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!