Booty Guards

Well the boys in our program can now put on their resumes that they have worked as "male escorts" (but (whew) not in the traditional sense...read on for more details). Khalid, one of our program directors, decided to assign 2-3 guys from our program the duty of escorting females to the gym, our language center, our dorms, etc. everyday from 3-5 pm to try to minimize incidents. But that isn't what gave me the urge to write this post. It's their title...The Egyptian girls have been calling them "bodyguards," but the way that they pronounce it is more like "booty guards." Which, I quite prefer. I think t-shirts that say "Booty Guard" are the necessary next step.

Anyway, this reminded me of one of the things here that provides me d

aily humor: mispronunciations and failed translations from Arabic to English. For example, on a menu in a high-class restaurant that I visited this summer, I had the option of ordering the scrumptious chicken and "vegetation." If vegetation doesn't get my mouth watering, I don't know what will. Also, we noticed that the alcohol menu at one of the few places that serves alcohol here was titled "Spiritual Beverages." Now, obviously they meant "Spirits," but I suppose alcohol is spiritual as well...

Here are my two all-time favorites. Khalid once read a menu that intended to advertise "Chicken and Herbs." Instead, it advertised "Chicken and Herpes." Mmmmmmm.... And finally, to understand this next one, you must understand that there is no letter "p" in the Arabic alphabet, and English words with "p" are pronounced with the Arabic equivalent of a "b" sound. As a result, they often get confused as to when to use "p" versus "b" and use the wrong one. Over the summer, I got some clothes dry-cleaned and the bag was supposed to say "Thank you for your business." Instead, it said..."Thank you for your pussiness." Sooooo great. I packed the bag, and still have it in my room in the U.S.

And finally I have a picture demonstrating these daily humors:

Look closely...the signs advertise "Baby Pant Ass" and "Baby Jacket Ass." Judging by the Arabic, they meant "assortment" and wanted to abbreviate it, with humorous results for those of us who know that "ass" means something totally different...

That's it for now. Off to dinner, possibly watch the sunset from the Citadel, and then an Egyptian folkloric dance class.

Every two weeks we have a meeting to discuss problems with the program, suggestions, issues with our life here in Egypt, etc. and I had been debating whether or not to bring up what happened after the soccer match during today's meeting because I really didn't want to dwell on it any more than necessary. But it turns out that in response to recent events, Nehad, Khalid, and Lizz had planned ahead of time to talk about sexual harassment. I think that the meeting was really useful, and we came to several important conclusions. First of all, cat calls on the street are one thing, but the physical touching that Carolyn and myself experienced, or the public exposure that other girls in our group have been experiencing are NOT okay, and should not just be dismissed as "normal" occurrences here. These occurrences have lasting effects on us. One point that kept coming up in the discussion, is that, yes, it is important to take preventative action to make sure that these things don't continue to happen, but at the same time it's even more important to show sensitivity to what we are going through, to acknowledge that each of us females has a different daily experience, and that each of us react differently.

I also didn't know how many people in our group had read this blog, and I just want to say that I really appreciate everyone who talked to me about it. Even the smallest acknowledgement helped. I think that the other girls and myself really feel like we have American and Egyptian "brothers" now in the program. And if at least one good thing can come out of this, it's that I feel like we are becoming closer as a group.