Carnivore . . .

Hey guys,

Just a little update of the last few days. I can add another animal to my list of animals that I've eaten. I had camel a couple of nights ago. I had just gotten back into town, and was wandering around a bit. I noticed a restaurant that had a sign advertising camel steak. How could I let that go?! I called Matt and told him that we needed to have camel that night. So, we went to the restaurant later that day and had camel shish-kabobs. It was great! They were a little pricey so we split one order of kabobs and then went out for beans (the cheapest food I know here). All in all, it was good.

I've spent the last few days just walking around saying hello to people that I know here. It seems like there's no end of people to talk to. I've got to get some sort of regular schedule set up again. It's so easy to spend the whole day just wandering around chatting. I actually made a To Do List for myself today. Hopefully it leads to awesome productivity!

Okay, many blessings and much love . . .

-Dave

Many wanderings . . .

Hey y'all,

I'm not sure when I wrote last. All I know is that I've been on the road for a long time. Last night was the first night to sleep in my own bed for a LONG time. Actually, I slept on the couch. But at least it was my couch!

After some time in Amsterdam doing a bit more language work, I met up with my family and travelled around Egypt for a few weeks. We even made it to Jordan for a couple of days to go to Petra. I'll give you the full list of places just in case you're curious. Cairo (for about a week), Alexandria, Aswan, Luxor, Hurghada, Cairo again, Nuweiba, Aqaba, Petra, Nuweiba again, St. Catherine (AKA Mt. Sinai), and back to Cairo just in time for my family to fly out.

We had some great little experiences along the way. My personal favorite was the personal tour we got of the monastary in St. Catherine. We hiked up Mt. Sinai for the sunrise. On the way back down my dad and I got back first. So once we were back down, I went back up to walk the rest of the way down with my mom and sister. Along the trail I met a security guard who wanted to know why I was going the wrong way up the trail. I told him that I was just going to check on my family, so he let me go through. Later on that day my family was out for a walk. They met the same security guard, who recognized them as my family. They talked to him for quite a while, and gave him quite a generous tip at the end of their chat. He told them to come back for a personal tour with him the next morning. So we went back and met him the next day. He took us to the front of every line, and even took us into parts of the monastary that other people couldn't get into. Then he took our camera and went to take pictures of things that you're not allowed to photograph. It's good to have friends, huh?

It was good to have the family here for a while. Travelling with them was definitely a different experience. I don't visit a whole lot of tourist spots on the average day. I'd kind of forgotten what the really touristy parts of Egypt are like. It was almost as much of a shock to me as it was to my family. At times, I felt like they were experiencing the worst parts of the culture. I wish they'd had a couple of days to just hang out and do life here. But, we just didn't have enough time.

After the family took off, I went down south to visit a place called Marsa Alam. A friend invited me down for a visit, so I went for a couple days. Well, he actually told me I was welcome to come any time. So, I just took the bus down and called him when I got to town. Unfortunately, his son was sick and he had taken him to another city to see the doctor. So, I literally travelled for two days just to see him for five minutes. Funny story. He told me that I should stay at a dive camp just outside of town. I didn't really know how far past town it was. He said to walk south out of town and I'd find the place. The sun wasn't too hot and I had a little bit of water and food, so I decided to go for it. I finally got there, 2 1/2 hours and 14 kilometers later (8 1/2 miles). Let me tell you, when you're in the middle of the desert and out of food & water, civilization is a really welcome sight. The picture at the top is my backpack and sandals on the side of the road I was walking down. I was probably 10 kilometers (6 miles) out of town at that point. I hitch-hiked back to town the next day. I didn't have any water left, and really didn't want to make the hike again. The ride took me about ten minutes, definitely an improvement over the day before.

So, I'm finally back home. A couple more stamps in my passport, some nice photos, and some great memories with the family.

Many blessings & much love . . .

-Dave

Sissy

Okay, just had to include you guys in the joke. I'm in Amsterdam at the moment. I'll actually only be here for a couple more days before heading back to Egypt.

But . . . I was walking around town the other day and found a great mall. It's called Sissy-Boy. I'm not sure exactly what it means in Dutch, but it's hilarious in English. Just thought I'd include this photo for your amusement.

In less than 24 hours I'll be meeting my family at the Amsterdam airport. They'll spend about two days with me here in Amsterdam before heading down to Egypt for a couple of weeks. Should be tons of fun. It'll actually be nice to be able to show off my Arabic for a little while!

Hope you're all having fun!

Yams, goats, cell phones, and acceptance . . .

Hi guys, A couple of the latest random experiences. I was walking around town last night and smelled possibly the best smell since I've been in Egypt. It was a guy pushing a cart around selling roasted yams. He had a little wood stove burning in his cart. I used to live in a house where we used a wood stove to heat in the winter, so I love the smell of a wood fire burning. Between the smell of the fire and the sweet smell of the yams, I was loving it!

One of my neighbors has started herding goats recently. I think he's going to try to raise them and sell them for the next big feast, which is in a couple of weeks. I used to wonder why young goats are called 'kids,' but I think I've figured it out. Sometimes when goats make noise, they sound exactly like a small child. I woke up yesterday morning because of some noise outside the window. It sounded like someone was torturing a small child, but when I looked outside I realized that it was just two goats playing. Kind of a surprise.

I saw something this morning that made me laugh. It was the ultimate example of a short-sighted decision. I was riding in a micro-bus, and saw two guys fighting on the side of the road. One of the guys was running away from the other one. The other guy took his cell phone out of his pocket and threw it at the first guy. He missed, and his phone hit the ground and shattered into many tiny little pieces. He got even angrier, and I couldn't help laughing.

I was showing some of my friends here pictures of my home back in Oregon. They saw all of the mountains and trees, and decided that I'm a bedouin. I was walking around town with one of them today, and another guy asked my friend why he was walking around with a foreigner. My friend told him, "he's not a foreigner, he's a bedouin. He's just a white bedouin." It made me smile. I hope you enjoy the photo of the white bedouin! :)

Okay guys, that's it for now. Peace . . .

Moving up in the world!

Yikes! Let me apologize right up front to anyone who thought I was dead. I don't think I've updated my blog in at least a month! But, have no fear. I'm still alive and kicking!

I'm moving up in the world. I've managed to go from a bucket shower to an actual real shower-head. It's nice! I can actually take a shower without lifting a bucket over my head. Oh, and I haven't had to kill a rat in about a week. I think I finally got them all!

Matt's back in town now, which is really nice. He was in the States for a couple of weeks checking on his mom. I thought I would enjoy being here on my own, but it was actually really tough. We had just moved into a new part of town when he took off. At first things were really cool, but then I had a couple of really tough conversations with some neighbors. One of the guys in my neighborhood told me "get out of here foreigner, you don't belong here." It was actually a pretty tough thing to hear. But, things have calmed down since then, and people seem to be reacting to us a little better.

Oh, I also learned how to use the water pump in our flat, which means that we now have running water most of the time instead of only some of the time. All you have to do is fill up a storage tank when there's water. That way you can divert water from the tank to your flat when the water goes out. Cool, huh?

Okay guys, that's most of the news for now. I'm planning to travel to the Netherlands in about two weeks, which should be a good time. I like living here, but it's always nice to get out of the culture for a little bit. I'm also meeting my family in Amsterdam, which should be a really cool time! Hope you're all doing well . . .

Ghetto Fabulous!

Okay, it's official. I now live in the ghetto. I was talking to a Czech friend the other day, telling him that I was going to be moving soon. He asked me where I was going to be living. When I told him his eyes got really big and he said, "that's the ghetto!"

Although when you think about it, it's not really that big a difference from where I was living back in Oregon. I was showing a friend a couple of weeks ago where I used to live on Google maps. I don't think it had ever quite registered before that I was living in a trailer next to the woods. It was just home. But when someone describes it like that, it just sounds worse. :)

But don't worry. I'm not actually in a seedy neighborhood or anything like that. It's a place where most of my friends live, and it's actually a pretty cool community. It just looks a little run down from the outside. I just went and changed the locks an hour ago or so. I'm getting enough stuff from the old flat for one trip tonight, then will move the rest of my stuff tomorrow. I'll try to get some pictures of the new place posted in the next day or two.

Oh, funny thing. Midnight seems like a perfectly reasonable time to move here in Egypt. It's the only time of day that it's cool enough to carry large amounts of stuff! :)

Finally saw it!

Hey guys,

I saw something today that I'd heard about since I got here, but hadn't actually seen before. Apparently whenever someone opens a new store or buys a new car, they slaughter a sheep and smear the blood on the front of the shop or car. I came down from my flat today and was walking down the street. I saw a guy mopping up what I thought was a huge puddle on the sidewalk. Then I got a little closer and realized that it was a puddle of blood. Then I saw the dead sheep on the sidewalk and the bloody handprints on the front of a new shoe store.

We had some friends from Cairo down for a visit this weekend. It was a great time. A bunch of guys staying in our flat. But I think one of them took my phone charger when they went home. I was trying to charge my phone today and couldn't find my charger. So, I went and bought another one. I went into a phone store and asked for a charger. They guy told me it was 45 pounds (about 8 dollars). I asked him if there was another kind, because I didn't want to pay that much for it. He said no, so I told him no thanks and started walking out of the store. He called me back as I was leaving and told me that he had another one for 15 pounds (about 2 1/2 dollars). I bought it, and it works just fine. It's funny, it seems like the only way to get a good deal here is to walk away.

I think I might be moving soon. I met a friend tonight who told me that one of his relatives has a flat in another part of town. It would be about 75 dollars a month cheaper, and much closer to where all of our friends live. I'm planning to go look at the place tomorrow. So who knows, the nomad may be moving again soon. Lets see, this would make six homes in the last twelve months (Salem, Norfolk, Maadi, Hadayek El Maadi, Siqala, and maybe the next one). Strange, huh?

Okay, I'm going to sleep. It's getting late and I've got to wake up way too soon. Nite nite . . .

Thoughts on Ramadan

Hey everyone. This is the first week of Ramadan, which is the Muslim holy month. During this month muslims fast from all food and water during the day. They're allowed to eat and drink before the sun comes up and after the sun goes down, but not during the day. Everything feels a little different during Ramadan. If you want to eat during the day, you need to buy food the night before and keep it at your house during the day. Also, everyone's tired all the time. It's made visiting friends and practicing language a lot harder. During the day people are tired. Then at sunset they eat and are really tired because they just had a huge meal. I still haven't discovered when is a really good time to visit people during Ramadan.

Culture shock seems to be an ebb and flow sort of thing. Some times I think I've got it down, and other times it knocks me off my feet and sends me reeling. During the last week or so I've had a bout of culture shock that was a surprise. It was a reminder that I really am a foreigner. I find myself fighting the temptation to just say "well the people here are just like this ______________." The temptation to feel superior is an easy trap to fall into, but not a particularly fruitful one. I had a couple of American guests here last week, and they told me how great my arabic sounded and how nice it was to have a fellow American who understands the culture here. Maybe this past week is just putting me back in my place. Who knows?!?!

Having guests was fun, but I definitely spent more of my day speaking English than I would like. I'm looking forward to getting back to mostly Arabic in the days to come.

Okay, that's it for now. I hope you're all doing well . . .

Umm, merry christmas??

Hey everyone!

Okay, I was talking to my family on skype yesterday and my mom told me that I hadn't updated my blog in way too long. And when your mom tells you that you haven't blogged in a while, you know it's been a LONG TIME!! Sorry mom!

So, the news . . . Well, I'm 32 years old as of yesterday. (Does that sound as old to you as it does to me?) I'm back in Egypt and enjoying being back home. I hadn't realized how accustomed I had gotten to life in Egypt until I was in the western world for a while. Simple things like traffic signals and being places on time seemed foreign. It's nice to be back in the land where nothing happens on time and everything else makes sense! :)

So, you get random gifts when you live here. I just got back from a friend's house. He gave me an old film camera that he found floating in the ocean last month. Why? That's a really good question. I don't know either.

But, on the up-side of the news. I think I may have found a new language helper in the town that I live in. I met a guy who said he knows someone who would be willing to teach me the local dialect. He's supposed to be getting into town tomorrow. So with any luck, I'll be learning the local dialect within a couple of days. No more sounding like a foreigner! Well, besides the fact that I'm obviously a foreigner! :)

Okay, that's it for now. Oh, one more thing. I was swimming in the ocean this morning and a clown-fish bit me. You know Nemo from the movie "Finding Nemo?" Yeah, him. He bit me! Must've been really hungry. But, no blood no foul. Hope you're all doing well . . .

Freezing in the summer

Hey Everyone!

I got into the Netherlands safe and sound about eight thirty this morning. It's a little funny to me. I've got some friends who are here from the north coast of Scotland, and I'm here from Egypt. My friends from Scotland think that the weather here is unbearably hot. But I think it's freezing! I had to go borrow a sweater from someone this morning when I got here. Kind of funny how much perspective can change your perception of things.

Okay, that's it for now. Just letting you all know that I'm still alive (though cold!!) I'll write more in a bit . . .

Worst hair-do ever!

Okay, I saw something tonight that I want to share with all of you. I saw the WORST hair-do I have ever seen. I've made a decision about my future and hair. I'm praying for a full head of white hair like Bob Barker when I get older. But, if that doesn't happen, I've decided to go bald as gracefully as possible. Just accept it and move on. But I saw a guy tonight with a different philosophy on hair loss. He had the cool little ring of hair. (you know, where everything's gone on top and there's just a little bit of hair left on the sides) Anyway, this guy had grown the ring out REALLY long. Part of it was pulled back in a pony-tail, and the rest was brushed forward to cover the dome. If it had been convincing, it would have been cool. Alas, not so convincing.

I just got back into town two nights ago. I was up in Cairo for a few days this last week. A friend invited me to his brother's wedding. So, I packed a little bag and took the bus up there. It was a nice time. I stayed with an Egyptian friend and slept on his roof. It was cooler on the roof than it was inside with the fan on. I should be used to it by now, but I still find it odd to be sweating outside at midnight. Kind of a strange feeling.

I'm here until the end of the week. On the 19th I'll be heading to the Netherlands for about two weeks of training. After that, I'll be heading back here. It'll be nice to get out of the country for a little while. When you're surrounded by the same thing all the time, it's easy to forget that anything else exists. So, it'll be cool to get out of the country for a bit and get some more perspective on life and culture here. I'm also looking forward to not being in 45 degree (115 for you Fahrenheit people) weather for a couple of weeks. Who knows, I might even have to wear a sweatshirt in the middle of summer! :)

Okay, that's all the news I can think of for the moment. I hope everyone's doing well! Peace . . .

Deep water

Okay, random story from the last few days. I was having my quiet time a couple of days ago, and felt like God was speaking to me from Luke 5. It's the passage where Jesus tells Peter to "put out into deep water." I spent some time asking him if deep water symbolized anything. I'm not sure what it would have symbolized, but it just seemed like the kind of thing that might be symbolic of something else. After asking for a while, I felt like he was saying no. Basically, "deep water just means deep water."

So, I came home confused to say the least. Why would he tell me something that didn't really seem to mean anything? Anyway, I opened my email when I got home and had an email from a friend in Cairo. He and a friend were coming to the town where I live in order to go scuba diving this weekend. He asked if I wanted to go. I talked to my roommate about it, and we both decided that the best application of the word was to go diving.

So, long story short, I went scuba diving this weekend. I had a really fun time, and got to meet some local guys when I was on the boat and got a few of their phone numbers. It was a great time, but somehow I was expecting more. You know, maybe to meet some incredible person on the boat or something like that. It was a great time, but I was just hoping for something a little more . . . significant . . .

But it was a lot of fun! Who knows, something may come of it in the long run too.

Hunting for friends . . .

Hey guys,

A little over two weeks in a new place. It might be close to three weeks now. I'm not quite sure. Somewhere in that range.

CS Lewis writes in one of his essays that any friendship requires some kind of bond. He paints a picture of two friends standing side by side, both engaged in the same thing. Either the same activity, same interest, same passion, same job, same hobby . . . you get the idea. Here's a quote from his essay, Friendship:

"That is why those pathetic people who simply 'want friends' can never make any. The very condition of having Friends is that we should want something else besides Friends. Where the truthful answer to the question Do you see the same truth? would be 'I see nothing and I don't care about the truth; I only want a Friend,' no Friendship can arise - though Affection of course may. There would be nothing for the Friendship to be about; and Friendship must be about something, even if it were only an enthusiasm for dominoes or white mice. Those who have nothing can share nothing; those who are going nowhere can have no fellow-travellers."

That's been a challenging thought lately. I came to this town a few weeks ago, and am trying to meet people right now. Honestly, it's been a bit lonely here. Meeting folks in Cairo was so easy. Here, not so easy. Not sure what the difference is. In Cairo people were happy to hang out and talk. But here, it seems like everyone that I talk to wants something from me. It's been a frustrating experience. I'll hang out with someone for an hour and feel like we're getting to know each other. But then they'll ask me to buy them a computer or get them a visa to the USA or something like that. I feel like I'm always waiting for the bomb to drop. But yesterday a thought occurred to me. If I'm just "looking for friends," I'm doing the same thing to them that they're doing to me. I'm trying to use them to fill my loneliness in the same way that they're trying to get something from me.

Yikes! Not a particularly pleasant realization. Looks like I've got some soul-searching to do in the near future.

On a positive note . . . some friends from Cairo are going to be in town this weekend. They're coming down to go diving, and I should get to hang out with them while they're in town. It'll be nice to see some familiar faces!

Okay, that's it for now . . .

Adjustment

Hey guys,

Just realized it had been a while since I wrote. Okay, I thought I'd post you a couple of pictures of our new flat. However, our internet connection has been EXTREMELY sketchy here. I'm not sure why. I can get online, but then the connection dies after a minute or two. So, I'm going to shoot for one picture. If I can get that much uploaded, I'll be happy.  (It's up!  This one is of the kitchen-nook.  It's probably the part of the apartment I'm the proudest of.  Ok, picture 2 is of our sitting room.  No pink wall like the last place!  I'm so proud!  Okay, now I'm going to try for picture 3.  Got it!  Okay, picture 3 is my room.  Notice the guitar lying on top of the unmade bed.  I am such a rock star! )  Okay, I just realized that the pictures posted in the opposite order that I thought they would.  So, picture 1 is on the bottom, etc . . .

I also thought I'd clue you in to a couple of things here. The culture here is very nocturnal. Literally, nothing happens before ten in the morning, and almost nothing happens before noon. Only in Egypt can you call a friend at one in the afternoon and have to worry that you might be waking him up.

I've also made a couple of great friends here. It's funny. One of my friends is a guy that was helping us find an apartment when we first got here. But when he found out that I knew someone from his hometown . . . the doors of relationship flew right open. It was crazy! I'm still learning about the culture here, but I've started to notice another major difference. In the States, things are determined by how hard you work. If you work hard you advance. If you're lazy, you get nothing. But the culture here is based on relationships. If you know the right people, you can get almost anything you want. And, a friend of a friend gets an almost immediate welcome into relationship. It's fun. Almost any time I buy anything or do anything one of my friends tells me, "you should have talked to me first. I know someone who does that."

Okay, that's it for now. Peace . . .

Shazzam! Brand new start!

Hello everyone!

So, I'm in a brand new town, trying to figure out how life works here.  I've been here on the Red Sea coast for the last couple of days.  I think I got in two night ago.  Anyway, it was a mad rush to try and find an apartment before it got REALLY expensive living at a hotel.  Good news!  We found one!  It took us almost a month to find a place when we first got to Cairo.  But we managed to find one and get moved in in less that 24 hours here. 

Just figuring out how to do life in a new town is kind of a bummer.  I've realized that as much as I rebel against a schedule any time that I have one, I really am a creature of habit at heart.  (Mom, if you're reading this - stop laughing!)  This from the man who hasn't been on time to anything for the last two years :)  Leaving behind friends in Cairo was tough.  But I've been invited to a wedding in Cairo in about a month, so I think I'll be heading back for that.

In Cairo there was a really big community of ex-pats.  So finding friendship and relationship was pretty easy.  But it's been a little tougher here.  There aren't many ex-pats here, so finding community has been a little harder.  Most of my social interactions are in arabic too, which definitely limits my ability to interact.  It's strange.  I think I'm kind of a funny guy when I'm speaking english, but I just don't come across as funny in arabic.  It's hard to speak freely and crack jokes when you have to think about everything you say to make sure it makes sense.

No pictures this time, but I'll try to get some up in the next couple of days.  Au revoir . . .  (Yes that's French for you Jerome!)

Road less travelled

Okay, so my sense of direction is legendary . . . for being terrible! Anyone who's every travelled with me knows to ask me where I think we should go, then go the other direction.

I didn't have much to do today, so I decided to try a little experiment. I know a lot of parts of Cairo pretty well, but still don't have a really good grasp of where they are in relation to each other. But, I had a flash of inspiration today. It's the same Nile in my part of town as downtown, right? So, I decided to try to walk from my house to downtown. No problem, right?

Three and a half hours and two liters of water later, I finally got to downtown. A summer afternoon was definitely not the right time to investigate this hypothesis! Let's just say that the one pound metro ticket is well worth it! My curiosity is appeased, and I will definitely sleep well tonight.

Rugby!!

Okay, I need to teach you guys a valuable lesson that I learned this weekend. Rugby and asphalt do not mix well!! Hence the picture . . . Yikes! I was heading out to Dahab with some friends for the weekend, and was waiting for our bus to arrive. We had a rugby ball and some extra time, so we were playing in the parking lot. Long story short, I took a pretty good fall on the pavement. But don't worry . . . I broke my fall with my face . . . so I'm fine!

It's funny, I was laying on the ground right after it happened, and was wishing that I had a video of it. Just being able to see it would have made the experience worth it. But, no worries. I'm hard-headed enough that no real damage was done. I think I'm lucky I still have all my teeth and didn't break anything.

Celcius / 5 * 9 +32 = Little Bunny Foo Foo

So, it's gotten hot lately . . . Really hot! One thing I'm still getting used to is the Celcius scale. It still sounds funny to hear someone say, "Oh my gosh, it must be forty degrees today!" So, I thought I would make you a conversion chart just to get a rough idea of how Celcius and Fahrenheit line up:

25 Celcius 77 Fahrenheit
30 Celcius 86 Fahrenheit
35 Celcius HOT
40 Celcius REALLY, REALLY HOT
Above 40 Dave turns into a nudist and lives in the refrigerator

And what do we do when it gets really hot? We eat rabbit! I was talking to a friend the other day and we decided to get a rabbit and cook it for dinner. So, after class a couple of days ago I went to the market to buy a rabbit. I'm not quite sure what I was expecting, but I definitely wasn't expecting a fluffy little bunny that you would see in the pet store. But nonetheless, there he was, little bunny Foo Foo. So, I chopped up some vegetables and Foo Foo and voila! Dinner. I would tell you not to look at the picture if you're squeamish, but that wouldn't do you much good since the picture's at the top of the page and this sentence isn't.

A lot of folks are starting to head back to the States for the summer. I just had a really good friend take off last night, and another one is taking off tonight. This place is going to feel like a ghost town soon. Well, it's Cairo, so it probably will always feel crowded. But you know what I mean.

So, all in all . . . Life is good. A little warm for my tastes, but good.

AAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!!!!!!

Sniffle . . .

The turtles are dead! Not sure what happened. I went to feed them tonight and they didn't budge a bit. I know this sounds callous, but this was probably the best time for them to go. Now I don't have to worry about taking them when I move. But . . . bummer . . . I liked those guys.

How exactly does one go about burying a turtle in Egypt? I've got to figure that out pretty soon before they start stinking up the flat.

Bikya . . .

Hey guys. Sorry for the long absence. Here's a story from this last week . . .

So, we have some guys here who ride around the city with carts on the front of their bikes. They're called "robobikya" men. Basically, they will take anything that you don't want that they think they can fix and sell to someone else. They'll take stuff that seems absolutely worthless as long as they think they can make some money off of it. They ride around at all hours of the day and night, and are usually yelling the word "bikya" at the top of their lungs. After a while you get used to them. Anyway, a couple of days ago I was walking to class in the morning. I had just gotten up, and wasn't really awake yet. I heard "bikya," so I looked up to look for the robobikya guy. The only person I could see on the street was a lady pushing a baby in a stroller. The robobikya guy was around the corner, so I could hear him but not see him. In my confused morning state, it took me a minute to figure out what was going on. I kept trying to reconcile the lady pushing the baby with "bikya." My first thought was, "Oh my God, did someone just sell their child?" Not sure if it seems funny now, but it was hilarious when it happened!

Sand and rivers (of sand)

Hey guys.

So, we had a sandstorm yesterday. I like sandstorms here. The whole world feels heavier somehow. It's kind of like fog that you can brush off. Not a good day to hang my laundry out on the line though.

I got a package from some friends back home today. It was such a welcome surprise. They'd told me that they were sending something, but I completely forgot about it. It was kind of like Christmas. Magazines, skittles, a key-chain, and best of all, a video of all my friends from back home. I think I've already watched it at least three times. There's something about familiar places and voices to make you feel loved and valuable. It was like a taste of home.

I don't know if you've ever stepped into a river and stood in it for a while. In the beginning, you're really aware of the current and the feel of the water against your legs. But after a while, you just get used to it. I feel kind of like that right now. When I first got here, everything was so different and I felt like I was aware of everything. But enough time's gone by now that I feel like I'm kind of getting numb to a lot of stuff. It comes in really handy in some cases, but it's a little surreal at other times. I find that sometimes I just feel a little numb to life. Just kind of going through the motions in a semi-somnolent state of existence.

I bought some new jeans last week and had to retire some old ones. Too many holes to be decent any more. But I decided to try and keep them useful for a little bit longer. I cut out all of the pockets, and am sewing them all together to make a big "pocket bag." I'm sure it'll look a little strange when it's done, but I'm betting it'll be utilitarian too. Okay, maybe it'll look strange. I'll post a picture of it when I finish it.

Okay, that's it for now . . .

Another life

Hey! So, I've got this picture set as the wallpaper on my iPod. Every time I turn it on, this picture pops up. It's one of my favorites. It was taken right before I got on a plane to leave the east coast during one of my many trips. It represents the place in life I seem to be in. Always between two places, never really settled anywhere. This morning I turned on my iPod to listen to some music while I was doing my arabic homework, and I had a thought flash through my mind. "That feels like a different life." It was only taken a year or so ago, but it feels like a lifetime ago. Not sure why, but it really struck me today. Home's only a plane ride away, but sometimes it feels like another life, another time, another planet.

Still washing sand out of my hair!

Hey there! I got back from the Red Sea coast last night. I left on Friday morning and came back on Sunday night, and I think I spent about 24 of those hours riding buses. Makes for lots of boredom and a sore backside. But don't worry, I made up for it by walking many, many miles through deserts, wildernesses, and tiny towns! It was a cool opportunity for us to get to check out a little more of the country. It was super windy! I've posted a video at the bottom of this entry so you can hear just how windy it was. It almost knocked me over once or twice.

I just had a great skype call from some friends back home. Mike & Nikki, you're awesome!

Let's see, random assorted news . . . I'm learning how to play "Fast Car" by Tracy Chapman on the guitar right now. I heard it at a friend's house the other day and decided I wanted to learn how to play it. I also saw a random spine in the middle of the street the other day. I had to do a double-take before I figured out what it was. I'm guessing an animal dragged it away from a butcher's shop, but it was still pretty surprising. We're learning how to make conditional clauses now in Arabic class. Stuff like, if I'd wanted to talk to you, I would have called you. (lau kunt Aiz atkallim mA'ik, kunt ittaSalt bik. Just in case you're curious!)

I just had two friends go back to the other States this last week. We came over at about the same time, and hung out a lot over the last six months or so. They were kind of like brothers. We were studying Arabic together, going through culture shock together, and doing lots of other stuff together. It feels kind of strange to have them gone. I'm still in the place where I go to pick up my phone and call them. Only, halfway through dialing the number I realize that they're not here any more. It's kind of a strange feeling. It's strange how close you can get to someone over such a short period of time. I think it's accelerated when you live overseas. Anyway . . .

I think that's most of the news for the moment. I'm still waiting for this video to load. So I'm probably going to hang out around the house for a little bit longer while that finishes, then go out and spend some time practicing my Arabic. Ooh, I think I might still have some olives in the fridge. I think I'll munch on those while I wait.

Life of Dave

Ah, the joys of my day. Lets see . . .

Realizing that the reason I couldn't understand the article I was trying to read is that the author wrote it in a different dialect of Arabic than I speak. (This was two hours and MUCH frustration into a tutoring session)

Having the plumbing break in my flat AGAIN and having to fix it with a butter knife and a sponge. McGyver's got nothing on me!

Well, that's actually most of the day. It was pretty normal besides that, although I've still got a few hours left before I call it quits for the night . . .

Mother of invention . . .

Hey everyone!

We've been studying a lot of Arabic proverbs in class lately. Well, idioms that you can't really translate directly. There's one that says "An onion from a friend is mutton." What it basically means is that even the smallest gift from a loved one is of great value. I think the closest thing we have to that is "It's the thought that counts." There's a ton more, some of which are really fun.

Anyway, all of the thinking about proverbs reminded me of one that we have in English. "Necessity is the mother of invention." I was mulling over that one a couple of days ago, and decided to try something. My roommate and I decided that we would try to speak to each other only in Arabic. If we have something that we can't say in Arabic, we're allowed to use English. But beyond that, we're in Arabic all the time. It's actually been a lot of fun, and I'm surprised how much we're able to communicate. Although our Arabic is always a little rough early in the morning. :)

Oh, I also had an exam in Arabic class yesterday. It was funny. I think I studied for this exam the least out of all the exams I've taken so far, but I got the best grade on this one that I've gotten on any exam up to this point. I keep hoping to get 100%, but not yet. (Short Arabic lesson - the word "lissa" means "not yet." It's a really useful word!)

We've got a festival coming up on Monday next week. It's called "Sham el'neseem," which roughly translates to "The smell of Spring." It's always the day after Easter, and marks the first day of summer here in Egypt. I've been told by my Egyptian friends that I need to go to a park and eat eggs and fish on Sham el'neseem. So, I'll let you know how that goes!

Random events of the day . . .

Hey guys,

Just realized that I haven't written anything in forever!

Happy Palm Sunday. I know it's Easter in the States, but our calendar is a little behind here. So today is Palm Sunday for us. Or, "Had el z'Af" in Arabic.

Okay, random events of the day. I saw two car accidents while I was walking down the street today. Honestly, not all that unusual. In fact, that's a pretty standard occurrence around here. But here's the strange part, nobody got out and yelled today. Usually that's the first thing that happens when there's a wreck. People start yelling, then get around to figuring out whose fault it is later. But today, no yelling. Kind of a surprise.

I also finished grading my English students final exams today. They all passed! I was actually pretty excited. There were one or two that I thought might not make it. But they all passed, and I was really proud of them. There's one that still has to take her final next week, but I'm pretty confident she'll pass too.

Okay, I gotta run. I've got laundry to hang out and food to eat. A friend invited me over for dinner. I'm supposed to be there in about three minutes and it's a twenty minute walk away. Oops, I'm becoming Egyptian!

Trophy, vomit, and sand . . .

This last Saturday I ran in a 5k race in a place just south of Cairo called Wadi Digla. It's a pretty cool place. It looks like a huge dry riverbed with sandstone cliffs all around it. It was my first time there, but I think I may have to go again some time. Anyway, the race was a fundraiser for a couple of local schools and I thought it was a worthy cause. So I went out there on Satuday morning and ran the race with about 150 other people. Long story short, I won the race and got an awesome plastic trophy! I was actually pretty surprised. A friend of mine was there and got a picture of me crossing the finish line. She's the editor for a local ex-pat magazine and has threatened to put my photo on the cover of next month's issue. Personally, I'm hoping she doesn't! But we'll see . . .

After the race, I wasn't feeling too hot. I thought I might be dehydrated, so I went home and drank some water. I still didn't feel well, so I drank some fruit juice. After that I decided that I'd been resting for long enough, so I went out to visit some Egyptian friends and buy a few things I needed to get. I went to chat with a friend's landlord, who I've gotten to know. He gave me some tea, and was chatting with me about his family. I'd only been there for a few minutes when I started to feel like I was going to toss my lunch. I told him really quickly that I had to go right away. I can't even remember which language I told him in. I kept thinking, don't make a mess in his house! I got two steps out of the door and . . . BLECH!!! All over the street! Yummy! The guy I'd been talking to came out and held my glasses for me. He wouldn't let me clean anything up. Just gave me some water and medicine and sent me on my way. I felt pretty bad. I kept trying to tell him that I'd been sick before I came over to his house. I didn't want him to feel bad or feel like it was his tea that had made me sick. I laughed about it later :)

Oh. I also learned something about running in the desert. For the next couple of days after you run, you find sand EVERYWHERE! It's awesome!

Things here have been going pretty well. Arabic's been going well and has actually been making sense for the last couple of days. I'm heading to Hurghada this weekend to check things out. It's a town on the Red Sea coast, just a little south of the tip of the Sinai penninsula. I'll be there for a couple of days and be back in time for class on Monday morning. Blessings!

All quiet on the middle eastern front . . .

Hey guys,

So, our neighbor finally put a password on their wireless router, so now I've got to head over to a friend's house to use their wireless. Kind of a bummer, but I'm a little surprised that we've used it for the last few months without our neighbor noticing.

We've started doing something cool in Arabic class lately called Community Based Learning. Every week on the first day of class I get a list of topics and questions that I'm supposed to go out and talk with Egyptians about. Then on the last day of the week we get together and go over what people have said. It's actually kind of cool. Mother's Day in Egypt was yesterday, so our topic for last week was to find out about Mother's Day customs and about local proverbs about mothers. My favorite proverb that I learned was "Paradise is under the mother's feet." What it basically means is that a mother's life is so hard that she should be allowed into paradise.

Okay, that's it for now . . .

Grand Canyon

These last few days have been fun in regards to language. Pretty much everything that I've learned how to say in Arabic so far has had an English equivalent. Basically, "this is how you say _______ in Arabic." It's been a lot of memorization, but not really all that bad.

But a few days ago we started to learn a new verb tense. It's called ism il'faAil. Well, that's the rough transliteration at least. I've been asking lots of questions about it, and still can't figure out what exactly it means. My teacher told me that it's a tense that doesn't exist in English, so most foreigners have a really hard time figuring out what it means and how to use it.

It's pretty strange. It's always conjugated the same way, but sometimes it means past tense, sometimes it means present tense, and other times it means future tense. It changes based on both the context and on the verb you use it with. When you put any verb into that tense it could mean two of the three other tenses (past, present, future). But each verb can only be two of the three. For example, the verb to travel can be either present or future tense in ism il'faAil, but never past tense. But the verb to feel can be either past or present tense in ism il'faAil. Strange, huh?

I've learned how to make the tense just fine, but just don't know what it means when I say it or hear it. I think today was one of the first time when I realized just how difficult learning another language is. It's more than just learning another set of vocabulary words. In some cases it entails learning how to think another way. I don't think I really understood that until today.

Pee and poo!

Okay, time to hear about the joys of my day today. I woke up at 6:30, went for a run with a friend, then came back home. So far so good, but here's where things went wrong. I went to the bathroom to take a shower, and noticed some water on the floor. I went and got my roommate to come look at it with me. We called a plumber, our landlord, and got our doorman. More water kept coming up from the floor. Not clean water, SEWAGE! We live on the second floor of a six story building. Every time someone on a floor above us used water, it wound up in our bathroom. By about lunchtime, we had three inches of sewage covering our entire apartment floor. Thank God we don't have carpet!

On top of all that, our doorman has a one year old son named Youssif. While he was out trying to borrow some tools for the plumber, I was holding Youssif. Youssif had been playing in the water, so I didn't really think it was strange that his pants were a little wet. But I started to notice a wonderful smell after a few minutes. Guess what . . . he peed on me! Not only did I have sewage all over my floor, I also had pee on my shirt. It was lovely! The funny thing is, it didn't really bug me that much. When there's poo on the floor, a little pee on the shirt isn't really that big a deal.

About the picture . . . No, the floor is not supposed to be that color! It's supposed to be the same color as the walls. You think it looks gross? It smelled even better!

But, everything's back to normal now. After about seven hours, the plumber managed to figure out what was going on and get it fixed. The sewer had backed up all the way from the street up to the second floor. I have never been so excited to see the floor in my life!

Bitte?

So, I got to go to the pyramids for free today. I've been running in the morning with a couple of friends for the last month or so. Last week I found out about a foot-race that a German school was putting on as a fundraiser. It only cost a couple bucks, so I thought I'd run. It was at the pyramids this morning. We had to be there by eight in the morning. Because we were running, they didn't charge me any money to get into the pyramids. It was a really cool time. About a thousand people ran, and I got 21st place. I was pretty excited!

The cool part was that there was a sandstorm right at the end of the race. We were on the border of the desert, and it got really windy right at the end. It was like swimming through sand, but cool nonetheless.

No pictures though, sorry . . .

Inhibited vacation

Hey guys

I just got back from Marsa Shagra, a small place on the coast by the Red Sea. It's a strange little town. It basically exists because of scuba divers. Almost everyone who lives there works in the tourist industry. So much so that the price for everything is given in Euros instead of Egyptian Pounds. The picture is of me and a friend WAY out in the desert with some nomads and camels.

I had a strange discovery while I was there about freedom. I know I'm hardly an impartial person when it comes to freedom. I'm an American, and we tend to idolize freedom. It's one of our most valued possessions. So much so that we wrote it into our Constitution. I think being raised in that environment, I tend to assume that I'm free unless I come across convincing evidence that I'm not.

Anyway, I had finished my time there and was getting ready to head back. In order to catch the bus back to Cairo, I first had to take a taxi in the other direction to a town that has a bus station. It was about 20 kilometers (12 miles for you Americans) away from the place where I'd been staying. There were two buses in the afternoon, one at 3:00 and the other at 6:00. I got to the station at about 2:30 and planned to hang out for a few hours and take the later bus. I thought it would be nice to have a glass of tea and see the town. But when I got to the bus station, the taxi driver wouldn't let me get out of the taxi. Apparently the hotel had called the authorities and told them that I was leaving. They were instructed to send someone along with me so that I wouldn't be alone. I told the guy that it was okay, I would be fine on my own, but he told me that I couldn't be alone. He was going to go anywhere that I was going to go. I decided it wasn't worth hanging out if I was going to have someone following me all the time, so I decided to take the earlier bus instead. It was a strange feeling, realizing that I wasn't free. Suddenly I wasn't able to go where I wanted to go or do what I wanted to do. It was kind of a surreal feeling. It was like being a child all over again. Having to ask permission to do things and stuff like that.

Anyway, I had a great time while I was down there. I wish I'd been able to stay a little bit longer, but the time that I was able to spend there was nice. I think I'll try to get back there some time in the future. But in the meantime, there's a few other places that I'd like to visit first.

So, tomorrow is my first day of teaching English and getting back to studying Arabic. Funny thing . . . I was looking at my visa while I was in Kenya. Stamped really big on the bottom is the phrase "not eligible for work." I'd been praying about it a little bit, and felt like God told me that I needed to be a man of my word. So I went by the school today and talked to the administrator. I told her that I was happy to teach, but that I wasn't going to take any money for it. I feel a little silly teaching for free. But God's been speaking to me a lot lately about being a man of my word and not making small compromises. So, no salary for me . . .

Pit stop

Just a quick update. I made it back from Kenya safe and sound. No problems going through customs or anything like that. The meeting was a really good time. I found out a lot of information that would have taken me a really long time to figure out on my own. I also had a really neat last night in Nairobi. I got to eat ostrich and crocodile, which was pretty cool. The picture is me waiting for my flight back to Cairo from Nairobi.

I got back to Cairo yesterday morning, hung out for the day, and am about to get on a bus to head down to Marsa Alam. It's a town on the Red Sea coast. I'm planning to spend a couple of days there, then come back and start classes again on Monday. Should be a good time. I've got to find some time to study though before classes start. Wish me luck . . .

Mobile . . .

Hey guys . . .

I'm sitting in a town called Karen just outside of Nairobi, Kenya. I've been here for a couple of days, and am heading back home at some crazy hour of the night tonight. It's been a cool time here getting to meet new people and meet some old friends again. I've gotten to spend some time with Eddy and Jess for those of you who know them. It's always nice to hang out with old friends!

I got so much information the first day that we got here. Stuff that I wish I'd known months ago. But better late than never.

It's been a great time, and I'll write more when I get back to Cairo after a brief stop in Marsa Alam. I'm borrowing a friend's computer right now to be able to post this. Hope you're doing well . . .

men zamaan . . .

Hey there. So the title of this entry is 'men zamaan,' which means 'since forever' in Arabic. Appropriately titled since I haven't written anything in a while. I was feeling a little remiss, but then I got an email from a friend that my blog was a little bit dated. So, Tasha . . . this is for you! :)

The last few weeks have brought a few interesting occurrences and lessons. The first thing I learned is that the wind is not your friend when you live in a desert! I woke up for a run last week and was pretty excited that it was a bit windy. I thought it would keep the temperature down a bit and make the day more pleasant. But apparently here when you've got wind, you've got a sandstorm. By the time I finished my run about 45 minutes later I was having trouble seeing some of the buildings downtown. After another hour, I could taste the air. It was crazy!

There's a street kid that I've been getting to know here in Cairo. I see him a couple of times a week while I'm walking to language class. He's always pretty friendly and helps me practice my Arabic. I usually give him a little bit of money and hang out with him for a few minutes. Last week he asked me to buy him a pair of shoes. I told him no, and I thought to myself "I'm not going to spend my money buying this kid a pair of shoes!" As soon as I finished thinking that, God spoke to me pretty clearly. He said two things. "It's not your money, and yes you are." So I told the kid to meet me on the same corner at six o'clock and I'd take him to buy him shoes. Between then and six I talked to another friend of mine, who told me that he'd already bought the kid a pair of shoes. Apparently the kid gets foreigners to buy him shoes, then sells them back to the store and gets the money. I went back at six because I wanted to talk to the kid. He didn't show up, but I finally caught up with him again a couple of days later. I confronted him about what he'd done, but he wouldn't own up to it. So I told him that I wasn't going to give him any money for a while because he'd lied to me. He was pretty sad, but still kept talking to me every time that I saw him. After a week I started giving him money again. I felt like I was trying to teach honesty and discipline to a total stranger. I wonder what this kid thinks of me now . . .

I'm flying to Kenya in a couple of hours. There's an important meeting there I need to attend, then fly back after a couple of days. I'm looking forward to the meeting, because I think I'm going to see an old friend there that I haven't seen in a year or so. Should be pretty fun. And on top of all that, I'm looking forward to some good input from the people that I'm going to be meeting.

The same day I get back to Cairo, I'm traveling down to the Red Sea coast for a camel safari. It should be a pretty good time. My roommate's at the bus station downtown right now buying us tickets. He's awesome! Much more organized than me. All of the stuff that I forget to do, he's got covered. We're a good pair, I think. Then the day after we get back from the camel safari we have language classes starting again. I start teaching English here the same week. I decided that I wanted to start teaching English because the people here seem confused when I tell them that all I'm doing is studying language. They all expect me to have a job too, so I thought it might make it easier for them to understand what I'm doing here if I had a job too. So, I won't be making any money doing it, but hopefully my neighbors will understand me a little better now.

The picture at the top is from the Citadel. It's an old fort built by Salahadin way back in the day. It's a pretty cool place. You can look out and see the whole city from one of the lookouts. Considering how big Cairo is, that's actually quite a feat.

Okay guys, enough for now. Talk to you again when I get back . . .

Wise old sage

Hey everyone! It's been a busy last couple of days. I felt like a tour guide yesterday. Two ladies that I know came in to Cairo in the early afternoon, and another one came in to Cairo in the evening.

Funny story about meeting the first two ladies that came in. I knew what hotel they were staying at, but I had no idea what time they were going to arrive. So I went to their hotel and brought a book along with me. I got there around noon, and hung out for the next four hours. I felt a little self conscious sitting in the lobby for a couple of hours next to the security guards. I kept peeking at them, making sure that they weren't looking at me. Come to think of it, that probably made me look more suspicious! :)

I've spent a bit of time the last two days showing them around town and pointing out good places to eat and hang out. I felt like the wise old sage showing the new folks how to live here. It's neat to see how much the ex-pat community pulls together here.

I had a good time practicing Arabic today. One of my friends lives in a flat above an auto shop. Sometimes when I go over to visit my friend, the guy who runs the auto shop calls me in to hang out and practice my Arabic. Tonight was a cool time. He gave me some cake and tea, and we talked about an old friend of his who used to work in the oil fields. Now that I speak Arabic a little better, people talk to me the way they would talk to other Egyptians. I'm lucky to get 15% of what they say. But I can usually pick up enough words to follow the general gist of a conversation. It's kind of funny. I'm always really excited when I can figure out what someone's trying to say to me. It feels like I've just finished putting together a huge puzzle. So every day is like another puzzle.

Okay, time to study . . .

I'm a savage!

I think I scored some man points today. I'd been talking to a friend yesterday, and he said the he knew where we could buy a rabbit. So we decided to buy a rabbit for dinner. But when we went to the market today, it turned out that the rabbits were more expensive than we thought (about $10). So we bought a chicken instead. I got some great looks carrying a live chicken through the streets of Cairo!

I took it back to a friend's house, killed it, cleaned it, then made dinner for my friends. It was a pretty cool evening. It was nice to take a meal all the way through from butchering to eating. And the food definitely tastes better when you get to kill it yourself (sorry vegetarians . . .).

I'd planned to name the chicken before killing it, then give it it's last rites, but I forgot to. I've been reading "Angela's Ashes" lately, and there's a part where the main character finds out that the proper name for last rites in the Catholic church is called "Extreme Unction." I thought it would be cool to be able to say that I performed extreme unction on a chicken, but got too involved in the butchering to remember to do it.

Enjoy the pic, guy . . .

Victory Banana!

Hey guys!

I'm sitting in my room listening to "The Show Must Go On" by Queen, mooching internet from my neighbor, and playing with Rasheed (my pet turtle). Rasheed's definitely got more personality than Francis.

This has been an eventful week. Lots of studying, victory bananas, accidental stalkings, and new glasses. I learned two new verb tenses this week, so I feel like my vocabulary just doubled. I know about sixty verbs. Four tenses for each verb, and each verb has eight forms in each tense. So yes, that's a lot of words. I'm not sure I can count that high, but I'm pretty sure it's a lot!

I remember that when I was in school as a kid, sometimes I got a gold star or a piece of candy if I got the answer to a question right. Or sometimes I just got to be the teacher's pet for the day. Well, today I did a great job in Arabic class and was rewarded with a banana. It was delicious and much more satisfying than a gold star, but definitely the most unusual reward that I've gotten in a classroom.

Small confession . . . I stalked somebody by accident this week. You know how people from different cultures walk differently? If you don't know this, you should pay attention to some people this week. Folks who aren't from the States walk differently than we do. I'm not sure how to describe it, but they just do. Anyway, back to the story. I was walking to a friend's house a couple of nights ago, and noticed a woman a hundred feet or so ahead of me in the street. I noticed that she was walking like an American, so I decided to catch up with her and talk. I started walking a bit faster so that I would catch up with her. I had just about caught up with her when I realized something. "I'm stalking this lady! This is not okay!" So I just walked by her and didn't say anything. I felt kind of silly!

I also bought some new glasses this week. All of the dust here was really bugging my contacts, so I went back to glasses. I got my last pair of glasses right after I graduated from college, a LONG time ago. Thus, new glasses. Sorry, no picture of the glasses right now. I had to recruit some friends to help me pick out frames. Sometimes a little fashion advice comes in handy! :)

All in all, a pretty eventful week. Talk to you guys later . . .

Back to childhood

Hey guys. Welcome to my blog!

I've been in Cairo for a little over two months now, and feel like I'm finally getting settled in. It's a strange thing, being a foreigner in another country. Coming here to visit and coming here to live have been totally different experiences. It's funny. Sometimes I feel like Iike Cairo is my home, and that I've been here forever. And at other times I have a hard time wrapping my brain around the fact that I live here. I can start to understand why God has so much to say about the treatment of foreigners in the Bible. And I can also understand why so many of the immigrant communities in the States are so tight-knit. It's a really comforting thing to be around people that think and act the way that you do.

I think the most recent noteworthy event is that I bought a pet last week. There's a place in my part of town (Hadayik el Maadi) called road 9. It's a pretty neat place with a lot of neat shops and fruit stands. I found a small pet store, and went in with some friends. Long story short, I bought two small turtles. Rasheed and Francis. So they're keeping me company in the flat right now. They've been fun to have around.

Today's the last day of my weekend, so it's back to class tomorrow. I can't remember which class I have tomorrow, so I did the homework for all of my classes just in case!