Songs in the Night

Yay Daddy

2011-06-19T20:32:00.000-04:00

There's something like a line of gold thread running through a man's words when he talks to his daughter, and gradually over the years it gets to be long enough for you to pick up in your hands and weave into a cloth that feels like love itself. ~John Gregory Brown, Decorations in a Ruined Cemetery

I don't usually "do" sentimental. But for some reason, on this Father's Day I'm particularly contemplative. And grateful. I wrote the following lines to share just a little bit of what I'm feeling today.

Thank you Daddy

Thank you, Daddy, for your patience and constancy. For your sincere faithfulness to Doing the Right Thing.

Thank you, Daddy, for our Saturday market errand days filled with unbegrudged shoulder rides and da and sometimes pop.

Thank you, Daddy, for the word-play and puns and general language fun that I never realized wasn't normal - until I moved away.

Thank you, Daddy, for all the nights you sat patiently at the foot of my bed while I cried myself to sleep, knowing your silent presence was more than any words could mean.

Thank you, Daddy, for teaching me to Do Hard Things, showing me how to not take the easy way out.

Thank you, Daddy, for the after-five-o'clock hour set aside for earnest play.

Thank you, Daddy, for all the driving to and fro and staying up late to pick me up or just to be sure I came home safe.

Thank you, Daddy, for all our hikes and bikes and road trips across the rugged African bush.

Thank you, Daddy, for sharing with me the greatest story ever told so that my part in it could be written as well.

Happy Father's Day.

REU news

2011-06-15T23:16:00.002-04:00

It seems this is turning into a once-a-week blog rather than once-a-day....

Well this is my second week at UNL. My group's mathematical modeling project has been interesting so far, since it's unlike anything any of us has ever done or been taught--but of course it's also been frustrating at times, for that same reason. Our basic assignment for the summer is to generalize a specific approach to transforming Boolean (binary) network models into a system of ordinary differential equations. We are supposed to extend the the application so that it works for multistate network models as well as Boolean.

These networks can be pretty complex when drawn out...

...or represented using a computer visualization program.

Sometimes it's possible to simplify them down a bit.

We spent pretty much all of last week tackling a lot of background reading on systems biology and specifically network modeling of biological systems, and trying to gain a clear understanding of the paper that presents the methods we are supposed to generalize. Then this week we've started doing some modeling ourselves. Eventually we will have to come up with several proofs as well, but I'm content to not think about that just yet. :)

There are eleven REU students in math here this year. We're split among three projects, so I'm in a group of four and there's another group of four students and a group with three. Each group has an advising professor and a graduate student mentor as well. Everybody is super nice, but I haven't really gotten to meet a lot of people that aren't specifically connected to the REU program. That probably has something to do with the fact that it's summertime so there are only a few specific classes or programs going on* and other than that it's basically just graduate students and professors in the building right now, each in his or her own office. I plan to try more actively to meet some of the other grad students over the next couple of weeks, though.

About 70 undergraduate summer research students are at UNL this year and we're all being housed in the same residence hall. General management of the Undergraduate Summer Research Program is being handled by the Graduate Recruitment office--which seemed a little random to me at first, but after thinking about it a bit I realized that actually makes a lot of sense. They're taking very good care of us. Several activities have already been scheduled for everyone in the group (who wants to) to participate in together, like a picnic last week and on another day a trip to the zoo.

*Did you know that the American Mathematical Olympiad teams train here at UNL before competing in the International Mathematical Olympiad every year? The students are on campus now and I've seen them together as a group but have not had the opportunity to talk with any of them.

Rest

2011-06-06T17:31:00.000-04:00

There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God; for anyone who enters God’s rest also rests from their works, just as God did from his. Let us, therefore, make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one will perish by following their example of disobedience. For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account. Hebrews 4:9-13

One of my greatest experiences lately has been being able to rest--truly rest--for the past month. After the intensive pace of my life this past semester, both with schoolwork and interpersonal interaction, it has been sooooo refreshing to come into a short season with few responsibilities and demands on my time. Part of me always wants to call such behavior 'laziness' and try to go find things to do, but I feel like this truly has been a season of rest that I am learning to appreciate as a gift and opportunity to learn a different sort of obedience than I would normally focus on.

During this time I have also practiced a weekly fast. At first the two ideas--fasting and rest--were separate in my mind, but fasting has definitely played into this "learning to rest" theme for me this month. There have been several days I should have remembered to fast but just utterly forgot about it until midday or so. This sort of forgetfulness is actually quite common for me, but I have tended to blame it on the general busyness of my life--at times even holding up my forgetfulness of commitments as positive evidence of how much I have going on. But during my time of rest this past month I have learned that I really can't blame this sort of forgetting on the general busyness of life, as I had done before, because it happens even when my life is particularly not busy.

I am slowly learning to see my forgetfulness of this sort as self-centeredness: I will remember the things that are interesting to me and important to me, instead of putting that mental energy into remembering the things that are interesting and important to my life in Christ. And of course that's what rest is all about: denial to my own self-centeredness, obedience to the fullness of carrying Christ's yoke - for CHRIST's yoke is easy and HIS burden is light.

Books!!! Ah, the joys of summer.

2011-05-27T21:53:00.001-04:00

I've decided to keep a record of the books I read this summer. So far, in my three weeks home I have read at least seven books. Rollover below to view details for a book.

So how fast do I actually read, anyway?

2011-05-27T21:52:00.000-04:00

I know I tend to read faster than most people my age, but it's been a while since I'd timed myself so I really had no idea what my reading speed might be, specifically. (And of course reading speed varies depending on the type of reading and type of text involved, as well.)

A couple of weeks ago (and then today as well) I had the opportunity to time myself in a very casual way though. As I was reading in bed one night, nearing the end of To Kill a Mockingbird, I paused and recalled that I had picked up the book to begin reading the first chapter when I had come up to my room at about 11:00 p.m. that evening. I reminded myself made a note of the time when I finished the book at 3:30 a.m. So I'd read To Kill a Mockingbird in almost 4.5 hours exactly! At a word count of 100,850 words spread over 280 pages, that which puts my reading speed at about 374 words per minute, and almost exactly 1 page per minute.

I feel it's important to note, though, that this is probably the 7th or 8th time I've read To Kill a Mockingbird. My familiarity with the characters and with the contours of the story have probably made it much easier for me to read since I know so well what to expect. (Which is not to say that it has ceased to be a dynamic story for me. Every time I read the story I also come away with new pieces of insight, a fresh way of looking at the world that is not quite the same as ever before.)

I read Speaker for the Dead for the first time last night, in about 6.5 hours. I definitely took my time as I read, stopping to consider plot developments, picture the characterization and setting, and flip back to remind myself of earlier details in the story. For a word count of 135,500 words in 280 pages, that puts my reading speed at 347 words per minute, or about .72 pages per minute.

Five Things I Loved in Waxhaw Today

2011-05-26T00:00:00.000-04:00

The Bead Merchants' shop on main street.
Soft-serve ice cream on a hot day.
The awesome walking bridge over the railroad.
BEASTING pulling out of my roadside parking space into traffic.
Lunch: a perfectly juicy BLT sandwich with Greek salad at the Grill on Main

Perseverance

2011-05-24T13:31:00.002-04:00

Perseverance... keeps honor bright: to have done, is to hang quite out of fashion, like a rusty nail in monumental mockery. ~William Shakespeare

I completely forgot to write yesterday, so as I felt a bit discouraged coming at this again today this quote seemed a good one to start off with.

I've been learning perseverance myself lately. I'm so tempted to quit this whole blog/journal/writing exercise thing, just two days in, because I messed up once already. But looking back, I feel like in so many ways perseverance has actually been the theme of my growth as a person over the past few years--and I'm certainly not a master at it yet. So I'm encouraged to continue--let's hope it's good!

On another note, the second part of the quote: "to have done, is to hang quite out of fashion." That's nearly always my internal response when some well-meaning older person says casually, "Appreciate college--those are the best years of your life" or something to that effect. I know that it's meant well, but when such things are said I can't help but wonder Oh, so it's all downhill after college? Is that the best encouragement you have to offer?

I want to enjoy college, for sure - but I don't want it to ever be the main thing I look back on and appreciate in my life: "a rusty nail in monumental mockery" of wherever I might be ten, twenty, fifty years hence. I would like my life, at every stage, to be characterized by perseverance in the things that are important. I want to always be sharpening of my vision for the future while savoring the present for all it's worth. I want to be able to look back on my life and say, "Yes, college was great--and it only got better after that!"

I'm back

2011-05-22T21:11:00.002-04:00

Welll. It's been a while.

I'm excited to begin the journey of blogging again this summer. Mainly for myself, although if you (my elusive reader) find enjoyment here I will certainly not be disappointed.

THE RULES:

One entry per day.
10 sentences, minimum, for each entry.
The above-mentioned 10 sentences don't have to actually cohere perfectly to form a complete and publishable work of art. A measure of spontaneity is desirable and to be encouraged.
Some measure of intelligibility is also desirable, however.
In the interest of points (3) and (4), aim to spend 1 minute per sentence in drafting an entry, and no more than 1 minute per sentence in editing.
Information of a drastically personal nature shall be avoided on principle--this being the Internet and all--although I can think of very few details about my life that one might consider as being "of a sensitive nature."
Have fun!

Can I count this as my post for today?

Success!!

2009-08-04T17:56:00.001-04:00

July 30

Today all 25 American students plus the Cairo volunteers came to the district El Fayoum (about 3 hours away from Cairo) to do 4 days of community service (mostly painting). We're staying in a hostel/guest house that is part of a Catholic center in one of the villages.

I had a good Arabic experience this evening. We had about 1 hour of downtime between our arrival and suppertime, and everybody walked over to the soccer field to either play or watch. A little girl came up and sat down beside me where I was watching by the side of the field. It took me like five minutes to just get up the courage to ask her name in Arabic. But when I did, things really started to happen! She knows about 2 sentences in English, plus various words, so the conversation had to be pretty much only in Arabic. Her name is Karmah I learned, and I told her my name is Nura in Egypt and Laura in America. She is 11 years old. I understood when she asked had I arrived just today, and how long will I be staying in El Fayoum, and how long have I been in Egypt. I introduced her to Wade and Autumn, who walked up while we were talking, and she asked the names of the 3 students playing soccer and where they're from, and I answered her. She said some things I didn't understand, asked some questions I didn't understand, but I'd just say "I don't understand" in Arabic and she'd repeat it or go on to something else. One of the questions I didn't understand at first, but then she said "sister" in English and repeated the question in Arabic. I recognized "do you have" in Arabic and decided she's asking if I have a sister. So we discussed our families. She learned about my siblings in America and I learned that she's an only child. All this took place in Arabic and it made me so happy. I feel so successful and such a sense of accomplishment. Yay God!

language nerd musings

2009-07-28T13:27:00.003-04:00

On the way home today my host sister Yasmin told me about one of the things that came up in her English class. The topic in class was sports, and one word that came up was "pitch", as in baseball. Except, you see, Arabic does not differentiate between the sounds /p/ and /b/. Phonologically, /p/ is just the unvoiced version of /b/ and Arabic tends to just use /b/, the voiced version. So when the Egyptian students said "pitch" it came out as a quite different English word!

Arabic also has only 3 letters for vowels and only recognizes 3 vowel categories, roughly [a], [i] and [u]. (Similar to how in English the [a] in "cat" and "car" we only recognize as a single vowel--"short a"--even though they are different sounds. Say them and see.) So for example in Arabic the sound "ee" as in "beet" and "i" as in "pit" both are covered by the [i] letter and are considered to be the same vowel.

So in a combination of both these phonological patterns (p/b and only 3 vowels), I discovered while talking futher with Yasmin that the words "beach," "peach," "bitch," and "pitch" sound completly identical to her. When she repeats any one of the words after me, they all come out sounding something like "betsh" with the "e" as in "England".

Another illustration of the implications of the 3-vowel framework: Last week I found out that to my host sisters, the 5 English words "wear," "where," "we're," "were," and "war" also sound completly identical. Yes, within those 5 words we recognize 2 sets of homonyms, but certainly all 5 don't sound the same to native English speakers (of American English, anyway). After I pronounced the 3 vowel sounds separately my sisters were able to hear a bit of difference.

All these observations just make me wonder what sort of implications my English phonological framework has on the Arabic that comes out of my mouth. Arabic has 5 pairs of consonants which to English speakers sound like only 5 consonants total. (The way the p/b pair sounds like only 1 consonant to my Egyptian friends.) Plus, Arabic actually has a consonant which sounds completly like a vowel to English speakers; but looking at the way this sound occurs in the language it is indisputably a consonant, it follows all the rules for consonants and none of the rules for vowels. My brain still subconsciously thinks of this sound as "a vowel that acts like a consonant!" I've gotten to the place where when hearing a word, I can differentiate most of the time between the 2 consonants in each of the pairs mentioned previously; the problem is I can't usually pronounce the unfamiliar consonant, saying instead the consonant which I'm used to using in English. So I wonder how my mispronounciations sound to the people around me; I could be saying absolutely hilarious things just because I don't recognize the correct sounds--but everybody's so polite that of course they wouldn't want to tell me.

2009-07-26T13:28:00.002-04:00

Arabic is going well for me overall. Some of the other students have come to the conclusion that Arabic is just not something for them to pursue further (they had the attitude coming into it, as I did, that this summer would be a sort of trial run to see if it's something I want to continue with). But I'm really liking it a lot; even when it's difficult or frustrating I still feel an undercurrent of joy and delight in learning a completely new way of communicating.

One day last week I asked my family to only speak Arabic to me, except in the case of an emergency. The day went alright, except that they kept slipping up and speaking English to me! It was a good test of how much Arabic I've learned, and I was encouraged. I was thinking the other day, and came to the conclusion that I'm at about the same proficiency now in Arabic after 4-1/2 weeks as I was in Jo at the end of 10 years living in the village. It's frustrating though because I'm still not able to converse even a little bit with people on the microbus or in shops, not even exchange a few sentences.

Basically to be a functioning adult in the Arab world you need to know 2 related languages: a colloquial dialect used in day-to-day speech, and the Standard Arabic used in all printed matter but spoken only in very formal settings. These dialects/languages are related, but they are significantly different--enough that they have different words for 'this' and 'here' and conjugate pronouns differently.

In my Arabic class we've learned some Egyptian Colloqial Arabic, but we've spent more than half our time on Modern Standard Arabic--so a lot of what I've learned isn't immediately applicable to talking with people and that's where it gets frustrating. At the same time, to be a functioning adult in the Arab world you really do have to know MSA and it's what's normally taught in the US when one takes Arabic so it makes sense that we're being taught that in class.

I've decided I need to not let myself get bogged down in disappointment at how little I can speak, and focus on positive things like actively listening to the conversations around me.

At home with my family, about once or twice a day I'll understand 3 or 4 sentences in a row that somebody says to somebody else. There are many times that I understand one or two sentences. That's progress compared to when I arrived, when I didn't know anything at all.

*****
This past weekend we had Thursday off because it's a national holiday (Revolution Day--people don't celebrate it particularly, it's just a day you get off work) which created a 3-day weekend. My family took me to the beach at the port city Marsa Matrooh 6 hours away from Cairo on the Mediterranean. We only got to spend one day at the beach, but it was soooooooo beautiful! The water is the lightest shade of blue I've ever seen the ocean, and very clear, and the sand is large grains of crushed shells. There was also a cliff-y area near where we went, where you could climb on the sandstone near the water but stay out of the sea because the rocks were dangerous.

I'm familiar with strong sun from living in Mali so I covered up A LOT (wore a fitted t-shirt under my bathing suit, and shorts over my suit) and slathered on sunscreen but the sun was super-strong and I STILL got sunburned on my arms and face and lower legs!

****
On Wednesday the whole group of American students and host siblings and AFS volunteers is going to Khan el-Khalili, the most famous and biggest market in Cairo. It's also very touristy which is reflected in the prices (even Egyptians pay more for things in Khan el-Khalili than in other markets), although there are some non-tourist-influenced sections near the back which I hope we get to go to. We'll have lunch/supper out together. (Called 'lunch' here, it's the 1 main meal of the day, eaten sometime between 3 and 9 pm; several other minor meals are eaten during the day but they're more like snacks than meals.) Then we'll go to see a Suki dance performance. Suki are sometimes called 'whirling dervishes' -- a religious group who spin very fast during worship as a way to eliminate distractions and feel totally focused and spiritually connected. What we will see is not a religious event, though, but just a whirling dance based on the sort of dancing invented by Suki worshipers. It should be quite interesting.

Sleep

2009-07-20T13:53:00.001-04:00

It became obvious fairly early to me that sleep is thought of very differently here in Egypt than I was used to back in the US. Just how is it thought of here? I think I've figured it out. .

One clue is that people sleep at what (to Americans) seem very odd times of day. And people in the same family don't all sleep at the same time necessarily, either. One person in the family might stay up until 3 a.m. and then sleep until 9:30 a.m. Then sometime around 3:00 p.m. she may take a nap for a couple of hours, waking up around 5:30 pm to continue her day. Another person sleeps at 11:30 pm, wakes up at 8 a.m., takes a short nap from 2-3pm then stays up until 2:30 am that night. This is considered perfectly normal.

Children, at least during the summer time, are very rarely commanded by their parents to go to bed. In the three weeks I have lived here in Egypt, I have not seen my 9-year-old brother told to sleep.

People don't feel an obligation to be quiet because somebody is sleeping, either. If somebody decides to nap for a few hours in the living room under the fan, everybody continues watching TV, playing games, and conversing at a normal volume. "Shh, she's sleeping" is a concept that pretty much doesn't exist. (I said it once to my host brothers when our mom was sleeping right beside where we were playing our game. They looked at me very strangely and continued talking.)

Based on these clues, I've come to the conclusion that the idea of what sleep actually is is very different here from in the Western world. In the West, we tend to think of sleep as a very vulnerable undertaking, something to be safeguarded and protected, akin to going on a long journey or seeing how long one can stay underwater without coming up for air. Falling asleep happens only under optimal conditions, we somehow believe, and everybody around is under an unspoken obligation not to do anything that might jeopardize the success of the undertaking.

Here in Egypt, however, sleep is like any other voluntary action undertaken in response to a bodily need or desire. You DECIDE to sleep the same way you DECIDE to eat or to watch TV or play a game or talk or read a book. People don't disrupt the normal course of their life because you're trying to sleep any more than they'd go out of their way to help you eat or watch TV or read a book. The assumption is, if you're tired and want to sleep, then you'll choose to sleep and you will sleep—in the same way that if you're hungry and want to eat, you'll choose to eat and you will eat. Parents don't feel a particular need to make their children go to bed because it seems obvious that the child will sleep when he's tired and if he's not tired then why should he sleep?

In the Western world, we do have one segment of the population that does practice this sort of sleep attitude: teenagers. However, it's disapproved of by the rest of society and certainly not practiced by the rest of society. So here in Egypt I sometimes find myself feeling somewhat as though EVERYBODY is acting like a teenager when it comes to sleep: mothers and fathers and young children and grandparents as well as teenagers. And that's a very strange feeling.

2009-07-12T09:47:00.003-04:00

Saturday July 11
11:21 pm
We went to a village today. One of the American students' host families has extended family who live in a village an hour outside Cairo and we were all invited for the day. We went all together in two buses - students and host siblings and exchange program volunteers.

The volunteers are really fun to be with. Most of them are only a couple years or so older than us students, and they know English very well which makes it easy to interact with them. The guys especially love to joke around and of course to dance. On my bus today they got the driver to turn up the music and then stood up in the bus singing in Arabic and dancing for a good hour or so. It was a lot of fun.

The village was similar in a lot of was to a large West African village, except with 2 major differences: most of the buildings here were cement, and all the women wore galabeyas--a traditional long-sleeved ankle-length dress--and headscarves. We ate a traditional village meal called 'ftir' and drank tea and sat under trees talking. I got to hold a baby for a long time, until he tripped and started crying; then his sister came and took him. It was nice to have some down time from the usual routine of going to class and being with family the rest of the day. I had some good conversations and some much-needed time to myself.

2009-07-12T09:22:00.002-04:00

Friday July 10
7:56 am
I'm up early because Baba and Mama are taking me to a church this morning. [I decided to not bring up the issue, and they initiated asking me if I would like to go to a church 'to pray'. It was interesting thinking of the whole experience of going to church as 'going to pray' but I think that can be a very valid way to talk about it.] Different Christian groups worship together on different days here - Friday or Saturday (which are the weekend) or Sunday--but my family here has neighbros who are Christians and they go to church on Friday. So my family's taking me today, a Friday. They asked me what kind of Christian I am--Coptic, or Catholic, or Protestant--so they'd know what kind of church to take me to, but I answered 'none of those, just Christian' so they're just taking me to the church they know of nearby.

I feel really distant from Jesus here. I don't know, it's like without the external influences in my life like youth group and church is my faith really real? Do I believe Jesus is really real? I know in my head what I believe, but I'm finding it difficult to see evidence in my heart.

12:49 midnight
Mama and Baba took me to a Coptic Orthodox Cathedral + church that they knew about. We spend the morning there. at first I felt really uncomfortable. The people we met took us across the road to what they called the 'church' which was basically a shrine to an appearance of the Virgin Mary. It wasn't packed, but it wasn't empty either. People were crossing themselves and lighting candles and sitting in pews reading liturgy books.

I decided to just sit in a quiet place over by a window to pray. The two ladies who showed us to the church and Baba and Mama waited across the room on another pew bench, talking quietly while I prayed.

It was such a special time! Almost immediately upon sitting down I began to cry--all the pent-up stress of a new culture and language and spiritual environment being released. I began to feel all the negative feelings that I hadn't been able to stop and let myself deal with over the past couple weeks. Jesus really spoke with me, and helped me with some forgiveness issues I needed to resolve regarding the other American students, and gave me songs to sing. After a very short bit I didn't know anymore what to pray, so I started reading aloud from the Pslams' already-written prayers. I was amazed at how often 'sing to the LORD' came up in my reading, and began to realize that Jesus was already giving me an answer to my prayer for comfort and faith: singing! So I sang some songs and listened to Jesus. Oh and also the psalms verses about 'my enemy' and 'enemies' stood out, and reminded me vividly that I really am at the center of a battle Satan is waging over me. So I asked God for protection. Then I was ready to leave. That time was so great; I'm so glad God worked it out for me to have that time with him.

This evening was the Galabeya party for American students and their host families. We brought Egyptian food potluck-style and then afterward there was visiting time and dancing for those who wanted to. It's so fun to watch the Egyptian guys dance together--because you'd never see anything like it in the US! Most of the American guys in our group still can't quite bring themselves to join in, though some have tried it a bit.

I don't really know what to think of this Eastern-style dancing. It seems, from my Western frame of reference, to be completely sexual through and through. But the Egyptians don't seem to view it that way. My host mother, who is quite conservative, was urging me to join in the dancing with Yasmin and the other students. Guys dance the same way with the other guys in the circle as they do with the girls, and girls dance with girls too. On the other hand, my sister Marwa didn't dance and when I asked her why she said it's because of the boys being there. When we got home she put on some music and danced for me and the rest of our family.

2009-07-12T09:12:00.002-04:00

Monday July 6
9:03 pm
Today after Arabic class Yasmin took me to the biggest mall in Cairo. I had a lot of fun. We couldn't stay out late at all--we had to be home by 7:30 pm--but we had from 2:00 to 6:00 in the mall, which is still a good four hours. I was amazed at all the American chains I saw there including Ralph Lauren, Rainforest Cafe, Chili's, Beano's, Hardee's, McDonald's, Burger King, and Pizza Hut. (There were more than just food places, but those are the ones I remember the names of!)

At the mall I treated Yasmin to a milkshake at McDonalds, which cost the equivalent of $1 each for two regular-size milkshakes. Americans really are rich to be willing to pay so much more than that in the States for the same exact product!

Arabic lessons are progressing satisfactorily. I really like the teachers. (There are two teachers. One for two hours in the morning and then the other for two hours in the afternoon.) It's annoying when a couple of people don't do their homework and slow down the rest of the class, but I'm learning quite a lot.

Today we learned how to do possessive pronouns--how to say, for example, 'my bag', 'your bag', 'his bag', 'our bag', etc. Where English uses just one pronoun, 'your' for all types of second person possession, Arabic has three: your-masculine singular; your-feminine singular; and your-plural. This way actually makes a lot of sense if you think about it. It follows the pattern of third person possession which exists even in English: the distinction between 'his', 'hers', and 'theirs'.

2009-07-12T08:39:00.006-04:00

Saturday July 4
5:30 pm
We just finished lunch. [The daily schedule in Egypt goes something like this: Wake by 9 a.m. Breakfast at noon. Lunch around 6 p.m. Dinner at 10 p.m. My family often combines lunch and dinner into one meal served about 8 p.m.]

Yasmin and Marwa took me to their school today. Even though it is summer break for them, some summer programs are going on there so it's still open and is the central gathering place for their friends. I met and talked with their English teacher, who was interested in how we do education in the US versus here in Egypt. Several of Yasmin's friends were there, too, hanging out in the library. They enjoyed the chance to practice English, and aksed me about my hobbies and the education system in America, and of course my opinion about Obama. We talked and visited for about 3 horus, I think, and I traded email addresses and facebook info with the girls.

This family loves, loves, loves to joke and laugh. A lot of their jokes are made-on-the-fly puns, so it's interesting when Yasmin tries to explain the joke to me--one of those cases wehre it takes way longer to explaoin the joke than to tell it and then half the time it's not funny anymore. But it's fun to watch them laugh!

This is the family's down time right now. Baba and Mahmoud are taking a nap, and Yasmeen, Omar, and Marwa are reading or watching TV. Mama is in the kitchen cleaning up from lunch. I am reminded a lot of Sunday afternoons with my family when we lived in Mali.

2009-07-12T08:32:00.002-04:00

Friday July 3
12:00 midnight
I feel a bit lonely. Up till today everything's been going going going so fast I haven't really had time to just sit and muse and miss people. But today, sitting by the pools and on the bus [this is the day we went to the pyramids then to a pool] I found myself wishing I could have all my friends from home with me--or even just one. I haven't really made any friends here besides Yasmin, and I'm used to being part of a close, loving community. The other language students have formed their friend groups for the most part, and I haven't found a place in any of them. Almost all the people I sort of started to become friends with are at the other school, in Giza, and are becoming friends with one another but not with me. So yeah, I'm a bit lonely at the moment.

Sometimes I'm astounded at how immature some of my classmates are. Yeah, part of it is that they're younger than I am, but in many ways some of them act more immaturely than a lot of my middle schoolers from youth group in NC would act in the same situation, I think. They justdon't have the life explerience and the love for Jesus that my middle schoolers do, I guess.

Yasmin's becoming a really good friend. Weve already decided that if she comes to the States a year from now on an AFS exchange we'll make sure to meet up. And her English is good enough that we can talk about deeper things than just how are you and do you need anything, etc, which is nice.

2009-07-12T08:18:00.003-04:00

These are some excerpts from my daily journal.

Thursday July 2.
11:58 pm
Yasmin and Mama took me out shopping tonight at the neighborhood market street. It's not a food market mostly, though there are some pastry shops and candy shops. Mostly it was clothes, plus some odds and ends like a cell phone shop and a furniture place. Most of the clothes are the made-in-Indonesia synthetic variety, but they are fashionable and look nice.

One thing I like a lot is that it's easy to find clothes here that are very cute and modest. Lots of shops sell long jeans skirts, because for the most part the girls in this neighborhood always cover their behind--either wearing a skirt or an extra-long top or very short dress over jeans.

I bought a top for 44L.E., which is about $8. It was a fixed-price shop, but I think that may have been more than I should have spent. I like the shirt though. [I later found out that my sister Yasmin has the same shirt in a different color, and she paid the same price for it. That makes me happy. :)]

Today for dinner we had a sort of casserole--egg and vegetables and mashed potatos all baked together in oil--stuffed in bread to make sandwiches. It was very tasty.

Egypt is amazing!!!!

2009-07-07T16:56:00.003-04:00

I'm doing well here in Egypt. I love love love my family here but I miss all of you too! The Internet stopped working in our house the day I arrived, and we've been waiting for the repair people to get around to fixing it but tonight I decided to at least get off a quick message at a netcafe nearby to let you all know I'm doing great.

My sister Yasmin is sitting here beside me, and my Baba too. They say hi to all of you. I have 2 sisters and 2 brothers. Yasmin is 17, my sister Marwa is 15, my brother Omar is 13, and Mahmoud is 9.

As for the weather, it's been great! It's very dry, which took some getting used to at first but now I'm okay. Some of the other students are having trouble adjusting to the heat but I actually like it better than NC at this time of year. :) And the good old ceiling fans are comforting and familiar and so much more friendly-feeling than air conditioner.

I didn't go to any church last Sunday, but I think maybe this Sunday I'll be able to make it. There is a church not too far from our apartment. It'll be an interesting experience doing church in Arabic, esp. since I don't know quite what sort of church it will be--I'll let you know.

Arabic lessons are going well. We have one teacher for 2 hours in the morning then a half hour break and a different teacher for 2 more hours. And I have one other particularly great teacher--my little brother Mahmoud who is 9! He tries to tell me the word for pretty much everything I encounter, then wants me to repeat all the words on command, which usually just isn't possible unfortunately. But I've learned a whole lot from my family already--greetings, and the word for "good" and "I'm fine" and "my name is..." and "to eat" and a bunch of food words among other things. In Arabic class I'm doing really well as well. Yasmin helps me with my homework and we've also been reviewing and studying together beyond the assigned pages which has helped A LOT once I hear the material the second time in class. We've spent this first week in class mostly learning the alphabet and practicing identifying the various sounds--because there are like 8 sounds in Arabic that simply don't exist in English, or sound to us like just another way of saying a sound we are familiar with. But now there are just 2 sounds that I still need to really work on--so I've made a lot of progress!

Prayer points--

fellowship. I haven't met another person who I really can identify with spiritually, and that's a bit draining. I'm trying to learn the lessons Jesus is teaching me in this, and I need to keep my heart open and my mind alert.
language learning. Sometimes I feel a bit overwhelmed, it's just too much to undertake in one summer! But I want to learn as much as I can and be enthusiastic about it all the way. Mostly I am, but the memorization is one part that is pretty difficult for me. So again, alertness and steadiness of mind and enthusiasm will help a lot.
family. I love my family here, and I'd like to become just like a real sister as far as possible. Pray that my relationships with my family members will continue to grow deeper and deeper and that we will continue to be blessed with harmony and understanding. Misunderstandings really tend to happen in any cross-cultural situation but so far that really hasn't been an issue at all for us (as far as I know, hehe) and I hope it will continue to be that way.

Oh ps. we went to the famous pyramids last Friday. My camera battery died halfway through but Yasmin's cell phone is also a pretty amazing camera so we just used that for the rest of the day. It was a pretty wonderful experience.

prayer points

2009-06-25T23:49:00.003-04:00

Please pray

For travel safety - fly to NYC Friday morning, then to Cairo Saturday evening
That I will build good relationships with the other students in my group during our 1-day orientation in NYC
That my host family and I get off to a resoundingly good start when we meet in a couple of days!

Ready, set....

2009-06-22T13:51:00.000-04:00

Well alrighty it's off to Egypt on Friday. Somehow part of me still doesn't believe that anything out of the ordinary is happening -- while at the same time another part of me is terribly excited! For six weeks, I will be studying Arabic and living with an Egyptian host family--how many American teens have the opportunity to do something like this!

I have received a host family, the Mahmouds. Their phone number was included in the notification email, but I haven't had a chance to speak with them yet. There are two brothers and two sisters in my host family, but I don't know their ages.

How's packing going, you ask? Well, I've taken sort of the lazy approach. For the past week I've kept a laundry basket in the middle of the room. As items come to mind that I should bring, I toss them into the basket. That way when I do start packing in a couple days, all those little odds and ends of things that one never seems to remember while packing - safety pins, chapstick, hair scrunchies, etc - will be already gathered together in the same place.

Money might be an interesting issue while I'm in Egypt, since I'm told ATMs are the best way to get cash in Egypt and a couple days ago I realized that in order to use ATMs I need to have a check card or debit card which means I need a checking account. --Duh! but I hadn't thought about it before and now it's too late, for my purposes. I've never had a checking account; there was never any need; a savings account did just fine. I could open a checking account in 20 minutes but it takes 7-10 business days to receive the card and I leave for Egypt way before that. I'm sure everything will work out fine some way or another; after all, people traveled all around the world for hundreds of years before ATMs made their appearance. It's just kind of stressful at the moment, is all.