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Published: April 15th 2010
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Money!
This is a quasi-artistic photo of Egyptian money that I took one night when I was bored... I have been very blessed in Cairo! I was kind of scared of living with a bunch of strangers, but it has turned out to be very good! I live with an Italian woman named Alessandra, a Serbian girl named Senka, a South Korean girl named Lee, and a Brazilian guy named Keller. We all get along very well and we have a lot of fun together. On Friday night, we went out to eat Korean food in Zamalek (which is an island in the Nile) and then we went to a cafe to hang out for a while. Lee had never smoked shisha, but she was curious about it so we got a cantaloupe flavored bowl and smoked it together. For those that don't know, it's just flavored tobacco--nothing bad! It is very very popular here; you can't walk one block without passing a cafe with people sitting out front or inside smoking shisha. It seems like it is the number one pastime! My flatmates and I go out to the cafes maybe once or twice a week to chat and relax and have fun. We all get along so well, it is just amazing! I have uploaded pictures of
Coca-cola!
This is near Tahrir Square in downtown Cairo. us all so that you can see my little temporary family--that's what I call them. 😊 They have all offered to let me come and stay with them in their home countries, if I want to see South Korea or Serbia or Brazil or Holland (Alessandra lives in Holland now and not Italy any more). I may become a world traveler yet!
My classes are going pretty well. I thought for a while last week that I would prefer to transfer down to level 2 MSA, but I did not do so and I think that it is okay. MSA 3 is very difficult and frustrating sometimes because I don't feel like I'm learning things that are appropriate for my level, because it is all about the news and politics. So I'm reading sentences like "The Egyptian president received the Chinese prime minister to hold discussions about improving the bilateral relations between the two countries." These things are useful for reading the newspaper, but not so much for conversation. Also, we are learning a lot about grammar, so we spend much of the class speaking in English. So I do not feel like my Arabic is really improving in
the way that I hoped that it would. But Lee, my flatmate, is in MSA 2 and I have helped her with her work a couple of times, so that lets me know that I really do already understand most of the concepts they are teaching in that class. I even know much of the vocabulary! Apparently, so Lee has heard, there is a big jump from level 2 to level 3, and I believe it! But after having looked at the vocabulary from level 2, I do think that I am in the right class--even if it is really hard!
But actually, maybe the fact that it is hard is a good thing, because it motivated me to do something that I might not otherwise had had the courage to do. Background information: I was invited to join an Al-Azhar University student webpage back before I even came to Cairo. I don't know how they even knew that I existed, but they did--and what a wonderful thing that they did! I have been reading their website, which is full of discussion forums and events and such, and it is very interesting. The people seem very nice and so
At a cafe
This is Senka and Alessandra, hanging out at an outdoor cafe in downtown Cairo. once I started feeling overwhelmed in my class, I posted a discussion asking if there was anyone who wanted to trade language tutoring--English for Arabic. I have had several people respond to me already! One is a girl named Mariam who got a Fulbright and is traveling to the U.S. next month. Another is a young man named Muhammad who I have been chatting with on Yahoo Messenger. He is very nice and a talented poet (he was kind enough to share some of his poetry with me). There is another young man named Hassan that I may be meeting with this week inshaallah. All in all, it is wonderful! I am really looking forward to making some Egyptian friends!
I also went shopping this weekend with Senka and Alessandra. Now that I'm a Muslim, I need more appropriate clothing. You can imagine that as an average American girl, about 99% of the clothes I own are not suitably modest. But they can be with a little effort! Here, many Muslim women where long sleeved, high-necked shirts under most anything. So I can wear any of the clothes, as long as I have a suitable undershirt so that my
arms and chest are not visible. And voila! Now I own appropriate undershirts in nearly ever imaginable color! I also bought something quite silly and overly expensive, but it was just so cute I couldn't leave the store without it. As my sister can attest, I am not usually one for shopping, but I guess there are exceptions for everyone. 😊 I was intending to put up pictures of my new clothes, but they are going to have to wait for my next entry. Sorry guys!
Well, that's all for now. I will write again this week to make up for my short entry! I love you all!!
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Might be a world traveler?
About the world traveler thing...lets see now. You toured Ireland with the Concordia Concert Choir, and the eastern seaboard of the USA... Mexico for your sister's wedding... a month in Morocco last year. And now Egypt...How many countries does it take to be a world traveler?