Here and Now

I often wonder how I will look back on this time in my life.

If God gives me 60 more years, what kind of lens will I see my former self through?

These adventures to come...I pray they shape me into a woman of faith and courage.

May God allow my doubts to move me to action; may my quandries lead to wisdom, my fear to love.
May my gifts and energy not be wasted on worrying about 'what if's' and 'what could have been'.

May I look back, whether it be tomorrow or many years from now, and know that I have tread my own path and all is as it should be.


I'm finishing up my final week of classes at VCU and preparing myself for a new university, in a new town, in a new country.  I will call Kurdistan (Northern Iraq) my home for at least a year, and I am looking forward to the many adventures/challenges I will face.  I am excited in knowing that I will continue to grow as an educator, and am looking forward to learning from a new group of students!

I head out in the beginning of October, with a quick stop in Istanbul. Stay tuned for lots o' pictures and sarcastic ramblings!

“We live in a wonderful world that is full of beauty, charm and adventure. There is no end to the adventures we can have if only we seek them with our eyes open.” – Jawaharial Nehru

Update, Jealous!?

I was going to try for a scintillating report/commentary on some issue in Egypt/on campus/in Rehab, but I got nothing. But since my friend Ben will harp on me if I don't update this thing, I thought I'd just give you a few bullet points of what's been going here in Al Sahara:

1. I'm still attending all my grad classes; although, there are mornings where for 2 minutes and 34 seconds I seriously contemplate sleeping til 4pm and not going outside til the sun has gone down.

2. We just started getting some "fall-like" weather here at night. The other evening as I was walking to a friend's house, I actually said to myself, "oh! It's quite chilly. I wish I had brought a light cardigan."

3. I'm teaching 3 English classes at the Lamb Center. All level 12 which I've taught before. The final will be on October 31st, which just makes me realize how fast this semester is going by!

4. Our waiter at Lucille's restaurant asked for my number... granted, it was so they could notify me when they would start carrying pumpkin pie (next week, InshAllah, if you were wondering)

5. I'm thoroughly enjoying my apartment still. I am still waiting for an A/C unit to be put in my living room, but my gas stove didn't kill me when I used it the other night, so that was a plus.

6. I live on the 5th floor. There is no elevator. The grocery store delivers my groceries (which include large boxes of bottled water) for the U.S. equivalent of $.85. Jealous?!

7. I left my 'metro token' coin holder in the states and am so heart-broken. So now every time a guy selling tchotchkes gets on the metro, I'm ever hopeful he will have some for me to buy. Alas, the guy the other night was only selling sheets of band-aids. Because, I guess you never know when you might need to quickly patch up a head wound.

8. One of the things I'm missing the most about America is my chiropractic clinic; I need an adjustment like Woh! Oh, and pumpkin flavored treats that abound during this festive time.

9. There are no pictures for this post cuz I have consistently left my camera in the apartment every time I go out. Next time, I promise! =)

The Beginning (Again)

That's right folks, school has started again and I am back in Cairo. Classes actually began on the 5th, but seeing as I just got internet at my apartment, the blogging had to wait.

All my roommates from last semester have left, so I've moved from Maadi to a 2-bedroom apartment in El Rehab. I'm now only a stones throw (read: 15 minute bus ride) from the university, which is absolutely lovely in comparison to the 50 minute drive from Maadi.

I arrived in Egypt for the last week of Ramadan, so I only had 3 class meetings before we had a nice, little vacation for Eid!

My classes this semester are pretty interesting; Pragmatics, Language Assessment, and Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL). No classes on Tuesdays again and as usual, all of my classes start at 2PM! It's a rough life, but someone's gotta sit on my awesome balcony and drink tea! :)

The 2 Post Semester

So, like I said in February, I forgot I had this thing/was too lazy to update! So now that I am 2 weeks from the end the of my first year of grad school, lets just hit the hi-lights and I'll try and be better from here on out =)

-Life in the apartment in Maadi has been quiet and absolutely lovely

-I began a Beth Moore Bible Study with some women from a local church and another with a nice group of people from AUC and other areas of Cairo

-I've continued teaching EFL through the Lamb Center on Tuesday nights

-Lucy and I journeyed to 3 major cities in Spain for spring break

-I got to see a bit of Upper Egypt and some ancient temples in Aswan and Abu Simbel

-I've met more wonderful people (sometimes on the bus to school!)

I've decided to stay and finish the program here, so I've signed up for classes in September. I'll be moving, not sure where yet, but I'm looking forward to the coming adventures!

A Stroll Through Old Cairo

Yesterday, I travelled on the metro, through downtown, past the sea of swirly-twirly gum drops, and arrived in Old Cairo. My friends Sherif and Karim invited me along on a tour of what is also referred to as Islamic Cairo and we walked and walked and then walked around some more!

We started out in Khan al Khalili, the famous marketplace, and made our way to the original walls of Cairo. We saw mosques, theatres, grain houses, and cisterns. The Al Azhar mosque was quite large and very beautiful. Since it was Friday, we had to wait a bit to enter until the afternoon prayer had concluded.

We finished our tour at one of the doors to the city, aptly named Bab Zuela (Bab means door in Arabic, don’t ask me what Zuela means). We climbed to the top of the walls surrounding the entrance and were treated to a magnificent panorama of the city. The next call to prayer sounded while were were up there and the attached video shows what I saw and heard from that vantage point.

We also decided it was a grand idea to climb the tiny, narrow staircase of the minaret tower to get an even higher view. I’ll admit there were times when I thought that the really old tower would collapse on me and I’d be stuck forever, but we soldiered on and made it out unscathed, alhamdullilah!

Back to School

Seeing as how I haven’t updated since November and I also forgot I had a blog for a bit there; I thought it was time to update. The picture seen here is the view from my apartment window. That’s right, I moved off campus and into an apartment with my friends Lucy, Ben, and Johan! I am a skip and a hop away from the AUC bus stop, the metro station, and various restaurants. I am ignoring the fact that Cinnabon and McDonalds will deliver to your door because that would equal disaster in sooo many ways.

Classes began on the 31st. Our department was then informed that the first week of classes were cancelled so the MA TEFL students (that’s me) could attend the Nile TESOL conference being held downtown. So here I sit on a Thursday, making spicy tomato chicken soup and updating the blog, rather than taking the 40 minute bus ride to campus for some “edu-ma-cation”.

This semester should be action-packed and I’m super excited! I’m taking 3 courses, Discourse Analysis, Grammar, and Second-Language Acquisition. Only one class a day and none on Tuesday, which isn’t too shabby. I’d promise that I’d update more, but I don’t want to be a liar =)

Side note: Yes, those are some awesome, ancient pyramids in the background of the picture.

City Center and Christmas Lights: The best things since sliced aish!

Thursday is the new Friday in Cairo, and what does one do on a weekend evening, you might ask? If you’re me, you go to the Carrefour hypermarket to purchase a plethora of Christmas decorations.

City Center in New Maadi is a shiny, new mall built around an all-inclusive supermarket. It’s a french chain, so its pronounced carfoor, but if you’re me you regularly butcher it and end up telling everyone you’re going to kara-four or car-four. What can I say? I took Spanish.

Lucy, Ben, Henry, and I hailed a city cab, and by hailed I mean Lucy called 2 hours ahead of time so they would know to drive into the desert to come and get us.

I was on a mission, and upon arrival we immediately wrangled a ginormous cart from the corral and I proceeded to the center of the store where I had spotted the decorations last week, nearly avoiding crippling small children with my cart-driving skills on the way.

Seeing the crazed look in my eye, my friends eventually scattered and there was nothing left to stand between me and bucketfuls of tiny, deranged Santa Claus figurines, silver pine cones, and enough Christmas lights to tastefully dress the Pyramids of Giza.

I grabbed a medium-sized faux tree for the coffee table in my apartment and added it to the growing assortment of baubbles and trinkets in my basket. Fake snow, check. Garland, check. Santa wall hangings, double check. I forgot about a tree skirt and had to make due with some fabric I had picked up in Tanzania in 1998. I knew I brought it for a reason!

Navigating my way to the checkout counter, multiple children pulled on their mom’s skirts and exclaimed on the splendor of my decorating choices.

Getting a taxi back to campus was easier, and in a fit of joy (most likely induced by the high levels of lead in the decorations) Lucy and I decided to sing every Christmas carol we knew. I gave the driver an extra 5 pounds for putting up with me, but that probably wasn’t enough.

So here I sit now, with my little nook in Egypt all jazzed up, and enough hot cocoa mix to supply the entire women’s side of the dormitories. Next order of business...Christmas party!

P.S. That's Domo at the top of the tree