It's All Beginning

Things are really starting to move at full speed here in Cairo. Classes are in full swing--with my first Arabic quiz tomorrow (yikes)--, we're packing the activities in, and we've been listening to a lot of really comelling speakers. For all of you past MESPers, Jim Wright's talk was last night, so I'm trying to process things. Dr. Dave has been talking about how part of the MESP experience is not only learning about a different culture, but also about using this new and challengin experience as a mirror to learn about our own culture and ultimately ourselves. This is such a big part of the reason that I decided to come on MESP; I want to encounter new things, people, and ideas and in doing so, better understand where I've come from, what I believe and who I am. I think that's going to happen.

In other news, Tuesday was service project day again and it was pretty much amazing. I worked with the disabled children at Sisters of Charity, so it was a bit of a different experience from the babies. I took me around thirty seconds after walking in the room to fall in love with these kids. One of the little girls I was holding for a while kept getting sad and crying and I couldn't seem to do anything to make her happy, so I asked one of the Egyptian girls what was wrong. She told me that the girl, Fatma, was just left there by her mother yesterday, and that she was left there for good. It's awful to try to understand a life where your mind and body are underdeveloped and then you are abandoned by your family. I'm so grateful for the opportunity to be there and love on those kids.

In the evening, I had so much fun teaching at the Sudanese church because my co-teacher Benjamin sounds exactly like Mr. Rogers (from the Neighborhood), and we themed our whole lesson like an episode of the show. It was HILARIOUS.

I'm really starting to love being here, after a couple weeks of adjustment: my group is really fun and unified, and I still can't believe sometimes that I live only five minutes away from the Nile. Egypt is so more complex and interesting than I ever thought that it could be. Next time I'll try to post pictures so that you can see all of the wonderful things in Agouza!

Linda