Lately

I know it's been awhile, as usual, but sometimes I just can't make myself sit down and write a blog post after a day of work, which lately has been giving me a run for its money. But before I get into the work aspect I'll start off by outlining a vacation I took at the beginning of September.

I went to a city called Marsa Matrouh, which is such a beautiful place! Not because of the city, but because it's on the Mediterranean Sea. The sea is absolutely gorgeous and has so many different colors of blue depending on how deep the sea is in different areas. I went with Mervat, a lady who works in the Healthy Life Center below the Egypt Field Office. She was vacationing with her mom and her 3 brothers. They go to Marsa Matrouh every summer. On the way there I went on the train, alone I might add, because Mervat had already been there with her family since the previous weekend, but I couldn't be gone from work for more than about 3 days. So Manal and her sister Rahil dropped me off at the train station, helped me find the correct train and board, and I proceeded to sleep during the night while the train chugged on closer and closer to Libya. I was somewhat scared of traveling for the first time by myself in Egypt, but it wasn't a problem and everything was ok. I did find out later that Manal and Rahil had directed me to the 2nd class seating but my ticket was for 1st class, so I missed out on that and Mervat was sad about that. Anyways, I arrived in the morning, got off the train, and found Mervat waiting for me to pick me up. I was also greeted by a delightfully welcome sea breeze. The weather was much more pleasant than my last trip to Sharm el-Sheikh. The next 3 days were rather interesting. I saw a couple famous beaches, Cleopatra Beach and Ageeba Beach. Ageeba was one of the beaches that we swam at too, and it was amazingly beautiful! The beaches in Marsa Matrouh are awesome because the water is so blue and gorgeous and the sand is really white. I got a decent tan with a little bit of burn, but not nearly as bad as my burn in Sharm el-Sheikh. It was a little interesting spending 3 days with Mervat's family because she has 2 deaf brothers and her mom doesn't know English, so I could only talk to Mervat and her brother who isn't deaf. Anyways, all in all it was a good trip.


I came back to a hard couple of weeks at work. Actually, I guess the first week back wasn't bad because there were still not too many children because summer was still in full swing. School starts rather late here because after Ramadan the Muslims have a feast, and then school begins after that, which is this coming week. Anyways, this week has been so hard in so many ways. More kids are coming back now that they're finished traveling for the summer, and some new kids are starting to come. One of them screams whenever their mother leaves and won't stop unless she comes back, one of them only likes Manal and cries whenever she leaves, which makes it difficult if she's helping a child in the bathroom or if she's on break, because then this child won't stop crying and disrupts the atmosphere of the room. I also found out that one of the preschool families was in a bad car accident on their way back from vacationing...incidentally in Marsa Matrouh, the same place I went to. The grandma died and the dad is still in the hospital with a problem in his lungs and is having many operations currently. The mom has a big gash on her forehead and I believe has a hard time walking because of something happening to her feet. Saif, the little boy from preschool, hurt the back of his head and his younger brother had some glass on him from the windshield. Saif finally came back to preschool this week after being gone for quite some time, and his younger brother came with him one day. His mom wants his brother to start in the preschool now, but he's not even 2 years old and we're making a new age rule. So we'll have to figure out how to handle that situation, but for now we'll let him come to the preschool while she's having a hard time going back and forth between her home and the hospital all the time. Anyways, next week all the children will be back because school is starting and some of their parents are teachers and will have to bring them back to preschool because they're starting to work again. It's going to be another crazy week next week!

Oh, last week we had 2 days of vacation in the preschool because of the Muslim feast, and on one of the days I went to 3 Coptic Orthodox monasteries with one of the preschool families (Miro and Youssef's family). It was really interesting and a great day. It was nice to get to know their family better, especially because they're such nice people. On the way back we stopped at a place with a grocery store, a restaurant, and a park, and we all ate together. I picked up some groceries too. It was just a really good day, and I really appreciate their family. I also went to a birthday party this week which was pretty fun. It was on the roof at the Sudanese refugee Adventist school at night. It was a really fun time and we had some good food. Also, my violin lessons to Youssef are going really well. He's practicing at home, he's enjoying it, he's doing a great job and learning and improving, and I'm also remembering things I used to do when I taught in high school. It's a good feeling. Next week I'm going to start teaching piano lessons to Kimo, a 3 year old boy in the preschool, and I'm also going to start teaching one of the preschool parents (Bibo's mom) some English next week too. Since Saif went on vacation and had the car accident I haven't started teaching him piano lessons again, but after things settle down we'll probably pick up where we left off. I think that's about all the lessons I can handle right now, especially since working all day with all these children takes so much effort.

Now I'm going to just focus on relaxing and spending time with friends and with God over the weekend. Tonight Manal and I are going to NUA (the academy) to spend the night and also Sabbath morning at the school. I need to start getting to know the student missionaries. I haven't been to NUA since campmeeting I think. Then on Sabbath evening someone is having a birthday party here behind the preschool so we'll come back for that. So I hope this weekend will be fun.

Warning: Gruesome Topic-Read At Your Own Risk

Well one of the main things that have happened since my last post was that my former roommate and fellow teacher Eriny got married in her village in Upper Egypt, so I went to the wedding and what an experience it was! The night before the wedding there was a big party at both the bride and the groom's houses, which is the custom in Upper Egypt. Loud Arabic music was playing well into the night and tons of people were gathered in the small dirt roads to celebrate with the families of the wedding couple. The most significant part of the night for me occurred when they killed a cow in the street right outside of Eriny's home. This is what happens at weddings in Upper Egypt and it was quite horrifying for me to witness the murder of a cow. Everyone there is so used to it and meat is such a vital part of their diet that they aren't even phased by the tortuous death that the animal goes through...they're just watching eagerly, ready to eat the meat that the cow will eventually provide them with. They tied the cow's hooves together and laid it on its side the ground, and the proceeded to slit its throat. The cow just laid there as its blood filled the street. Some people got blood on their shirts from when the cow moved around trying to get loose. The whole process was so agonizingly long too. The poor cow was suffering for so long while everyone just swarmed around it to watch. The men who were carrying out the cruel task then started hacking away at its throat and cutting through its mouth and tongue and everything so that its head would be cut off completely, but it took quite a long time so they kept stopping for breaks along the way, while the cow just kept suffering through it. Sometimes they stuffed their hands in the cow along with the knife, to help rip the head off faster and more effectively. After what seemed like forever and ever the head was finally off and the cow was out of its misery. I think it was pretty much alive until the head was right off, cuz it moved sometimes throughout almost the whole process. Anyways then they stripped its skin off and hung it from these poles in the middle of the street and proceeded to hack off pieces of meat well into the night. Oh and I also saw all the stomachs of the cow after they were placed into a bucket. Then they took them away to sell. Anyways that's the story of probably the worst thing I've ever seen happen.

So the next day was the wedding. Manal and I went to this beauty salon to get our hair done, and they started doing this fancy thing in my hair and then topped everything off by putting all this makeup on my face. I asked them to keep it simple and natural but when I opened my eyes it was definitely not natural. But it was ok for one evening, and I really liked my hair even though it seemed too fancy for someone who wasn't in the wedding party. So the wedding was scheduled to start at 7:30 on Monday night which I thought was an odd time for a wedding. Anyways we finished at the beauty salon and headed to the church, arriving at 7:15. I was supposed to play my violin while the wedding party walked to the front. But when we went inside the church we discovered that the wedding was already in progress! I was expecting it to start pretty late cuz Egyptians usually start everything like 1 or 2 hours late, but we found out that they started the wedding at 6:30! I was so shocked that they had started an hour early, and not even waited for Eriny's own sister to get there before they started. I guess they played some random music for the part where they walked to the front, but I felt so strange cuz I had my violin and I didn't even use it, and I was all dressed up for nothing, cuz the wedding was almost finished. Manal and I went up to the front of the church in this side hallway thing and when they saw we were there they told me they still wanted me to play my violin. So I quickly got it out and played Ashokan Farewell, the piece I had prepared to play at the beginning of the wedding. But this time it was more like a special music. After I finished they said the closing prayer and the wedding was over. I felt sooo weird for being all dolled up and then only being there for a few minutes before it ended. Anyways I went back with the group that came from NUA and I met the SM's that had just arrived in Egypt the week before that. We finally got back at about midnight or something. And that's the story of the wedding that I attended in Upper Egypt!