International Politics of the Middle East 2022 Blog

     Hey, hey, hey! Welcome back to another blog post. I have been thinking a lot about water. Particularly-- water in the North African region since I have been writing a research paper on Egypt's interactions with water. Obviously, water is of huge importance for human survival, so what happens when a country doesn't have enough water or begins to lose water from other actors? Let's find out together as I briefly describe Egypt's situation. Source     So there are a few major factors that exist in Egypt that I think are important to reference when talking about water. Firstly, Egypt has one of the fastest-growing populations worldwide. With that, access to clean water sources has to keep up with this factor. A major challenge in achieving this goal can be majorly altered through actions by other states. Particularly, the Great Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) has been a point of serious contention in Egypt. An important understanding to have is that Egypt's popula

      I find it interesting how much water a person can use daily. Being an American, I was not surprised to see that my water usage was much higher than the global average (1243 cubic meters, or 899 gallons per day). When looking at my specific results, I consume just under the US average of 1802 gallons per day. For me, I calculated on watercalculator.org that my personal usage in a single dormitory room was roughly 1602 gallons per day.  Honestly, I found these results to be quite shocking. Particularly, I live in a low-emissions and sustainable dormitory in Carlisle, PA. I estimated that my average water consumption would have been lower than the average, but not as high as it turned out to be.  A view of the High Street Resident Hall at Dickinson College ( Source )     When looking at water usage from a more global perspective, it is no surprise that the United States holds a clear lead over most of the countries in my region of focus (the north African countries). The  Water Foot

      A community that I am apart of consists of the current university in which I am attending. Interestingly enough, I feel that the person's sense of community within a university environment widely depends on when they become apart of that community. In a college environment (Note: I use college and University as interchangeable terms), I notice that the social structure is separated through class years (ie. first-year, second-year, etc). A group of students who are all experiencing the massive changes that occur when first-arriving as first-year students seem to share a similar identity with one another throughout college. I noticed this personally when I transferred from Guilford College to Dickinson College in 2021. At Guilford, I was very connected with members of my class. Once I arrived at Dickinson, I found that I related more with first-year students mainly due to experiencing the newness of Dickinson together.      I think that this distinction between different attend