Welcome Back to Class! - 9/30/17

Salutations! Alexandra here again to tell you that we are all doing swell. More or less. We have been rushing around like crazy for tours the past week and as we settled in for our first day back at lectures, illness crept its way into our group as well. Hopefully the rest of our time spent at our apartments in Egypt will allow for all of the rest we need to get healthy again!

Dr. Swanson led us through nearly six hours' worth of lectures today, but we hung on nearly every word as he illustrated for us the religious climate here in Egypt and gave an overview of modern Egyptian history. In this overview, Dr. Swanson presented us with a problem universally acknowledged by Egyptians: the state of their public education system. We have encountered comments about the public education system in Egypt before, from talking with students on campus and our guides who have children in school, but what Dr. Swanson's talk gave us was the context to understand modern Egypt as we see it today. The system was set up by President Nasser in the 1960s, and while it has significantly improved Egypt's literacy rate, it has not been able to handle the burgeoning population growth that stresses it. Just knowing this allowed us to understand the culture of private schools and resource pooling that still exists in Egypt to ensure a child doesn't get just any education, but a good education. 

And as I am sure everyone back home will want to know, today we officially became Olympic Athletes as the Opening Ceremonies of the First Annual Global Olympic Games was held! Stay tuned for updates as this is guaranteed to be the most exciting week of our lives. 

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