9/30/09

This week we are having home stays. This pretty much entails hooking every student up with an Egyptian family and then just sending us off. Some of them speak English and some don’t. Some are Coptic, some are Muslim. Some are big families and some very small. They are from all over Cairo, with some students taking an hour and a half to get back to the Villa for classes. One guy is even staying with a family that has had some gang involvement. It has been amazing so far.

I am staying with a guy named Sherif Gamil. He speaks broken English, and he lives by himself. This is very rare in Egyptian culture because they are so family oriented. But his whole family passed away, with his mother being the most recent three years ago. But he is a really cool guy. We hang out at his flat or out on the town at night. So far I have had an awesome time and hopefully will have some pretty sweet stories by the end of the week.

One thing that has been really helpful with these home stays is that we get extreme Arabic practice. My Arabic has increased more in the past two days than it has over the past two weeks.

We have also been able to engage a lot in the Coptic culture while we have been here. It is really cool to here how they are so ingrained in Egypt’s history that you really can’t separate the two, and yet most Christians have never heard of these brothers and sisters. I have come to admire their traditions and beliefs and they have given me such a new insight into my own personal faith.

Well, I got to get back to Sherif so until next time…