Things I Learned as an Exchange Student in Cairo
by Virginia Hipp Phillippi '82

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Highlights2005

In response to the "International Connections" issue of Highlights, Virginia Hipp Phillipi wrote to share her experience as a student in Cairo 14 years ago. Here's what she wrote.

I graduated from the Masters of International Business program offered at the University of South Carolina Business School in 1993. As part of that program, I studied Modern Standard Arabic at Middlebury College during the summer of 1990 in preparation for my adventure to Cairo, Egypt. After another year of studying Arabic, economics, accounting, marketing, and more, I was off to Egypt to study at the American University in Cairo.

What a shock! To begin with, the Arabic I studied for a year and a summer was nothing like the Arabic spoken in the street! Our rented apartment had no air or heat! Our student budget did allow enough to hire a doorman and a house-cleaner though... what a surprise! We learned to pay our doorman a monthly salary plus tips, our cleaner a salary plus tips, our trash man a salary plus tips, and the list went on...

I learned how to buy meat from pieces hanging in the meat shop window for who knows how long. My American roommates and I decided to host a Thanksgiving feast for some Egyptian friends we had met. Well, the turkey came fully intact and looking as if it had run across the Sinai to get to Cairo! It was the skinniest bird we had ever seen, but all our friends loved the festivities and we stayed close for the year-and-a-half that we remained in Cairo.

I ended up with a Masters in Middle Eastern Studies from the American University in Cairo, a successful six-month internship with Esso, Suez, and a Masters in International Business from the University of South Carolina. In addition, I gained a lifetime of memories of the incredible people we met in Cairo, including both Egyptians and those that had travelled from all over the world. We met Germans, Dutch, French, and the list goes on of all the Cairo tourists we would meet in the city's restaurants...

I learned how small this world i;, how similar the Arab is to the Israeli; how easy it is to offend and how important it is not to offend; how to live without; and how to live in the most prosperous, free and wonderous country in the world.

I also learned that within all people is the hope that things will get better...My hope that this knowledge will lead all of us to greater things!