Uncle Ryan – Part II

If you are a regular reader of my blog you have probably read my ‘Uncle Ryan’ entry from mid-September. If you haven’t, I’d suggest you read it RIGHT NOW, before continuing on with this post. It has been the most highly acclaimed entry I have written to date. I would guess that this is because, deep down, everyone agrees wholeheartedly with me on what I said. Well, whether you agreed with what I said or not, it is time for me to update you on baby related business in my life.

A few weeks after writing my ‘Uncle Ryan’ entry, I received an email from my sister Holly. Here’s an abridged excerpt of it for you: “blah blah blah, I’m pregnant.” Now at first I was thinking, “Wow, I wonder what our parents think about this…” but then I remembered, “She’s married. Getting pregnant is supposed to happen.” Soon I began working this out logically in my head and got to thinking about what terrible news this was for me: Unless I’m mistaken, in only a few months time I am going to be a REAL uncle, not just some dude nicknamed ‘Uncle’. The next part of the email confirmed those fears: “blah blah blah, you’re going to be an uncle!!!” Great. My logic wasn’t flawed after all.

After reading that email from Holly, I couldn’t help but notice how ironic it was that I had received that news just then. You see, that very day my host family took their cat (also named Holly) in to the vet to get ‘fixed’. I think the Dutch actually call it ‘sabotaged’. Whatever you call it, this little kitty can no longer make babies. I don’t know about you, but I found this pretty ironic.

Dream - Part II

There are a great many visual details in the dream I mentioned two entries ago. Most of the imagery in this dream parallel the sights and sounds of the country of Egypt! Today I am going to go through some of the elements of the dream and explain how each detail parallels images or experiences I have encountered since arriving in Egypt.

If you recall the description of my dream, it began with me moving through an area covered in water with the remains of cement buildings protruding from the water. The picture of these rundown, collapsed cement buildings is one that can be seen literally all around the city of Cairo, which I think may be where the thought of these came from. The water can actually be seen as sand, with the water simply being a mirage on top of the sand. Thus, this first scene of my dream where I am moving through the flooded landscape of ruins actually mirrors the trip I took from the airport upon arriving here in Cairo. As we drove through the city on my first night, I was sort of in a dreamlike state on the way to our house. I stared out the windows at all these foreign sights and sounds of Cairo. Everything moved slowly past me (just as in the dream) because of the traffic. While we drove, I remember seeing all these rundown apartments, archaic-looking remains, and ancient structures and I wondered what the story was behind each of them.

In the dream I mention moving into a dark tunnel-like structure. This tunnel may symbolize the metropolitan area of Cairo. As we drove further into the city on my first night here, it felt like I was being closed in by tall brick and cement buildings, much like a tunnel. The streets were often dim, and most people drive without their headlights on at night, so the unusual partial darkness contributed to this tunnel feeling. Few stars are visible from inside the city of Cairo, and so when the moon isn’t out, it almost feels like there is a black roof over our heads when we stand outside. Just as the tunnel walls in my dream were made out of “brick, mortar, cement, wooded up windows, etc.” that is what many of the apartments I saw along the way were made up of.

Next in the dream, I came up to an old door and proceeded through it. On the other side of the door there appeared to be a secret settlement of life. I think this door loosely symbolized the entrance into Maadi. Maadi is the fairly Westernized portion of Cairo and can seem sort of out of place when you look at the surrounding city of Cairo. So, in an odd way, Maadi may be the ‘secret settlement of life’ in that dream.

So, the long and the short of the dream is this: I arrived in this foreign place that seemed faintly familiar, almost as though it was my home. Likewise, I arrived in Cairo, a place foreign to me, and yet when I reached Maadi, it felt strangely familiar to me. I arrived at my house here and tried to convince myself that: “this is my home.” After I had this dream, I think I finally realized that this is my home.

Sick & Busy

Sorry for the lack of bloggage lately. I've been quite busy this week preparing for the talent show which is taking place tomorrow. I am also sick with a nasty cold, which really makes being busy annoying. Hopefully I'll have the second part of my dream post ready for Sunday. Bye now!

I Think It Rained Last Night

I haven’t written a blog for a while now. I blame this on two reasons. First, I have been fairly busy. Second, I’ve felt uninspired in my blog writing lately. When nothing out of the ordinary happens, I feel like I have nothing to write. I suppose I could write about my feelings, but that would mean I’d have to be in touch with them first. This rarely happens. My feelings generally coincide with the temperature of the object I am currently touching. If the object is burning hot, I usually respond with a throaty “ow!” Then I think to myself, “Wow! That feels hot.” Likewise, when I am holding a freezing cold object, I tend to vocalize a series of words similar to: “Sweet mother of pearl!” Following my outbreak, I suddenly become in touch with the stinging feeling in my hand, which is generally followed up with a lack of feeling altogether. Other feelings I am attuned to are feelings of softness (such as the fur on a puppy) or hardness (such as the surface of my pectoral muscles). Other than that, my feelings are pretty hazy. Maybe some day a nice young lady will come along and interpret them for me.

Speaking of interpreting, I’ve been having many interesting dreams these days. Last week I had a dream where I was driving/boating (my mode of transportation was fairly inconsistent throughout the dream) through a massive lake where the ruins of cement buildings were sticking out of the water. The scenery was little more than water and cement, diversified with bent fibers of rebar that protruded from both. I remember slowly moving past these mounds of rubble, wondering what history was covered by these waters. After driving through this landscape for a length of time, we (I wasn’t alone in the vehicle, though I don’t remember who accompanied me) found ourselves inside a massive tunnel-like structure that had walls made out of abandoned apartment buildings. By this I mean the walls were made of brick, mortar, cement, wooded up windows, etc. We exited our vehicle and found a passageway leading between a gap in the walls, up a cement stairway. Although we were in a tunnel abandoned of everything including electricity, somehow the area was lit enough to see many details (much like in a Hollywood movie where the characters can’t see each other, but we, the viewers, can clearly see them and their surroundings). We came upon a ragged looking wooden door with a rusty old brass doorknob. It looked as though it hadn’t been used in over a hundred years. Apparently the door was unlocked, because the next thing I knew we were standing on the other side of the doorway in the middle of an artificially lit hallway. It seems we had stumbled upon a secret settlement of human life. Although I don’t remember seeing people, I recalled seeing signs of human life. Rooms with dirty pots and pans. Tea kettles and dishes. I’m not sure how, but I knew with absolute confidence that these things had been used that very day. I looked down the hallway and saw a hanging light bulb swaying in the distance. Somehow it looked (or maybe felt) familiar to me. I couldn’t explain how or why, but it seemed almost as though this was my home. It was at this realization that I awoke to the sound of my alarm.

Although nothing really exciting happened in that dream, I awoke thinking to myself, “Man! What a cool dream! I wish I could sleep some more and see what else happens!” But regrettably, my conscious life had to take over and seize the realities of the day. As I thought about that dream over the past week, I haven’t bothered discovering an interpretation for it because it seemed so foreign and complex. But as I wrote out this account for you folks, a possible interpretation for the dream has come to light for me. I think I can identify many of the objects in this dream and explain how they relate to my life right now. In my next entry I will go through and explain the simple meaning of this seemingly complex dream of mine, and I will link each of the details in the dream to what I think they represent.

The Detailed Adventures of Monson in the Sahara - Day 3

This day began far too soon. I watched the stars fade out into a dark blue canvass of light. The Eastern horizon grew brighter by the minute. I finally felt tired enough to fall asleep. Just as I began nodding off, the people around me began stirring in their sleeping bags. To them it was already morning, and time to get up and appreciate the sunrise. I’ve never understood people like this. Sure, sunsets are beautiful, but I’m quite convinced that sunrises are hideous! Every time I’ve seen a sunrise I’ve had to prop my eyelids open with toothpicks while exhibiting one continuous yawn that never quite reaches its climax. The yawn continues to get more intense as the sun begins to peek over the horizon, blurring my eyes with water which the morning breeze then turns into a crusty salt film that burns my eyeballs. Meanwhile my bones ache as if they haven’t had rest in a month. It hurts to breathe. My body feels all gross and filthy. The sun rises. Whoopee. Were those few colors really worth all this pain and suffering? Couldn’t we just record a sunset and then watch it in rewind? Anyways, all this to say, that morning I pulled my sleeping bag over my head during the sunrise so I wouldn’t have to experience the menacing display of agony. After the sun was fully risen and everyone was back from their morning walks (bathroom breaks), I waddled (still inside my sleeping bag) over to the smoldering coals left over from our previous day’s fire and blew on them until a flame jumped out of one of the logs. As I sat there in my sleeping bag with my horrid bedhead, enjoying the little fire I created, everyone else giggled at how tired and pathetic I looked. I glared back at them, trying to understand how they could all be so ridiculously cheerful at such an unholy hour of the day. Mornings make me sick. Call me pregnant, if you like, but mornings are just not meant for me! I’ve never understood that age old saying that goes something like, “Good morning.” What does that mean, anyways?? To me, it’s an oxymoron, much like an interstate highway in Hawaii.

Eventually my morning sickness wore off and we packed everything back into the Jeeps. After pouring fluids into every orifice of the Jeep and turning the engine over for a good ten minutes, Ayman’s vehicle finally sputtered to life. We sat there wide eyed for those nerve-wracking ten minutes, wondering if we were going to be stranded in the middle of the white desert (without cell phone coverage, might I add). Ayman was quite excited when it finally started up. I believe his exact words were: “Fantastic weesout plastic!” Oh, I just remembered another funny quirk about Ayman. He always referred to me as “Mr. Leen” for some reason. From what I understand, Ayman once took a guy by the name of “Mr. Leen” out on one of these desert safaris and now refers to pretty much everyone was “Mr. Leen.” Most interesting!

The journey back to the Bahariya Oasis wasn’t overly exciting. We just backtracked the previous day’s journey. We did stop and visit a herd of camels along the way, though. Pictures of them are in my Desert Safari Photo Album. Ol’ Bessy had a thing for me, I think. She kept batting her big, long, eyelashes at me. I was so busy playing with the camels that I forgot to look for dinosaur bones out there. I bet that’s where the jackpot is. Shoot!

Later that day, after arriving back at the Ahmed Safari Camp, we headed out for a little tea time in the desert with a German family that lives out there. After sitting there for a long time listening to the adults talk about adult stuff, Rob, Justina and I went off into the desert to hunt for fossils. Although we didn’t find any dinosaur bones, I did see a desert fox (though nobody believes me because I couldn’t get my camera on in time), and we found a whole graveyard of small animal bones. After getting back to the desert picnic we said our farewells to the German family and drove back to the camp. I got to drive! This was my first time driving on Egyptian soil… or sand, I suppose. It was only a two minute drive, but hey, it felt nice to drive again.

Following a sketchy dinner of (yet again) chicken and rice, Rob and I played a game of ping pong. I was totally schooling him… until disaster struck. The ball rolled over to the side of the table where I ran to grab it. Because I was so excited about beating someone six years younger than me at ping pong, I spun around and flung my head back up after retrieving the ball. Normally, this is a fairly harmless act. But in this case, there was a solid cement archway between my head and where my head wanted to go. Thus, I smacked the left side of my head into it at a high speed, and knocked myself to the ground. Although I’m pretty sure I remained conscious the entire time, I was not altogether coherent as I sat there on the ground. My next decision proves that. I chose to forfeit the game so that I could go and lay down. Yeah, that’s right. I forfeited. Pathetic. The rest of the day is a bit of a blur to me. I think I just laid in bed and read/stared at a book until Rob came to bed. That was the tragic end to day three of my vacation.

Heidiween Intermission

Since I haven't had time to finish writing out The Detailed Adventures of my Desert Vacation, I am going to post this blog I wrote a long time ago to keep you folks happy:

October 30th was Heidi’s birthday. I called it Heidiween cause I had to dress up for it. For our Heidiween festivities, we (the youth staff) drove off to some far off part of Cairo for Indian food. Now when I say Indian food, I don’t mean bannock and buffalo, I mean chicken and curry and nama bread. You know, real Indian food! The Indian restaurant we went to was in a very Hollywood/New York looking part of Cairo. I didn’t even know a part of Cairo like this existed, but hey, it seems it does. Now what do I mean by the Hollywood/New York look? Well, the street was very ritzy and upscale looking. There were shoe shops with hundreds of fancy shoes displayed ever so perfectly in their lit up windows. There were all kinds of swanky clothing shops. There was even a McDonald’s (which we stopped at to ask for directions)! Okay, maybe the McDick’s doesn’t really make it feel so special, but you have to remember that there’s a McDonald’s in Time’s Square and other famous locations as well! Anyways, eventually we found the Kandahar restaurant (I think that’s what it was called). In front of the restaurant there was a red carpet on the sidewalk leading to an elevator which was called down by a doorman. In the elevator were two men who took us up to the actual restaurant. Inside the restaurant was a section of small wicker tables that you eat from while sitting on the floor. The hostess took us past them over to a regular round table where we were seated. The table was decorated with copper looking plates, two sets of forks, two sets of knives, and napkins in the shape of a fan. For the duration of the evening, every time something was served, the women would always get served first. This was fairly noticeable because the two females weren’t sitting together, nor were they both easily accessible. The food was brought out fresh from their hotplates and hand ladled onto our dishes. At first I thought this was humorous because I watched them slowly serve Heidi, spoon by spoon, and there was nothing she could do but awkwardly sit there and watch them. But then it came time for me to endure the awkward serving ritual. At least by the time I was served everyone else had their own food to look at, rather than staring at all that was going onto my plate. For the duration of the meal, every time I went to reach for more rice or more chicken, a server would pop up out of nowhere and serve me. Nobody else at the table seemed to receive the quality of service that I was enjoying. I guess this is just another example of why redheads are cooler than everyone else. At any rate, I thoroughly enjoyed my meal, and had I brought my camera along, I would show you some nice pictures of the evening… but I didn’t. So too bad.

The Detailed Adventures of Monson in the Sahara - Day 2

I groggily dragged myself out of bed and made my way into the corner of the bathroom that had a showerhead protruding from the wall. There was no shower curtain. There wasn’t even a shower to step into; just a hole in the bathroom floor surrounded by tiles two inches high. The night before I had noticed two wires hanging down from the hot water boiler. After feeling the boiler and sensing that it wasn’t working, I stuck the two wires into an outlet in the wall. Sure enough, the power indicator lit up. So, in theory, I had hot water for my shower. Well, you may recall that Communism may have seemed good in theory, but things generally didn’t go so well in practice. Such was the case with my shower. I had a communist shower. First the water came out freezing. Then the water turned scalding hot. Then the water stopped altogether. 5-10 seconds later, ice cold water would come shooting towards me. All of this happened without me touching the taps. This process repeated for the duration of my shower. Needless to say, by the end of it I was feeling quite awake and very disappointed that the water temperatures weren’t working together for the good of all mankind… or more specifically, for me.

Around noontime the jeeps for our desert safari showed up, along with the jeeps for another group of tourists. Two of the jeeps were brand new, solid looking Hummer type vehicles. The other two were these old, nasty, run down looking vehicles. Naturally, the other group of tourists hopped into the hot rod jeeps and left us with poor old Dumpy and Lumpy. After ten minutes of engine churning our jeep reluctantly started up and we were on our way! To my disappointment we stuck to the road for the majority of our journey. Our drivers did, however, stop at a few of the attractions on the way to our desert campsite. The first one was a big volcano-looking thing that we climbed up and got a nice view of the surrounding volcano-type hills. It was pretty neat. After that we drove to a cafeteria in the middle of another desert oasis where we ate our lunch.

Next up was Crystal Mountain. Crystal Mountain is just a small rock hill that is made out of crystals. It’s not really as photogenic as it sounds. It’s more fun to dig through the rocks to try and find big fancy looking crystals to take home. That’s the crazy thing about these desert attractions. They’re all set up so that you go an pick your souvenirs off the ground for free! In Canada I’m sure that would be against the law or something! Whatever, I enjoyed my time looking for treasure. At every stop I always tried to find dinosaur bones so I could get rich and famous and be the man that everyone else wants to be when they grow up. The funny/disconcerting thing about our visit to Crystal Mountain was the fact that our jeep got stuck in the sand not even 2 feet off of the road. This Jeep was supposed to take us off-roading through the Western Desert, and here we got stuck less than a meter from the road. Wow. We were the laughing stock of all the tourists at Crystal Mountain. Everyone amused themselves as we rocked back and forth in the sand in an attempt to free ourselves from the unforgiving clutches of the Sahara. Eventually the driver got out of the vehicle and manually engaged the 4-wheel-drive mode. Phew, all this time it was only in 2 wheel drive. Anyways, eventually we got unstuck and made it to Crystal Mountain. Everyone in our vehicle got out feeling slightly sheepish, as if it were our fault that we got stuck.

Life went on, though. We made our way through the Black Desert, into the White Desert. Somewhere in the White Desert we stopped to pick Desert Roses. A Desert Rose is a black rock that is much heavier than it looks. I’m not sure what kind of rock it is, but some rock geek could probably tell me. Anyways, these rocks look kind of like a cross between petrified raspberries and black roses, or something like that. While looking for these Desert Roses, I secretly began an archeological excavation for dinosaur bones. Still no luck.

From there we went on to the Land of the Albino Smurfs. That’s what I called it, anyways. It was a place with a bunch of big white mushroom looking rocks. I figured if you waited until the sun went down, and the moon was full enough, you could probably see a city of albino Smurfs emerge from the crevices of these white mushroom rocks. Ayman, our jeep driver didn’t seem interested in sticking around to see the Smurfs, though, so we continued on our way (after I looked for hidden dinosaur bones, of course).

This is where the trip got really fun! By this time we were no longer driving on roads, but on the soft sand of the White Desert. At this point in our journey we zig zagged at breakneck speeds past thousands upon thousands of igloo-looking rocks, over sand dunes, and around protruding rocks in the ground. It was great. Ayman, our driver, was a little riskier in his driving and seemed to enjoy showing off a lot more than Mahmoud, the driver of the other jeep in our caravan. Because of this, I was thoroughly enjoying my life threatening sprint through the Sahara! I thought of how bored the people in the other vehicle must have been while we were having the time of our lives in this jeep! I later found out that they weren’t envious at all, and were in fact glad that they weren’t driving with such a reckless person. Pshhh, losers. They’re just too proud to admit their jealousy.

After racing around the thousands of petrified igloos, the sun finally began its descent behind the horizon. This meant that it was time for us to stop driving for the day and to set up camp. At this point, I realized how spoiled we were on this desert trip of ours because our drivers completely set up our campsite for us and began cooking our dinner, all without needing any help from us. I like how our guides start fires. They don’t waste time with boy scout junk like axes and kindling. Nope. They just pull a huge four foot log from the roof of the jeep and douse it with gasoline. I’ve heard that some actually mix camel poo with it to get the coals going. As far as I know this wasn’t the case here, but I wasn’t really watching that closely. While the fire blazed away, the men cooked us a gourmet dinner of fresh chicken and rice with vegetables in a tomotoey sauce. It was pretty good stuff!

The rest of the evening was spent huddled around the campfire, roasting marshmallows and singing songs. Actually, only a couple songs were sung, and they were sung to us by Ayman and Mahmoud. But they were hilarious songs! Ayman found out that the Dutch really like coffee so they sang a song about Nescafe. I recorded part of it on my digital camera, so maybe I can post it online eventually if I can find someone to host it for me. Ayman finished the song off with “Fantastic Without Plastic”. That was one of the few English phrases he seemed to know. Another phrase he used from time to time was “I’m Soooorry!” I remember hearing that one after we got stuck at Crystal Mountain… and pretty much every time we started his vehicle up (or at least attempted to).

Later on in the evening another Bedouin guide came and joined us by the fire. His name was also Mahmoud. Mohammed, Akhmed, and Mahmoud seem to be pretty common names here. Everyone else left the campfire to go for a walk in the desert (yes, it was pitch dark, hardly a sliver of a moon) so I stayed and hung out with Ayman and the Mahmouds in hopes that I could practice my Arabic. About 30 seconds after everyone left we ran out of common words to communicate with so I just sat there lounging by the fire while these three strangers talked amongst themselves. After everyone else went to bed, I started trying to teach Ayman and Mahmoud English, cause that seemed easier than me learning Arabic (at least from them). In response, they taught me that you can mix sand with wax to make a big flame in the fire. Pretty cool!

Eventually we all retired to our beds and gazed at the stars before nodding off to sleep. Well, I didn’t sleep, of course… but that pretty much goes without saying. I’m one of the pickiest sleepers in the world, I think. Anyways, that concludes Day 2. If you’re still reading, I’m impressed!

Happy Birthday, Dad!!

Although this has nothing to do with me being in Egypt, I would like to take this time to point out that today is my dad's birthday. This year he is turning: OLD. So, have a Merry Birthday and a Happy New Year, dad!

My Desert Safari

A Breif Summary:
During my brief hiatus from Cairo, I went on a number of interesting adventures. For those of you who are too busy to read my beautifully detailed stories below, allow me to give you a quick summary of what happened. We drove out to an oasis in the Sahara desert, stayed there for a night, took jeeps out to the middle of the White Desert where we camped for a night with our two Bedouin guides, returned to the oasis the following day, and returned to Cairo on the fourth day. The trip included such things as: a slight concussion due to a ping pong accident, a song about Nescafe sung by the Bedouin men, getting a 4x4 vehicle stuck in the desert, and Communist showers (not to be confused with communal showers). If any of these topics peak your interest, then read through The Detailed Adventures of Monson in the Sahara. Please note: These adventures may not be posted in their entirety for a few days because the concussion I am suffering causes me to get severe headaches from using the computer for elongated periods of time. Yes, it was ME that suffered the Great Ping Pong Injury of 2005. Laugh it up and pray I will swiftly recover from it (I am wearing sunglasses while writing this post because my head is so sensitive right now).


The Detailed Adventures of Monson in the Sahara - Day 1
I woke up at 8am and hopped into the shower. This would be the latest I would get to sleep in for the next three days. This was also the last decent shower I would enjoy for the rest of the week. After packing the car plum full of luggage we (my host family, and another Dutch family) set off towards the Western portion of the Sahara desert. Our destination for the day was a hotel/hostel type establishment known as the Ahmed Safari Camp. It is located in the Bahariya desert oasis which is about 350km Southwest of Cairo.

Many stops were made along the way to ensure that the adults had enough coffee in them. During one of these stops I took the time to take inventory of the burping talent we had present. I had each of the three innocent little Dutch girls burping for me, along with the odd burp from my host father as well. All in all we had an impressive array of burpers present on this trip. On a side note, Holly the cat is sitting on my lap right now, and she is dropping some nasty farts. Sick little kitty. Have I mentioned how much her personality parallels that of my sister Holly? Heh heh.

After what felt like a full day of driving (and asking a lot of locals where the Ahmed Safari Camp was), we finally pulled into the ‘camp’. Once we were settled in our rooms we headed off on a short hike towards a desert hill that Rob and I spied in the distance. Us younger people (eg, not the parents) arrived at the top of the rock hill in time to see the firey orange sun dissolve into the distant desert landscape. The scenery reminded me of the Lion King when Simba gets held up by Rafiki for all the animals of the jungle to see. I thought of doing the same thing with Justina, the youngest Dutch girl, but I don’t think she shared the same enthusiasm for the idea as me.

Later on that evening we ate some dinner, played some ping pong, and did some star gazing (we were trying to find the moon because Ramadan isn’t officially over until the new moon appears). One interesting thing I noticed was how much smaller the so called ‘Big Dipper’ is when viewed from here. It looked more like a baby spoon to me. Either way, it was nice to finally be in a place where I could look up and see the stars again.

Day 2 coming soon...
Click here for pictures!

The Spirit of Religion (Written on Nov 1st)

This past weekend my bike got locked inside of the church compound. I had the next day off, so I just left the bike inside of the compound for the day and figured I’d grab it after work the following day. Well, as I retrieved my bike after work I noticed that both tires were completely flat. Upon further inspection I found out that the little tube-like devices that hold the air inside of the tire were actually stolen. This meant that simply pumping the tires up was out of question. At first I was pretty annoyed with this inconvenience (and actually, I guess I still am) because I had to walk my bike all the way home. This walk took about twenty minutes and also happened to fall around the time of the year’s last Iftar meal. To remind you, the Iftar is the evening meal that breaks the daily Ramadan fast. As I walked past a group of soldiers sitting outside a building, eating their iftar meal, they cheerily invited me to join them. I smiled and declined the invitation. Now, thinking back, it would’ve been a pretty cool experience if I’d joined them for the meal. Oh well. I’ve heard many stories of people getting sick after eating these street meals, which is why I declined. I continued on my way home, walking my bike alongside me. Soon I came upon some men who I often wave at as I zoom past them on my bike. They were also eating their iftar meal and invited me to join them. Again, I declined and continued on my way. As I came up to one of the busier midans (traffic circles), a man handed me a small bag of dates to curb my hunger until I got home to my meal. I couldn’t help but notice how kind and pleasant everyone was acting towards me as I slowly made my tedious trek home. Despite my slightly unpleasant bike situation, I was having a fairly enjoyable time appreciating all the kindness surrounding me. Eventually I made my way over the walk-over that crosses the metro tracks. These walk-overs consist of ramps that lead up to a bridge above the metro tracks, much like pedestrian bridges in Canada. As I was walking down the ramp on the other side of the tracks, a young man was struggling to push his fully loaded beverage cart up the ramp. Before I knew it, a woman (who was a complete stranger to both of us) walked up and started helping him push the cart up the ramp. After waving and saying hello to a few more people, I finally arrived at home. By this time I was glad that God provided such an opportunity for me. It gave me a chance to slow down and to appreciate those around me. I saw that, despite our religious differences, many people here in Egypt are still full of kindness and goodness. Perhaps it’s just the holiday spirit that has everyone feeling cheerful and benevolent, much like Christmas day in North America, but whatever it is, I appreciate it. I think today I will leave you with a a phrase that is uttered quite often these days, “Kul is-sana w’entu tayyibeen”. It means something to the effect of, “All year may you be well.”

Three Posts to Keep You Company

As Ramadan comes to a close, so do all the businesses in Cairo. This means that tons of happy people head out town and party. I am one of those happy people because I am heading out to the western desert with my host family for my first vacation in Egypt!! On Wednesday morning, bright and early, we shall set off to the desert and spend two nights sleeping under the stars with snakes and scorpions and other deadly animals fighting over who gets to eat us in our sleep. I’ll be sure to take lots of pictures and throw them online when I get home this weekend. Until then, here’s something for you to think about:

An Arab sheikh tells his two sons to race their camels to a distant city to see who will inherit his fortune. The one whose camel is slower will win. The brothers, after wandering aimlessly for days, ask a wise man for advise. After hearing the advice they jump on the camels and race as fast as they can to the city. What does the wise man say?

Everybody's Odd!

I’ve noticed an interesting observation about the religiosity of the dominant faith here in Egypt. Many of the hardcore followers of the faith have large bruise-like marks on their foreheads “from praying” so fervently. Seeing these marks kind of reminds me of Jesus’ words in Matthew 6:

Mat 6:5 "When you pray, do not be like the hypocrites! They love to stand up and pray in the houses of worship and on the street corners, so that everyone will see them. I assure you, they have already been paid in full.
Mat 6:6 But when you pray, go to your room, close the door, and pray to your Father, who is unseen. And your Father, who sees what you do in private, will reward you.
Mat 6:7 "When you pray, do not use a lot of meaningless words, as the pagans do, who think that their gods will hear them because their prayers are long.
Mat 6:8 Do not be like them. Your Father already knows what you need before you ask him.

It’s sad how faith often becomes so worldly and shallow.

After reading some of my blogs about the quirks of Egypt, you may be inclined to think that Egypt is a bit of a weird country. Well, let me tell you, no country is without its oddities. Take Rome, for instance. “The city of Rome has banned goldfish bowls, which animal rights activists say are cruel, and has made regular dog-walks mandatory in the Italian capital, the town’s council said on Tuesday.” “The northern city of Turin passed a law in April to fine pet owners up to $598 ( 500 euros) if they do not walk their dogs at least three times a day.” These are direct quotes from MSNBC!

Redheads have all the fun

I can’t remember if I’ve already mentioned that the worship services of my church, Maadi Community Church, are actually held inside the compound of another church, St. John’s Anglican Church. If I’ve already mentioned that, consider this review. If not, then now you’ve learned something new. Lovely! Moving on. It has recently come to my attention that St. John’s is in the process of creating some stain glass windows to pimp out their church building. How is it that I know this information, and more importantly, why should any of you care about it?? Well! Last week I was unloading some equipment from a car when the pastor/father/whatever of the Anglican church pulled up in a taxi, accompanied by a woman. They waved to me and then excitedly began chatting with each other while regularly looking at me with big smiles. It was fairly obvious that they were talking about me for some reason or another. This somewhat weirded me out so when I got out of sight of them, I checked my fly. It was up. Then I felt for things hanging out of my nose. Nothing. Eventually I got over it and figured the pastor dude was probably just telling her how ridiculous I look with a bike helmet on. It’s true, I do look ridiculous with it on. Hoards of Egyptians remind me of that fact every time I bike home each day. So I went on with my work and thought nothing more of the occurrence. Later that day, or perhaps the next, I saw the pastor outside of our church, nailing something. The fact that he was nailing something is completely irrelevant, but I figured it would add some nice flow to this story and that this little side commentary would provide enough humor for you to continue reading to the punch line. Okay, back to the story now. When he saw me, the pastor stopped what he was doing and explained what he and the woman in the taxi were talking about earlier. He said that the woman in the taxi is an artist and she wants me to model for her. She thinks that I look perfect for the part of Moses! I laughed at what he said and continued on my way. I figured it was just a joke or something. The next day I saw the Anglican pastor and jokingly said, “So, when do I start?” It was then that he told me many of the details of the job, and I realized that this actually wasn’t a joke. This woman would pay me 50 Egyptian Pounds an hour (not a lot, but pretty decent pay for Egypt, I suppose) to model for her. As if that wasn’t sweet enough, he went on to say that she wasn’t just painting a picture of me, she is creating the new stain glass windows for the church! And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why Anglicans are cool.