What's It Like to Study Arabic in Egypt?

My name is Margaret Mullins. I am originally from Atlanta, Georgia. I am currently a student at Georgetown University in Washington, DC. I am a rising senior.

I just returned from a year abroad in Egypt and am about to finish up school.

I got interested in the Middle East, and specifically Arabic and Egypt, when I was in high school. I participated in Model Arab League as opposed to Model United Nations for two years.

I took a class called Modern Middle East History with a professor who had studied abroad in Egypt and spoke Arabic.

I talked to her a lot about the region. It was something completely different than anything I had any contact with before.

Growing up in a Catholic household in Atlanta, Georgia, the Middle East was something very new and very foreign and very exciting and interesting to me.

Given all the current events at the time, it was something that I really wanted to understand and delve into.

My language did progress beyond what I thought it would. I knew nothing about Arabic before I went. I knew how to write my name.

Every day we had about five hours of Arabic class and took two and a half hours of colloquial and took two and a half hours of Modern Standard Arabic.

My host parents were fantastic. I had incredible conversations with them about Egyptian life, Egyptian culture, Egyptian politics, the United States, US-Egyptian relations, US-Arab relations, US-Muslim relations.

My host siblings were amazing. I had a host sister who was my age and then a host brother who is three years older than I am. They taught me so much and welcomed me into their house as another daughter.

They used to call me their pale red-headed American daughter. They took me to weddings and to family events and to relatives' households and welcomed me like I did not expect them to.

It was really an incredible experience.

I think that living with a family is a completely different experience and provides you with a deeper understanding than any other experience could have.

I just returned from a semester abroad in Cairo and that experience was very different. But living with a family, I was able to pick up on the small customs and little colloquial phrases and hand movements and kind of just the feel of the city and how timing works with actual Egyptians.

I think any scenario where you walk into a household that you've never been a part of before is difficult and there definitely were hard times. I went through two weeks of culture shock and it was awkward and I didn't know how to conduct myself in the house and live with the family. But there was nothing inherent about their being Egyptian or Muslim that changed the way that I interacted with them.

They practiced their religion and we had long conversations about religion, but that was never a source of any sort of awkwardness or an issue. It was more another point from which both of us were able to learn from the situation.

It changed me in a way and helped me to grow beyond anything else I've ever done.