Far from home:

McDonald's, riots cause surprising culture shock

Kelsi Bitgood

"Power to the people!" Associate Professor of Classics John Lenz translated the chant that echoed across the agora, which had been the heart of ancient Athens and the meeting place of great lawmakers and philosophers, including Socrates. We were standing next to the best- preserved temple in Greece, the Temple of Hephaestus, which overlooks the agora. The sounds of the riot bounced off its columns, an eerie combination of classical glory and modern struggle. Since December, students and revolutionaries in Greece have been rioting, a reaction to the fatal shooting of a 15-year-old student by a policeman. The protests also center on the corruption of the current Greek government, the lack of education opportunities for Greek students and the global economic slump. In the course of our three weeks on the Drew International Seminar, we encountered countless reminders of social unrest, from the graffiti on every building-"Let's take control of our lives"-to the charred remnants of banks that had been bombed. In the pre-departure course, my classmates and I learned about the greatness of the ancient Athenians, the glory of their democracy, sculpture, theater, philosophy and military, and about the instability of the modern nation. Yet, as we discovered firsthand, modern Greece is not just the current turmoil-it embraces and promotes its classical past. Street names commemorate ancient heroes, such as Leonidou Street in Heraklion, Crete, in honor of the Spartan warrior. Shopkeepers in the Plaka, the oldest part of Athens, display miniature copies of famous statues and red-figure pottery painted in the style of the fifth-century B.C. We were fortunate enough to feast our eyes on the real statues and vases in the museums we visited. In the New Acropolis Museum, which was only two blocks away from our hotel in Athens, ongoing archeological excavations were visible through the transparent floor. Over and over again, I was duly amazed at both the craftsmanship of the ancient Greeks and the pride modern Greeks take in their history. Culture shock usually results when one is immersed in a culture other than their own, especially overseas. Interestingly, however, the shock in Greece was not the fact that the Greeks rarely eat lunch before 2 p.m. and that government-regulated stray dogs take naps on the walls of the acropolis, or even that the kiosks on every corner display porn next to newspapers and candy bars. The shock was that American culture and the English language were everywhere. McDonald's, Starbucks, T.G.I. Friday's, and Pizza Hut offered familiar cuisine and atmosphere. Street signs and menus recorded the English word directly under the Greek, and even the graffiti was often in English. It was almost unnecessary to learn any Greek phrases, but most of us did and used our new vocabularies frequently, an endeavor which usually generated the surprised response, "You speak Greek!" We began our trip in Athens, traveled by overnight ferry to Crete, and then rode on a bus through the countryside to Corinth, Mycenae, Epidaurus, Olympia and Delphi. Eventually, we returned to Athens as experts on feta, folk dancing and climbing mountains in the rain. On our last day in Greece, my friends and I climbed the Areopagus, the hill just below the acropolis that was the site of ancient city council meetings. We passed around a bottle of wine as we watched the sun set over Athens and said our goodbyes to the "birthplace of civilization" that had, for 20 days, been our home.

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An American in Egypt teaches Sudanese refugees

Morgan Edwards

Emerging from the darkness are two bright lights, followed by a rush of green as the train slides into the station.  On the side are painted advertisements with cartoon children playing.  The doors glide open and there is a rush of people to the door.  No one waits for those on the train to exit, so the two sides are pushing against each other and no progress is made.  We join in the throng of people forcing themselves through the gap and into the train, then attempt to move toward the center-our stop is far down the line and it is better to get away from the door.  I grab a bar and hold on as the train picks up speed once again.  The car is full of colors: The personality of each woman is clear in her choice of hijab.  Some girls have bright green or blue scarves, while others have tan or white ones with intricate embroidery.  It is on the train that I feel the most like an outsider-like all of these women share a special bond and because my hair is uncovered I will never be cool enough to share it.  A little boy about 10 years old begins to walk down the train, calling to everyone in words I can't comprehend.  He holds a box of mints and hands one roll to each woman sitting down in the train.  No one acknowledges him.  Once he gets to the end, he continues his spiel and walks back down the train, collecting what he passed out. Two women get on the train at the next stop and walk up and down holding sweatshirts and calling out in Arabic to everyone on the train. The woman sitting next to me buys one of the sweatshirts. I stare out the window and realize that we are coming to El Maadi-our stop.  Pushing my way to the door, I reach in my pocket to assure myself that my ticket is still there.  The train slows and then stops, the doors open and I am carried off the train with the tide of women pushing through the exit.  I walk toward the turnstiles and feed the ticket into the slot, meeting the group on the other side.  Outside of the train station, Maadi has a different feel than Zamalek-that's the district of Cairo where we're staying.   It bustles, but the buildings are shorter and the cars less frequent.  Less traffic means more dust sitting around-our shoes get a fine coating after just a few steps.  We turn left and begin walking down the main street in Maadi, past the smoothie vendor, grocery store and post office and past GAD, where we stop for lunch on the way home.  We head away from the bustle of the main street, passing Egyptian children on their way to school playing football in the street.  One boy feels brave and turns to us. "Welcome," he says, trying to impress us with his English.  I give him a smile that sends his friends into peals of laughter as he runs back to them.  We walk past more policemen sitting in their post at an intersection and into the residential streets of Maadi.  There are short walls on either side of the street with trees and shrubs behind.  The square buildings they protect are barely visible and there is no sign of life in any of them, though I know that no building in Cairo is uninhabited, including the crypts and mausoleums of the City of the Dead.  We reach a gate with a small peephole in it, and as we walk up, the gate opens and we enter Happy Child preschool.  A tall, thin woman with dark skin and long fingers sits on the steps of the school. Sarah, a teacher at the preschool, stands and smiles wide, welcoming us back as we walk through the gate.  Behind those doors are 60 preschoolers living as illegal refugees with their families.  Children from Sudan who have grown up in a foreign land.  And as much as I enjoy discovering the joys of Cairo, it is just a journey I take until I walk through those gates and see the smiles of my class of five-year-olds-that is when I feel at home in Egypt.  And that hasn't changed since I've been back in America. Now when I close my eyes, I can still clearly see the faces of Maria, Fuet, Rejoice and Lado.

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Leaving behind air kisses, tango and late dinners proves difficult

Eden Williams

The Drew International Seminar to Buenos Aires, Argentina was an incredible opportunity not only to immerse ourselves in the Spanish language, but also to understand the customs of different people. While Buenos Aires first appeared as a smaller version of NYC with McDonald's on every corner, Coca-Cola logos splashed across the windows of every restaurant, and people wanting to talk about President Barack Obama as soon as they learned we were Americans, the ways of the people were incredibly different. We adapted to greeting people with kisses on the cheek, laid-back waiters who we had to flag down to get the check, and living with families where dinner was served between 9 p.m. and 10 p.m. and the nightlife didn't start until 2 a.m. We left the city of Buenos Aires two times, once to take a ferry to Colonia, Uruguay, a small, cobblestone town, and the second time to visit Rodizgo Campo. While in Buenos Aires we visited the Plaza de Mayo to watch "Las Madres" march in protest, visited the famous cemetery where Evita is buried, and got to watch a tango show where tango was born. While the 95 degree weather was a great incentive to go, I had no idea it would be so hard to leave Argentina and return to the United States.