Travel Component Where Did You Go?

Today is December 8, 2008. Just under four months ago I was thrust into Cairo, Egypt with 29 unknown people to attempt to learn about the culture, politics, and religion of the Middle East. I still vividly remember getting off the plane in Cairo. It was an incredible shock as the letters which I had been studying in my pre-Arabic orientation packet were suddenly ripped from the pages and splattered all over the walls and signs of the airport. Suddenly, things were real, Arabic was a language people actually spoke and Egypt was a place were people actually live. Suffice to say, much has changed since then. I now look at the calendar and see only 3 days between me and my next visit to that very same airport. I'm leaving in a mere 3 days. It's hard to believe I've actually come to the end and my semester in the Middle East is complete.

My last month has been nothing short of a whirlwind. I was just reading the post I wrote before the month of October. I remember looking at that month on the front side and just imagining the volatility and excitement that lay ahead. Now, I look back at that month, as well as a month of travel and truly realize what an amazing 2 months it has been.

Travel Component was one of the greatest months of my entire life. After finishing two 6-10 page papers and taking both our Islam and Arabic finals, we left Cairo on a plane for Istanbul, Turkey. Over the next 30 days we traveled through Turkey, to Istanbul and Ankara. Flew from Istanbul to Aleppo, Syria and then drove to Damascus. After a few days there we drove to the capital of Jordan, Amman and floated in the Dead Sea. And from there we drove across the border into Israel where we spent 12 days in the Old City of Jerusalem. From the roof of the Austrian Hospice where we stayed, we had an incredible view of the Dome of the Rock, the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, the Mount of Olives, the Via Delorosa, and many of the deeply historical and religiously significant sights of the incredible city of Jerusalem.

Since it's the end of the semester and I don't really feel like doing a lot of work, I'll give a brief overview of what we did. Throughout our travels we spoke with different kinds of people, foreign diplomats, political representatives, pastors, journalists, and authors who would speak on their area of expertise giving overviews of different political and religious situations. From these speakers we would take the information and write essays when we got back. When we weren't traveling or listening to speakers we were able to go on some tours of the area. The rest of the time was spent reading different articles which prepared us to ask good questions and plenty of time to embrace the culture by getting out, meeting locals, eating in restaurants, and trying to speak Arabic.

After all this was complete. After we had discussed the ins and outs of difficult issues such as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, we took the 12 hour bus ride from Jerusalem to Cairo, Egypt for the home stretch of our semester here. From the time we got back to Cairo, we had roughly a week to write 5 papers, 4 of them 6-10 pages and one a mere 3-4 pages. My life was nothing more than getting up, writing, racking my brain, stressing far too much, and eventually finishing it all. Luckily, my flat mates were highly motivated to get done early. As a proud procrastinator, I am usually working up until the final hours of the due date for a paper but due to my roommates I decided I needed to take up their challenge.
This led to me finishing all my papers almost 2 days prior to the due date. I actually enjoyed this feeling of being done and being able to catch up with local friends and completely enjoy the time with my flat mates with nothing looming over our head our last few days together.

Overall, I could not ask for a more incredible month. It’s been an adventure that I feel incredibly blessed to have taken part of and I hope I never loose sight of how fortunate I am. I hope I can somewhat extend what I have learned and experienced to those who have not had this opportunity without sounding pompous and privileged.

Again thanks to all you of you who have made this part of my life possible. It has been a life changing four months. I hope I get to talk to you about it. If you truly want to learn about my experience and understand I will be more than willing to share with you what I’ve learned. I only hope I can do it in a way which represents the amazing people I have come to love who have treated me so well these last months.

Thank you.

Peace.

Jonathan Kuik