I want to fill in some gaps and repair some holes. Some of these were craters of misunderstanding when I was a volunteer teacher in El Mansoura in 1986/7. This post is about looking back at teaching and education to enrich the creative work I am planning now.
If you've been reading these little posts, you'll know that I am at the CIFET festival and conference.
I have joined a different group of teachers now - academics and artists here at the festival and I feel very lucky.
It's amazing to have my article about participatory theatre published in the festival's conference proceedings - this would be beyond comprehension to my 19 year old self. It's a bit of a mouthful (!)...
Experiments In Therapeutic Participatory Theatre In Virtual Spaces Using Clowning And Puppetry presented at the seminar "The Presence of Technology in the Scenography of Today's Theaters of the World". CIFET, Cairo, 29 Edition, September 2022.
Sadly, I don't have a spare moment let alone time to travel up to El Mansoura - it's a couple of hours away in the Delta. But the internet makes it possible to travel too. If you do have a connection with this post, or place in any way- do get in touch. Please facebook me (https://www.facebook.com/richard.talbot.319)
Mr Said's class (4-2), and me in the middle, Mansoura Language School, early 1987.
That's me at the school - as a clueless English 'teacher'. And I'm back in school myself now. This is my third post of four that feature a short edit of a lesson with Fatema Shokr.
With three other volunteers on a gap year with Project Trust I spent 8 months in Mansoura. Unsurprisingly, it turned out to be a huge education for us and I'd like to meet old friends and people who went to the school. Surely it's possible for me to connect with the people I met over 30 years ago - that's a virtual challenge.
Map of El Mansoura from my Project Trust Journal.
The school I worked with three other English boys was the impressively renovated 'Greek' school in El Mansoura.
The Greek School, Mansoura c.1950s.
(Mansoura ELS school facebook page).
Set in an affluent part of the city, it was mainly for children of the expat Greek community prior to independence in 1956.
Mansoura City During the English Occupation. Scenes of the school are on the video at 1:16'.
In late November 2021 Omar Elson, Ahmed Hilal, and Seif Tamer - three youtubers from Cairo - set themselves the challenge of travelling to El-Mansoura and spending 24 hours there without spending any money. Their challenge documents spontaneous encounters with people in the city today.
Seif went down Sekka Gedida while he was there, as I had frequently with my volunteering colleagues, Fen, Mark and Steve. The shopping street was the brightest busiest place, full of people late into the night, mostly window shopping - a seemingly endless line of shops selling gold jewellery. And now there are so many shops there are signs on every balcony and have become an attraction in themselves.
We used to go along there before turning off onto Mustafa Kamel Street, to see our fixer and local contact. His dad had a shop that made and sold soft furnishing, mostly bright pink silk with tassles. We'd go there to collect our post under the unimpressed gaze of men bowed behind sewing machines.
Um Kulthum Mural, Cairo 2022. Um Kulthum was an iconic Egyptian classical singer.
And not far from Um Kulthum Square (1986)
where there's a statue to her, to the 'Star of the East' (كوكب الشرق) ...
... is the Iskander Pasha Palace. It looked like this in 1986.
The Red Palace with the roof still on, photographed by me in 1986. A rare gothic building, this is known for ghost stories shared amongst expat Greek residents who lived nearby.
Now filmed by Seif Tamer, it's lost its roof and seems to be crumbing away.
The Red Palace ( القصر الاØمر) or Baron's Palace (قصر البارون) or Iskander Pasha's palace, Mansoura in 2021.
Egypt is of course hugely changed but so much of the affect of being here is profoundly familiar. In the last week the abstract 'idea' of a place held in memory has become richer, and more immediate, naturally - but this also means that I feel calmer, for some reason.
The next post in this little series about my time here is due out on Friday 9th September 2022, so please come back here, or look out for a facebook post.
A handy bibliography:
Armbrust, W (2019) Martyrs and Tricksters: An Ethnography of the Egyptian Revolution. Princeton University Press.
Arroyo, J First Impressions: Notes on Films and Culture July 2020 - The Youssef Chahine Podcast with José Arroyo and Richard Layne. No. 13: Alexandria Again and Forever (Egypt, 1990) <https://notesonfilm1.com/2020/07/29/the-youssef-chahine-podcast-with-jose-arroyo-and-richard-layne-no-13-alexandria-again-and-forever-egypt-1990/>[Accessed 2/12/21]
Ersheidat, G. & Tahir, H. (2019). The Two Translations of Edward Said‘s Orientalism by Kamal Abu-Deeb and Muhammad Enani: A Comparative Study. International Journal of English Language & Translation Studies. 7(4). 21-33.
Mohamed A. M. Khalil, Alaa S. El-Eashy (2008) Analysis of the Architectural heritage of El-Mansoura city, Egypt: towards urban conservation approach. Department of Architecture: Mansoura university Mansoura architecture
Sattin, A (1988) Lifting The Veil: British Society in Egypt 1786-1956. London: Dent
Shenker, J (2016) The Egyptians: A Radical Story. London: Penguin.
Tamer, Seif. 2021. Seif Travels. Youtube Channel. <https://www.youtube.com/c/SeifTamer> [Accessed 3/12/21]
Blog:
(Ù„Øماية اثار ومنشأت المنصورة القديمه) To protect the monuments and facilities of old Mansour
Högskolan Dalarna. Youtube Feb 10, 2011 <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gyp_EmxLRAg> [Accessed 23/11/21]
Old Wolf. Youtube Aug 17, 2019 'Mansoura city during the English occupation' <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pS6HuyhH2SU> [Accessed 23/11/21]
El Mansoura Experimental Language School. Facebook page. 2014. [Accessed 23/11/21]