On February 22nd, Faith and Lee accepted teaching jobs at a school in Egypt named the Heliopolis American International School. The job offer came from the school's owner, Nadia Hafez, who, like us, had come to the University of Northern Iowa's International Teacher Job Fair. The children we will be working with will be Egyptian kids who speak English and whose families want them exposed to an American-style curriculum. Lee will be teaching high school English, while Faith will be teaching elementary school somewhere in the K-4 range. The vast majority of students will go on to college. It is a private school.
We will live and work in a suburb of Cairo (population 17 million) named Heliopolis: a Greek word meaning "city of the sun." Ancient Heliopolis is where the mythical phoenix died and was reborn. It was also the center of the cult of the Egyptian god Atum, who, according to Lonely Planet's guide to Egypt, "rose from the primeval waters and ejaculated (or sneezed depending on the myth) to create both gods and humans." (Sounds like a Rorschach test for your view of human nature, doesn't it?) Modern Heliopolis is a recent invention, having been designed around a century ago by a Belgian industrialist named Baron Edouard Empain. It is a fairly upper class area. President Hosni Mubarak (leader of Egypt since 1981) even has his home there.
We have had numerous reactions to our news that we are going to teach in Egypt. Responses have been mostly positive, though we have, of course, met with the occasional "what on earth are you thinking?" Well, here it is:
* We simply want to see more of the world. As much as we like the places we have lived thus far, these places (South Dakota, Minnesota, Montana) are only a tiny fraction of what exists. Though we have met many kinds of people, there are still many more kinds of people we have yet to meet. Though America is in most respects a wonderful place to live, we are convinced there must be wonderful places and wonderful people beyond our borders, too.
* Although we can imagine working here in the US, our job options were not terribly thrilling. Needless to say, we're thrilled now.
* Lee, in particular, has had a long-standing interest in the Middle East and in the religion of Islam. This will be a great opportunity for both he and Faith to learn more. Faith is also interested in learning about belly-dancing as well as Egyptian film.
* Although Egypt is in the Middle East, and although the ringleader of the 9/11 terrorists (Mohammed Atta) was Egyptian, we have no good reason to believe that Egypt is unsafe. They have not had a terrorist incident there since 1997 and the violent crime rate is very low. The most dangerous thing appears to be the traffic. (Also keep in mind that, with 9/11, more Americans have died in terrorist attacks _inside_ the US than outside it.) Having said this, we are not assuming anything, will be careful, and will follow events in Egypt and the region very closely.
* We live in an increasingly interconnected world in which exchanges of people, ideas, and goods, currencies, and services are growing by the day. By taking part in this process more overtly (we are already all taking part covertly, as it were), we are participating in what, for good or ill—or, more likely, both good _and_ ill—is probably the most important process in the modern world: a process some have termed globalization. In short, we are helping, however modestly, to make history.
* There are many Americans in the Middle East right now with guns and tanks and planes. Rational debate over the wisdom of the US intervention in Iraq is possible, but it is clear this intervention has further harmed our image in the Arab-Muslim world of which Egypt is a part. Two Americans from South Dakota cannot change this alone, but surely the presence of more American faces armed only with sincerity, interest, and compassion is a good thing. It is true you cannot change the world in a day, and yet it's indisputable that every day it changes nonetheless. What we do today still builds the future: we're usually just too busy to believe it.
* Finally, let's face it, Egypt is incredibly cool: what is perhaps the first civilization arose there over 5,000 years ago, while Egypt has, over the centuries, been home to Greeks, Jews, Romans, Arabs, Turks, the French, and finally the English, from whom Egypt won their independence in 1952. Through it all, the Egyptian people themselves have endured. Then there are the Pyramids, Tutankhamen, mummies, the Sphinx, the library at Alexandria, Alexander the Great (who is supposedly buried there), Cleopatra, the desert and the Nile: the history is as inexhaustible as it is fascinating. What is more, and maybe best of all, there are over seventy million people living there right now.
We look forward to finding out who they are.
