Lessons from Refugees
A teacher in Egypt learns education is a
two-way street
By Amanda Craig
She used to mumble under her breath or shake her head with a shy smile when I asked her to repeat vocabulary, conjugate verbs, or list pronouns. But she never missed a class or looked away from the dimly lit board. She barely shifted in her seat.
Then, one afternoon in April, three months into English classes, Fatima spoke up. She read aloud her homework: a paragraph using the past, present and future tenses of “to be.” Fatima said she was happy in Darfur, she is sad in Cairo, and she will be lucky to return to Sudan as a doctor. I was momentarily paralyzed by her quiet, well-enunciated words, while her fellow Sudanese students nodded and smiled. But soon I felt what had become a familiar wave of recognition: of how much desire, initiative, and energy was inside each person—including refugees in Egypt who persist without rights, physical protection, or access to education, jobs, or health care.
Within weeks of arriving in Cairo, I began teaching an English language class for female refugees through Student Action for Refugees (STAR), an international network of student groups that supports refugees in practical ways and raises awareness of refugee issues. At the American University in Cairo (AUC), STAR provides English and Arabic classes, organizes the sale of refugee art, crafts and clothes, and directs World Refugee Day and Global Day for Darfur.
I was intrigued by the abstract notion of meeting and hopefully helping individuals with whom I seemed to have little in common. But the experience of teaching English quickly led me to extend my fall-semester study abroad to a full academic year. The women in the class I taught were mostly Sudanese and often from the Darfur region, and they were some of the most persevering and inspiring women I’ve ever encountered. Some wanted to help their children learn English; others hoped to work as translators; one woman aspired to start an orphanage that would offer housing to refugee children.
During the fall semester, about 30 women, my co-teacher, and I gathered in a bright, sterile classroom on the AUC campus every Sunday evening from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. Secluded from men who so often signified ensuing harassment in Cairo, our class hesitantly developed a slumber-party style. We giggled. Even hugged. I often played music to teach new vocabulary or practice fill-in-the-blanks listening skills, and someone was always humming or shifting in her seat. More than once, we laughed at my attempts to move my feet to the beat.
And sometimes there was a moment when time seemed to stop. Like that moment when everyone at the slumber party stops painting their nails and flipping magazine pages and looks to whomever is speaking. Two such moments are ever-present in my mind. During the first, early on in the semester, we were working on dialogues. Everyone was supposed to discuss the topic of why they wanted to learn English; then they had to present each other’s ideas to the class. The two oldest women, in their early 40s, partnered. When Rania began to tell Zainab’s story, her voice wavered but quickly strengthened. Zainab’s eyes shot straight forward all-the-while, wide-open and dry.
Zainab was a well-recognized professional lawyer in Sudan. She spoke English and had been largely successful until she was forced to flee. She had lived for nearly 15 years in Cairo without prospects. Unable to rebuild a career or even obtain legitimate employment, she persisted on the periphery, with the pervasive memory of what was and what could have been. She wanted to learn English to get back a fraction of what she had lost—to feel that sense of vitality and hopefulness again.
Zainab’s story was not particularly exceptional among Sudanese refugees in Cairo, as I would learn. Many suffered harsh readjustment. But as Rania told Zainab’s story, I got my first sense of what was going on under the surface. Rania’s voice was soft yet steely and Zainab’s gaze solid, but their hands, in plain view on the table, were clasped tightly.
Later on in the semester, Samira told her own story, her excitement palpable. She was 22-years-old, exuberant and animated, and one of the best English speakers. She often lingered after class to ask questions, chat, or get more homework. One day, she stayed to tell me about her newest idea: to start an orphanage for refugee children. Orphanages are so over-crowded with Egyptian children, she said, that they don’t even consider refugee children. She intended to start the orphanage out of an apartment and expand it as best she could. She also intended to earn a law degree.
In Egypt, refugees do not have a legal right to education. They are not admitted to public schools, and the diplomas they receive from privately funded programs like STAR are not recognized by higher education institutions. But Samira would not be daunted by such obstacles. She eventually found work at a charitable organization that provides legal aid, especially to women in divorce cases. She expected, from the outset, to forge her own path.
During these moments when Rania, Zainab, and Samira shared something about themselves, their pasts, and their hopes for the future, there was an intimate exchange of perspective and strength, both between the students and between the students and their teachers. On the surface, our class tackled sentence structure, but it was also about bringing these women together to feel safe, gain the tools needed to achieve their goals, and develop a community where these women were able to share their thoughts and experiences.
Time and again, their courage challenged mine. There was no simple way to combat the harassment omnipresent on Cairo’s streets, and the ritual dread before I left my apartment became almost as difficult to contend with as the actual lewd comments or physical grabbing. Yet black refugee women in Cairo are subjected not only to harassment but also to emotional debasement and physical harm. They faced these horrors head-on, if not in their bodily demeanor than in their mental strength. I walked out of every three-hour class at 10 p.m. feeling more energized than I had the entire day and wanting to face the week, to learn and understand more.
By the start of the spring semester at AUC, I was both directing the campus’s women-only English language program and teaching English to men and women in Ain Shams, a district on the outskirts of Cairo where many Sudanese refugees live. STAR purchased the first floor of a building in Ain Shams and established a cultural center there called El Wafa. Even though it was newly painted, the narrow entryway and two tiny classrooms felt cramped, cave-like. A hodgepodge of chairs, clipboards and chalkboards meandered onto the classroom supply list. But Sudanese, from the Ain Shams community and afar, converged here, undeterred and unconcerned.
My class met for two hours on Mondays and Wednesdays and consisted of two women and six men. If the fall semester class at AUC resembled a slumber party, my spring semester class at El Wafa was reminiscent of Thanksgiving dinner. At first, we gathered in our makeshift classroom like long-lost relatives, tentative but ready to be reminded of why joining together, whether for a hearty meal or an English lesson, can be good and promising.
But by the end of the semester, the tension and laughter lightened. Everyone passed around Tahir, the few-months-old son that one of the women held in class every day. We each talked openly about where we came from. Men brought in pictures of their wives or families and passed them around. And Fatima spoke up.
Before I went to Cairo, I was the mumbling, shy-smiling, eyes-fixed-on-the-board student in most of my classes too. But seeing Fatima in that position, with her infinite potential, gave me a new perspective. I saw how she felt uncertain or self-conscious, and the strength and significance of her ultimate contribution. Once Fatima began talking in class, it was as if an extra tension in the room melted away, and the whole family could gather around the Thanksgiving turkey a bit closer.
This fall after I returned from Cairo, I spoke up for the first time. In my Magazine Editing class, I was first to raise my hand, to share my thoughts and opinions. As a result, I learned more about journalism than I ever had before and gained confidence in editing. I hope speaking up in her English class gave Fatima the courage and initiative to be a doctor—to positively impact health and nutrition in Sudan as she so quietly wanted to.
Amanda Craig graduated with a Journalism and International Studies double major from Northwestern University in June 2008. She studied in Cairo, Egypt in 2006-2007. She recently received a Rotary Ambassadorial Scholarship to study for a master’s degree abroad next year.