clotheslines.

So, I love doing laundry here. It seems like I shouldn't when I actually think about what it requires, but some how I still rather enjoy it.

Our washing machine takes about 4 hours to run a full cycle. Not a lot can fit in that little machine, so I usually have to do two loads a week (I only brought enough clothes for a week... and they're always so dirty at the end of the day from all the dust etc. in the streets that I can't bring myself to wear them more than once.) Once the clothes are done, I have to hang them all out the kitchen window to dry. They don't all fit on the line, so I made a second line in my room. They dry pretty fast cause it's usually very warm and breezy - like a big blow dryer. When everything's dry, I go and collect it, careful not to drop anything. Everything feels a little starched, which is weird, but I love the crisp, clean, white sheets so much! I've learned to hang stuff up inside out all the time, as it often comes off the line with either dust from the line itself, or other random stuff... drips from the laundry hanging from the apartment above us, or bird poop.

-looking out from our kitchen-

I think the reason I love it despite the hassle, is that it reminds me of being little and playing house. All the Disney movies I watched as a little girl showed laundry on a clothesline, and somehow that image has stuck with me as being sort of fairy-tale-ish, and old fashioned. It might also have to do with the lovely view out from our "balcony" (it's only about a foot wide).

Maybe it's good that I'm only here for three months, cause I know the novelty of this all will wear off and I'll want the perks of a dryer back (i.e., elimination of wrinkles...).

Oh, and I'm very grateful I don't have kids to do laundry for... I can't imagine. You mothers living over here are saints.

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one month.

-it was really sunny, don't mind the squint-

I can hardly believe it, but I've now been living here in Egypt for over a month! It's so crazy. It makes me a little nervous, cause that means I still have a lot of Arabic to learn. I only have a little over two months left!

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power outage

Our power went out the other day.

Not just ours, but the whole street. It had been a really windy night and I think that's what caused it... Anyway, it was kind of creepy, cause our building is really old, and unfamiliar to us. We had no flashlights, no matches or candles, and no internet. All the street lights were out too. Sarah and I took it as a sign that we were doing too much homework, and that we needed a break. So we headed to Road 9 (the hip little street with everything from chic internet cafes to dead animals hanging in butchers' doorways). We decided on Pizza Hut for dinner mainly because it was air conditioned, and had comfy booth seats. By the way, Pizza Hut here thinks it's pretty fancy fine dining... doting waiters, mood lighting, and the like. It was nice just to relax for a bit.

I got lasagna, which ended up not being lasagna. It was good, don't get me wrong, just not what I was expecting. It had no trace of lasagna noodles, but rather, fillo dough (the stuff you make baklava with). It tasted like turkey stuffing, so that was kind of fun.

On the way home we saw this tree that had fallen in front of three stores...

I'm glad all I had to endure was feigned lasagna.

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ew.

I found this little guy the other day. Yes, it's a huge cockroach. Luckily he was dead. The next day I found another. Also dead. I'm hoping the cause of their deaths was a result of someone spraying for bugs before we arrived...? if not, it could be a very long summer.

al-Iskandariyya

Last Saturday, we went on a little excursion to Alexandria. I was told this was a two hour bus-ride from Cairo... but it ended up being about four with traffic etc. I was very tired of the sound of our busses horn by the end of the day.

Alexandria is in Lower Egypt... but don't be fooled! It's actually on the north coast of Egypt... on the Mediterranean Sea. It was such a pleasant and relaxing day, and since I felt more like a tourist there than in Cairo, I actually took some pictures.

We all rode up there on two separate busses. Thankfully I was on the bus that WASN'T singing Disney songs and the like the whole time... we were all sleeping and studying mostly. It should be known that one of my absolute favorite things in life is traveling (whether by bus, car, train, bicycle, airplane, boat or animal) and watching everything I pass, whilst getting completely lost in my thoughts and listening to good music. My music of choice on this trip was Beirut on the way up, and Kings of Convenience on the way down.

These are some of the things and people we passed on our journey to and into Alexandria:

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Our first stop upon arrival in Alexandria was the palace of King Farouk. I think this was actually the women's castle on his compound. Pretty, but we weren't allowed inside, which was too bad.

We mostly enjoyed the view of the sea.

(These are my roommates, Sarah & Hannah - I was not prepared for the picture. Obviously).

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Next was the Citadel of Qaitbay, which very much resembles the Crusader fortresses I saw in Israel.

(It isn't a Crusader Fortress. It just resembles one.)

I was nervous this guy cleaning the light was going to fall. He didn't.

Looking out to sea from the Citadel

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Next up was the Roman Theater.

There are tons of these in Israel as well. The cool thing about these theaters is that there's one spot on stage (the ground in the middle) where the acoustics are incredible. Our teacher wanted to demonstrate this so he asked if anyone knew the song that goes like this:

Rose Rose Rose Red

Shall I Ever See Thee Wed

I Will Marry At Thy Will Sire

At Thy Will

Since I knew the song, (shout out to Leah... haha) I joined him in a duet (laughing to myself and thinking of Leah, once again).

Next up was a thrilling lunch at Muhammad Mahmoud's. First of all, the power was out. It was dark, and very very warm. That didn't matter though, I was starving. I was at the same table as my teacher, Dil and his wife and he just ordered everything, which was good. He knows what he's talking about. We got like ten plates of food or something, between four people. I ate till I was stuffed, and the best part of it was that it cost $7. Total. I ended up paying $2 (including the tip). Oh man, and the food was sooo good. There was this amazing lentil soup and tahina, hummus, omlette, fool, tamiya, and so many yummy pitas. The lights came on after a bit, and so did the AC, and the meal just got better.

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We had some free time, so a few of us decided to follow Dil to a fancy peanut shop. Yeah, sounds funny. We took the trolley, which looked like it was built about a hundred years ago. It only cost about 4 cents to ride. I now know why. We were only on there for maybe ten minutes, when Dil informed us we would never get there on time going that slow.

(some friends on the trolley)

(pretty tree-lined street, as seen from said trolley)

We got of the antique train and started walking (faster than the trolley was going, I might add) to our next stop: the Alexandria Library. No, not the original one.

This library was built within the last 15 or 20 years, and it is incredible. It has room for 8 million books, but only has 1 million. I would say it's more of a fancy, modern museum with books, than a library.

We spent a lot of time in there and saw so many cool things, including old Arabic texts, local Egyptian art (which had nothing to with Pharaohs or pyramids, which was refreshing), and even the clothes in which Anwar Sadat was assassinated.

(Sadat's clothes, with bullet hole and blood)

This is a piece of the Kiswah... so cool. Here's a little more about it for those who are unsure:

Kiswah is the cloth that covers the Kaaba in Mecca, Saudi Arabia. Every year the old Kiswa is removed, cut into small pieces and gifted to certain individuals, visiting foreign Muslim dignitaries and organisations. Some of them sell their share as souvenirs of Haj...The present cost of making the kiswa amounts to SR 17 million [U.S. dollar = 3.75 riyals]. The cover is 658 sq. metres long and is made of 670 kgs of pure silk. For embroidery 15 kilos of gold threads are used. It consists of 47 pieces of cloth and each piece is 14 Mts. long and 101 cms broad.

(thank you wikipedia)

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We had no time to swim, so hopefully I'll et to go back sometime this summer. Which reminds me... On the way out of town I noticed that so many of the women that were swimming in the sea were fully clothed, hijab and all. I couldn't help being impressed. That's religious dedication for you.

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Thank you Alexandria.

I had a lovely time, and hopefully I'll see you again.

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Still alive... somehow.

The other day was... well... interesting. Let's just say I'm glad to be healthy, alive, and in Maadi where it's safe...er.

My friend Kelly (studying Arabic in the same program) called me on Monday and asked if I wanted to go with her to her Egyptian friend's house for dinner. She had hung out with her several times and assured me that she trusted her and her family and that it would be awesome... plus, I need to get at least two hours of solid Arabic speaking in every day, and I knew it would be a great opportunity. I consented, and off we went.

We rode the metro from Maadi (see below... 10 stops from the bottom - red line) all the way up to Ain Shams (third from the top... about a 45 minute ride).

(FYI I live right between the Maadi and Hadayeq El-Maadi stops)

To be fair, I don't think Kelly knew quite how far away this was... We got off the metro and I realized right then that we shouldn't have gone all the way out there alone (without a guy). Had we known the area we actually wouldn't have even gone with a guy. I'm pretty sure no tourists EVER go there, and I'm thinking it's very rare that they see any Americans, judging by the way they were looking at us.

We were waiting for Aisha to come pick us up, and I asked Kelly if she knew what social class Aisha belonged to. I know, a weird question. There's totally class-distinction here and it's a little weird, but it tells you a lot about a person if you know. I had assumed she was really wealthy since she would be picking us up from the station... I assumed that meant a car. She said she thought Aisha was really upper-class. We would soon learn the opposite.

Anyway, we waited at this SUPER sketchy train station for about half an hour. It was so crowded, but hardly any women, which isn't a good sign. Just tons of young guys who were not discreet about checking out the foreign girls. Luckily two local girls walked by, noticed the group of guys talking about us, and when the guys finally approached us, the girls came over and told them to "Imshii!" (get lost). There were a few older people watching out for us too, some shop-keepers and things, but I'm pretty sure if our program director knew where we went, he would not have been happy. But, since we were there, we decided we'd make the most of it.

Aisha finally came and walked us through this extremely poor village, full of donkeys and children playing in the dirt. She finally helped us on to a minibus. Now, we have actually been advised not to ride these mini buses, since they don't stop. You need to just kind of tuck and roll to get off. We really had no choice since it was that or a donkey, or walking for who knows how long, so we boarded, and lived to tell about it.

(FYI, a minibus is a dirty little van with no doors, and about 15 people inside, and 6 or so hanging on for dear life outside. It's driven by a skilled young man, usually has loud Arabic music playing, is filled with cigarette smoke and sometimes has a pretty decorative little fringe around the ceiling).

We rode that little demon for about 15 minutes. At this point I had no idea where we were. We were somewhere in the belly of Cairo and our phones lost reception. We walked along a dirt road lined with abandoned-looking buildings until we got to one that looked particularly empty. Aisha banged on the door, and yelled "Ahmed!" I looked up, cause she was looking up, and there was a little basket being lowered on a rope. Aisha gabbed it, smiled and said, "al-muftah!" (the key!) and the basket went back up. She unlocked the heavy iron door and told me to go in. I went in and it was pitch black. No lights. There were stairs so I went up two levels where Ahmed (her brother) was waiting at an open door.

At this point I was basically thinking we were doomed.We had no idea where we were, we didn't know our way back home and there wasn't a taxi in sight. Not even a car. Some families here will try to marry you off to their sons, and if you go into their home they'll keep you there till 3 am, so, needless to say, I was nervous. Aisha led us into their humble apartment and I just got more nervous, this time about my physical health. These people were so poor. We walked into the bare room and there was Aisha's father in a dirty dark brown galabiya (egyptian man-dress) and a small white scarf wrapped around his head. He was sitting on the floor with his two sons eating dinner off of a big tray with their hands. There was nothing in the room except for a threadbare rug - Concrete floor and walls.

We went and waited for them to finish eating in another small dark room. Eventually Aisha's mom came in with another huge tray full of food for us.

This was third world at it's finest. I wish I had my camera, but not really, cause I would have felt guilty having it around these people.

I was SO nervous to eat any of the food, but it was all really hot, so that helped to calm my nerves. We had chicken with "salt" (reddish spicy powder with a little salt...) rice cooked inside a variety of things: grape leaves, little squashes, peppers, and eggplants. Then there were pitas, which I couldn't make myself eat. It looked good, but on the way to their place I had seen someone selling pitas. They sell them out in the open air, just sitting out on a table all day. There's usually flies all around (cause of all the donkeys...) and I had seen a bunch of pitas fall into the dirt (and donkey poo), and the owner of the stand just picked them up, and set them back in the pile. With that in mind, I left the pita where it was. Then there was this...soup? I don't even know. It was oil, and melted chicken fat, with some green stuff... maybe parsley, and other random chunks. The consistency was just slimy. I took one spoonful, and I felt as though I had just ingested someone else's saliva or the stuff that slugs and snails are covered in. Like seriously goopy. Just disgusting. Worst texture ever. I thought I was going to throw up. I asked what was in it, and one of the ingredients (that I understood the Arabic word for) was garlic. I faked a garlic allergy, and said I would get really sick if I ate anymore. That part was actually true.

The scariest part of the night was dessert. The sweet mother made us juice out of melons, but it was made with Egyptian water... who knows where it came from, or what was in it. No one drinks the tap water here, but these people did... and so did we. They're SO into welcoming people and being hospitable that there's no way to turn them down. It's so awkward, and so hard, especially when they're so poor. It was a big cup, and one of the only two cups they owned. I don't think she washed it after she drank out of it at dinner.

Once we had started eating, I changed my mentality completely. I decided to just enjoy myself. After the first bite of chicken I realized that I would likely get sick, and I might as well just go for it whole-heartedly. I relaxed a little and just enjoyed the conversation. None of them spoke english, and I'm really grateful that my Arabic is getting to the point where that really doesn't matter. It's so cool to be able to communicate with someone so different from yourself in their language. It was so funny too, they asked if I knew the Surat al-Fatiha (the first chapter of the Quran, which I happen to have memorized in Arabic). I recited it for them, and it was seriously so cool. When I memorized it I didn't even know the words I was saying, but I could see as I said the words that it meant so much to them.

We only stayed two hours, and made up some story about a curfew and having to rush home. It was still hard to leave, but finally their dad was like, "it's dark, this area isn't safe! they need to go!" I was grateful for his insistence. I have to say, despite all the strangeness of the night, they were the sweetest family in the world. I would trust them with my life after that night. They're amazing people. We talked a lot about religion and how we differed in our beliefs, but then they automatically went off on how all of us believed in God and Adam and Eve, and they just continued to find every similarity they could between us. In the end, Ahmed said, "Ihna Ikhwaan - entu ikhwaati " (we are siblings - you are my sisters).

Luckily, Aisha and her brother Ahmed walked us back/took us on the minibus (and paid for us! hey refused to let me pay - even though it was only nine cents I think). They walked us all the way to the door of the metro. Oh, and on the way there Ahmed even stopped and bought us Twinkies.... and proceeded to try to get our phone numbers... haha.

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On the metro, I saw two little kids all alone. I smiled, waved, and then threw a twinkie at each of them. Not at them, but to them. Haha. They refused to take them for about 10 minutes. I finally showed them that we had more, and insisted that they eat them. They looked so happy, and ate them so slowly. The girl motioned for us to come sit next to her. We went over and talked with them for the whole ride home. They were so cute. They had school books, so Muhammad, the little boy, and I went through his book together. He would read a sentence out loud, but he was still learning to read, so I would read it with him, and then he would correct my pronunciation. It was so fun. He was precious.

The whole night ended up being a great experience, but I'm very content in Maadi at the Maadi Club and Shariy3a Tisa3a (more on those next time - they're quite the opposite). Ain Shams shall never see my face again.

(Oh, and I didn't even get sick! Prayers are answered! Seriously, that's a miracle if ever I've seen one.)

Happy Mother's Day!

Me and mom

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Since I won't have access to the Internet for a while, and I don't know how to send timed emails... I'm posting this for Mother's Day! Specifically to mom, but also to my sisters, Grandmas and aunts. I hope you know how appreciated you are. And if you don't, you really are appreciated.

Me and Grandma Hartley

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Me and Grandma Olsen

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Pictures from the last week or so...

I finally have some pictures to show you all!

I'm currently sitting in an internet cafe called "Beano's" which I find kind of funny. It's a very hip american-style cafe. Like an orange & brown Starbucks, but they also sell sandwiches, crepes, smoothies and shakes. I had an Oreo shake, which was sadly unsatisfying. Much too runny. It was 25LE ($4.50), and the falafel I had for dinner just before was only 1.25LE (23 cents). How can you not get dessert when dinner's so cheap? I really will miss the cheap food of Egypt when I leave.

So, here are some random pictures from this last week or two:

This is a beautiful mansion in my neighborhood that I want to live in when I come back to live in Egypt as an old woman.

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This is one of the guys in my program who brought his wife and baby. They get so much attention over here with that child. Most people here have never seen a white baby before (not many people bring kids to Egypt), and everyone here is really cautious about letting their babies get cold. They wrap their babies up in blankets like it's wintertime, even in 110 degree weather, so to see a little white, half-naked baby is shocking to them... especially since it's just hanging out in a backpack. Very very weird.

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This is how all men walk around in Egypt. Young and old. My male American colleagues are all gradually getting used to this... some take it better than others.

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These are some cops (in white) just strolling down the street. We were following them for a long time before we realized that they each had a criminal handcuffed to their hand. Kind of funny, no? (Getting this picture was risky, hence, not the best picture).

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This is me on my new bed! My feet are always very dirty at the end of the day and must be washed thoroughly before I stick them in the white sheets that I'm very grateful I brought.

(click on the pics to enlarge!)

Egypt may have redeemed itself…

Okay, so I feel like I’ve been trash-talking Egypt a little bit lately, and tonight I have to say, Egypt really surprised me. I hope I can adequately explain what happened in this blog post. Sarah, my roommate, and I went to find an ATM to draw out a lot of money so we could pay for sha’itna gadida (“our new apartment”), and then we went to get on the metro to go back to school to wait till we could meet our landlord. I already had a ticket, but Sarah had to buy one. She got her wallet out of her backpack and paid (and then left her backpack open, which she didn’t realize at the time). I was walking ahead of her, and didn’t notice till we were back at the school that her bag was open. She looked inside, saw that the wallet was gone (could have fallen out… likely it was stolen) and she freaked out a little… I tried to calm her down, and it just got worse. It went like this:

Me: “Okay, it’s Egypt. It’s likely long gone. This is lame, but not the end of the world. We can cancel your cards, even though no one here really uses those except to withdraw cash, and for that you need a pin number. At least you just got 2000 pounds out of the ATM ($400 USD) so we can still pay for our apartment.”

Sarah: “The cash was all in the wallet.”

Me: “Dang. Okay, well, it’s just money. At least it was just your driver’s license and stuff, all you really need is your passport to get home and your fine.”

Sarah: “Yeah, my passport was actually in there as well.”

At that point I was all out of consoling words. I had nothing to offer. The weird part is that my other roommate, Hannah, lost her debit card just the other day, so I’m the only one of my roommates with access to any money (which means I’ve been buying a lot of metro passes… good thing they’re only twenty cents). Well, it was a long day for us all. We arranged for them to borrow money from our teacher and then to get money wired in from their parents, and it’s all working out nicely…. Oh, Egypt still hasn’t redeemed itself…

So, we met up with Ridda, our real estate genius, and he brought us to our apartment to sign the contract and pay the money. At this point I was the only one who could be trusted with filoos (“money”) so I had the hugest wad of cash on me… I was a little nervous. We had a great conversation with Ridda on the way over, and learned that he has two wives, one here and one in Morocco, so, that’s… lovely… and he’s looking for a third, so, that’s nice too… Anyway, so we’re paying the rent and signing stuff, and the lady’s like, “we need a copy of one of your passports.” We explained that Sarah’s had just been stolen, but she had an extra copy, but we really needed it back cause it’s all she had… we kept signing stuff (it was all in Arabic… I don’t have a clue what it said) and then Ridda’s phone rang.

This is where it gets crazy and where Egypt becomes a land of miracles once again.

Ridda answered, chatted for a minute in Arabic and then said, “Sarah, they found your passport! We need to go to my office!” Yeah… we were super confused. Who was he even talking to? He has nothing to do with anyone in our program; he’s just a random guy they chose to help us get apartments. Without much of an explanation, we hurried and finished signing, exchanged numbers with the owner and seriously ran out of there following Ridda. We got in his car, and it was feeling pretty sketchy. We didn’t really know this man, and we were all getting into his car, cause supposedly someone he knew had her wallet… looking back on it, I can’t believe we were all so willing to just follow him. We had two friends (guys) with us, or else I never would’ve gone.

We stopped and picked up this guy on the side of the road named Muhammad (like the fourteenth Muhammad I’ve met today). He jumped in the car… now there were four of us squished in the in the back seat and three in the front. This was a little car too. So Egyptian. So Muhammad hands Sarah her wallet, which was missing the 2000 pounds, but had everything else. So crazy. Impossible in Egypt. Yet… apparently not. How did it all happen?

Well… Ten days ago Sarah went with Ridda to find an apartment. He brought his friend Muhammad. They didn’t find anything, but Muhammad gave his card to Sarah. She put it in her wallet, next to her passport. (Her wallet’s more of a little make up bag, just a zippered pouch basically). Tonight, while Muhammad was just walking down the street he noticed a young guy flipping through an American passport. He looked closer and saw that his own business card. He went to the kid and offered him 50 pounds (like $10) for the wallet and passport. The kid gave it to him, and Muhammad called Ridda, who was with us signing our contract, and asked if he knew anyone from America named Sarah who had lost a passport. We just happened to be in the same room as him at that very moment. Coincidence? I think not.

It also happens to be Sarah’s birthday, and when we told them that they stopped at a flower shop and bought her a little bouquet. They stopped down the street and bought us all drinks too. Then, instead of having to take a taxi, they offered to drive us all the way home, which we refused three times, as is customary in Arab culture, and then accepted graciously. Such good people. He wouldn’t even let us repay him the 50 pounds he paid to get the wallet back.

At least that’s what they told us… Bear with me as I offer an alternative ending (as in the feature film classic, Clue).

Perhaps… just perhaps, Ridda had Muhammad following us all day, as he knew we were about to make a huge payment, and would be covered in cash. Muhammad followed us on the metro (we never would have recognized him) saw Sarah with an open bag and couldn’t resist… He made 2000 pounds, so the story about the 50 pounds, and not accepting when we tried to pay him pack, and the whole let-me-buy-you-flowers-and-drinks-and-drive-you-home thing was completely worth his while… BYU will be back in Egypt and if they make a good impression now, it could really pay off for them in the future. So I guess Egypt really hasn’t redeemed itself. I’m just as leery as ever. My story is just so much more likely in my mind. Oh well. Maybe I’ll never know. I’m okay with that. I have an apartment. We move in tomorrow afternoon… and I’m still assuming I’m excused from homework... not sure really, but I’m thinking it’s a safe bet.

I’m glad things are finally calming down. I was about to go insane.

new home...

Well, we did it!

We found a new apartment! Umma Ridda (the owner of the place) is the sweetest old woman. She has no teeth. The apartment is so Egyptian… not like Pharaonic Egyptian, like real, typical modern Egyptian. The furniture is all fancy and grandma-ish… like fancy Victorian formal stuff, and rugs everywhere. I’m living with two girls, Hannah and Sarah and we’ll each have our own (huge) room, and we have two showers, a big kitchen with fancy china (not actually fancy, but it looks nice… if you’re into that sort of thing…). There's a big dining room/living room area and it has AC and is in a superb location. Really close to the metro and the Maadi Sports Club, which we’re all members of. We’ll see about the Internet there… we should have it set up soon. Until then, I’m using the school’s wireless. I need to take more pictures. I will though, as soon as life calms down… haha, actually that may not happen till I’m back in Utah. I'll try to take more tomorrow.

I’m so exhausted. And I’ve eaten the same thing for the last five meals, just cause it’s been busy: pita, a little cucumber, peanuts, two plums and some crackers and lots of water. Pretty exciting, huh? That’s exotic Egypt or you… haha.

Hmm, what else… I bought my first Arabic newspaper today! Wait, I lie. I bought one in Jordan two years ago, but this is the first one I’ve purchased with the intent of actually reading it, and the capabilities (sort of) to do it. It’s a big step.

Oh, and other good news! I think I might be able to use my own phone here… probably not for a week or so... We’ll see… stay tuned.

Please feel free to laugh at my life. It's kind of ridiculous, no?

a little bit of chaos...

Life in Cairo is a little bit crazy. Actually, completely crazy. The rules of this program make it even more crazy. We finally secured an amazing apartment through the real estate agent assigned to us by the head of our program, and then three days later, we were told we had to find a new place cause it was too far away... such a pain. This place was seriously amazing. It was on the 18th floor of a pretty run-down building right on the nile (like 50 feet away) so the view was beautiful. You could see the pyramids on the horizon and it was big enough that I even had my own room. The landlord and his wife, Salah and Rana, were too kind and had bought us everything from baklava to toilet paper, and even wrote us a list of places to shop and eat etc. It would have been a perfect situation, but it happened to be on the border of a pretty sketchy neighborhood, and was a twenty minute walk from the metro station. Not ideal for a group of 7 girls who are coming home late at night I guess. It's pretty lame, and I really wish they would've told us about our location and things before they sent us off alone to find a place to live, and before we signed a contract, paid a month's rent and deposit, paid the real estate guy, and before we'd moved in and got settled... that would've been nice. But it also would've been convenient, and living in Cairo just isn't convenient. So we've (luckily) been excused from homework for two or three days until we find a new place and we need to go out looking again. We'll likely move in tonight or tomorrow, and it will probably be a lot smaller and older and have bugs and just be like every other Egyptian apartment. But it will be safe... insha'allah?

Besides that, things are good. I've been grocery shopping now, and got some fruit and veggies finally. I haven't gotten sick from them yet. Hopefully I won't. My poor roommate Hannah was throwing up all day yesterday. I don't know what happened to her or what she ate, but I'm glad I had packed my lunch instead of eating out with her. Poor girl.

Classes are going well too. It's so nice to be able to give Arabic 100% finally. I did that last summer when I was taking the second class and it was such a good time for me, Arabic-wise. I pushed myself so hard and learned a ton. I don't know why, but they put me in the advanced class here (there are four classes - all of us are from BYU). It's pretty random though, none of the actual best students are in class 1 with me, so I'm not getting a big head about it. They based class placement on midterm grades only, and my grade was 58%... Anyway, the point is, I'm in a hard class. They expect a ton out of us and it's really funny at times cause our teacher will ask if we know a word and we'll all say no, and so he'll go on for ten minutes explaining it and writing sentences using it on the board. Then he'll ask if we understand. We all kind of blankly nod really hesitatingly and glance around at everyone else. So then he'll say (in arabic of course... all english is strictly forbidden in this building!) "Can someone use this word in a sentence?" And then it's silence for five minutes. Finally he calls on someone, and they try. They fail, and he caves and just says it in english... ("strictly forbidden" in Egypt means forbidden unless it's inconvenient, then do what you have to... maybe offer money, that usually helps things along.")

Im getting a better feel for what's expected of me here, and thank goodness. It's hard not knowing what's going on. We're in class 4 hours a day. We don't get homework in our classes (at least not yet) and they are all taught by local Egyptians. We have to spend two hours a day talking to people on the streets (we found some super cool girls yesterday and talked for a long time with them... so fun! and funny, and then we need to read in the daily newspaper for two hours every day. We also need to study Fusha (pronounced foos-Hah, which is Modern Standard Arabic) and then another hour studying Amiyya, which is the Egyptian colloquial dialect: two very different and distinct languages. We read and watch news in Fusha, we talk in Amiyya.

I'd better get back to work... even though I technically have the day off for homework, it's just going to get me behind if I don't keep up.

I'm starting to fall back in love with this language. And, as difficult as it is, the head of our program is amazing. I'm really excited to put myself into this program he's designed and see the magic happen. Haha, we'll see...