Adapt To Study Abroad

Most study abroad experiences teach students how to adapt to new environments. Government major Nafees Ahmed (C’12) did not expect that she would have to adjust to three countries in one semester.

Ahmed arrived in Cairo on January 18, 2011, as the Egyptian revolution was beginning to form. She jumped into life as a student at the American University in Cairo (AUC), meeting new friends and taking Arabic classes. “None of us really expected that anything would happen of this sort. Then, slowly, the curfews started being imposed. So first it was 6 p.m., then 4 p.m., and then 2 p.m.,” she said. “We were on the rooftop of our dorm just watching everything happening. We saw black smoke from the [burning] tires, clouds of white smoke from the tear gas.” As the protests intensified, the Office of International Programs called to tell Ahmed and her fellow Hoyas that they were booked on a flight to Qatar the following afternoon.

Although Ahmed was devastated to leave Cairo only two weeks after her arrival, she noted that the students were fortunate to have a close base at Georgetown’s Qatar campus as other Americans scrambled for flights out of Egypt. When buses arrived at the AUC campus the next morning, AUC administrators discouraged the students from even going to the airport. “The Georgetown students kind of united, and we said [no matter what] happens we have to be on these buses. We all made sure we were on the same bus. When we got to the airport, it was like a madhouse, completely packed.

Everyone was shoving each other.” She continued, “That was one of the times I really felt like a Hoya because everybody united. When we were in this situation, we knew we had to stick together.” The SFS-Qatar community provided a warm reception as the students tried to comprehend the events in Egypt and figure out their next steps. After a week in Qatar, Ahmed arrived in Istanbul to study at Koç University.
“I didn’t know how to say hello.

I didn’t know anything about Istanbul,” she said. Before arriving in Cairo, Ahmed had prepared for months, studying Arabic and reading about Egyptian culture. She was excited for a new lifestyle different from the Hilltop. Upon arriving in Istanbul, she was disappointed to find herself at a university that felt similar to Georgetown. “At first it was a struggle. It wasn’t just a struggle of dealing with this new society. It was a struggle of coming to a place, not realizing you were going to be there, not preparing yourself at all, but having to learn to love it and really understand it for what it is,” she explained.

As a research assistant at the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs and a Doyle Student Fellow, Ahmed had researched Muslim communities in the U.S. and worked to strengthen interreligious dialogue on campus. She had hoped that Egypt would provide balance to her current perspective, gaining an “American lens in a Muslim-majority country [whereas] here I have a Muslim lens in a Christian-majority country.” Turkey, a secular nation with a Muslim majority, added a new dimension to this perspective. In each country, she saw first-hand how individuals wrestle with ideas of modernity, secularism, tradition, and religious diversity.

By talking to fellow students and neighbors, Ahmed learned about the opposing sides of Turkish secularism. She changed her own views after meeting Merve Kavaçki, who was prevented from taking her seat in parliament for wearing a headscarf. “She taught me that secularism is not non-religion. You can be a Muslim, and you can pray five times a day. You can also believe that the state should be secular.” She continued, “It is very possible to be a good Muslim, have your tradition and pride in your past [...] but at the same time be well-educated, take the values from the West of liberty and equality, and implement them in your social thought.”

Through her experience, Ahmed gained valuable insight into how culture, religion, and nationality shape an individual’s identity and the importance of those definitions. Speaking about the revolution and what she found fascinating, she said, “They were taking these values that I identified with as an American—values of equality, standing up for your rights, social responsibility, civil liberty. They were implementing that, but also standing up for themselves as Egyptians, proud of being Muslims, their pharaonic past, and their national identity. [I saw] that these different aspects can be reconciled and can live in harmony.”