First full week

I was able to go to the Cairo museum on Saturday. It was absurd how many priceless ancient artifacts they had there. It didn’t even seem fair. You see one ancient sarcophagus of ornately chiseled stone and it’s awesome. But when there are 400 of them placed haphazardly about like it’s a warehouse rather than a museum it gets kinda ridiculous and loses its luster. I was amazed though. Got to see all the goodies they found in Tutankhamen’s tomb. This guy had gold up the wazoo, I mean, his casket was made of gold not to mention all the jewelry they decked him out in. Very unorganized museum, but worth the visit.

We had our first class on Islam this Sunday. I felt really lucky because the first class we met at a mosque that was built in the 800s, it is the oldest mosque still standing in Egypt. (There are pictures…) We were learning about Islam there, in an Islamic country by a Muslim professor! It doesn’t get more authentic than that. We have gotten to hear from multiple speakers including a couple Muslim guys around our age who shared with us guys about life here. They talked about a bunch of controversial topics like women’s head coverings, as well as explained their whole guy-girl relationship norms here. It was helpful to get to hear what they had to say. The people here are awesome, and defenitely a people of faith and conviction. It’s humbling to see them sometimes as they live out their faith in daily prayer and fasting in Ramaddam. Everytime I am in a public place like a metro or something everyone seems to be reading from the Quran. One thing that I kinda envy in their faith culture is the constant reminders that thay have to focus on God (i.e. call to prayer 5 times a day). As a Christian I also believe that prayer is important-the ideal being ceaseless prayer, but often it can be easy to get distracted and not think about it.

We were also able to hear from one of the top diplomats here in Cairo this week about issues in the Middle East. This guy was a fountain of information, he just opened his mouth, and for an hour and a half we were taking notes interestedly. I had my cultural activity class, “cooking with Kareema” yesterday and made some makaroona bil forno, which is baked pasta. It also ends up being an Arabic class because Kareema does not speak a word of English, so it is really fun. Arabic is coming along well I think, but it is a long process…

I am starting to realize just how busy I will be this semester. The last weekend was one of 3 or 4 weekends that I will actually be free to do whatever around Cairo, the rest is travelling. We are going to be going on trips many of the weekends, starting this afternoon! We are leaving at around 6:00PM and taking a bus to the Sinai. As soon as we arrive, which will be around midnight, we’re going to scale the mountain and watch the sunrise. After that we are going to Dahab, a resort town on the Gulf of Aqaba across from Saudi Arabia. I am excited because it is supposedly an epic dive spot! So definitely gonna snorkel it up! It’s been great to hear from some of you, keep me posted on your life too!