An Inspiring Meeting with the Organizers of the April 6 Youth Movement in Egypt

With so many writing tasks and project management responsibilities from afar (in Singapore) it would be easy to lose connection with the communities at American University that have been so central in my life over the years. Sustaining ties to those communities, however, is one of the reasons I purchased a condo close to American University when I gave up my apartment in Anderson Hall.

Last Friday, afternoon, I took time off from proposal writing for a late-night conference call meeting with Singapore colleagues, to attend the International Development Program Student Association Friday Forum Series. The speakers were the Ahmed Maher, co-founder of the April 6 Youth Movement (in Egypt) and Waleed Rashed, spokesperson for the movement. They mostly answered questions from an overflow crowd of about 400 in the School of International Service Founders Room. It was an inspiring event, I thought. Questions from audience members, many of them young-women SIS students with ties to the Middle East, were thoughtful and evocative. Both Waleed and Ahmed had spent time in jail, been subjected to beatings and torture by the Egyptian security forces, and lost relatives and friends. However they were upbeat about their experiences, viewing the the future with a mix of realism and good humored optimism.

Early morning greetings to friends in 'a small village'

Yesterday morning I set out at 6:30 to continue my twenty year tennis competition with ‘the Dean.’ He was arriving at Dulles Airport on the ‘red eye’ from San Francisco, but still didn’t want to miss our weekly match. Walking through the lobby of Anderson Hall I exchanged greetings with the Desk Receptionist, a student friend and ‘Nancy,’ an elderly women who works with Aramark Housekeeping Services. Outside, two members of the landscaping crew were beginning their work and we shared brief comments on weather prospects for the day ahead. I waved at driver in the AU Shuttle Bus passing by and greeted ‘Don’ , AU’s electrician who was beginning his morning rounds. Two other acquaintances from Physical Plant Operations turned the corner into their parking lot and we waved to each other. Our paths would probably cross again, one or more times during the day. Walking up the parking garage ramp, I encountered ‘Chris,’ the AU locksmith. We shook hands and exchanged greetings.

In a walk of less than fifteen minutes, at 6:30 in the morning I had encountered and connected with ten or more casual friends and acquaintances. In some cases our relationship spans more than a decade; in many,, more than five years. The experience is much similar to walking down the main street of a small town in rural America, where one lived for many years. The good feelings of community and connectedness are the same. American University can be like that if one chooses.

An international mosaic at the dinner table in Colombo’s Cinnamon Gardens

When in Sri Lanka, I have lived for several years in a remarkable establishment. Formerly a home in Colombo’s upscale Cinnamon Gardens district, it has become a guest house for visiting scholars and NGO workers. This evening a group of 12 gathered around the dining room table. There were three anthropology doctoral students from, respectively, Argentina, India and North Carolina. A young woman from New Zealand was awaiting an assignment and housing with the United Nations High Commission for Refugees. Two Voluntary Service Organization workers from India had returned from home leave and were awaiting a trip back to Sri Lanka’s ‘frontier’ town, Vavuniya. A young woman from Australia, the niece of our hostess was waiting for her wedding Sari to be completed before returning home. Two MA students from an Italian University, one was from Zambia, were lighting temporarily before heading to a North Coastal town for field work. Earlier in the week, there were additional guests from Eritrea and, again, India. It was a remarkable gathering of a international group that will probably never sit around the same table again. But a commitment to international work and an acceptance, even celebration of each other’s differences drew us together for two hours in a rich, if very transient community.

Quiet Corridors

I don’t experience the transition to holiday periods as vividly as when I first moved on campus, but I still experience them vividly. One experiences them most vividly in American University’s south-side residence hall complex where I live, populated by more than 1800 students. In Anderson Hall, populated by more than 800 one experiences these transitions most vividly of all.

Anderson Hall shares many attributes with small rural communities, and cohesive urban neighborhoods. At their best, they offer an experience of connectedness that responds, I believe, to a fundamental human need. The disfunctions of such communities, too, are visible and tangible. It is difficult to retreat from experiences of shared friendship, shared love, shared tribulation, shared disfunction, when one lives in close proximity, in a confined space, with 800 or more human beings and sees many of them every day.

Anderson differs in one respect from other close communities. It is impermanent. When I return to Sri Lanka, even after a long absence, it is possible to reintegrate with close communities that have remained relatively stable. The passage of time, human life cycles, and, sadly, the rending experiences of protracted civil war are the principal engines of change. The rural community where my wife lives has similar qualities of stable connectedness, though I rarely spend enough time there to personally experience them, Anderson’s students, however, go home for the holidays. And after one, two, three or four years, they depart permanently. The community is periodically wiped clean, and then regenerates itself.

In the summertime, a process of temporary, transient regeneration is almost instantaneous. Departing students, burdened with a year’s accumulated possessions are jostled by more lightly burdened summer session arrivals. At Thanksgiving time, some students remain. Christmas break is different. Anderson Hall is empty. The windowed cubicles students occupy are vacant. The corridors are quiet. Only dormgrandpop, my neighbor the Resident Director, and her cats remain. I am reminded of a science fiction story than ended with the passage “and no one knew that man was gone.”

When I started writing, this morning, I thought there might be some profound lesson to be drawn from all of this, but it eludes me. I am simply experiencing the silence, reflecting, and relishing the opportunity to begin a new day.