Busy week

Hi again :) This past week has been such a whirlwind....I don't know if I can remember everything we have done...
Mostly, guest speakers have been coming and going like a revolving door. First, an Episcopal pastor, then a group from Islam Online. IT has been a heavy week...
The Pastor was really transformational for all of the group: we talked about Islam and Christianity, and how the two interact. It was powerful to see this man who has been living in Egypt for ages argue that Islam is not the enemy, nor something to be looked down upon: Muslims are following Christ in their own way, so our mission is not to convert them but to love them the best we know how. I love this so much!
Then we went to Anafora, a desert sanctuary and a place I never wanted to leave. Why did we go there? I am glad you asked. The 30 Americans in my group got together with 30 Coptic young adults. Coptic Christianity is the indigenous faith of Egypt. Copticism traces it roots all the way back to St. Mark, but was accused of heresy, falsely, sometime before the great schism. This trip was planned for us to see the issues of religious freedom in Egypt. The Copts are a persecuted group (they are about 3-10% of Egypt depending on who you are talking to). Egypt has professed Islam as the religion of the state. Every person has their religion marked on their id card, and this has serious implications on life. Christians face systematic and individual discrimination: They are not allowed to build churches and are the sometimes denied employment based on religion. There has been a lot of conflict between Christians and Mulsims which peaked a few years back with a Christian man being accused and convicted of murdering two Muslim men for which he was sentenced to death. The man was innocent, the murderer was in fact someone else, but religious tension made him an easy pawn. There has also been violence in the streets periodically.
The Copts we met were young and jaded. They felt the system was against them, always has been, always will be. But they were the persecution with pride because that has always been the story of their church. I, however, am left fully grateful for religious freedom in American and a relatively secular society. There are so many more things going through my mind on this topic...
But, for shortness' sake I will have to say that one day with the Copts turned into one day with young Muslim believers. A couple employees from Islam Online (a Muslim living website) came and held discussions with us about a wide range of topics: veiling, marriages, jihad, US foreign policy, culture and society, etc. These people were so fascinating. Every question, and criticizim, about Islam was answered beautifully. A women in a full Nikab (the ninja-esque outfit) was with us to share why she wears it, a personal choice her family does not agree with, young men were there to answer why a women should be responsible for covering up, and journalists were there to explain why anti-American sentiment has developed and produced terrorism. I left our time with more information than ever before. I full reflection would take up pages and pages. Email about specific topics of interests.
This event lead to today's event with three Christians living in Egypt. Up until this point our group has been meeting with highly educated and therefore extremely moderate Muslims. We are being taught the redeeming qualities of Islam and how it is absolutely not what the TV shows it to be. But this group of people, who were born and raised around Islam absolutely ruined this pretty image I had been holding onto. They argued that Islam is a violent, and ugly religion. That the religion itself is the problem, and the people are the ones who were trying to make it softer and more reasonable. Wow! Before hand all anyone would say about this topic is that Islam preaches tolerance and peace, but a few radical preachers have hijacked it and interpreted the Quran in extreme, fundamental ways. My views are being shaken....but more to come.
So for now, I am packing my bags and moving in with a Muslim family for week. Should be interesting...I am a little nervous but mostly excited!
Peace and Love.

Pictures! 3

These are the last from now...and they are from the most recent adventure in Luxor. The Valley of the Kings did not allow any pictures to be taken, instead we have a lovely alabaster gift shop, the Habu Temple, the Karnak Temple, and the Luxor Temple. Plus, the view from our rooftop pool at the hotel, and a couple friends made along the way :)

Pictures! 2

These are pictures from climbing Mt. Sinai and then recovering at the most gorgeous beach (Dahab).... one of my favorite weekends! (double click slideshow for full screen)

Pictures!

Pictures from my first week....Pyramids, a feluca down the Nile, Shisha at the Khan il Khalili, and so much more. (Double click on the slideshow for full screen)

Luxor

This is a partial post due to the fact that I am only half way through my Luxor experience. But I figured I would grab the available internet by the horns.  

The past week has been what I would term "normal" in the sense that class and a service project was all I did.  But, it wasn't normal by most standards.  A curious man named Ed White came to be our guest speaker. He works at the US Embassy in Cairo, and I think that he wished he never had left the Embassy.  After giving a short talk on what he does, my class spent an hour or so roasting him on just about every Middle East topic there is. He was took the totally typical "government employee" line, which was frustrating but also insightful.  Islamic Thought and Practice classes officially began, and that means even more reading and more homework. I was assigned a very curious research paper topic by the teacher- it wasn't in English so I am trying to figure out how to actually research it...mostly by hoping Arabic lessons will enlighten me sooner rather than later.

Our group took off on Thursday night and took a night train to Luxor (south)...Luxor is the sight of the most famous Ancient Egyptian monuments (save the Pyramids).  After recooperating yesterday pool side on the hotel roof over looking the Luxor Temple, the team set out for the Valley of the Kings to tour 3 tombs and then went to the Habu Temple. All very impressive. It was really hot, but I got a lot of good pictures, that I promise I am trying to work out a better system for posting them.  We are about to head the the Karnak (spl?) Temple....which is the biggest one around here...so I am pumped. And then we get back on a train tonight and head back to Cairo.  

I am still in disbelief about the life I am living here....it is insane.

Oh yeah, RAMADAN IS OVER :)

Sinai and Dahab

This week tops last week for sure. The Pyramids were great, but Dahab is the heaven I dream of. Let me start at the begining: After our second week of classes the group took off at 6pm Thursday, and got to the base of Mt. Sinai at about 2am. I know what you all are thinking, but we did not sleep one wink. At 2am the 30 of us hiked to the very top (mind, you Sinai is a beast of a mountain) to see the sunrise. It took 3 hrs, lots of switchbacks and the grand finale of 740ish stairs to get to the top. I thought I was going to die a lot, but I made it in spectacular fashion just in time to sit on the edge of the peak and watch the most majestic sunrise of my life. The moutains on the Sinai Peninsular are nothing like mountains we see in America, they are barren but extraordinary, pictures cannot do it justice. After hiking back down by 8am, we hung out out St. Catherine's monastary to regain strength from not sleeping and hiking lots. But then we drove another 2 hrs to Dahab, a hippie beach town on the Gulf of Aqaba, facing Saudi Arabia. When we got there, everyone was exhausted so we ate lunch, and spent the rest of the day on the beach, swimming in the Red Sea. Which, by the way, is so blue and so clean, and perfect, that I never ever wanted to leave Dahab. After a $5 dinner to rival Wolf Gang Puck at a sit on the floor resteraunt looking across at Saudi Arabia(which we could see clearly) everyone slept long and hard.
The next morning we took off for a place called the Blue Hole to snorkel. This place is supposedly the second best place in the world to snorkel after the Great Barrier Reef. Even though it was my first snor-killing experience, I would agree. Basically, you get a snokel, goggles, and flippers and walk down to a dock. The dock is a blue plastic thing that leads out over coral until the coral mysteriously drops hundreds and hundreds of feet. I saw more fish and coral and deep blue waters than I thought ever existed. I loved being there so much! After another day spent on the beach and at eating by the beach, we spent one last night in Dahab.
Yesterday, we left Dahab and returned to Cairo. I was sad to leave, but today I woke up and found myself sitting at the feet of Hossam Baghat for class today. Baghat is a well known and respected human rights lawyer in Egypt, and he offered the lot of us some of the smartest and evenhanded discourse we have had here. I slightly fell in love with this 30 yr old, well educated, highly accomplished man who is quoted in the Economist and created his own Human Rights organization after he was kicked out of Egypt's for defending gay rights. Humdulilah.
I have a few more days of class, but I leave on Thursday for Luxor to see all the Pharaohnic sites such as the Valley of the Kings. I am living the most amazing life :)

Living It...

I am trying to make up for a couple things:1. That I have been horrible at posting, and 2. That I have not yet found the patience, nor the place, to upload pictures. But I am tryin to find somewhere that has decent internet because I really want to share a couple pictures! I am working on it.
A couple new happenings: So I thought it was going to be a normal day of class, and our first day of Islamic Thought and Practice. We were scheduled for an introductory course to Islam, and instead of going in the classroom we boarded the bus and went on a tour of 3 mosques in Cairo. The first is probably the oldest surviving original mosque in the world. It was built in in 879 AD, and has been realtively well preserved, to the point where it is still being used as a mosque. The second was built by the Abbassids in 1362, and the last was built by the Turks in 1869. They were all so gorgeous and breathtaking. But the whole time I could only think: wholly crap. I am in Cairo studying Islam, touring mosques. I am not just reading about it or looking at pictures, but I am living and breathing it. I continue to be amazed....
Last night we had our first Hafla, or party. The school I am with set up a cultural exchange program where each student is set up with a nice Egyptian friend. My friends name is Igny, and her sister is Rihab. We had so much fun getting to know eachother, and making fun of my Arabic (which, if I haven't mentionede it yet, has really gotten me into some trouble. Egyptian Arabic is very different from the Classical Arabic I studied. So I sound like I am speaking Shakespearean Arabic. Basically, I get laughed at A LOT). I already have duture plans with my assigned Egyptian friend and her sister. She promised to show me her favorite places in Cairo....which I am pumped for becuase I want to get an insiders view!
Well, not to brag, but I am headed to hte Red Sea tomorrow (Dahab...google it), so I should be getting to sleep!
Salaam.

The PYRAMID in my Backyard

I have been preparing to writed this post from the moment I signed up to go to Egypt. Al of this preparation has not enabled me to eloquently discuss just how insanel y cool the Pyramids are. It was just another Sunday, naturally, and a group decided to go on the long awaited adventure to the pyramids of Giza. It took about 30 minutes, or a $4 taxi ride) to get there, and we spent thw whole day walking and galloping areond 9 pyramids, a sphinx, countless tombs, and a museuem of a solar boat....more later.
My first impression of the Pyramids was this: Holy crap, they are not in the desert like I thought. They are literally in Cairo. The city butts right on up to them, challenging the ancient history of the site with rundown shacks and businesses. I lot of movies and postcards make them seem like they are way out in the middle of the desert, but I assure you they are not. The pyramids lom over all of Cairo and make the squallor in the city even more pitiable contrasted with the glory of Ancient Egypt.
The highlight of the trip was definitely riding a camel, named Michael Jordan, out a ways away from the city. It was about 1.2 hour ride to a spot where we could take the "classic" pyramid pictures...and the camels were so great! I loved galloping around with my bedouin guide singing Arabic songs into the wind.
We also went to a museum at the base of the biggest pyramid to see the "Solar Boat" which is an authentic reconstruction of the river boat the Pharaoh used to ride up and down the Nile. It was very impressive!
I absolutely loved the Pyramids and being a tourist for a day. It made me really miss my father who would have died of happiness, and I could have really used his narration of Egyptian history courtesy of devout History Channel viewing....muss him a lot a lot. And, my fair, white, Seattle skin got scorched out there. The sun is relentless even at 10am!
But I LOVE it here nonetheless :)
Miss everyone!

First Day of School

The boys showed up in ties and tucked in shirts to begin the long awaited "real life" portion of our semester abroad. Arabic class started out well. I already know some, but it will take a lot of time to adjust my classical Arabic to the colloquial, Egyptian dialect. And then the rain came. Not literally, but in the form of about 1 million pages of reading. I kid you not, we have 4 text books, and 3 hefty reading packets with a combined total of 883 pages (we counted). Yikes.
The good news is I am more than excited to read everything, however I am incredibly dubious about my ability to read all of this , write 7 papers, and research for 1 debate, while living in Cairo, traveling around the country and the whole Middle East. I am a little tired just thinking about it.
This coming Friday, Saturday is literally our only free weekend. So we all figured that it would be a good thing to go to the Pyramids, no big deal. I will report back and hopefully learn how to uploads some pix of that adventure.
Besides that I recently conquered Egyptian suprmarkets and predatory Egyptian taxi drivers. They think they can scam me, but I have their number now....this basically means that one driver got about 6 times as much as he should have, and I have learned my lesson. The supermarket was awesome. I shopped with three of my flatmates for 8 girls in our flat (we are communal creatures here). It was fun!
One last thing, just a minor note really. Everyone in the program gets to do a service project every Tuesday. Mine=teaching English to Sudanese refugees. I started yesterday and had a blast. The Sudanese are welcoming and so so lovely. A lot come from Darfur and are waiting for the UN to recognize them as refugees. The organization I work for is called "Refuge Egypt" and absolutely incredible Christian NGO in Cairo. Love them.

Until later, Salaam :)