Students continue to study abroad despite concerns

"Keep a low profile and try not to be conspicuous by dress, speech or behavior in ways that might identify you as a target," warned a recent message emailed Feb. 7 to University students studying abroad. "Avoid crowds and protest groups, as well as restaurants and entertainment places where Americans are known to congregate, and steer clear of unattended baggage."

With the threat of war with Iraq and terror attacks looming, University students are still planning semesters abroad.

According to Nancy Kanach, assistant dean of student life and study abroad coordinator, the number of students going abroad each year has remained steady at 160.

"The numbers are very much the same as last year," Kanach said. "But every program has contingency plans."

So far, Kanach said, the program has not experienced a reduction of applicants.

In fact, Kanach could only speak briefly about the nature of the program because a group of students had gathered outside her office. They all wanted to ask questions about going abroad.

"We have students coming in all the time planning for next year. Of course, those plans are all subject to change," she said.

With students studying in several Near Eastern countries such as Egypt, Israel and Turkey, Kanach said the University stays in close contact with students abroad, passing along travel advisories from the United States government via email.

Kanach said that once students arrive in their host country, they attend several meetings and orientations.

"Clearly we want to keep them alert on everything we're aware of," she said.

Students who ventured abroad said, for the most part they felt safe traveling as American citizens.

Near Eastern Studies major Kate Swearengen '04 — who spent the last semester in Cairo, Egypt — said she made no attempt to marginalize her American nationality while studying alongside Egyptian and Arab students at the American University in Cairo.

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She shrugged when Kanach's email warnings were mentioned. "They never said anything specific," Swearengen said.

While in Cairo, she said, she rarely felt anti-American sentiments.

Swearengen recalls explaining to a taxi driver in Cairo that "the American politics are bad, but the people are good."

"Tourism is such an important part of their economy, and people are just enraged about war," she said.

But a week-long jaunt to Beirut, Lebanon, brought an uneasiness Swearengen had never felt before.

"I always told people I was an American, but not in Lebanon," she said.

Her family's only worry was that Swearengen, a diabetic, would not be able to get proper medical attention.

"I would go back right now," Swearengen said. "But it may be a little more unsafe now. But it's probably safer in Egypt than it is here."

Junior Luke Yarbrough '04 echoed Swearengen's sense of security. Yarbrough, who just started his semester-long journey in Zamalek, Egypt — near Cairo — said he has not "for one moment" felt unsafe as an American.

"People here do not make the mistake of confusing individuals with governmental regimes in their home countries," Yarbrough said. "A man will approach me on the street to say 'We love Americans. Bush is no good, but Americans, no problem.'"

"People light up when I say I'm American," he said.

Yarbrough seized the opportunity by getting away from the dormitory at the American University in Cairo — "upscale by Egyptian standards" — to mingle in less Westernized communities, he said.

"Even my mangled diction and severely circumscribed vocabulary elicits encouragement," Yarbrough said, describing interactions during shopping trips to buy lunch — fuul (mashed beans in a pita), a chicken sandwich, lentil soup and a 30-cent can of Coca-Cola.

Though Yarbrough is experiencing the Middle East during one of its most tumultuous times, he said he has no plans to join the protests. "In the event of war on Iraq I anticipate very little changing with regards to my quotidian existence. There was a human chain across a Nile bridge on Saturday, but I am not quite foolish enough to storm such a congregation singlehandedly, draped in an American flag and chanting My Country 'Tis of Thee," he said. "Though I did consider it."

Though there were occasional protests against war with Iraq in Cairo, Yarbrough spent his last week there climbing Mount Sinai and scuba diving among shipwrecks and coral reefs in the Red Sea.