The Bedouin People

The Bedouin tribes began migrating to Egypt from the Arabian peninsula between the 14th and 18th centuries. They are nomadic desert dwellers known for their rich hospitality and strict upholding of religious tradition. Today, John, Heidi and I set off on a journey towards a town near Alexandria where we would enjoy the hospitality of a Bedouin man and his family for the duration of the afternoon. This was a culturally enriching experience for me, as it allowed me to observe a more traditional side of the Egyptian culture. In this man's house, we sat in a room that consisted of nothing more than cushion chairs on the floor. As we sat on these cushions, we had to be conscious of where our feet were positioned. This is because it is very insulting to point the soles of your feet at an Egyptian. Although this man had an entire house, it is not part of their culture to take you on a tour of it. They live humbly and do not feel the need to show of their house to you. We remained in this room for the duration of our visit until we moved outside and sat on floor of their porch. Even our meal was brought into the room for us on a table. We only saw this man's wife when we first arrived, then she made herself scarce for the remainder of our visit, even during the family picture. She did, however, prepare a traditional Bedouin meal for us. It consisted of whole fish, rice, salad, spicy cucumber-type-things, a few homemade french fries, eggplant, and flatbread. Generally, I can't stand fish, but because I didn't want to insult the man, I ate it. It was actually not too bad. Hardly tasted like fish at all. It still had the head on it, the bones in it, and all that fun stuff, but it was the least fishy tasting fish I've ever tasted.

After our meal, we sat outside and chatted while drinking tea. I should point out that this man is in the process of learning English, and we are in the process of learning Arabic, so there was quite a language barrier between us. As I venture further outside of Maadi (the Westernized portion of Cairo) it becomes more and more apparent that I am in a whole different world here. Not only is the language different, not only are the customs different, not only is the religion different, but even the values and morals are different. It was interesting to hear this man's perspective on the bombings in Sharm El Sheik, as it is from a completely different perspective than the rest of the world. He stressed with us that family was one of his greatest values. He lives with not only his immediate family (he has a wife and children), but also his parents, and brothers and sisters and their children.

Although this man is a follower of the dominant faith here in Egypt, and we are somewhat the opposite, he still graciously accepted us into his home without any thought of us attempting to convert him, or vice-versa. It was great to spend the afternoon with this man, and I look forward to coming into contact with the Bedouin people in the future. There is a possibility of us doing a desert camping trip of some sort with the Bedouin people, which would be an amazing experience. You may have noticed that throughout this entry, I have avoided mentioning the name of this respectful gentleman. This is just a safety precaution because many things here in Egypt are monitored, and many things can be considered confidential. I should take this time to point out that certain things are often not wise to discuss online. You will notice the mention of 'the dominant faith'. Phrases such as these are wiser to use than the alternative. Also, there is no position here that can be filled by the M in the C&MA denomination. They are referred to as something else. Those are the two main taboos here, so try and avoid mentioning them in emails to me.

Now, back to the adventure! On the way to this town near Alexandria we passed the pryamids. This was my first glance at them from fairly close up. John says if I haven't seen them by November, he'll take me to see them. Such a pal, he is. We drove along a 'three' lane highway towards Alex, but in reality, this could be 4 or 5 lanes at certain parts! The thing I found the most surprising (aside from how much greenery I saw along the way) was the amount of sign pollution nearly the entire way. From Cairo to Alex, pretty much non stop, every 50-100m there are massive billboards advertising products. In North America, we often see a small set of these before a major city or something, but these were non-stop all the way to our destination!

The Citadel

Today's journey for Heidi and I was by way of taxi. The taxi driver we found didn't speak any English at all, so we had to call a guy over to translate for us so we could negotiate a price. I suppose I probably haven't mentioned this yet, but taxis here do not run off of a meter. Sure, they come equpped with a meter, but much like traffic lights and lines on the road, they're just for show and don't actually perform any function. Well, after a bit of bartering, we got the driver down to 15 Egyptian Pounds (approximately $3 Canadian) for our 15 minute taxi ride. Now, one would think that since the taxi driver didn't speak the same language as us, he wouldn't bother with the small-talk... but he made an attempt at it anyways! It was kind of funny trying to communicate with this guy, and probably quite frustrating for him. After a lot of pointing and grunting and waving around of his arms, the driver finally figured out that Heidi and I are from Canada, are married, and have no children. I think I mentioned earlier that Heidi is always referred to as my wife when we go out sightseeing, as foreign women recieve a lot more respect when they are married. Now, back to the story. I guess having no children in this culture is quite unusual for a couple, and is even seen as unfortunate. This man, through various interesting gestures and sounds, appeared to be encouraging us to get busy making babies. I think if you're married, and don't have children, Egyptians percieve you as being unable to bear children. Well, eventually the driver became tired of attempting conversation with us and proceeded to pull out a wad of cash and count it while driving. I should remind you that traffic here in Cairo is completely insane, so watching our driver count his money while weaving in and out of traffic was quite unnerving. There were some very interesting sights on the way to the Citadel, but I didn't take out my camera cause I hate looking like a tourist outside of obvious tourist areas. I think we passed through the "City of the Dead" on the way, which I hope to return to and document for you folks. It's quite a sad looking area, full of poor people... and dead people (in their graves, of course).

Walking around the sights of the Citadel was fairly uneventful. Lots of annoying tourists and such. I can't stand tourists. So annoying and culturally insensitive. Yeah, I'm part tourist, but I'm also part resident, as well. So I don't suck. heh heh. Anyways, I took some pretty cool pictures and have created a new album for them. Click here to check them out! A large portion of the Citadel is now a really cheesy military museum which we weren't a fan of. First of all, you have to buy a photography license to take pictures, and second, it's so cheesy that you really don't feel the need to take a picture of anything in the museum at all.

Our taxi home was a little more expensive. Cab drivers like to rip of tourists, and it's hard to hide the fact that you're a tourist when you're white and you're walking out of a massive tourist area. 20 pounds was the lowest we could get the driver, and he wouldn't even drive me home. He made me walk home from Heidi's place. I think I'll boycott taxis until I take another one. Anyways, I think I'll sign off for today. Tomorrow we go to Alexandria, so I should have some nice pictures to post from there. Don't forget to check out the Citadel Photo Album!

Smog City

Panoramic View of Cairo

What's new?

Hello again, I suppose you all think that I'm dead because I haven't posted for a few days. Do not worry. This is not the case. I am alive and well. In fact, so well that yesterday I spent the afternoon playing in a volleyball tournament! I was on team 'Interns' which consisted of pastor John (who was once an intern), Kelly (former associate youth pastor who was visiting), Heidi (current intern), two other non-interns (they're cool and we needed more players), and me (also a current intern). This tournament took place on the campus of Cairo American College... or whatever it's called. I only hear it referred to as CAC. CAC is where many of the students in our youth group attend, which is why we made an appearance as team 'Interns'. The tournament consisted of something like 200 people, most of them atheletic. Our team did not fall into the atheletic category. We were more the comic relief category. We almost one a game, though! 23-25, that was our best game. Oh, and the one where the other team never showed... I guess we won that one. And what a noble win that was! Here are some pictures to prove that we played volleyball yesterday:


We did not win this game.


Nor did we win this game.

As for the rest of this week, I didn't do much exciting stuff. We did order in Chinese one evening! Naturally, they don't have ginger beef here, but everything else was super good and spicy. Needless to say, I was back on the Imodium the next day. That reminds me of something funny about the people in our church. They'll come up to you in church and ask "How are you?" and if you respond "Fine" they'll go on to say "No really, how ARE you?" and nod their head towards your stomach. It seems everyone here wants to know how your bowel movements are doing. If they hear that things are less than perfect, they'll be sure to give you some encouraging words and simple advice on hardening things up. What a friendly church family.

Oooh, I remember one other thing that kept me busy in the past couple days. I had my first Arabic lesson. I'm convinced that Arabic is a hard language to learn. We spent the entire first hour learning only TWO of the 26 letters in the Arabic alphabet. "Meem" and "Beh" are what those letters sound like in English. I also learned a few phrases, but I don't remember them. 'Sabbah el khier' means 'good morning' or something like that. The other person responds with 'Sabbah el nore'.

I have a busy week ahead of me. Tomorrow we are heading up to Alexandria to make some preparations for our fall retreat taking place up there next month. Our youth events kick off this week on Wed and Fri. Thursday I will be moving in with my host family. Everyone says they're a great family, so I'm looking forward to finally meeting them. Now, I need to go do some paper work. All that talk of Imodium seems to have excited me.

The Language Barrier

Yesterday was probably the first time I experienced a major language barrier since I've gotten here. The worst part is that I had a translater with me and it was STILL difficult to convey my message. It all started when John, the youth pastor, came up with this zany kick-off game for the youth group that involved PVC tubing. John had no idea where to find PVC tubing, so he delegated that job to me. Sure, make the intern do all the hard stuff. Why not? At least he arranged for me to go hunting with the help of Israel, a Sudanese refugee on the property staff at our church. Israel and I took a taxi to Road 9 (which is sort of like a big long market place), and then walked around until we found a plumbing-type store. The first one we found was about the size of a walk-in closet. We walked into the closet and attempted to explain to the shopkeeper what we needed. Now, apparently our needs weren't as clear as they should've been because it took us at least 10 minutes to explain to this guy what we wanted. I was drawing pictures, trying to put things into different words, making all sorts of motions with my hands... very little was working! I was trying to explain that we didn't want the pipes for water, we wanted to build a cube-like structure out of them. He couldn't get around the idea that the pipes weren't being used for water, even though that was besides the point! The guy was also trying to convince us that if we wanted to build a cube with PCV tubing we would need 16 pieces of tubing, rather than the 12 I suggested. Either way, he did some calculations for us and said that it would cost roughly 1400 pounds for the pieces we wanted. Our budget was about 200 pounds for this project. So we went elsewhere and I got to go through the whole ordeal again! The second place gave us the stuff for 116 pounds, though, so that was a slight improvement. That same day I was scheduled for my first Arabic lesson, but it got postponed. At least I have some definate motivation for learning Arabic now. It's too annoying not knowing it!

Ho hum

Yesterday I did absolutely nothing. And it was great. My big outing of the day consisted of walking to McDonald's and back. Somebody at church told me that it tastes better here, so naturally, I had to investigate. After paying the equivalent of $3.62 Canadian for a SuperSized Big Mac Combo, I sat down and assessed the situation. The portions appeared to be the same as North American portions, so nothing too special there. But when I opened up the styrofoam container holding my Big Mac, I was quite surprised. See, whenever you see an advertisement for McDonald's, you see images of these big luscious burgers that are nice and big and juicy looking. But then you order one and you get this shrunk down boring looking version of it. This is not the case at McDonald's in Egypt!! The burger sitting on my table looked identical to those huge beautiful looking ones on the commercials. It felt almost as though there was a beam of light from heaven shining down on the burger alongside a chorus of angelic singing. I picked it up, and I chowed down... and it was gooood. The fries weren't as enjoyable as North American ones, but everything else was quite tasty. But yeah, that was about all I did yesterday other than watch Everybody Loves Raymond and Rudy.

Today I spent the whole day at the office, updating the youth website. For lunch, we ordered in from an Egyptian place (Pretty much everyone delivers for free here... McDonald's, grocery stores, etc). I wasn't sure what to order, so I asked one of my Egyptian co-workers what their favorite was. I kid you not, they told me to order the Hot Dog pizza! Well, because I'm adventurous, I did it. A while later I had a hot dog pizza sitting on my lap. When I opened the box up, I thought I opened it upside down because the crust was on top... but I flipped it over and crust was STILL on top. That reminded me of how I used to prank call pizza places and ask them to put the crust on top. Egypt has a keen sense of humor. Anyways, the pizza was good. It was hardly like pizza, except for the fact that it is cut like pizza, but it was tasty, and two meals for less than a meal at McDonald's!

Now I would like to share an excerpt from an Egyptian pop culture magazine I had given to me with my meal at McDonald's. It seemed to be a very random magazine. This excerpt proves it. Click on the images to enlarge them:



You can look forward to me posting other excerpts from this magazine in the future. Next up: "How to get out of a relationship", including easy instructions on how to say 'no'. That's all for now, though!

I saw a cloud!!

True story. I was checking my email this morning, and the weather popped up and said "Mostly sunny". I'd never seen anything aside from "Ridiculously sunny" since I've arrived, so I ran over to the window and looked outside (course, this was a 20 minute process because I had to eat some breakfast and gather my strength) and bless my lucky stars, I think I saw the remains of a cloud! I heard you often don't see phenomenons such as this until at least December! Too bad my camera battery was still charging. Oh well.

Yesterday I went to church twice more. That makes a grand total of three identical church services in a row. I don't know how pastors do it. I mean, the jokes weren't even that good the first time... I can't remember if I've mentioned the setting of the church, so I guess I'll do that now. Maadi Community Church is an international church, so it is English speaking, and contains people from every nook and cranny of the world. The pastoral staff of this church includes people from Canada, US, Great Britain, and Australia. The church services take place beneath a large canopy in a couryard outside of an Anglican church. During church services, soldiers line the outer walls of the courtyard and stand guard. I'd take a picture for you, but we're not allowed to take pictures of soldiers here. They have big guns (most people here do... it's not uncommon to walk home and pass at least 5 guards of some sort with AK-47s). Anyways, there are about 10-15 soldiers that surround the church during services. Other than that, I think the church service is fairly similar to any other church I've been to.

Yesterday evening, three families and us interns took the metro downtown where we hopped on a felucca to sail the Nile during the sunset. Many of the feluccas downtown are quite cheesy (to remind you, a felucca is simply a sailboat type thing on the Nile). These chessy fellucas have got Egyptian music blaring from their speakers, they've got neon lights lining the tops of them, and fancy seats. They kind of remind me of those cars that are all decked out with chrome and lights and hydraulics. I half expected these feluccas to start hopping up and down in the water like those cars with the ridiculous hyraulics. I bet pretty soon they'll have a hit reality show called "Pimp My Felucca". Thank goodness we didn't get one of those feluccas.

Anyhoo, here's a picture from our felucca sunset:

A Plea for Snail Mail

My dear friends and family, word has it that after prolonged absences from one's home environment one might become what some refer to as "homesick". Now you wouldn't want that to happen to me, would you?? In an effort to keep me healthy and happy, Dr. Me prescribes everyone to write me snail mail as often as is humanly possible. Packages may not be feasable, as they are expensive to send, are often opened and tampered with, and can have heavy duty fees associated with them... but a simple letter or postcard would be very much appreciated!

So, when you find yourself sitting around with little to do, pull out a piece of paper, and maybe an envelope too! Then you could write me a poem, a story, or maybe just say "Morning glory!" It's the happiest way, to pass through your day. Just give a quick lick, and keep me from getting sick!

My mailing address is as simple as this:

Maadi Community Church
c/o Ryan Monson
Box 218
Maadi, Cairo, Egypt

In other news, my appetite has finally returned. I've been pretty weak for the past couple days because I haven't been able to eat much. I think I'm almost better, though. I hope I don't jinx it by saying that. Anyways, this morning I talked to a lady about tutoring me in Arabic. My first session will be next Monday at 9am in front of St. Mark's Coptic church, which I have been trying to find ever since I got here!! Apparently St. Athanasius is buried there. Cooool! Soon enough I'll be fluent in Arabic and you'll have to get a translater to translate my blogs for you. Now, I've got church starting shortly, so I must be off! Salaam!

ps. Jeremy Dyck is paying me $5 to include his name in this post. So what if I'm a sellout? I need the money.

One Week Anniversary

Today Heidi and I both woke up sick. It's been a full day of wierd stomach and lightheadedness. Just got up from a long nap and I feel pretty gross. Apparently this day was inevitable, and not only that, I should expect more days like these over the next couple months. Boy oh boy!

And on the Seventh Day He Worked

Today was a fairly 'normal' day for me. It was probably the first day that John didn't have anything planned for the interns... well, aside from our day off, I suppose. But today wasn't a day off. We went into our offices and set things up a little. Heidi and I went out and bought some supplies for our office. We also had lunch at a place called the Fino Diner. It was pretty good. Cost about $2USD for a meal. Fairly typical here. Eating out is so cheap that you tend to do it at least once a day. Some say it's actually cheaper than eating at home. Man, I'm starving right now. I'm gonna go eat some supper before continuing this.

Ok, I'm not hungry anymore, but I'm super tired. Maybe after I get some sleep I'll continue this.

Ok, I'm too sick to blog now. Looks like I finally got the loose bowel movements and such.

An Oasis in the Desert

I'm proud to say that today I rode my circus bike (have I mentioned it is way too small for me?) all the way to church all by myself. It's true. I navigated the maze of streets, dodged traffic, and made it to the church alive and on time! I was pretty proud. Today was a long and tiring day for Heidi and I. We drove out to a part of New Cairo with the pastoral staff and were welcomed to our destination with huge white letters (much like the Hollywood letters) that read "MIRAGE CITY". Inside was a super luxurious hotel and golf resort. While the pastors had a conference in the golf resort, Heidi and I spent the day at the hotel's outdoor water park. The hotel was ridiculously plush. People were standing everywhere to help you with every conceivable thing you could think of. I could probably ask a guy to clip my toenails and he'd do it. Anyways, I don't like swimming, so I pretty much just lounged all day long and read George Orwell's '1984'. For lunch, we met up with the pastors in the golf resort and ate in the sports pub. It was pretty good food, but most of the conversation was regarding a bomb that went off in Egypt's Sinai region a few minutes earlier. It wasn't anything too bad, but we didn't know it at the time. If you like, you can read more about it here. All in all, the hotel experience seemed very odd. Although we were in the middle of a desert, the whole area was a lush green. Although everything surrounding this area was run down and poor, this campus was full of luxury. It seemed wrong, in a way. That just goes to show the gap in classes throughout Egypt. There is pretty much no middle class. People are typically lower class, or upper class, not in between. It's pretty hard to get used to that fact.


Here is a picture of a pool that sits beside the waterpark. The waterpark consisted of an outdoor wavepool, complete with a sandy beach, waterfall, fountains and everything else you could imagine!


This picture sort of demonstrates the clash of rich and poor in Egypt

On the way home from the JW Mariott hotel, we passed a cargo truck of some sort that was rolled on its side. A number of men were running towards it, and another man was standing on the side of it trying to open the door to get the driver out. It was at this point that pastor Larry Boss pointed out that there is something like 60 traffic casulties A DAY in the city of Cairo. Further research on the internet pointed out that the country of Egypt has the highest rate of traffic fatalities per miles driven than any other place in the world. Makes you feel safe, doesn't it?

Later that day, all of the pastors and their spouses (and us interns) went to Larry Boss' house for dinner. We ate Italian there and it was quite good. Ahh, one thing I have to get used to is how you greet one another here in Egypt. Sure, shaking hands is ok, but the proper way to greet someone is to lightly hug them and to touch both of your cheeks to each of their cheeks, and make a kissing sound as you do it. So it looks like you're kissing them on both cheeks, but you're actually just coming very close to it without actually doing it. I think it will definately take some getting used to for me. I also need to make sure I shave regularly or else people will never say hello to me. Hmm, perhaps that's not such a bad thing. Back to the story, though. After dinner, the group surprised Heidi and I with a game where they asked us questions about the other person and we had to answer them. For instance, I would be asked how Heidi likes to be treated when she is sick. Heidi would be asked how many siblings I have and what they do for a living. Things like that. It was pretty funny. I made up a lot of my answers. All in all, though, the pastoral team is a great group of people who will be lots of fun to work with. Once again, this looks to be an enjoyable year!

Downtown Cairo

Today's adventure consisted of heading downtown to the government buildings so we could get our one year tourist visas. I must say, the Metro subway gets a whole lot busier when you get closer to downtown! It was hot, stinky, and crowded... and that was before we got to the government building. When we got inside the government building, it was worse than inside the Metro! Everything was so intense that it seemed like something out of a movie. First we walked through a series of metal detectors and security checks. Then we dove into the seas of people surging from every direction. After climbing some stairs, we arrived on a floor that was one huge corridor of windows decorated with crowds of people fighting to get to them. Behind each window were government workers providing various tasks for everyone. In order to get my visa, I had to get a bunch of stamps from one of the windows. In North America, you would simply form a line in front of one of these windows and wait to be served. Not here in Egypt! Egyptians do not understand the concept of lines. I had to jump into a group of stinky, yelling men so I could fight my way to the window. I found the method that worked best was to stick out my chest and elbows and make myself as tall and sturdy was possible so that I intimidated everyone around me and kept them from budding in front of me. Eventually I made it to the window (the whole time other men were still shoving their money through the window, demanding service) and got my stamps. At first the lady didn't give me change, so I kept standing there and asked for my change. She tried helping a few other people to get rid of me, but after I stood there for a while, she grabbed the rest of my change for me. They always try to shortchange you in this culture. After waiting for an hour or two, we finally recieved our passports back. We were quite glad to get out of that dark, depressing building.


This is a picture of what I eat for breakfast each day. I think it's kind of funny.



This is part of downtown Cairo. I got reprimanded by a government official for taking this picture because I was standing on government property when I took it.

The Trek to Coptic Cairo

Today was my greatest adventure thus far. Heidi and I took the Metro (subway/LRT type train) up to Coptic Cairo. We went all by ourselves so we could get used to finding our way around Cairo and interacting with the culture. It was quite the enjoyable experience. First we went to the Roman towers and explored there for about an hour. It was unlike any tourist attraction in North America. Heidi and I were pretty much the only ones walking around it. Nothing was artificially lit, so it was necessary to bring a flashlight for parts of it (which we didn't have). So we stumled through a few dark passageways, and avoided the ones that had weird squeaking animal noises coming from them. There were some really neat places inside the roman towers. It wasn't too photo-worthy, though, because it was fairly dark for most of it. Just imagine exploring an abandoned castle, and that's what it was like for us. You can check out my Coptic Cairo Photo Album for pictures of most of the sights mentioned in this blog entry.

After the Roman Towers, we made our way over to the Monastery of St George and the Church of St George. I don't know who he was, but apparently he was a good guy. I think he was probably a martyr or something like that. We didn't have a tour guide, and we don't speak Arabic yet, so we only knew what our Lonely Planet guides told us about each place. They looked neat, though! After that we went into a massive graveyard area with all these really fancy graves, some of which I have in the Coptic Cairo Photo Album. Some of the graves look like fancy miniature houses or shrines or something, but they are indeed graves. Following the graveyard, we walked through a bunch of small alleyways and passageways around Old Cairo. There were a lot of annoying white tourists walking around them, so we tried to find cooler, unpopular passageways. We didn't want to be seen as the typical ignorant and annoying tourist. Some of them were wearing very revealing shorts and tank tops, which are very offensive to this culture. Both men and women are expected to wear long pants, or ankle length skirts/dresses.

Eventually we moved away from Old Cairo into the surrounding culture which was all Egyptians, and less tourist friendly. We ate "fool" at a tiny little street vendor in a small alley. Fool is similar to re-fried beans mixed with oil, garlic, and other spices. It is a paste that is often placed inside of pita-type bread, they call it "local bread" in Arabic. I'm not even going to attempt to spell the Arabic words for it. I had two of those, and it cost me only two egyptian pounds, which is about 30 cents, US. We probably could've gotten it even cheaper if we tried, but it seemed so low that we didn't bother.

Following our lunch we visited the Mosque of Amr, which is a direct decendant (which means it's been added to from the original form) of Egypt's first ever mosque, built in 641. To enter this building, we had to remove our shoes, and Heidi had to wear a green robe that they gave her. She had to cover her head and walk around looking at the ground. She said she felt a lot more comfortable doing that. We went there during one of the daily prayer times, so there were a lot of people in there, and only one other woman that we saw. I didn't want to look rude by taking pictures, even though they seemed all right with me taking my camera in, so I held it at my waist and snapped a couple photos. These are also available in the photo album. Outside of the mosque, we found an odd looking garden that was located beside a very poor area. There were lots of cats and dogs running around, and children that were begging us for money. It's pretty sad to see areas like these that reek of gargabe and sewage. One man, Ahmed, joined us as we walked through the garden. He sort of directed us as to where to go, and kept us from doing anything stupid or culturally insensitive. We gave him some baksheesh for doing that. Baksheesh is Arabic for "tip" or something like that. Everyone demands baksheesh, even when they don't do anything! Ahmed didn't even ask us for any, which is why we were happy to give him some. Everyone was always so happy to hear that we were Canadian, so they would be much nicer to us (Heidi would tell people she was Canadian because Canadians are treated much better than Americans). There were many checkpoints that we would have to walk through where armed gaurds would look through people's bags. When they saw that I was Canadian, they would flag me through without even looking in our bags. So, even though everyone makes fun of me for saying "Eh?" and "Aboot", I'm happy to be a Canadian.

After meeting Ahmed, we had a very enjoyable encounter with an Egyptian shopkeeper. (I apologize for the length of this blog, but it seems like so much happened today) As we walked by his shop, he ran out and asked me if I spoke good English (which I guess is kind of funny if you think about the grammer, but hey). I told him yes, and he begged me to come into his store to do a favor for him. I was a little reluctant because I thought it was just a ploy to get us to buy some stuff, but I'm all about going on adventures these days, so I followed him inside. He had me sit down on a stool, then he handed me a postcard and asked if I would write a letter for him. He said that he could speak 17 languages (one of them being English), but couldn't read or write those languages. He went on to tell us that his wife had a baby girl the previous night and he wanted to write to his South African friend to tell them the good news. So he dictated a short letter to me, and then signed it. After that, he made us tea and coffee (Heidi and a Turkish coffee, which is really small and potent, and I had some Egyptian tea which was also very tasty). After our tea, he excitedly told us more about his family and how happy he was to meet us. He told us that in celebration of having his baby daughter, he would allow my wife and I (Heidi is always called my wife, when asked, because women are respected when they are married) to pick out one item each, and he would sell it to us for the factory price. I thought that was clearly a ploy to get us to buy something, but I thought it would be neat to have a little keepsake to remember this man by. Eventually I picked out a cat carved out of stone. He said it was worth $20US, but because I helped him out, and he was celebrating his daughter's birth, he was going to sell it to me for 80 Egyptian Pounds. I was pretty sure that was an inflated price because I'm white or something, so I had fun bartering with him. Eventually I got him down to 10 pounds! That is less than $2US. I was pretty pleased with myself. Then he had one of his assistants take pictures of us with him. He insisted that we bring back copies of them that he could display in his house. He said that when we return, we can have lunch with him and his new family. He gave us his card and address and everything, so that was kind of neat. For the most part, he appeared to be a very genuine guy, aside from his salesman tactics. At long last we said goodbye to our friend, and carried on with our adventure.

Next up, we crossed over the Nile and visited the Nilometer. I know that sounds like something out of a comic book, but it's actually an ancient stone contraption that was used to measure the depth of the Nile. The man who was showing it to us didn't speak very much English, but from what I gather, when the river rose higher, the Pharaoh would raise taxes, and when it went down, the Pharaoh would lower taxes. All the holes in it are plugged now, so you can actually walk down these stone steps to the base of the Nilometer so you are actually standing at what would be the bottom of the Nile. It was kind of freaky walking down the steps because it was so far down, and the steps were narrow and worn and there were no railings. We made it out alive, though. After walking around this island in the Nile a bit more, we walked to the closest Metro station and headed back to our part of Cairo.

Once home, we had a family over who has a few of their children in our youth group. We ate some wonderful homemade Mexican food and played CatchPhrase. It was an all around great day. It's past midnight now, so I really need to get sleep. We're waking up early and going to the US and possibly Canadian embassy tomorrow to get our Visas (we only have 30 day tourist visas at this point). So now I must say goodnight to you.

The Day of the Sabbath

Hello again! Today is Friday, the Sabbath day in Egypt. I went to church last night and this morning. Church is pretty much the same as North American church, only it takes place outdoors beneath a tent-type structure. The noticed the worship music seemed a bit behind the times. Lots of 80's songs. I found that sort of odd since most of the other styles and trends that are common in North America seem to have found their way to the expatriots of Maadi (expatriots are foreigners, such as myself). Anyways, at church Heidi and I were brought up front and welcomed. We had to say a few words, which I always hate doing cause I never have much to say to large groups of people. Oh well, I guess that's something I'll have to get used to. At least I wasn't nervous! I don't know why, but I wasn't. Probably too tired to be nervous. Anyways, we shook a lot of hands and were introduced to a ton of people. Very friendly folks here. Too bad I don't remember anyone's names.

After church today, Heidi and I ditched the youth pastor and went out for lunch with a bunch of the students. It was a lot of fun. We were all being really noisy and rambunctious. At first I thought we were gonna get kicked out, but then the waiters started joining in and fooling around with us. Then the manager came out, and I thought everyone was gonna get in trouble... but no! Even he joined in and started throwing cup lids around and stuff. It was hilarious. I had a pretty awkward moment there, though. See, I was teaching the kids how to make a rose out of a paper napkin, and then one of them dared me to give the rose to the waiter. I'm all about gaining acceptance from these guys, so I did it. Unfortunately, I think I now know that Egyptians can be gay too. The guy was so happy to get it from me that he got me to sign it. At first I thought it was just cause I was a crazy white guy, but then every time he saw us afterwards, he WINKED at me and gave me an odd seemingly more than friendly smile. Not only that, but he also started waving at me and bringing his friends out and whispering to them and pointing at me and stuff. Everyone else got a good laugh out of it. When it came time to pay, he made me come to the back to pay before anyone else. I thought it was just a prank all the students were playing on me, but they were just as wierded out by it as me. Anyways, I paid and got out of there as fast as I could.

I don't have much else planned for today. I hope to take my camera and to go exploring a little bit. If I do, I'll be sure to post some of the pictures here.

Day 2 in Egypt

Today John, Heidi and I (we make up the youth staff at Maadi Community Church), grabbed our bikes and treked around our area of the city, familiarizing ourselves with various stores and landmarks that we will make use of over the next year. Biking here, much like the driving, is completely insane. When driving around the city, there are lines on the road, but they don't mean anything. There are no stop signs at any intersections, and the odd stop lights are nothing more than mere decorations. People do not use their signal lights, they simply honk and move over. So when you ride your bike around, this is the kind of madness that you are riding your bike through. There is no such thing as a "right of way" and you don't ride your bike on the sidewalk, so you pretty much just have to fight your way through the traffic and try not to get hit. As if that isn't enough, the church makes us wear helmets while we ride our bikes, and my bike is too small, so we just look like a couple of circus freaks and everyone stares at us as we ride by. At one point, we crossed to the other side of some train tracks, and it was as if we were in another world. Everything was a lot more slum-like, and if we stopped, people would flock to us and hold onto our bikes to try to get money from us and stuff. It was interesting to see the contrast in cultures with just a set of train tracks separating them.

Tonight we will have church (Thursday night church is the equivalent of Saturday night services in North America) and tomorrow (Friday) we will have our main church services. Heidi and I have to get up and say a few words, so that'll be interesting. I'll let you know how it goes, and maybe I'll get a few pictures as well.

Day 1 in Egypt

My first full day in Egypt started off at 7am. I was allowed to sleep until 11:30 or so, but because of my jet-lag, I couldn’t sleep past 7. At noon, us youth staff went out for “American” food, which consisted of pop, French fries, and burgers. It tasted pretty similar to Canadian food, only they used beef bacon instead of pig, and the potatoes in the fries tasted a bit different.

From there, John took Heidi and I to this fairly busy street called Road 9. He dropped us off and told us to explore for an hour and then meet up with him again. It was very interesting walking around that street, especially when you were super tired like we were. Many people were very friendly, but mostly because they wanted us to buy their stuff. From time to time beggars would come up to us and try and get us to give them money. They’re a lot pushier than beggars in Canada. These people, often women and children, will follow you around and keep trying to get money from you. Walking into a shop is the only way to get them off your back, it seems.

After acquainting ourselves with the various goods available for purchase here in Cairo, we went over to the church to check out our offices and meet some of the staff. While we were at the church, some people came running in and grabbed the pastors because there was an accident on the street. We all ran over to the car, which just had a policeman standing in front of it not doing anything. As we looked inside it, there was a man who was having a seizure or something odd like that. It was kind of frightening to watch, especially when you realize that emergency services in Cairo are nothing like those in place in North America. The policeman didn’t seem to do much of anything, he just stood in front of the car watching. The whole time we stood beside the car, people just drove by honking, which meant they had an empty taxi cab for us.

After that excitement, we hurriedly drove over to the Nile River! We parked on the side of a really busy road and had to cross it to get to the Nile. There are no such thing as crosswalks, here in Cairo, so you just have to pretend it’s a game of Frogger. You wait for a bit of a gap in traffic, and walk across. Never run, just walk. It was kind of intimidating to think about at first, but we made it. On the other side of the road, we met up with a bunch of the youth and then got onto a felucca (sail boat type thing) and sailed around the Nile for an hour or so. We had tons of fun on that trip. The students in this youth group are very accepting and easy to get along with.

From the Nile, we took taxis back to John’s place. Just like John told me earlier that day, when you don’t want a taxi, taxis are plentiful (like at the accident earlier that day), but when you do want one, there are no empty ones to be found! It took us at least 10 minutes to hail an empty taxi, but hey, it was a neat experience.

Once we got to John’s apartment, even more students showed up! We just hung out for a bit and then watched Secondhand Lions. Eventually everyone left and I was finally able to get the sleep I had been craving since lunchtime. Now here I am Thursday morning, I woke up at 5am. We shall see what adventures are in store for today!


Our felluca-master


The sail of our felluca


Pastor John Tucker


Sunset on the Nile

First Impressions

Well I have to say that my first journey through the city of Cairo, Egypt seemed quite surreal to me. I arrived here in Egypt around midnight Tuesday night (So Wednesday morning, technically) after beginning my journey from Calgary on Monday afternoon. Since this was only my second time ever being on an airplane, I had great difficulties in falling asleep while flying. Because of this, I made it all the way to Wednesday without getting any sleep. So that sets the stage for my arrival in Cairo.

Once in Cairo, Heidi (the other intern) and I were met by John Tucker, the youth pastor at the church we’ll be working with. Along with him were his wife, and a few of the kids from the youth group. They made welcome cards for us and signed them and stuff, so that was pretty cool. They seemed like really fun people and I’m sure they’ll be a blast to work with. But of course, I was running on zero sleep when I met them, so I could just be imagining how cool they were. Haha, just kidding.

The surreal part of the journey began when we got into the car. You see, in Cairo, lines on the road are just a suggestion. Realistically speaking, they mean nothing! Two lanes very easily become four, depending on the widths of the cars. You don’t necessarily drive directly behind the person in front of you, either. Instead you stagger the car so you can see around them and possibly even squeeze by them! As we drove, I couldn’t believe people weren’t crashing into each other one after another. It seemed kind of like watching a herd of cattle get through a gate. You can’t exactly tell the cattle to go two by two; they just kinda do what they want. Such is the case with driving in Cairo.

Another thing I found interesting about the drive to Maadi (the part of Cairo where I will be living) was the scenery along the way. Many of the buildings seemed quite similar to the shabby quality that you see in movies set in Russia: lots of clotheslines and cracked walls and such. The part that made it seem really odd were the palm trees lining the roads. The palm trees made it feel like it should be all luxurious like Hollywood or something, but the buildings in some areas made it look almost like the slums. It was certainly an odd juxtaposition.

It is just after 10am Wednesday morning now, and I’m feeling very sleepy, but not tired enough to sleep. As soon as John wakes up, I think we’re going to go out for lunch, and then the youth group is riding falluccas down the Nile. Falluccas, which I have no idea how to spell, are sailboats that are used on the Nile. I’ll be sure to post some pictures when I get back from all that stuff! So, goodbye for now.

The Journey to Cairo

The first leg of my flight was from Calgary to Toronto. This was my second time ever flying, and my second time not getting any food during the flight. I guess they switched planes at the last minute and somehow the food didn’t make it on or something. While on this flight, I had the responsibility of manning the emergency exit. I felt pretty important. This flight had 12 different TV/Movie channels.

The Toronto airport was pretty crazy. I had to go OUTSIDE of the airport and get onto a bus to get to the portion of the airport I was supposed to be at. Nobody prepared me for this. I figured the airport personnel were getting together and playing a prank on me or something. “Let’s get that newbie flyer to miss his next flight!” Well anyways, I got on a bus, and although I’m pretty sure it just went in a circle, I somehow ended up at the right place. Those crazy Torontonians are pranksters, I tell ya!

Next up was the Toronto to London (England) flight. During this flight, we were actually fed! It was kind of weird at first. I was so used to never getting fed on planes that I assumed the food was only for the people in first class. Out on nowhere, though, a stewardess came up to me and asked “Chicken or salmon?” I wasn’t sure if she was calling me names or what, so I coolly responded, “Chicken?” with a confused look on my face. Then out of nowhere she pulls out this freshly prepared chicken feast for me! After eating I kept waiting for the bill, but it never came. Sometimes you just get lucky! Then again, a few minutes later I was informed that we were going to have to make an emergency landing because one of the passengers was “unwell”. So yeah, we landed in St. John’s, Newfoundland, an ambulance came and picked someone up, we got some more fuel, and then a couple hours later we were flying again. This flight had 33 different TV/Movie channels.

The last portion of my journey to Cairo was the London to Cairo flight. For some reason I expected this flight to be long and treacherous, but it was actually only 4 hours long! There was a pretty nifty channel on the TV that allowed you to view a real-time map of where we were. It even showed which direction the plane was pointed! Pretty cool stuff. I was watching this channel when the plane took off, and I noticed that we were pointed North when we took off. I’m not a geography buff, but I was smart enough to know that Cairo is probably not North of London. I was thinking of knocking on the door of the cockpit and helping these poor Brits out with navigating, but the fasten seatbelt sign was still on. By the time the seatbelt sign went out, they figured out which direction to fly. This flight also had 33 TV/Movie channels and a number of enjoyable audio channels as well, not to mention food. I had lamb. I think I like chicken better, but hey, it was interesting.

I would like to point out one more thing: Throughout all those flights, I still don’t think I’ve been through customs. I’m in Cairo now, and I’m pretty sure I’m out of the airport, and yet I still don’t recall going through this dreaded “customs” everyone always talks about. I simply picked up my luggage and left. I wonder if I took a wrong turn or something… oops.

I'm off to Egypt now!!

Just a quick note to let all of you know that I am beginning the trek to Egypt today! Check back often and I'll update this as soon as I have an opportunity to use the internet again. I will miss each you. Ok, bye!

Time for Surgery

I went to the walk-in clinic today because my foot has been hurting for a couple months now. You see, I stepped on a large shard of glass 2 months ago, and it's been hurting ever since. At first, I assumed it was simply because the wound was still healing. But after two months of supposed "healing," my foot still hurt. So that's how I ended up at the walk-in clinic. After waiting in the aptly named waiting room for 3 hours, I finally got to see a doctor. I was with him for little more than 30 seconds before I was out the door driving to some x-ray place. In the x-ray room, there were two ladies working the machine, and they were laughing and joking with eachother, having a good ol' time. I was kinda worried they'd get so carried away laughing that they'd accidentally zap my future children away. I don't really know how this radiation machine works... I just know it can't be too good for you. Anyways, after waiting around there for a while, I got the x-rays back and drove back to the walk-in clinic. Once there, I marched past all the sick and depressed people waiting around for hours on end. I noticed a few people sitting there who were waiting there back when I was still waiting to be seen. Good ol Alberta health! Anyways, the doctor took a look at my x-rays and pointed out a shard of glass that was still in my foot. He suggested he operate on my foot and simply cut that little piece of glass out. Easy as pie. Well, he made it sound quite easy, at least. But after digging around in my foot for nearly half an hour, spurting blood and other juices all over the place, he came to the conclusion that he was unable to find the shard of glass. The whole time I was lying on my stomach, staring at a plain white wall. What a boring wall. Anyways, the guy just stitched me up and sent me on my way. He said sometime within the next year the glass should work its way out of my foot. Nice, eh? Anyways, I've just got a few stitches there, in addition to a shard of glass. So now I'm walking worse than I was before going to the doctor, and I still have the glass in my foot. I can't wait to get out of this ridiculous country!

Booooooring!

Some people have pointed out that this blog is somwhat boring thus far. Perhaps I should point something out: I HAVEN'T LEFT THE COUNTRY YET!! Soon and very soon I will make my way to Egypt and this blog will be on FIRE with excitment. Take for instance a simple thing such as flying to Egypt: To get there, I will be flying to Toronto where a plane has recently crash landed. After that, I will be flying to London, which has had its share of explosive excitement lately. After that, I am bound for Egypt, which again, hasn't exactly been the most boring place in the news as of late. So don't you worry, folks, the adventures are about to begin!

Here are some extreme sporting adventures I intend to go on over the next year:

Camel Racing
Sand Boarding
Walking barefoot on the sand
Fishing on the Nile
Walking around outside wearing only a t-shirt on Christmas day (and pants, of course)