Joelle is from Pittsburgh and has spent the past 2 years working in Burkina Faso for the Peace Corps. Joelle has a degree in Journalism, and she is the only person who plans on staying in Egypt and making a life here. She teaches Primary 2, (second grade), and this is her first time teaching. She took a job teaching here as a stepping stone towards another job; she is hoping she can find work as a reporter and quit the school. Out of all of the girls, Joelle is the person who is struggling the most with teaching. She has no control over her students, and she is too disorganized as a person to be able to handle planning ahead for her lessons and keeping all of her students’ records organized. Her “desk” area in the teachers lounge is next to mine, and I often look over to find her staring blankly into space.
Joelle is a very sweet person, but she is extremely socially awkward. Most of the time she quietly observes the rest of us, (well, actually she blatantly stares at us, which makes some of the other girls very uncomfortable), and when she does say something, it is usually difficult for her to get her point across. She says “like” literally 20 times in one sentence, and she often mumbles incomprehensively and repeats the same stories over and over again.
Joelle also has a hard time dealing with the locals here. She is taking an Arabic class with me, and she constantly has her nose in an Arabic phrase book and is scribbling down words she learns, but she has terrible pronunciation of the Arabic language, and people do not understand her here. She gets very frustrated and upset if she is talking to a local and they don’t understand what she is saying. She often will try to say something to them at first in English, but when she does, she talks to them unnecessarily loudly and slowly, (the way people sometimes talk to children or someone who is mentally disabled). If they don’t understand what she says, she just repeats the same word or phrase over and over again, saying it louder and faster each time, until she gets so upset she shakes her fists in the air next to her head. It’s really uncomfortable to watch.
Because of her social awkwardness, many of the girls don’t like to hang out with Joelle, but I like her and I think she is a very interesting person. She is the only one here besides me who seems to genuinely want to immerse herself in the Egyptian culture. We are English teachers, (and most of us are from the United States), who speak and teach English all day, live in a neighborhood full of foreigners, (people not from Egypt), and spend most of our free time together as well. As much as I love the Degla babes, I personally didn’t come to Egypt to spend all of my time with Americans, and I have really been trying to make other friends and to branch out while I’m here. Joelle has a strong desire to make friends with outsiders too, so this brings us together with a common goal.
Recently Joelle and I went to a concert together and met a very interesting group of Egyptians. One of them is a concert promoter named Ali. He and Joelle are now dating, and I am very happy for her. She seems to be much more self confident lately, and I’m sure this relationship will be very beneficial for her.
