Apple Pie = Coffee

Ever since I arrived in Egypt, people have constantly been pressuring me to drink coffee. Everyone here seems to rely on the stuff to get them through their days, and they seem to think that I should also rely on it as well. I hate the thought of having to rely on something (especially something as disgusting as coffee) to get me through the day. In related news, my host family can cook up a mean apple pie. How is this related, you ask? Well, after tasting the first apple pie, and deeming it ‘better than good,’ I told them that I would drink a cup of coffee next time we had apple pie. Now, this was of course said in jest because I didn’t really expect another apple pie to surface as early as it did. But, to my horror, upon returning from the weekend retreat there sat an apple pie welcoming me home. I figured that after such a tiring weekend, this would be the perfect opportunity to gulp down a cup of burnt cowpie, commonly known as coffee. So, after struggling to stay awake until 8pm, the cups of coffee came out. They made me Dutch coffee, which is apparently better than the average cup of sludge. While gulping it down, I decided it wasn’t too too horribly terrible. At the very least it would give me the energy to stay up until a decent hour. After finishing my cup of coffee at 8:30pm, I read one more page my book and called it a night. Apparently even the power of caffeine couldn’t keep me awake after successfully living through our first weekend retreat.

The theme of the weekend was “Too Legit to Quit.” So, naturally, I had to get up in front of everyone and lip sync to MC Hammer while dancing around like a white boy. FACT: MC Hammer is black. It’s unbelievable how long 2 minutes and 40 seconds will last when you’re dancing frantically beside a fire in the desert of Egypt. Prior to that, I hosted an episode of Japan Idol during the dinner meal. Interestingly enough, I also won at Japan idol (yes, I competed in it as well). Other characters I played during the weekend were: a French guy who recited poetry about toast (French toast), a conceited Texan, and a guy who could burp really loud. Seeing that this is an international church setting, we really had to go out of our way to successfully offend everyone in the youth group. Unfortunately the Crocodile hunter never even made an appearance.

One of the funniest parts of the weekend was when four of us North Americans (two guys and two girls) set up a water balloon assembly line in the men’s public bathroom. As we began making water balloons, some of the country club staff members came in and decided to help us. None of them spoke English, and none of us spoke Arabic, but we exchanged names and shared a lot of laughter and fun despite the language barrier. Here were four North Americans with three or four Egyptian men, filling water balloons in the middle of a men’s bathroom. It was quite the sight for sore eyes. The worst part was, after filling two garbage cans full of water balloons, we played a game that used all of them up… and an hour or two later, we were back there filling up even MORE water balloons for our big game of the weekend: The Quest for Fire. In this game (which we played in the pitch dark), we had two bonfires going on opposite ends of the desert, and the two teams had to put out each other’s fires with waterballoons. It was a lot of work for us leaders (since it was my idea, I got to oversee the whole thing), but I think the students enjoyed it. Any game that has fire involved has to be a hit! After the game ended, and my stress subsided, some of the high school guys ran up to me and threw me into the pool. Although I was fully clothed, I actually enjoyed it for the 30 seconds that I floated around in there. Nice and refreshing, though it did feel weird wearing socks in a pool. Other than that, the weekend was quite a frenzy of business mixed with fun. Maybe I'll have some pictures for you later if I get some good ones from people. I was too busy to take any myself.