Yep, the crummy, crazy city is better
I received a call recently from an old friend who will travel with her family to Cairo next month, staying for a year to study at the American University in Cairo. In discussing places to live, she reminded me that AUC is no longer located in the heart of the city. Rather, it moved a couple of years ago from its cramped, crumbling buildings in Tahrir Square, near the Nile, out to “New Cairo.” The university now occupies a well equipped but sterile facility in the sandy, creepy suburbs outside of the city’s notorious Ring Road. “Oh, my,” I said, neglecting to censor myself. “You wouldn’t want to live there.”
Turns out, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education, it’s not much fun to go to school there, either:
Students complained of the long commutes to and from the campus, which averaged two to three hours a day, round-trip. And they were unhappy that they were socially and geographically isolated on a largely English-speaking campus with a student body who came mainly from the upper classes of Egypt.
For these reasons, some lucky language students now get to return to the downtown space. Indeed, why go to Cairo, if not for the grit, grime, and culture shock?