Yesterday Anthony and I headed to our first Friday church service (we are usually on trips on the weekends so we go on Sunday nights). It was so much better than the quiet, poorly-attended Sunday services. There was youthful music, rather than hymns, many families with small children, and others our age that are studying Arabic or there to do missionary work. As usual there was a large Sudanese congregation, and they were celeberating the immigration of a family this week to Australia—where they can practice their religion and get jobs.

After church a young British couple invited us to join their weekly after church treat and took us out to Hardees with their family of four—ranging from ages ten to two. The father—Jason—orginall y moved here with his wife and one child because he was doing computer programming work which allowed him to live anywhere and he wanted to start doing some ministry. After a while the computer industry fell a bit and his family received a sponsorship to stay on and do missionary work full time. They are now here with their four children—three girls and a baby boy—and the father is learning Arabic and also Arabic sign language and is working on evangelism—the most dangerous job in this country. The pastor at the church I’ve been attending is allowed to be a Christian minister in Egypt since he is registered as ministering to ex-pats; however it is totally illegal to convert Muslims to Christianity—so God bless this family’s heart for risking themselves. The mother—Allison—has a teaching degree and has been teaching the oldest daughter (a very bright child who knows Arabic but pretends she doesn’t) at home and the other two school-aged girls are going to a school for MK’s.

We had some awesome discussions about how Egypt brings the Bible to life—how parables are better understood once you see the culture of the Middle East. It was so wonderful to speak openly about the Bible and its heritage in the Middle East while livening amongst 70 million Muslims.

Some of the parables we discussed were washing of the feet (as a totally necessary task here), how Jesus’ class was determined by his dress (here you address people with different titles depending on what they wear, ex: western clothing or galebeya) and yet in his rags he spoke out to the elders in the temple—the educated and those much higher above him, and about the parable of hiring people for a day (since that is common here, the men sit out in the morning with their tools and wait to be hired for a day’s job). It’s so amazing how much the Bible comes to life when you are living in the culture of its heritage.

Today shopping I bought myself a beautiful, handpainted papyrus of the Holy Family traveling from the Temple to the pyramids. It’s so amazing to think that the Holy Family was in this land. I’m not sure that they were this far over—the city claims so—but I’ll have to investigate some Christian websites, etc. to find out what the general consensus is amongst historians/arecheologists .

Yesterday, after the lunch with the amazing family we stopped at the sight of Saddat’s assassination and his tomb (and saw the changing of the guards—they just don’t march as well as they do in the US/Britain). Apparenlty it’s not a huge tourist site and the guards were very excited to see us. I always tease Anthony and Melanie that they are going to make a tour book since they know everything about every site. Well Anthony was busy taking pictures and acting like the huge dorky tourist he is to notice that the guards were ridiculous and stalking me around. I’ve gotten pretty good at avoiding scary men and marriage proposals, but it’s tough to avoid the guards that take your camera and get pictures with you. I finally had to be mean and yell “Cul-los” (enough) in Arabic very firmly. I do have the pictures to prove they were nuts though. Wow, I could write a book of stories about crazy Egyptian men.

After sleeing away my sickness from the night before and the pictures with Ali and Ahmed, Sarah, Elizabeth, and I headed to the mall in Zamalek. I bought a pirated version of Lion King with Arabic dubbed in and a beautiful pair of pink linen pants—both purchases came to under 20 US! Then we headed to Mohandessien to an Indian resteraunt.

I was not too excited after having to live with the smell of curry for a whole of freshman year and kept making fun of Elizabeth because she works at a resteraunt in NY called “Curry House”. I made sure she knew I lived there once—Betsey Barbour. I was presently surprised by how amazing my meal was. I ordered a dark lentil dish with rice. It was awesome! (First, I made Elizabeth go through the menu with me and tell me which ones wouldn’t have curry!!)

Post-dinner we walked around the town to look at shops and hang out in the flurry of the people when we felt water on our backs. After a few sprays we turned around to realize boys thought it was funny to spray us with squirt guns. I politely told them to stop in Arabic and that it was “mish kouis”. Our “cute talking in Arabic” just instigated it even more. After weaving in and out of a group of totally veiled women—assuming they’d stop—I finally yelled for the second time in one day. This time I did not try to be nice in Arabic but shouted to stop in English. They didn’t need to understand the language (which they didn’t) to understand my tone.

After five weeks of being able to walk away and avoid confrontation, I had two encounters that demanded assertiveness in one day. It makes me realize how brave my daddy was to send his baby girl to Egypt because the attitude of the men is so extreme towards women—Western women is more ridiculous than extreme! It’s undescribable. However, those great confidence lessons I’ve learned growing up have helped me handle many of the situations I’ve been confronted with face to face. In addition, knowing some Arabic has really helped me feel secure in many situations.

To ensure that the boys were gone we walked into a women’s clothes store. I don’t think it was someplace we should have been and we got out as fast as we realized that. There were spandex dresses and body suits with huge holes cut out, skanky tops and mini skirts, and accessories. To explain how bad it was I’ll just say a few things: 1) I would have been ashamed to even see the display through a window in the States (and) 2) only shady guys were in there buying clothes. Once we got back we were talking to people in the lobby and apparently the area of town we were in is known for prostitutes and yup that’s what that clothes store was for! I’m glad we got out fast!

This morning Sarah and I went to Café Tobasco for breakfast and found a wonderous discovery—they had American pancakes. Not just any old American pancakes though, THEY HAD MAPLE SYRUP! IN EGYPT. .HOW NUTS IS THAT!?! It made a great start to my day before heading to Mobacco (the polos with the camel on them) and buy 7 shirts for under 100 US! After dropping off our purchases we headed to Khan al Khalili—doing whatever we can to help the Egyptian economy and to promote the love of Americans !

In a city of 22 million—the densest city in the world—and in the largest market in the world it’s funny how you can run into you “friends”. As soon as we got there Sarah and I ran into Ahro who took us around for the entire afternoon. We went to the Egyptian market—where locals shop, the items are cheaper because they are made on that side then sent to Khan to be sold at higher prices to tourists. We spent a good two hours in a papyrus shop, a little bit of time at “factories” and then at a little café. It’s fun to do the shopping with the Egyptians because before you buy you sit and have a cup of way too strong tea with way too much sugar and talk your best Arabic-English gargle. Being with Ahro was nice too because felt so safe—he is a 27 year old, “English-speaking”, Moroccan-Egyptian, hopeless philosopher/romantic, university student. I’m sure we got things a bit more expensive since he probably make commission to bring us to each store—but this is still much cheaper than prices on the tourist side. Equipped with the Arabic names for spices I wanted I went to a beautiful spice store! Quite exciting!

After parting ways with Ahro we headed to the tourist side to find my “friend” whom I made a big purchase from a few weeks ago. This time I felt bad because I did not have time to sit for tea or to talk (and thankfully no kohl on my eyes this time!!). He was incredibly helpful though. I walked in and said what I wanted and how much I was willing to pay and that I was in a rush. He added five pounds to the price, found one, and I bought the gift. I did not argue because once you establish a relationship with a seller it is their obligation to give you the best price and you are abusing the friendship if you try to get it too cheap! It was fun to have “friends” to buy my items from and to frequent.

After we left the main drag we decided to wander around the neighborhood and other parts of the souk. About an hour later we realized that we were quite a surprise to the neighborhoods and we better find our way out. It was awesome to see the people and how they lived—cages of chicken, little shops, men fighting or playing chess. Every time I go to Islamic, Coptic, or Old Cairo I like to wander a little bit and see the life of the lower class—the real people here. We finally found a tourist police and found our way to the street—at least a mile or two from the entrance to the souk! Hot, dirty, perfume covered (they love to throw perfumes on you in this country), and sandy we made it to Seoudi to buy our groceries (granola bars for breakfasts and water) for the week.

Finally I’ve settled in for the night after a shower, getting my room phone fixed, ordering pasta from al-Dente, and writing in my blog/downloading pictures! Now it’s time to study and try to figure out how to use my phone card to call my ‘rents since my cell phone is out of minutes! This week will be uneventful—just classes until the Nile Cruise on Friday-Monday . . but I will post a little bit every day. Until then, Godspeed.