I went to an amazing play tonight based on AUC women’s stories of life, sexuality and their bodies as women in Egpyt. It’s based off the idea of the Vagina Monologues, where women write stories about their bodies. Very personal. Very challenging to the audience in that they usually talk about things that are kept quiet and really make you THINK. This was no different, only lots subtler than the Vagina Monologues. I was still just so impressed to see these women expressing themselves! I had started to disregard AUC as a school for rich kids to obtain the requisite certificates that are bought and not worked for. However, this play tonight reminded me that generalizing is bad, and there are students here who are passionate and socially active. It was such a fascinating insight into the lives of Egpytian woman. Some monologues are shocking, some horrifying…stories of abuse and molestation…stories of pressure on women to get married and have children to be considere whole…stories of sexual harassment, even on the AUC campus…stories of female genital mutilation (female circumsicion) which is reported to be present in super high percentages here in Egypt, although it is NOT talked about. They even addressed censorship as one of their monologues was censored. The author of that monologue wrote another one filled with “bleep” which made the censorship seem all the more apparent, through the bleeps you realize how the censorship silenced her. It was truly an amazing experience and I was so impressed! I was also impressed that the stories led to ideas of female empowerment and pride in their Egpytian-ness or Muslim-ness. Go Bussy! (Bussy means look at me in Arabic, by the way)