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 . . .