Uncle Ryan

From time to time there are certain things that I have been required to do that were not included in the description of my internship. Today another one of these instances arose. As you may recall in a previous post, the youth pastors wife was in labour on Saturday. Naturally that means that by now, there is a baby who has joined the scene. Let me tell you something about myself: I don't like babies! Babies are loud. Babies are annoying. Babies are nothing but work. All they do is poop, puke, and cry. So there you have it, babies suck.

So what is it here that wasn't a part of my ministry description? Well! Let me tell you! This morning we had our youth meeting at the youth pastor's house because his wife had a C-section and can't yet handle the baby on her own. So I get to his house, and as much as I was hoping the baby was out on the balcony or something (people get outdoor dogs, why not outdoor babies too?) there it was, sitting in Heidi's arms. Now, I go and sit down as faaar away as possible from this ticking time-bomb, but wouldn't you know it, everyone else thinks that I deserve to hold this little ball of slobber and skin. No matter how much I tell these people I don't want to hold the thing, they keep coming towards me with it. Next thing I know, I have this nasty little poop-machine sitting in my arms. As if that isn't bad enough, they start calling me UNCLE Ryan! Dissssgusting! I sat there awkwardly holding it, trying to figure out which way to dive if it blows up with barf or who knows what, and everyone else sat around saying how good I look with it and how many girlfriends I would get if I just carried it around with me. So there I sat, not knowing what to do with it. You don't pet it, it's got no fur! You don't play with it, it's too dumb to fetch. So I just sat, counting the seconds until my internship was over and I could go home. Well, at long last, the youth pastor came along and took the little mess away from me. I feel like I'm a stronger person, having lived through that experience. But I also feel like I never need to experience it again. It's kind of like falling off the roof of a house and living to talk about it. You feel good that you lived through it, but you don't feel the need to do it again. Now that I've successfully lived through this experience, allow me to impart some wisdom to those of you who do not know as much as me (I am somewhat of a connoisseur in the area of babies now):

1. All babies are cute. No matter how much they resemble your butt, for some reason you still say they're cute.
2. Babies are not footballs. Although you hold them in a manner that is similar to cradling a football, babies are not as resiliant as a football. Babies do not do well when you throw them towards the ground and do a funky little dance (I do not speak from experience, here, I'm just so knowledgable about babies that I know this information)
3. Babies are ticking time-bombs. If you are planning on holding a baby, prepare yourself by covering your body with a garbage bag or a raincoat. It's only a matter of time before something spews from some orifice of the baby.
4. Don't expect much. Babies are boring. They don't DO anything. As I alluded to earlier, a football is a much wiser investment.
5. Stay away from babies. Babies are good for nothing but making you feel awkward. As if we don't have enough awkward situations in our lives already. I know I do.

In summation, babies are bad, and nobody should ever have one. There you have it, folks! These 5 simple steps should save you a lot of money, and probably get you out of a few lawsuits as well. I hope you enjoy these rules as much as I enjoy holding a puppy in my arms (*sidenote* puppies are good).

Ok, moving on... let me tell you a little more about the Egyptian culture that I'm living in.

Sometimes a youth event will require a trash can full of ice to keep the beverages cold. In Canada, you might stop by a store and buy a couple bags of ice and dump them into the trash can. Not here in Egypt. Well, you can, but it's way more expensive to do it that way. You can also fill a bunch of ice cube trays and dump them into the bucket, but that's a lot of work, and a lot of ice cube trays (not to mention it requires the use of a freezer). So what is a guy to do if he wants a bucket full of ice? Well, here's what I usually do.
I grab a big plastic garbage can from the church, and hop into a taxi. After a short ride, we arrive at a fairly busy road that is packed with all sorts of shops. Among the shops is a little shaded metal shack. It looks as though it's made out of corrogated metal roofing material... or whatever it's called. You know, the wavy metal sheets? Whatever, it doesn't matter! So there's a shack standing there, but there's never a guy standing there. So you just start yelling "ICE!! ICE!!!" and look to see if anyone comes running. Usually people will shout back the location of the ICE MAN. Then you go look for the ICE MAN, and upon finding him, head back to the metal ice shack. At that point, you tell him that you want the... oh wait, this is me doing everything, not you. At that point, I tell him that I want the bucket filled with crushed ice. He then opens up a flap of the metal shack where there are stacks of massive ice blocks just chillin out. He pulls out those massive ice blocks one by one and then grabs a sledge hammer and bashes them to bits. It's fairly refreshing if you're standing within 10 meters of him... kinda feels like it's snowing or something. Actually, the sledge hammer broke when he was crushing ice for us one time, so now he's moved on to an ice pick. Now he just stabs the ice into little pieces. This is fairly entertaining to watch, and even seems like it would be somewhat therapeutic if I were to try it. Anyways, after the bucket is filled with bashed and stabbed ice, I hand the man 10 pounds and then hop into another taxi. Taxis often charge you more when you have a trash can full of ice. One guy seemed quite distraught over the ring of water it left on his ratty old seat, even though we could pretty much watch the ring evaporate before our very eyes in the sweltering heat. But yeah, that's how Uncle Ryan gets his ice. Interesting side note: This bucket of ice makes for a great game at youth group when things are winding down and people are looking for more action. You simply stick your entire arm into the bucket of ice water at the same time as another person, and see who can endure the pain the longest. Now, usually this game works quite well... but last week the water was at such a temperature that it didn't hurt enough to take out our arms, but was so cold that it actually froze the muscles in our arms. It was quite an interesting sensation, and after 20 minutes, we decided to call it a tie game. It tooks a good half hour before we could feel our arms again. My contender was a girl from Germany, so I picked up a bit of German while we played our game. Now, it appears as though this blog entry is starting to ramble on, so I should really bring it to a close and get to work. Ma Salaam!