We went on many great trips but there are also trips that were not good. The worst trip that we went on was the trip to Giza zoo. Compared to zoos in America this one is not even comparable. After paying a pricey fee to enter you have to pay another fee to see the elephants, camels, and reptiles. It's a total rip off.

The zoo didn't have a lot of animals and the cages of the animals were unequal. By this I don't mean a bird should have the same amount of space with a lion. I mean the animals should have appropriate places. For example, the Lions were locked up in cells the size of a small bathroom. All of the Lions were lying down, without energy. The funny thing was that one giraffe had as much space as my backyard.

The pelicans also lived in a horrible place. They had a very large river leading to a pond but the bad thing about this pond is that it was basically the zoos trash deposit. Everyone threw their garbage in this pond. The color of the pond was a really dark green color.

That day we also ate a bad lunch. There's a very famous Egyptian food called koshery. It's a mixture of macaroni types. Usually it's very good, but this place did not make it very well. It probably wouldn’t have been as bad if it didn’t have an overwhelming amount of spices. Also the man gave me too much sauce so my lunch was basically a spicy macaroni soup.

Egypt is a big country with many places to go. We went to a few of them and there are still so many places to see. The first place we went to was hadigat El ezher, which is a huge Park. It's full of trees, fountains, and a large hill. It was nice to climb to the top and take in the view.

El Ezher Park

The next place we went to was the famous pyramids. In the morning we got our visas from tahrir square after waiting for two hours then we got lunch and then went to the pyramids. The pyramids were fascinating. After the pyramids we went on many other trips. Egypt is definitely a place with many places to go.


       
 In the future we are planning to go to Alexandria. We were supposed to go there this year but between our studies and other affairs we ran out of time. Hopefully we will go to Alexandria next year. I am looking forward for our trips next year.  My overall favorite trip was when we went to shamoussa. The trip was a boring three hour long trip but we were relieved when we saw how nice the place was. There were five swimming pools and the Red Sea. First we swam in the Red Sea but there were a lot of sharp rocks. Later we went to the pools. I tried every single pool in the place. After a tiring day we finally returned home. That night was a night I slept very well.

Shamoussa

 

In Eygpt I saw lots of stray cats in the streets. I saw stray dogs too but there was a great number of cats especially around trash cans. I remember in history classes we learned how the ancient Eygptians counted cats as holy animals or something like that. I don't know if that has anything to do with why there is a bunch of stray cats in Eygpt, but it's a theory. Also I know that no one is doing anything about these stray animals. It's not rare to find dead cats or roadkills. Hopfully later on in the future someone would stand up and do something about this and save those poor creatures. 

 

Egypt Education System: An Overview

Egypt is known for its extensive education system as compared to other countries of Middle East and North Africa. In Egypt, education is offered for free and is also mandatory from grades 1 to 9th, in both public and private schools. Since the basic education is free and compulsory, there is an embedded consciousness on how education must be valued among the citizens of this country.

How it Works: Demographics

Egypt has both government schools and private schools. For government schools, there are two types: Arabic and Experimental language schools. The national curriculum for government schools is in Arabic but different languages are also taught in the primary and secondary level like English, French, Spanish, Italian and more.

For private schools, there are four types:

1. Ordinary Schools

2. Language Schools

3. Religious Schools

4. International Schools

First are the ordinary schools which almost have the same features as government schools but with increased attention to the students’ needs. There are also language schools which specialize in teaching foreign languages to students who wish to take up foreign studies in the future. There are also private schools which are identified as religious schools since they are run by religious institutions present in Egypt. The fourth type of private school in Egypt is international schools. International schools follow curriculums from other countries like the U.S. and the United Kingdom.

 

Levels of Education

The primary education in Egypt runs from 1st grade to 9th grade. For secondary education, a student can choose whether to pursue general education (high school) or technical (vocational track). The curriculum of technical education is centred on commercial, agricultural and industrial tracks.

As for Egypt’s tertiary education system, the country has also developed an extensive system because of the many public and private universities present in the country. Included in this list of universities is the Al-Azhar University which was founded in 970 AD and is the oldest running universities of today in the whole world.

Education as Top Priority

The government of Egypt consciously puts priority to the country’s education system. As of 2015, 6% of the GDP is allocated to the country’s education sector. The wealth gap is seen in how individuals have different levels of educational attainment because of financial status. With primary education free, the wealth gap will be of no crucial concern anymore because education is made accessible to everyone.

As compared to the US education system, Egypt proves itself to be more accessible especially in terms of tertiary education.The United States is known for its education sector to not be that accessible and wide reaching for everyone especially in the tertiary level.

As of 2010, more than two million students were enrolled in different colleges and universities in the entire Egypt. The government of Egypt is  continuously taking steps in further improving the education system in the country. In 2014, the initiative to reduce gender differences and disparity in education was introduced in order to make it more accessible to everyone, regardless of the gender. In order for improvements in the education sector to flourish more, the tension between government responsibility and academic freedom should be resolved.

The ancient Egyptians believed that it was important to record and communicate information about religion and government. Thus, they invented written scripts that could be used to record information.       
The most famous of all ancient Egyptian scripts is hieroglyphic. However, throughout three thousand years of ancient Egyptian civilization, at least three other scripts were used for different purposes. Using these scripts, scribes were able to preserve the beliefs, history, and ideas of ancient Egypt on the walls of temples, tombs, and on papyrus scrolls.
     
The three types of Egyptian scripts are hieratic, demotic, and Coptic. Some of them are easier to understand, for example in hieratic a star looks like a normal star but in the other writings it could look different.
         

The writings of ancient Egypt is truly amazing. After these amazing writings came a even more amazing script and that is the Arabic script used to write the Arabic language, which is commonly used in Egypt today.

Before we came to Egypt to study the Arabic language we have heard that there was an old Cairo and new Cairo. Among friends we were debating where would it be better to stay in new Cairo or old Cairo. New Cairo is a calm and quiet suburban place with huge houses which are kind of like small villas. Old Cairo is loud and crowded and it's all city. A bad thing about new Cairo is that we would be 30 minutes away from school and the markets in new Cairo are really expensive compared to old Cairo. A good thing about old Cairo is that school would be 5 minutes away on foot and everything would be very cost effective. In the end we chose to live in old Cairo. 

 We stayed in a apartment with 3 bedrooms and one bathroom. We were fine until we came across a few problems. First of all we got mice in our house. When we learned about the mice we got mouse traps. We caught around 12 mice that month. Also another problem was having one bathroom. We were 7 people in that house and one bathroom wasn’t enough. Sometimes a few people needed to go in at the same time which made it a problem. The last problem was the kitchen. I think we had the smallest kitchen in Cairo because the walking space in the kitchen wasn’t much bigger then the surface of my bed. Also it got dirty really easily and the counters were always sticky for some reason.

In the beginning of this month we decided to move. Our new house has 3 bathrooms and 3 bedrooms. Also a spacious kitchen and living room. It is also closer to our school. We’ve been in it for almost 2 weeks and it's great. Another great thing that this house has a balcony, something that our other house didn’t have. Also, there is no sign of mice as long as one them from our old house didn’t try to sneak in one of our bags when we first moved.  I think we’re OK...

Nile Center is a school in Cairo, Egypt that teaches Arabic to foreign students from all around the world. It is one of the best Arabic teaching schools in Egypt. It doesn’t only have Arabic class, it also has Turkish, calligraphy, and Quran classes. Going to a school to learn Arabic is very important because the people in the streets speak colloquial Arabic which is a corrupt form of Arabic. This school teaches you to learn traditional and correct form of Arabic.

Nile Center has three different book series that teaches Arabic, El Muhtar, Kitab El Esasi, And it's newest book Et Tekkelum which I study. Et Tekkelum has five levels (starter, elementary, pre-intermediate, intermediate, and upper-intermediate). Et Tekkelum includes vocabulary, conversations, and Grammer explained in the easiest way to help you understand.  Right now we finished intermediate. We will start the last level  of the book soon. In my opinion  Et Tekkelum is the best of the three books at Nile center.

Nile Center also has skillful teachers with lots of experience in teaching. Each teacher has his own teaching way to make the students understand because sometimes the book isn’t clear. The name of our teacher is . He is  a teacher that has been teaching at Nile center for around nine years. Also there are three great Quran teachers that teach Quran at Nile center. There is also a talented calligraphy teacher that does amazing work from writing names to making a portrait out of words. Nile center really has some of the best teachers in Egypt and I am grateful to be a student here.
     

Hello, I recently did an interview with someone that has a great knowledge in Egyptian economy.


1: How do you see the Egypt’s economy in future? 
"The economy is sluggish right now and it seems difficult for the economy to recover soon as the situation is getting worse day by day. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to have a bright future."

2: How does Egypt generate its income? (What are the sources of income for Egypt?)
"Well! It used to get a lot of income from the Suez Canal, but now it is closed (sealed) for the tourists and media. It used to get huge media attraction as Egypt had been the Hollywood of the Middle East."

3: Is it possible for the economy to recover?
"Theoretically yes, but it would take hard work to do so. Actually, people here are not productive and hardworking, and it shows they won’t be in future too."

4: Does dollar have a role in the economy?
"Dollar is a very important currency for the economy from business perspective. It is used to buy goods from other countries, but since we only import and not export, dollar is rare and expensive."

 

Since I have talked about the technical things of Egypt it is time to start talking about it's people. Most Egyptians are very nice people, Most of them greet you nicely, and they are generally very nice. They show great hospitality towards foreigners, as they are very social. Almost everybody is a friend to everyone else. These people are generally the best people I have ever seen.               

In Muslim culture: people greet each other by saying (السلام عليكم‎) “As-salamu alaykum”, which means “peace be upon you”. Even people that you might not know might greet you this way. If an Egyptian greets you with this words, You should be ready to respond "Wa-Alaikum-us-Salaam" ("and upon you the Peace"). These sayings are an important part of Muslim Culture. In-fact when we are late to our Arabic class becomes furious, however when we greet him this way, he smiles and says “Wa-Alaikum-us-Salaam”, then continues to get mad at us. Almost every Egyptian will respond to you if you greet them like this.

Egyptians also show much hospitality. If you were to be talking English in the streets they will hear you and try to talk English with you. There is a small store close to our house that sells food and such things, when I go to him, even though I speak Arabic with him he responds in English. The first time I went to the barber, the barber asked me where I was from, when I said I was from America he said “you honor us”. The Egyptian people show great welcoming towards strangers.

Here, everyone is a friend to everyone. When we were going to Giza to ride ATV's (by the way it was really fun. Riding towards to pyramids on the desert was amazing), on the way, our bus driver had to ask directions. He had to stop sometimes and everybody he talked to to ask the way, they talked as if they were close friends for years. In the meanwhile me and my friends were thinking about how our bus driver had too many friends. Almost everyone here is each others friend, and it is really easy to spark a conversation with somebody. One time we were going in the taxi to somewhere, the driver noticed we weren't Egyptian him and our supervisor had a friendly conversation about where we were from. It isn't very hard to make a friend here in Egypt.

Egyptians are very nice people that show great hospitality and kindness. They greet foreigners warmly. They are mostly very close with each other and refer to each other as “brother”. I'm not sure if it's because of the Arabic culture or the Egyptian touristic culture, however, I can say they are one of the the best nations I've met.

                        

So far it has been 6 months or so since I first cam to Egypt. I have learnt a decent amount of Arabic these past months and I noticed that Arabic is a language that can never be truly mastered. There is always more to learn. Anyways.. we had a field trip a couple days ago! We went to the Giza Pyramids and rode ATV's there. It was a great time and the view was so amazing, words cannot describe how much. There we had races together and the sand always hit me in the eye, that was the only unfortunate thing. So when we were riding around, my engine started stuttering and stopped. I started it back up and continued. This happened a couple times or so until it stopped working altogether. I was somewhat disappointed, but fortunately I rode another ATV instead of the broken one.

  But there has been one thing that I have been noticing a lot.. That is that not everyone is Muslim. There are Christians, Jewish, and Muslim in Egypt. Like a big mixing pot. But the thing is that the Christians are Arab! Which makes me think that not all Arabs are Muslim, which is a common idea nowadays..

       Since learning a new language gets hard, at break I go to the top of our school and get fresh air there and relax. It has a great view from there. Picture is down below!

View From the ATV

View of the Pyramids

With Friends

Riding

Picture I Took From the Top of our School