Field Trip

Hello hello,

I wanted to take the time to talk about my weekend and how much fun it was. Yes, i had a lot and a lot of fun! So i was invited to go on a field trip with the students of the seminary. They were going to visit the pyramids, the egyptian museum, and go on a faluka ride (its like a boat down the Nile ride). So i said i would go. We were supposed to leave at 8am but we ended up leaving at about 9:30-10 because of the wonderful thing which is EST (Egyptian Standard Time). Haha i am very used to it since i have lived with this all my life. We are supposed to go to my Tunt and Uncle who live in North Carolina. We are supposed to be there by 1, maybe 2 so we can have lunch and everything. NC for us is a 12 hour drive so that means, haha, we need to leave by like 5am. My sisters and I dont sleep the night before just because its easier to stay up all night than sleep for a little bit and wake up. So we are supposed to leave by 5 but we always end up leaving at like 10am...haha i mean usually EST isnt to such an extreme, but the Ghobrials are a family that takes things to the extreme!....anyway i'll go on

There is a good number of us and we get into this huge bus and drive off. During that bus ride i am listening to all the noise thats going on and its great. Everyone is so close and comfortable with one another that you really just feel great being in their presence. So we get to the pyramids and here is how it works. For an Egyptian with an Egyptian ID the cost of getting in is maybe 50 piasters, 1 pound tops haha but for a foreigner its 50 pounds....so i had to pay 50 pounds (which is only like 9 dollars) while everyone else paid about a fraction of a cent. It didnt bother me because just the opportunity to go and spend time with everyone is amazing enough. We walk, talk, listen, take many photographs and have a good time. After an hour or 2 we move on to other places to see the sphinx and the tombs of the old pharaohs. I had a really cool time and it was a lot of fun the second time around with a group of people.

After the pyramids we went to the egyptian museum, again 50 pounds for a foreigner and about 1 pound for an Egyptian, i didnt really like paying that much so my friend hany bought me a ticket and when we went to the guard he asks you where you are from. I of course dont have an egyptian ID so i just handed him the ticket and he is like "inta min fein?" (where are you from) i go "enna musri" (i am egyptian). haha i am really bad at hiding things so as i said this i was looking down at the floor. the guard grabs my shoulder and is like "If you are egyptian look me in the face and be proud!" (haha i dont feel like typing out poorly spelled arabic translation) so he let me in and it was great. I would have brought my camera to take pictures but the battery died while at the pyramids, and also you arent allowed to have cameras in the museum....so i guess the first reason didnt matter so much....whatever. The museum was filled with so many amazing artifacts and stuff. I got to see a fossilized crocodile from the nile a couple hundred years ago....they are huge. Like seriously, they are really really big. But yeah so the museum is something i am really glad to have visited, and God will, if i get an egyptian ID i'll go more often.

After the museum we got sandwiches from a place called "Momen" and its like fastfood i guess, but really really tasty. Everyone was given 2 sandwiches, a beed sandwich and a chicken sandwich and they were nice and refreshing since we were all starving. The best part was we ate on the faluka boat as we went down the Nile. It was amazing because we went just as the sun was setting so the scene was breath taking. Haha, unfortunately my battery was still dead so i didnt get any pictures, but someone else had a camera and said i could copy some pictures from them later. So when i do i'll share them. Anyway it was a lot of fun we did cool guy stuff like arm wrestling matches and i actually won a few! I mean granted i might have won a few more if i was using my left hand, but i wont make excuses it was fun haha and we talked about governments and what not.

Either way after the boat ride we headed back where i relaxed for a bit and then went a played ping pong which is a lot of fun. Ok so i'll show you a cool picture of the group i went with. I had fun and i think i bonded with some people? Anyway yeah here is the group.

ps. I tried out these new glasses i have. They turn into sunglasses when sun light hits them and they worked beautifully. So now i am all cool and macho with sunglasses. haha ok thats about it

I hope Joe got to read this

Jenkins...David Jenkins

Hello everyone I will get to my thursday dedication section in a little bit i wanted to first talk a little bit about what i got to do last night.

One first thing i have to mention is...i got to talk to talk to Alex Stein yesterday! haha yep, Alex is in Shanghai and was in an internet cafe and we saw each other online and decided, its time to bring out the skype. Skype is an internet program that is strictly for making phone calls. If two people have a skype account they can talk for free and its really awesome, so we got to do it. Haha his conneciton was really bad though so the conversation was about 3minutes long, BUT it was still awesome. So yeah that really made my day to get to talk to someone. Ok now for the other stuff...

So it was 10pm and i get a call from hanah and he is saying that in about 5minutes they are going to play some football and that he wants me to join. So i am like....man yeah i am in! So i get ready and i head downstairs and last night was my first experience at playing street ball! Yep we got a football headed out to the street set up teams and began an intense game of streetball. (just a note football from now on means soccer) Ok so i dont know if i like street ball more than regular football but i will say they are both a lot of fun. I of course am not as good as everyone but thank God for my stamina and the ability to stick on to people. Haha my shooting is terrible but i can get the ball and pass it to people who can so its fun. The other thing about street ball that i learned, haha, the hard way is if you fall or slide it better have been worth it because the consequences are much greater than when playing on grass. So i mean i only fell once which was good because everyone fell at least once and all i suffered was a couple scratches on my knee, hands, and back. However the reason i fell was to dive and save the ball from going out of bounds which in result was hit to my teammate kamal who then scored! Haha, so it was very worth it and everyone gave me compliments like "bravo elliak (bravo el-lee-ak, which means bravo on you) and stuff like that. So it was a lot of fun and even though we ended up losing it was much fun, i got a really good sweat out of it, and got invited to join them everytime. haha unfortunately by the time we were done playing and i got back to my room it was 1:30 and i had to wake up at 6 :/....totally worth it though.

Ok so my thursday dedication is to my friend David Jenkins. Hmm for those who know him then you guys know there is no proper way to fully introduce this man and possibly express the fullness which is David Jenkins. So for those who dont know him i'll give some demographics. He went to Tufts university and studied Theater....he is an amazing actor and from what i heard last he is in New York city working and he just finished a performance in a park and i heard it was awesome. So yeah david and i met i would say in the 7th grade and haha, it wasnt a very good beginning, but God has a purpose for everything and from getting to know david in the beginning he taught me the meaning of sarcasm. Yep up until then i didnt know what it was and haha David Jenkins back then was chock full of sarcasm and i'm glad i could gain an understanding of it. Anyway i dont want to get into that sort of thing because sarcasm isnt what i want to touch upon about david. The reason i chose david today was because at the office someone had complimented my shirt and i offered it to them because its just a shirt to me and i dont mind giving away anything i own, haha. So he declined of course and they asked me "is it normal in america to give your clothes and trade it with others?" i said yes, women do it all the time, but not so much men"....then i thought about david. Why? NO not because he is a woman you jerks, but because david and i have a special oath to one another to be each others "pants pals". What is pants pal? its simple really. David and i wear the same size pants and we made an agreement to one another that if either of us should ever need a pair of pants we would without a doubt lend them a pair. As of right now I have lent david a pair of my jeans on one occasion when he needed one....hmm....ok so i know i am not in the states now and it might come to pass that david will need another pair....DAVID JENKINS! "I give you permission to go to my home whenever you need to pick up a pair of pants if you should ever need one" Ok, haha so yeah thats what came to my mind today, David Jenkins and I: Pants Pals to the end. So other than that i hope when i get back i'll be able to see him in a play. I saw him do a performance of monster while he was still at tufts and it was ridiculous! (Monster is a play about frankenstein and david played Mr. Frankenstein himself...and not the monster the monster is not named frankenstein, the name of the monster is frankenstein's monster...) so yeah that was the last performance i saw and over time you can only get better so i am really excited to see what david has up his acting sleeves next chance i get. Ok Have a good day everyone.

I hope Joe got to read this

Activities!

Good day to you all,

So yesterday was filled with many many things. Most of it good, some of it actually kind of terrible...

Ok so i'll start with the terrible. So i have been in Egypt for about 3 months now and have had the pleasure of being part of that the ridiculousness which is Egyptian traffic...everyone drives really really fast and never obeys traffic laws. Haha, I see many times someone just backing up in the middle of the highway withs cars barreling down all around it just moving out of its way...ridiculous. So yeah the thing is that being part of this sort of thing i always figured i would see accidents and broken cars piled up on the sides of the rode, but out of the 3 months nothing...until today. Unfortunately today i bore witness to my first automobile accident in egypt and it was pretty scary. No....i wasnt in it i was in a taxi driving behind. Ok, so this is what happened. We were driving down the street and a car was in front of us but it decided to turn around and go back down the street so it started to do a broken U turn (a three point turn, whatever you are used to calling it) But an impatient delivery scooter decides it doesnt want to wait and tries to go around it, i guess the car didnt see it and just smashes the scooter causing the delivery man to go hurling into the sky and falling onto the ground several feet away. The taxi and I stop of course and so does everyone around to see what happened. Thank God the man was alright and in fact so was the delivary scooter. Haha, since i couldnt really communicate with them i went off and fetched his shoes which got thrown off in the impact. Basically everyone around was just saying "are you alright? anything broken?" and he would say "no" and everyone would say "Thank God" eventually when we saw he was fine we drove off. The taxi was talking to me about how he should have been patient and i agreed. But yeah that was my first experience of an Egyptian car accident. I really liked the genuine concerns that people showed.

Ok so after getting back to my room, i called my friend Hana and he was in class. So i did some reading and when he was done we went to play some ping pong and afterwards watched a volleyball game. Unfortunately since we were playing ping pong we missed the beginning and couldnt join any teams but it was still really fun to watch. Haha there is one guy named Hany who was on a team and he had no idea how to paly volleyball so everyone was just saying "just watch us and do the same" So after a little bit the ball finally came towards him but he still didnt really know what to do. The ball was flying way back so he ran in front of it turned his back to it and....he bicycle kicked it! Haha! he jumped right up into the air did a bicycle kick and it was beautiful what an amazing arch and it landed perfectly on the other end....had it been a legal hit they would have gained a point. But of course you arent allowed to do that and everyone tackled him saying he was so stupid for doing that and yelling at him and we all laughed and had a good time. Afterwards it was time for some serious business; chess. Haha, i am really really rusty at playing chess. The last time i played chess was i think was at least 5 years ago when i worked at the Public Library and when i played it was against a group of 8 year olds because i was teaching them how to play. So yeah i played this really really good player and we played 3 games. I won the first game, he won the second technically...and he then destroyed me the third haha....the reason i say techincally is because i would have won but i let him redo a few crucial moves but yeah either way what happened happened and i lost. But it didnt matter because it was a lot of fun....haha we played and took our sweet time though because when we finished it was 1am....and i had to wake up at 6. So anyway i went to bed after doing a little more reading/meditating and slept by 2:30 or so. Over all i am really really exhausted because i am used to sleeping at 11 and getting 7 hours of sleep but it was totally worth it because of the great time i had.

Anyway I am supplying those who are not familiar with football (soccer) an image of what a bicycle kick is so you can try and fathom the amazing thing i saw....



I hope Joe got to read this

quick note

Ok i dont want to take any attention away from the thursday dedication post but i had mentioned how much i love honey now and i wanted to show you my pride and joy as of right now. There is a man who lives on the street and owns a cart. He goes around and sells this honey he collects by himself and sells it as his only source of income. I bought it and its so delicious you can tell because i am smiling a lot. Ok its really cool and still has the honey comb inside the jar!

ok read the post below!

The Palar Express

Hello Hello My friends it is thursday which means i am going to dedicate this post to someone eventually....let me first take care of some house cleaning...

I can safely say i now have friends at the seminary i am at, we have officially exchanged mobile numbers and have done the spend time together thing. Last night Hana introduced me to two guys by the names of Maged (pronounced Mag-ged) and someone named Hany (Han-ee) so the four of us walked around the streets and stopped in a shop so they could buy a book. Haha to my surprise they were buying the Qur'an. The reason is because they are taking a course on Islam and to understand the religion i guess you gotta go to the source which is their version of the Bible (for those who might not have known). So after buying the Qur'an we went back to the seminary and they invited me to eat with them. Sooooo i got to sit in the cafeteria i always pass by everytime going to my room for the first time. They gave me something called fetir (pronounce fit-eer) its like a flat croissant and we had white cheese (from now on i will call it gibna beyda) and honey. So just to let you guys know i used to not like honey for whatever reason but after being exposed to it within the last 2 years i have decided to try it and i love it i am now a honey fan so for those who dont like honey...give it another shot. After eating we went to the lounge where they have a TV and weights for lifting and machines. But the thing they also had was a ping pong table so for the next like 2 hours we played a lot of ping pong and i actually won a game! Haha now let me quickly explain...

...out of the 4 of us i believe i am the worst and the only way i won was because the person i beat was trying to do these ridiculous things and missed more times than he should have and i ended up winning...so yeah i am not good but i will hopefully get better as the days go on. On a side note snapple says that if you play ping pong for 12 hours you lose one pound, so we'll see how that plays out.

Ok enough of that i need to leave room for the dedication....From the title of the entry i have chosen my good friend Nic Palar. For those who dont understand the literary reference there was a childrens book called "The Polar Express" and i think they made a live action movie of it or something with Tom Hanks...i dont know how they made a full length feature film out of a 12 page childrens book with about 1 sentence on each page...but yeah i guess thats why i can never make it in Hollywood. OK so It was really really hot this morning and i had a jacket on. The reason i did was because last night was freezing. Like my hands were numb because of how cold it was and i was in shock. So this morning i played it safe and wore a jacket and people looked at me because of how hot it was. So then i was like "you know i feel like nic palar right about now" BECAUSE, haha, always wears pants and on many occasions wears a hooded sweater in the middle of spring and parts of summer while everyone around him is wearing shorts and stuff. Now i can relate to Nic because i for the most part never wear shorts except for playing soccer or doing a sport, but Nic is tried and true and continues to wear long pants. So yeah thats Nic Palar.

I also remember first starting to get to know Nic after first i never really said anything to him because he was always quiet and seemed to only talk to a select few in the group. More and more we hung out but it wasnt until one time we were driving together and got lost for awhile. As all of you should know I have a terrible sense of direction (and thats even for places i already know) so put me in a place i haev never been and i am hopeless, and with Nic he first got his ability to drive so he wasnt familiar with many roads at the time, and it was night so nothing looks familiar. We were driving and both agreed "hey lets take the Saw Mill Parkway, that seems like a nice innocent safe way to get home"....little did we know that the saw mill parkway is the worst road ever created and it led us straight into the heart of Yonkers, NY.....ugh..... haha...ok so i have a lot of friends from yonkers and they are all great but yonkers is a place that will forever remain on the negative side of me. So we drove around for 2hours! trying to get out of yonkers but we couldnt. Haha we had listened to the same hip hop CD like 3 times at this point and the radio wasnt that good (Nic Palar also loves hip hop even though he may physcially not appear that way) So thank God i had at that time the mobile number of shirlene thomas so i called her and haha had to make her father give us direction out of yonkers....man that was crazy. So yeah during those 2 hours though i got to know Nic more and we are good friends (at least i think so) so anyway so some demographics on Nic, he is a genius, reads a lot, knows everything about history, he is a nice guy always willing to help and supply his car to drive people around. He loves soccer (like all should) and likes hip hop. Nic Palar is basically the man and if you dont know him i'll be sure to introduce you whenever i get the chance.....haha the word Banzai i also associate with Nic Palar but thats for another post.


I hope Joe got to read this.

News

Hello my friends! I apologize for being away for so long but i had a small vacation and i went to the Red Sea with my family. I wont go into much of what happened at the Red Sea because really not much happened except that i relaxed, swam in a lagoon, and i ate EVERYDAY. Yep thats right i ate 3 meals a day (ugh...sometimes more haha) everyday for 5 days in a row. I mean i guess i shouldnt expect you guys to be proud of me because i should be doing that sort of thing regardless haha...but yes I enjoyed the vacation a lot i walked and talked with my family and had a good time. Also Nancy Ajram was there performing and Amr Diab (the egyptian elvis) was staying at the hotel near our house with his wife and kids. It was just an overall good time and i got a tan :( ....i was swimming then i layed down on a chair to warm up and i fell asleep then when i woke up i was a little darker...so yeah thats about the news on the Red Sea vacation. I'll put up some pictures once i get a chance of the view and other interesting things! Now onto even more news!!!

Ok So after my arabic lesson i go back to the seminary like any other day. I say hello to the man at the gate and walked towards the building. And for the first time there were people! yep people. An elderly caucasian woman and 2 egyptian men (my guess they were professors) so they looked at me the 2 egyptian men said like "izzayak" or some other sort of greeting and i replied with a simple "enna ta-mam" (everything is perfect) and then the caucasian woman says "hello" and i reply "hello, how are you?" haha she looks back not expecting me to speak english and without an accent at all and then i walk up the stairs to my room. I sit down start reading my bible and then about 20minutes later there is a knock at my door. I open the door and its the woman and she introduces herself as elaine and she is a professor who teaches english at the seminary. Haha so i invited her to sit down and offered her the food i had (at the moment i have a few chocolate bars, and sesame breadsticks) then we talked. After awhile she gives me the scoop on how things work and how i in fact am allowed to use the library and computer lab i just need to figure out the schedule. The computer lab is supposedly open till 11pm (i think thats 5pm you guys) so i may be able to communicate directly with everyone! haha but who knows how that will go....

So yeah after talking with elaine two guys walk by and she jumps up and drags them into my room. The two guys are Hanah and Sadak and they are both second year students at the seminary. Their english is well enough that i can talk to them and they are both really nice. Hanah runs the sports at the seminary and i signed up for the football (soccer), ping pong, volleyball, and chess events. This is all really amazing but i think i am going to have to start eating because they dont start playing soccer till like 9pm and i usually sleep at 10pm. So as of right now my body might not be able to handle late nights of rigorous athlete activities with my current eating habits. So we'll see how this works out. Thats pretty much what happened last night in that department...

hmm other news...OH YEAH! so i woke up today and i look at the window...what do i see? BAM! I see rain everywhere and then a huge lightning bolt strikes across the sky and thunder! I have not seen rain since i left the states and its like raining really hard. So it cheered me up to see a little bit of home. Haha soon after though i remembered the "joys" of being in the rain in the cold without an umbrella. So eventually i got into a taxi because waiting for a bus was going to give me influenza. So the taxi i had was great he was such a pro. It was raining like crazy, he doesnt have any windshield wipers and that didnt stop him from racing down the streets weaving in and out of cars. Haha so we got to my work in one piece and that was that. Ok so thats about all thats happened in the past few days. I'll update again soon enough and get some pictures going all up in this place....word.


I hope Joe got to read this

The Hotdog Man Cometh

Hello everyone how are you all?

Ok before i get into thursday's dedication post thingy, i'll give you guys the conclusion to my possible change of living....ok so i am not taking the flat. I talked it over with my cousins and we decided that there is no rush and there are much much better places to live especially in Heliopolis. So yeah i mean the place was very run down but i didnt mind so much but in the end they said i shouldnt be paying to live in a place that is in worse condition than where i am now. So yeah i have my room in the seminary till May and if i need to find a new place before then i will because i should stop worrying about things so much. I gotta learn how to take things in stride better. Anyway yeah i think though living in the seminary being surrounded with the people i want to eventually become is going to be good for me.

haha, another note is thank you all for your concerns on my eating situation and FINE i'll eat more but i wont like it...anyway haha seriously its ok i am still in good health and besides this new diet is doing wonders for my figure....haha anyway yeah dont worry i'll fix that.

And now onto my thursday dedication thing. As all of you know i dont think about this thing till i come to sit down at my computer the day of. So no need to email me requesting a dedication your time will all come...so yeah here we go: This morning i was talking with one of my co-workers who is going back to the states for a fund raising mission. Going state to state talking about Habitat. She hasnt been back to America in a good time so i asked "what is the first thing you are going to eat when you get back?" She said it was simple...she is from Colorado and is going to Chicago or something as the first stop and she said the first thing she is getting is a Chicago style hotdog...its like this huge hotdog that has mustard, pickles, and other things. Now back in the day i would think this sounded delicious...but now when i hear the word "hotdog" 3 things come to my mind:
1. how i never want to eat one again (due to a hotdog eating contest which i can talk about another time)
2. a bacon burger dog (the fictional amazing sandwich created by Bill Cosby and is often referenced in the Cosby Show...man it sounds so good)
and
3. Jon Heyman

Jon Heyman is the man who has been selected for thursdays dedication post. I met him when i transfered to SUNY Albany and i can remember what people had told me about him. They said "he is crazy...", "we call him bonk", and "haha, what is bonk like? you'll see..." so i mean i had no idea what to expect when i would eventually meet this "Bonk" but yeah when i finally did he was extremely normal and nothing like i expected. But i asked him what he wanted to be called if he really liked being called bonk, he said he would prefer jon, so jon it was. Anyway after that i got to know him eventually becoming my gym buddy and going with him after dinner to the gym to lift weights and be men and stuff like that. Haha there were many good times and many characters at the gym we eventually looked forward to seeing such as "cast away", "socrates", and others. Anyway i'll get to why the word hotdog puts jon heyman into my head all the time. He was telling me about back in the day when he and his friends had things called "meat pops" or something along those lines....basically they were frozen hotdogs and you just ate them straight up out of the freezer...haha yeah i mean i'll admit i have yet to try such a thing yet but it cant be that bad, right? i mean people eat weird things all the time. I have a friend who eats pears with american cheese, i have a friend who eats ketchup on ice cream, why not a frozen hotdog? OH! I am just reminded right now of another thing that has created a bond between jon heyman and me.

Salami and Cream Cheese on a Bagel. does that sounds weird? i dont think it does the more i say it the less weird it sounds, but people have said its weird. Anyway one day i was in the cafeteria with everyone and wanted to eat something i was like "i am going to have a salami and cream cheese sandwich on a bagel" everyone looked at me like "umm yeah you go do that" but jon heyman was like "no way...i thought i was the only one who ate that" and so it began an unbreakable friendship structured around salami and cream cheese on a bagel. The way i came to having discovered salami and cream cheese was when i needed to make lunch at home. We usually had some sort of deli meat around and i could make a sandwich but one day i opened the refrigerator and found very very limited selections. No bread, only bagels (meh no big deal) and then the only meat was salami...but what else? no lettuce or tomatoes, no mustard, i was not going to put mayonnaise on that thing but it needed something...anything....then i saw it cream cheese. I am like why not? So i did and BAM it was perfect it was so delicious. And so it began the most delicious thing i came up with on my own and i find that jon heyman shared my thoughts. Haha anyway yeah so for those who have never had a salami and cream cheese sandwich on a bagel. GO GET IT. It needs nothing else...well actually i should be fair i now add hot sauce to it thanks to shirlene thomas who puts hot sauce on everything...and i approve. If you can handle it hot sauce improves everything.. Anway thats about it Jon Heyman is the man and also just to state i admire his character.

He is a man of integrity and morals/ethics. You dont see many guys out there with a genuine care and concern for others. I mean i havent even seen this guy litter. So yeah he is cool and thats all i gues..


I hope Joe got to read this

a possible change

Hello Everyone,


So for those who dont know i am looking into the possibility of buying a small flat that is much much closer to the office (a 20minute walk actually). The flat is a two bedroom flat with a bathroom, a kitchen, a balcony to dry my clothes but no washing machine (not a problem), and it has a refrigerator. The cost of this is only 500 pounds a month (this estimates to about 90 American dollars which is nothing). I also need to pay for electricity water and gas but altogether it comes to about 45 pounds per month ontop of the 500 (45 pounds is a little less than 9 dollars) so yeah the price is ridiculously amazing and the location is really nice. I went in to check it out yesterday and haha wow oh wow. My first impression was umm...let me see...you guys know the saying "you get what you pay for"? well yeah i mean it definitely came to mind with this place. But that isnt a big deal because like i have said before i am a man of adaptation and flexibility. The fridge works, the stove works in the kitchen, the bed is comfortable, it has windows, and all the pluming works in the bathroom. Haha ok i'll be honest and say that the biggest thing to get used to is the bathroom. I didnt bring a camera with me because that would be rude but i drew a small picture of it using the Microsoft program MSPaint....here it is

If you dont understand the picture i'll try and explain. It is very small and the sink and toilet are very very close together. The shower is in the middle of both and hangs above and over them as well with a drain in the middle of the floor. I was told this is how a bathroom in a cruise is and i have to take their word for it because i have never been on one. Anyway the only thing that will take getting used to is not being able to use the toilet or anything else after i take a shower because i have to wait for it all to dry up but thats isnt a big deal at all.

Unfortunately there is no phone line so i cant really have internet but i havent had internet in the past so its not like that is a problem getting used to. I will look into getting dsl somehow connected into the building its not the expense that is the problem its whether or not it can be installed. So yeah that is what i may or may not be living in. I havent decided because i dont know what to think. I cant figure if money or time is more important to me. I mean if i live at the seminary i can live their rent free and just pay like 400 pounds a month for transportation and spend a good amount of time always commuting, or i can pay about 600 pounds a month (i added some in for food since my parents yelled at me for not eating :'( ....) and be able to save hours in commuting a week. So i dont know. I will live a little more primitively than i have been previously but who knows it might make a man out of me yet! I am bringing my cousins around to see it and decide any final negotiations that might be needed....OH! the big thing that is missing is there is no water heater. I tell everyone its not a big deal because i've been taking extremely cold showers for a month now but they all say "just wait till winter" so we need to see if the landlord can install one for me or if i will have to do it myself. Anyway what do you guys think? time or money? i am leaning still towards saving money and taking advantage of being in a seminary surrounded by students and professors because i want to do seminary myself when i get back.....but like i said i cant decide....ok thats all.


I hope Joe got to read this

Ultimate Family

Hi Everyone!


Ok so i guess i should apologize for the fact that i havent been posting a lot, i missed the thursday dedication, and i never even sent out a email update on friday....needless to say i am pretty busy. But on the other hand i have to apologize for spoiling a lot of you, I feel like i might have made you guys dependent on this thing when it never originally was supposed to be a consistent sort of blog. I mean coming up I will be gone like weeks at a time building in the build areas so i wont have a computer or anything like that for awhile...But yes i will start updating more i have just been busy this week with meetings and whatnot.

So why is this entry titled "Ultimate Family?" because that is what i have. I have the Ultimate Family a family that is completely unheard of in both this world and in fictional stories. Each time i spend with my family i am in awe of how on earth can such generosity, such love, such genuine concern for each other be real....wow. Ok so I'll talk about my Sunday yesterday. Every sunday i go to my tunt nabila's to spend a day with her and my cousin teddy's kids. Teddy is now with the Lord and mere words cannot describe how awesome he was. Anyway so Usually i go to church at 7pm but yesterday we went to the 11:30am service and it was really good. Haha those egyptian speakers are very passionate and really know how to get a crowd stirring. So after the service my tunt, haha, literally dragged me to all sorts of people saying "This is Andrew the son of Nader and Hoda, the grandchild of tunt Edna" (Edna was my mother's mother and from what i hear was an amazing woman who probably started this concept of amazingness that spread through our family) So yeah when anyone heard that they get so excited and start telling me that i have to come over and eat and just spend time with them. Its so amazing. So then i met haha a new tunt* of mine. (*for those who dont know, tunt is like arabic for aunt...its just a habit of mine to say that sorry.) so yeah i met tunt noelle who is my mom's cousin and they grew up like sisters. She saw me when i was 4 when i first came to egypt long ago, and then also she saw a picture of me at one of our cousin's weddings and her first thing to say was "why have you lost so much weight?" haha i love this family. So yeah we go back to tunt nabila's house where we sit and talk, I hear about my parents when they were younger and what it was like in the old neighbor hood with teyta Edna opening her home to all and welcoming everyone and anyone who wanted to come. So everyone was like a family and tunt noelle was saying giving me all these compliments and saying how much i am like my mom and stuff....Haha for a side note if you EVER want a emotional pick me up go see anyone from my family because they will pack you so full of compliments and warm greetings you will be good for a month!....anway....so then she started asking me questions like how is your room and how do you eat? ugh, i didnt want her to ask me that because i cant lie to her so i gave her the truth saying "i eat once every other day." she looked at me and said explain..haha so i said i eat once on monday, sometimes wednesday, thursday, and sunday...she took my hand and dragged me to her house where she proceeded to empty her refrigerator into a bag and gave it to me. So now i have food and i ate breakfast this morning! Then the sunday went as usual and i went to church AGAIN at 7pm! Church twice a day is awesome....

So yeah The point of that was to just show you i never really met tunt noelle but to her i am like her son because of how close our family is. This is extremely inspiring and i hope to be able to pass one even a fraction of the generosity i experience daily here. Also i will post more soon enough.


I hope Joe got to read this

Taxi vs. Rider

Hello everyone. Sorry i havent been posting as often as i used to but that is just because work in the office is picking up a lot and i dont really have time to do much. I have also had a lot on my mind and honestly not in the mood all the time to type of an entry. But i'll give you guys just a bit of what has been on my mind.

I'll start off with a taxi experience...so i got into the taxi and we were headed to the office which is about a 20 minute drive but we got stuck in terrible traffic and were there for a bit. I wasnt saying anything to the taxi driver and he wasnt saying anything to me. The taxi driver started to whistle this song. Let me first say he is a really good whistler...so yeah he whistled this song one time through and we sat there again in relative silence (i mean cars honking and people screaming in the background of course) then he started to whistle the same song again but this time i started up with him. He stopped. I stopped. He looked at me. I looked at him. And like out of a movie or something we both just start from the top and whistle the entire song through and it was really great. Music is always said to be the "universal language" I mean granted he didnt know i didnt know how to speak his language but still it created a small bond between us and i started off with an izzayak(how are you), the roads started to clear and he was telling me about his day he was telling me how his daughter was in school and she is very clever and stuff like that. I just smiled and put in my 2 cents like "really?" or "thats great" or something like that. Anyway so we get to the office and i give him 10 pounds because thats the price. He stops me and goes "i want more" and i ask him why....his reason was because we whistled and talked and i should give him more now since we are "friends". That really saddened me that it had to end like that. I told him sorry but 10pounds is fair and i walked off. I wasnt angry, i wasnt frustrated i was just sad that this has the be the relationship of the taxi driver and the rider. I began to try and think why is it that the relationship is like that? Sort of like the chicken and the egg dilemma (even though i believe it was the chicken that came first) so yeah what came first? was it the taxi driver being rude or too demanding or being greedy and only seeking out more money, or is it the fault of us the rider of the taxis? I mean i have a friend who is a taxi driver and he is a normal person just trying to make a living. He tells me about how hard it is sometimes because of this sterotype that is put on the taxi driver that they only want money and stuff so as soon as a rider gets in they dont like the taxi driver. So i dont know it could be a combination of both types of people. Greedy taxi drivers and impolite cold riders.
So why are the riders cold to the taxi drivers? it could be because they all think they are greedy and just out to get their money, it could be that they are afraid to build any type of relationship (no matter how small or shallow or whatever it is) because the same thing that happened to me might happen to them. I dont know i wish i did know. I know however each time i get into a taxi i want to be able to talk to them. Not to prove that i am egyptian so dont charge me a ridiculous price but just because hey this person next to me is a regular guy doing their job and someone has to break this ritual of a relationship. So yeah thats one of my insentives to learn this language so i can communicate with taxi drivers because though some may only out to get my money it could just be because of this poisoned relationship we all have put ourselves in. Anyway i dont even know if its just an egyptian taxi driver thing because i cant remember ever taking a taxi while in America....oh well i am rambling and i dont remember what my point was.....

Ok this was a lame post sorry. I am going to get out of my slump soon and start posting more things. Have a good day.


I hope Joe got to read this

some experiences

Hello Hello everyone! Ok so I am just going to take the time to talk about my weekend and anything else i feel inspired to say...I "googled" the word experience just so i could get a picture and the first thing that popped up was this comic from Calvin and Hobbes. I read it and thought it appropiate or at least somewhat insightful and felt the want to share it with you guys :D

Its true life is uncontrollable in the sense of how long we have but its all our experiences in life that amount to how we perceive it. Whether good or bad the experience is meant for something for us to take. Meh i dont know i liked this comic and feel it hits a pretty good point that its all how we look at things. (click the picture to view it in full size i coulndt make it big enough without half of it being cropped out of sight. sorry)

anyway....

The weekend...On Saturday My tunt nagwa and uncle amin came to pick me up and took me to their home where they spent a good portion of my time there feeding me. I have to say that the food is oh man so delicious! But its painful when i go there. Because they physically feed me until i cant eat anymore. I'm glad that i dont eat all the time because before it was by choice but now its i literally cant because based on how much they feed me my body is still digesting days after. So yeah i really really had a good time though. This family i was blessed being born into is so amazing. I never experienced such genuine love for others as much as in my family. Some of my uncle i had never met before but because i am part of their family they treat me as their own and then some. So its really something i hope to aspire to one day to have such a love for anyone who enters into my home or even enters into my field of vision to just be able to give them back a fraction of what i receive when i am at a family members home. So yeah Saturday was delicious.

Sunday as well was delicious because on sundays it is now tradition to go to my tunt nabila's and spend time with her and my little cousins hannah, fahrid (fah-reed), and sara. We have lunch and then go to church so sundays are always amazing. I dont know if i had previously stated this in another post but i love these kids. You learn a lot from how kids are because they are learning themselves and their perspectives and conception of things are striking to say the least. We usually spend the time with me teaching them to draw my stupid little cartoons (haha it looks like i finally found a use for my ability to draw mediocre looking animals, because the girls seem to love them) so yeah and we eat and then play some more. Yesterday i was helping the girls practice this loop trick they had learned from someone else. I will try to explain it best i can...so i stand there and one of them faces me i stretch out my arm and she holds onto them. Then she stands on my feet and then proceeds to climp up me as if i was a wall or something. She continues to climp till she is upside down then she pushes off of me with her feet and "loops". It was rough practicing for me because they continuously kicked me in the groin area and the my stomach which was really full of food from that day and the previous one. But it was important to them so i just put on a smile and endured the pain....haha they are so great. So yeah that was my sunday morning.

Sunday evening we normally go to church but this sunday there was a party at my uncle ataf's (umm i guess you would pronounce it like ah-taf...but not really) his son and my cousin Wasim (wa-seem) just graduated from the university and was getting a job so they were having a party and invited us over. Now i said earlier that my family is really special and show tremendous amounts of love to all. So i had never really met my uncle ataf or at least if i did i was really really small and dont remember it. But he comes to me and is just so kind and generous. Haha unfortunately part of his generosity included feeding me really delicious but heavy desserts like basboosa and konaffa....mmm so good but ugh my poor stomach haha. Anyway it was a wonderful time sitting and talking and just enjoying each other. So that was my sunday it was as well delicious and also just great.

A quick note about this morning (monday morning). So i woke up later than i usually do and unfortunately didnt have anything less than 50 pounds so a bus was out of the question because they dont usually have change for something that high so early in the morning. So i had to take a taxi. I cross the highway and find a taxi and when i get in....i was shocked...i was stunned....i had no idea what to say except for "ya rahbi" (rah-bee...that means "my God") i said that because it was one of the taxi drivers i had previously! Hahaha and out of all the taxi drivers i had before i got the one who called me "Hamtaro" and guess what? He remembered. I get in and he goes "HELEN YA HAMTARO IZZAYAK!?" haha i go through all the small talk and he does a few of the old songs he had sung before and when we got to my office i ask him "momkin andak fekka?" (that means do you have change?") and he goes just puts on a big smile and reaches into his pocket and gives me all that i need and i shake his hand and he goes off laughing and singing. Man that was just so cool to have in the morning. So i have no idea how the rest of my monday is going to go but nothing on earth can bring me down after that! haha ok thats all for now.



I hope Joe got to read this