An Arabic Language Village

On Wednesday evening, our credit villagers studied hard for their final exams while our two-week villagers participated in the evening program. We told the villagers that the program consisted of fun, teambuilding activities, but this was only half of the truth. In reality, the villagers were participating in a simulation about colonialism! Villagers were divided into groups to travel around four different stations. Each group had special rules they had to follow. For example, one group could only speak in whispers; one group couldn’t touch each other; and a third had to have their hands above their waist at all times. Unfortunately for our villagers, they were not told these special and rather silly rules. They only knew that their counselors were getting very upset seemingly without reason. At each station, villagers were given a simple, teambuilding task and rules to complete it. However, they were only given some of the rules, and some of the rules they were told conflicted with the secret rules. This was very confusing for all and made completing the simplest task difficult. After completing all the stations, the villagers were all quite frustrated, so we gathered in Al-Qahira to debrief and discuss the simulation.

What was the purpose of frustrating our two-week villagers by imposing random, secret rules on them and then challenging them to tasks rendered nearly impossible? Good question. We were simulating the period of colonialism and imperialism in the Arab World. The counselors represented the colonial powers, and the spoken rules symbolized the special laws and rules under colonialism. The secret, unspoken rules symbolized the cultural assumptions and expectations of the colonial powers. These expectations were not verbalized or explained to the villagers, however they were expected to follow them. The villagers found themselves subject to seemingly bizarre and random unexplained rules that were considered natural to our colonial counselors. The frustration of our villagers was a parallel to the confusion of many Arabs during the time of colonialism.

Here are some photos from the program!

Villagers try to cross a designated area stepping on cardboard squares

A villager saves a square from being confiscated by the counselors

A simple task of crossing the grid is much more challenging when the counselors expect you to follow a certain pattern

A villager attempts to replicate a drawing explained to her by the other villagers in Arabic