Easter in Egypt!

Today is Easter Sunday. No, I didn't spend it with friends and family, but I had fun all the same. First I should explain that I am no longer teaching at Alexandria University. I'll have to explain that in a later post. Now I am teaching at AMIDEAST here in Alexandria. What is AMIDEAST? According to their website: " America-Mideast Educational and Training Services, Inc. (AMIDEAST) is a private, nonprofit organization that strengthens mutual understanding and cooperation between Americans and the peoples of the Middle East and North Africa." It provides English language instruction for students and adults. The students I am teaching are around the age of 15. They are part of the Access Program which is an English program for promising underprivileged students.

A few days ago we had a lesson on Easter and why Christians celebrate it. Muslims do actually know about Jesus, but they believe he was a man and a prophet like Mohamed. I was trying to explain how Christians believe that Jesus was actually the son of God...but he's part of God too...and his mother was a virgin....and he died on the cross...but was resurrected after 3 days, walked around the earth for 40 more....before God took him into heaven. Yes, a lot of blank stares. I didn't bother getting into the the whole fact that Easter is actually a pagan holiday...yeah, best to keep it simple.

Today, we celebrated the fun part of Easter. The students were invited to the villa where we conduct classes for some Easter festivities. We began with having the students decorate Easter baskets. Next we had the students dye Easter eggs. This got a bit messy. We had some hot dogs (beef of course) and hamburgers, and then we attempted to make a pinata (not so much). After that we hid the Easter eggs and let the kids find them, and lastly we played some traditional Easter games along with some musical chairs. The kids loved it!

Baskets made by the kids.

Easter egg roll! Get out of the way!

Hunting for Easter eggs...are you kids blind?

Egg races!