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.