This January, I was staring at my television screen watching a revolution unfold half a world away whose only certainty was, well, uncertainty. The eighteen-day revolution in Egypt marked a period of transition and triumph for the Egyptian people. A little closer to home, the uprising threatened to dash the hopes of 23 Northeastern students who had been accepted into a Dialogue of Civilizations program heading to Cairo and Alexandria this spring.
The Dialogue of Civilization program at Northeastern provides students with the same intensive instruction they receive on campus in Boston while fully assimilating them in the culture and society of different countries. I knew that traveling to the Middle East was an entirely different undertaking than frolicking through Europe on a study abroad trip. When the faculty leader asks if you would be comfortable being approached by men with machine guns during the interview process of applying for the dialogue, the words “destination trip” don’t immediately come to mind.
I think everyone who applied for the program knew there would be certain considerations to keep in mind while traveling in the region. Of course, no one expected the added, and at times overwhelming, anxiety of traveling to a nation where people are dying in pursuit of democratic reform. When reports of journalists being attacked in the area hit the airwaves, the reality of the potential danger became a full force wake up call for me. As global reporting is the basis of this particular dialogue, I realized that our journalistic ambitions abroad might be nixed before the plane tickets were even purchased.
Despite the harrowing reports of violence in the Middle East, for me, the fear and anxiety lies more in this program being cancelled than in traveling there. For many of us, international reporting isn’t just a five-week excursion; it is also a professional aspiration. As students, we have the distinct advantage of being trained by professors who have traveled extensively in the region and who would be an unparalleled resource during our first exposure to the intimidating world of universal reporting.
In spite of the continuing process of reform in Egypt and the even more precarious situation that is underway in nearby Libya, I still can’t help but put my anxiety and fears on the back burner in anticipation of what I’ll experience when I’m finally there: witnessing firsthand the transformation of a country so unlike my own.