week 2

Ahlan wasahlan! I made it safely to Cairo last Friday, which already seems like weeks ago though today is only my 9th full day here. The trip went smoothly other than a little trouble with customs (the official thought our group visa looked sketchy, but we argued our way through).

We were bussed to our home for the next 7 weeks, a Christian church compound in Helwan, which is on the southern edge of Cairo.  Our group of 19 is split into three dorm-style guest rooms, which are not luxurious by any account, but very livable.  Our single shower is generally cold and has a tendency to flood if we aren't careful (though this is more the fault of 5 long-haired girls rather than the shower), and I had an exciting moment of panic the first night when I accidentally locked myself inside it. One pair of tweezers and a few shrieks later, I got myself out, no worries...  And so far I haven't minded the cold water, as our room is extremely stuffy by the end of a hot Egyptian summer day. The beds have proven to be more of an adjustment-- we sleep on thin stuffed mattresses on basically a cot made of loose planks.  But I'd been sleeping on the floor during my last week in the States anyway, so no big deal... that is, until I went to bury my face into my pillow and realized it was more sandbag than pillow. (thus, these heavy pillows have inspired the creation of a roommate exercise plan, which we call "Cairobics"... but that's a story for a different blog post!)

Our church hosts are very friendly and accommodating, and we are also lucky that they happen to have a full kitchen and dining area included in the compound.  We are served full Egyptian meals for breakfast and supper every day.  Since it is still summer vacation here for a few more days, the compound is full of church kids of all ages at pretty much any time of day.  Many of these have become our main source for entertainment and conversation partners, though they have a better English vocabulary by age 6 than we do right now in Arabic. Ah well.  When we get exhausted of trying to talk about brothers and sisters and dogs and cats (which is about the extent of my vocab, at least), we can always join in a game of soccer or volleyball in the dirt lot.

So far, our typical school days consist of getting up around 7 (though I personally am still waking up to the 4 a.m. call to prayer every day which resonates on loudspeakers from about three different local mosques), eating breakfast, then catching the metro to our language school.  We are split into three classes with two teachers each--one for grammar and one for society vocabulary.  Class is done by noon, at which point we set out in small groups to find lunch.  This will be significantly easier this week since Ramadan is now over, so restaurants are reopened.  Then we often have a lecture on the culture and history of the area, then are free until our 7:30 dinner. 

We also have just had our first field trip: yesterday we left early in the morning to spend the day at the Pyramids, Memphis, and Saqqara.  It is amazing that we are only half an hour or so from some of ancient wonders of the world! I'll probably write more about those later, but so far it's difficult to get time on the computer regularly, so this is already getting longwinded and I need to close!

Thanks for reading and thinking of me... I miss you all and think of you often, even with so much going on here. :)