The Beginning of the End

A lot has happened in the past week that I have failed to blog about - sorry! An unfortunate side effect of doing all these things is that I haven't had much time. So I'm gonna do 2 blog posts in rapid succession- this one on our recent work with St. Andrews', than one later on about our vacation to Sharm el-Sheikh.

So last week was, in some respects, our last week of normal class. Tonight and the next two days are going to be review and wrap-up and a celebration of our last day, so we won't be teaching anything new. But last week's outing was really fun: we met our kids at the Sadat metro station and walked them down along the Nile to where we could take a faluka ride. 16 of our kids showed up, which was amazing - we did not expect so many of them to transport themselves all the way to Garden City just to go on a boat with us. 

Juweria, Zaynab, Ifrah and Samira

Allow Me To Present...

Pictures! Yup, one of the added bonuses of having our own internet is that I am actually able to post pictures to things. So, here's the Shutterfly slideshow, conveniently located in this post. I haven't totally figured out this Shutterfly thing, but I think this link should always bring you to my share site, even if I post new pictures onto it. Unfortunately, I'm honestly not sure. I think it's weird that the website doesn't allow you to be constantly upgrading and editing published albums, but maybe I just haven't figured out how yet.

In other news, today's a day off for us - we were supposed to be doing some kind of field trip, but that got relocated to tomorrow and, since they'd already canceled with the secondary volunteer sites (for me, Ana al-Misri), Zoe and Ustaz Lo decided we deserved a day off. So, last night we went on a late-night faluka ride on the Nile (complete with our speakers and lots of singing) after watching the World Cup game at the Hard Rock Cafe, and today we're just relaxing (maybe shopping...?). But enjoy the pictures!

The Early Morning Cairo Experience

Just returned from an early morning run along the Nile with the Navy ROTC girl on our trip, Andi. She's been running in the morning a few days a week, usually before class, and I kept saying I'd run with her but never would get to bed early enough. But this morning I woke myself up and we ran up and down along the road which borders the Nile on the Garden City side. Garden City is the neighborhood/area that's across from Zamalek (the island) and Giza (the other side of the Nile), and it's known as the real swanky area with all the Western embassies, nice hotels, and European/American ex-patriots.

It felt good to get up and get some exercise, but I unfortunately had to cut our run short. The first part was fine - we were running into the wind, and it was really lovely, even almost cool. But as soon as we turned around I immediately started feeling weird - a combination, I think, of the handful of Raisin Bran I'd had, the heat, and the smell of Cairo. I don't know how much I've talked about the pollution and trash everywhere, because most of the time it's not that big of a deal, but sometimes the smell is overwhelming and I felt it this morning. Not having run in a month probably didn't help either.

But I got out there and afterward we had a nice walk and talk, and I'll try to run again a few times a week!
Now, off to class.