Breath Before the Leap

10/27/09

Hey Everyone!

Sorry it has been so long since I updated. It has been the equivalent of finals week for us for the past two weeks. We had two finals, one in Arabic and the other in Islamic Thought and Practice. We also had our first batch of papers of due: 1 for Islam (mine was over the sura in the Qur’an that says God is the Light), one paper on whether or not imperialism is still effecting the region, one about if religion is the biggest challenge to human rights in the Middle East, and the last one about the relationships between the East and the West Church and Islam and Christianity. All in all it was a ridiculous couple of days. We go through the same thing when we have four more papers and a debate due at the end of November after we travel.

Speaking of traveling, tomorrow morning, we start the travel component of the semester. We have an early flight to Turkey, where we stay in Istanbul for six days before going to Ankara, the capital. Then we head to Syria for three days and then Jordan for two. Then we head off to Israel. We stay in Jerusalem for a week and then we travel to Tel Aviv and hit up Galilee, Bethlehem, Nazareth, and the Golan Heights for the next week. In total we are gone a month and get back to Cairo on November 25. During this travel we are meeting with guest lecturers almost every day and sometimes we have up to three in one day. We are also supposed to be reading and writing those papers that are due when we get back. Busy month….

We also went to Alexandria two weekends ago. It was absolutely amazing! Me and one other guy stayed at a really nice hotel on the Mediterranean and just chilled the first night. Then the next day we did all the sightseeing stuff. I went to the catacombs that are there and they were some of the coolest things I have ever seen. And then there was the library. Wow. That was one of the coolest pieces of architecture that I have ever seen.

Well next update will be from somewhere on the road!

Siwa

10/13/09

This is going to have to be a quick note because it is coming down to crunch time here. We have two weeks before we leave for travel component and we have a lot of things due before then. That being said…

We got back from homestays about a week ago. Mine was really fun. It started pretty slow because Sherif was sick for the first couple of days. After that though, things picked up and we were able to hang out and have a lot of fun. He plays chess really well and we went out to a café one night and played til 2 am.

This past weekend we were in a town called Siwa. Siwa is on the border of Libya and has been totally isolated from the rest of Egyptian culture. People still get around on donkey drawn carts and bicycles. It is a completely different culture in that the women are strongly held back and some would even say discriminated against. We were able to meet with a Siwan who is a friend of ours and we got to ask about Siwan culture and life. We were also able to go to some of the natural hot and cold springs and go swimming. We also visited an ancient temple that once housed an oracle and Alexander the Great even came to Siwa to visit this oracle.

On Friday, we took Jeeps and went out into the Sahara desert, out to where we weren’t able to see anything except desert in all directions. It was truly something out of postcard, with the sweeping sand dunes. We also took snowboards and went sandboarding. It was so sweet. That night we stayed out at a Bedouin campground and slept under the stars. There were no lights and not a sound in any direction. It was so awesome.

This week has started the crunch period for papers. Everyone is starting to feel it and people are starting to stay up later and later every night. We have four papers due before we leave on the travel component in two weeks and then another four due after we get back at the end of November.

Tomorrow I am heading to Alexandria for a couple of days to relax, sightsee, and, in sha Allah, get some writing done. Possible update again after I get back on Sunday….