Georgetowning an Experience

It’s called “Georgetowning” it: When one has a “real” cultural experience, and converts it (probably in a blog like this one) into a tome on the deeper truth, an in-depth look into the real world exposed by you being in-country and on the scene. . . Even though you probably don’t really have any idea what just happened AND you probably got ripped off.

“It’s like when you buy bread from a guy on the street and then go back and write about how it’s a perfect symbol of the economy, or something,” says my friend.

You see, Georgetown (the university in DC) spreads its students across the globe, and Cairo in particular seems infested (blessed, I mean) with them. Now don’t get me wrong – I have friends from Georgetown, unpretentious ones. Even if they do talk about their home U all the time.

The thing is, I don’t think the concept is limited to Georgetown students. M in Senegal told me about going to a place with French people sporting the hair and clothes that allows them to go back home and say, with a mix of pride and fear, “I was in AFRICA.”

I’m guilty of it too. I do it all the time – cheaply trying to plumb the depths of my experiences here for something to learn, to grasp, something to take back home. “This is one of the once-in-a-lifetime experiences,” people say. True. But sometimes I think I’m blind from looking so much. And yet, I persist.

And blame Georgetown.