’t know quite enough of the songs to sing along, but they’re great to dance to and great for learning Amiyya. The only downside of all this musical immersion is that I can never find out the songs' titles or singers. ...continue reading "I’m On a Boat (On the Nile)"
Tag: GW Exchange
Standing Up to Street Harassment
http://littleurl.info/lsp
While I am having an overwhelmingly positive experience in Egypt, things aren’t always easy. Something that is especially hard to deal with is street harassment, which is a huge problem here. Most of the girls here have had to deal with it at some point, regardless of their nationality. No “kind” of woman is singled out. I don’t want to generalize or paint all Egyptian men as disrespectful; most of the guys I have met are lovely. However, this is certainly an issue that needs to be dealt with.
The catcalls and comments are definitely wearing, so I was very excited to see a piece of anti-street harassment graffiti on a wall downtown. It depicts a hijabi in heels, spraying away a crowd of men as though they were troublesome flies. The message reads, “No to harassment.” I am glad that Cairo’s street artists have chosen to deal with this subject, as I think it is one that doesn’t get enough attention. You’re supposed to ignore it, be quiet, pretend you don’t understand, don’t start anything. (As if you’re the one that started it.) So to see a woman, even a two-dimensional one, asserting her right to walk down the street without being bothered was heartening.
Week 6: In Which Jake Talks About Art Or Something
By jfbarszcz
The Czech Republic has produced a great number of visionaries: the composers Antonín Dvořak and Bedřich Smetana; the writers Karel Čapek and Franz Kafka*, and the playwright-activist-turned-politician Václav Havel are just a few. A name that was unknown to me until recently, however, was that of late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century painter Alfons Mucha (pronounced MOO-kha). Perhaps he's better-known to people more versed in art history than I am, but I had never heard of him until I came to Prague. ...continue reading "Week 6: In Which Jake Talks About Art Or Something"
Food in Singapore: The brief synopsis
Everyone always jokes that there are only two favorite hobbies of Singaporeans: eating and shopping. It comes as no surprise then that Singapore has a very unique culinary culture.
Food in Singapore can range from very expensive ($20+ Singapore) to extremely cheap ($3-$4 Singapore). The cheaper places tend to be located in these places called Hawker Centres. Hawker Centres are known for serving very traditional foods of Singapore, along with other local Southeast Asian dishes. They serve anything from Singapore's very own specialties such as Chicken Rice and Chili Crab, to authentic Indian food, all for a mere $3-$4 per dish. Some of these Hawker Centres are even open 24 hours! The way a hawker centre works is that you simply walk up to a stall that seems to offer what you are looking for, order your food, and wait a couple of minutes for them to prepare it. If you'd like a drink or even dessert, you would have to go to a different stall that is especially for either drinks or desserts. ...continue reading "Food in Singapore: The brief synopsis"
Chum reap suor Cambodia!
This past week, I had the opportunity to visit the 800 + year old temples of Angkor Wat, situated near Siem Reap, Cambodia.
My friend and I arrived in Siem Reap on a Tuesday night and took a cab to the hotel; after we put our bags down, we headed straight back outside to go visit the Night Market. We got a Tuk-
Tuk driver (tuk-tuks are this form of transportation that has a motorcycle or moped attached to a type of carriage in which passengers can sit). In Cambodia, there are no meters- you have to negotiate the price before you travel. Our tuk tuk cost us about $2 US for four people to go to the Night Market. I also should probably mention that the unofficial currency in Cambodia is the US dollar, and that there are ATM machines that dispense US currency (they do not, however, accept change!) The Night Market was intense; there were tons of small shops selling almost identical merchandise: cotton printed pants, Cambodian silk scarves, jade Buddhas, and temple artwork. The market was packed, and each shopkeeper would try to grab our attention by saying, "Hello lady!" We decided to hold off on the shopping until Thursday, and kept walking. We got dinner on a well-known street called Pub Street; my friends got a traditional Khmer barbeque, in which the waiters placed a makeshift grill on the center of our table and provided them with 5 different types of raw meat: beef, snake, crocodile, kangaroo and shrimp. It was up to my friends to cook everything properly and eat it. I, on the other hand, had Cambodian rice, which was very good! Our meal was very cheap too (I paid about $3 for everything)!
Week 4: Classes etc.
By jfbarszcz
Once again, I'm writing this week's post in a bit of a rush, since in just a few short hours I'll be boarding a plane to Amsterdam for the weekend! (Yeah yeah I know, I'm doing such stereotypical American college kid things in Europe: Oktoberfest, Amsterdam.... Definitely looking forward to spending the next couple weekends after this one at "home" in Prague though!) So I apologize in advance for any weird incoherence caused by my not thoroughly revising/editing my post.
My prompt this week is "Discuss what the academic culture is like in your host country." While I can't really say for sure what academic culture is like as a whole in the Czech Republic, I can talk a little about what I DO know about it, as well as how my academic experience thus far has been similar to and different from my experiences at GW. With that disclaimer out of the way let's get started.
Forays into Foul and Falafel
Recently, I had the somewhat disturbing epiphany that I have only been homesick in terms of food. Specifically, I miss Trader Joe’s and Thai Place. I am not going to delve into what that says about my psyche in this post, but instead talk about the new foods I have found to enjoy. D.C. food withdrawals are assuaged by the fact that being here is much better for my student budget.
Alex Top is a hole-in-the-wall koshary place on Zamalek. Koshary is a concoction of macaroni, lentils, chickpeas, tomato, and rice. It is served in plastic tubs and staves off hunger for about 48 hours. Hot sauce is provided but must be dispensed carefully; there is a fine line between perfectly spicy and bursting into tears from the pain. This happened to me the first time I bought it and enthusiastically dumped in the whole bag of sauce. Alex offers ruz w laban (rice and milk) as well- a gooey, delicious mixture of sugar and happiness.
Untranslatable Words and Other Facts of Life
Cairo has turned me into a shameless eavesdropper. In an effort to acquire vocabulary and learn grammar, I listen to Arabic conversations around me all the time. As I learn more Egyptian Colloquial Arabic, or Amiyya, I can actually understand some of these conversations. I’ve learned how to negotiate a lease, buy fabric, and compliment people’s clothes.
...continue reading "Untranslatable Words and Other Facts of Life"
Life as a Singaporean Student
My classmates at NUS are fairly different than my classmates back home...their typical lives differ vastly than what I am used to in many ways.
The first difference I noticed was that these students appear to study MUCH more than what I am used to. The students in some of my classes can be seen at the library reading and sometimes re-reading the required texts/articles. When asked why they re-read assigned readings, I was told something interesting. I was told that since these classes are based on a bell-curve, only a couple of students can obtain the top mark of an A+. Thus, a lot of the students spend countless hours trying to practice memorizing the readings and create their own conclusions in hopes of being able to obtain a great grade. I, however, have never re-read a textbook unless I was studying for an exam and did not understand some of the material. I noticed that some of the students are used to memorizing texts rather than applying and understanding the significance behind some of the readings. After discussion with some local students, I found out that they have been raised to memorize. Their college entrance exams, called the A-Levels, apparently require some level of memorization. One local student mentioned that having a great memory would secure a very good grade on the exam. Overall, there are far fewer essays/assignments in my classes here than back home, but the weekly discussions in tutorials or in classes require great understanding of the readings.
Prague’s Restaurant Scene
By jfbarszcz
Hey all! So my blog post is going to be a bit shorter this week because I'm actually in the middle of packing for Oktoberfest! Obviously I am very excited for this, but it means that I leave Prague at 7 tomorrow morning and won't be back until late Sunday night (and I know I'll want to sleep when I get back) so I'm writing this post at about 11 PM Thursday night). Anyway, this week's topic is... restaurants.
You can learn a lot about a local culture by visiting restaurants. Obviously, cuisine is a very large part of culture, but it can also be an educational experience in other ways. Dining in restaurants in Prague has also taught me about local etiquette, money and prices, and even a bit about the Czech outlook on life.