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!

New Year's Eve in Cairo and Weird, Round, Blue Things.

So, Gavin ( a Kiwi guy I know) and Van (an American guy I know) decided at the LAST minute that they wanted to go down to Cairo for New Year's Eve. No plans, no hotel, nothing. So, I decided that sounded like fun and I would tag along. They had booked the 9a.m. train...there was no way I was getting on that train because I had a *ahem* headache. They went down in the morning and paid a visit to the Harley Davidson shop in Cairo (yes, I guess there is one).

I finally made the 3p.m. train and met up with them at the Hard Rock Cafe (yep, Cairo has one of those too). On the way down, I did manage to book a hotel room for us, and the guys found a New Year's Eve party that was being held on The Blue Nile (a big river boat). It cost over $100.00 and supposedly it was "no jeans allowed," but since we came down with only the clothes on our backs, the club said it would make an exception. After dinner at the Hard Rock, we headed over to our hotel to check in. I take my passport everywhere I go...just in case I have to suddenly evacuate or something (hey you never know). For whatever reason here in Egypt you have to have a passport to get into a hotel room. Gavin and Van didn't bring theirs because they didn't know. Fortunately, they were able to get copies from a nearby Internet Cafe and we were able to get our room for the night.

We headed over to The Blue Nile around 10p.m. The guys thought that they were told we had to be there by 10:30p.m. in order for them to hold our reservations. We arrived at the club (thinking that we were probably totally under dressed) and discovered there were NO other people there. What the hell? Time went by, another guy showed up, in jeans, but still no other people. By 11:30, there were maybe 20 people in the whole place, yet all of the tables were reserved. To make things worse, they played this awful, slow music that was about to put us to sleep: a Dolly Parton/Julio Iglesias duet, Kenny Rodgers "Lady", Bee Gees "How Deep Is Your Love?" (which I love by the way), Eagles "Hotel California" (which is the most popular song in the Middle East for some reason), and other snore-inducing songs. Gavin asked, "They're going to do a countdown aren't they?" "Of course," I answered. We each got a little bag of party favors: hats, noise-makers, masks, etc. and there were balloons set to drop on the dance floor. Of course they're going to do a countdown. The next thing I knew, it was 12:02. What the hell? No countdown.

We went outside to get some fresh air. "Ummm, Happy New Year I guess." and I gave Gavin and Van each a kiss on the cheek. Meanwhile there were 3 other guys outside with us. One guy was from Lebanon visiting the other two; his cousin and his cousin's friend. "They remarked, "This is a really weird party. " Yes, very strange indeed. I'm glad the Egyptians agreed with us that it was weird. I pulled out our noisemakers from our bag of goodies. Included in the bag were a small, clear bag of blue things. They had a hole in them and we thought maybe they were maybe smoke bombs or fire crackers or something. We tried to light them - nothing. We tore them apart - nothing. We sniffed them - nothing. We tried to eat them - nothing. So weird. What ARE these??? Suddenly, a d.j. started to play party music. People were now on the dance floor. I guess the real party doesn't start until after midnight. So weird.

(Another) Dahab Holiday

Ahhhh ... I love Dahab. This is my favorite place in Egypt. Courtesy of the Swine Flu, I have 10 days off to do whatever. I really wanted to head over to Europe, but due to late notice, I wasn't able to plan anything. Plus, I had some bad harassment incidents lately and I just wasn't up to attempting any trips to unfamiliar places.

So, a few of my ex-pat friends (Geoff and Janice from Wales, Chris and Venla from England and Finland, and Gavin and Dave from New Zealand) were already there, so I was able to meet up with them.

We had fun hanging out and watching some rugby and drinking lots of wine. Suddenly, to my surprise, as I was walking by the Sea, I ran into three other girls from my fellowship program. One is serving in the West Bank, and two others are serving in Israel. How weird and random is that? We had dinner that night at one of the Bedouin restaurants. The weather nice but windy during the day for the first part of the week, and pretty chilly at night but this restaurant had a nice fire going (although we feared the whole place was going to burn down). It was great seeing them and exchanging stories about out fellowships thus far. They were heading back to Isreal the next day, and I would have loved to tag along with them, but I didn't have any warm clothes to wear (I guess, Israel is pretty cold this time of year).

The next day my friends were gone, so I thought I'd do some scuba diving this time around. I decided to dive with a company called "Red Sea Relax." My friends had tried diving with them and said they were great. I only planned on doing one, but I had so much fun I decided to do another ... and another ... and another ... by the time the week was over, I had done 10 dives. I've gotten so good at it that I decided I'll be going back to get my Advanced certification.

Poisonous Lionfish. Don't touch!

Look ma, no hands!

Butterfly fish

I swear this camel is smiling for my camera!

Me buying jewelry from a Bedouin girl shortly after dive # 10. She sure drives a hard bargain!

Me and a stray puppy ... she was so warm and comfy sleeping on my lap that she peed on me!

Thanksgiving and Eid al-Adha

Winding through the backstreets, shop keepers and residents are preparing for Eid al-Adha which commemorates the willingness of Abraham to sacrifice his son as an act of obedience to God, but instead was able to sacrifice a ram (by God's command). By coincidence, this holiday is coinciding with Thanksgiving, in which Americans get together with their families and "sacrifice" a big turkey for the family meal and try to think of others that are less fortunate. During Eid, most Muslim families in Egypt sacrifice a sheep, Goat, cow or some other domestic animal to symbolize this event.

Not only is it a time for families to get together, but also a time to help others. The family eats one-third of their slaughter, another third is given to relatives, friends and neighbors, and the other third is given to the poor as a gift. This weekend the streets will literally run red with blood.

Today two of my students, Engy and Dalia, took me out to enjoy the city. They were so great. I met up with them in front of the entrance to the Faculty of Education. It was the perfect day for sightseeing since most people were at home preparing for the big feast.

We began our tour at Fort Qaitbay. The citadel was built on the site where the ruins of The Lighthouse of Alexandria stood around 880 AD (one of the Seven Wonders of the ancient world). It was built in 1477 AD by Sultan Al-Ashraf Sayf al-Din Qa'it Bay. It functioned for about 400 years as a coastal defensive edifice.

After that we took a stroll down through sections of Old Alexandria, Engy and Dalia treated me to some gelato at a famous ice cream shop and then I had a glass of ... sugar cane??!! Yes. There was a small shop and they had sugar cane there. They take a stalk of the cane and shove it into a machine that instantly liquefies it. The result is a frothy glass of pure sugar cane to drink. It sort of has a yellowish-greenish color. The taste? Engy and Dalia said it is their favorite drink in the world. As for me, it wasn't bad, but I can't say it is my favorite.

As we walked along the streets, it seemded the slaughtering of the animals for the sacrifice had already begun. There was a random sheep's head lying on the side walk while the butcher was cutting up the rest of the meat in the street. I happened by an entire herd of sheep that were marked for death and managed to snap a picture while the owner of the cache wagged a disapproving finger at me.

Next we went and visited the famous mosque of Abu al-Abbas al Mursi, who was a wealthy Spanish Scholar and Saint. It was built over his tomb around 1775. The tomb became a place of pilgrimage of many Muslims from Egypt and Morocco who passed through Alexandria on their way to and from Mecca. Women who enter mosques have to be completely covered from head to ankles. I forgot to bring something to cover my head ... so they had some old (and stinky) sheets for just such an occasion.

Last, we went over to the beach an took a few pictures playing in the cold surf and sand. It was a really fun afternoon, but my day wasn't quite over. I headed home, took a quick shower and headed over to another American ex-pat's house for a traditional Thanksgiving feast complete with turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, chocolate pie .... the works! Yummm!!!