Everyting changed in Egypt

• Main Author: Johnson, Roger
• Publication Date: 2020
• Format: Article
• Language: eng
• Source: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Download full: https://doi.org/10.34632/gaudiumsciendi.2020.13158

A year’s Fulbright appointment at the University in Alexandria, Egypt, brought me, a relatively unknown scholar, and my family into a situation of great joy and gain, tempered with sorrow. It was the most profound experience of my professional career to date in 1982/83, the year after the murder of Sadat and the year of massacres in Sabra and Shatila. Teaching was, at first, difficult. The unacknowledged assumptions of Egyptian students and my own unacknowledged assumptions about truth and knowledge erected barriers to understanding; but each side learned from the other, a gratifying result. For my family, the year in Alexandria was life changing. We learned to cope with the absence of amenities we had taken for granted, and we learned that there was a world different from ours but one that deserved respect and accommodation. We learned to face daily life with more humor and flexibility, admiring a level of generosity we had never before experienced. We also learned about mental equilibrium, a recognition that some acceptance of fate seems healthy. We learned to value and cultivate calm in the midst of chaos.