St. Andrews

"You are welcome to our summer school, and we think you will find it cool!"


During the month of July i worked at St. Andrews downtown. St. Andrews is a Sudenese refugee ministry at the St. Andrews Church compound. Every morning i woke up, took the tram to the metro, took the metro downtown, and spent the morning helping out with St. Andrew's summer program for kids. I usually arrived late since the metro schedule is unpredictable and sometimes i need a minute to catch my breath after being smushed up against a wall in the crowded women's car and having to sqweeze through a two inch pathway to the doors.



At St. Andrews i was working with the youngest class there (6-10 year olds). Which means i also had the craziest, loudest, most energetic group with the shortest attention span! While i wasn't trying to sit the kids down and have them learn english i encouraged them to be kids and have fun! During breaks we played "Khulawees...Lissa", jumped ropes, and sometimes they would teach me a new hand clapping game or dance.



I not only got to know the littlest kids but also the teenagers my age! I played basketball and soccer with the older class and sometimes during the breaks, when i was tired of running around with the littler ones, i would sing bob marley songs with the older girls or just chat to them. I've become pretty good friends with some of the girls and already i've been invited to hang out with them when i get back from Jordon and Israel/Palestine. I'm glad they feel that i'm a friend and not just another teacher or volunteer.



I'd really like to do this again next year, because even though i've done a lot of volunteer projects around Egypt over the years i really did enjoy this one the most. I also loved using my arabic to talk to the refugees and getting to know the Inter Varsity group that was here for the summer by taking them to islamic and coptic Cairo. These past weeks at St. Andrews only encouraged my dream of going sub-saharin some day and also made me re-think having any kind of teaching career!

Egyptian Engagment

"A bell is no bell 'til you ring it,
A song is no song 'til you sing it,
And love in your heart
Wasn’t put there to stay -
Love isn’t love'Til you give it away."


No this is not a wedding. Although the future bride is wearing a large white dress, holding a bouquet of flowers, and the couple is surrounded by priests, this is only an engagment. Each step along the way to marriage is very vital in the Egyptian society. First the man must ask a member of the woman's family to have her hand in marriage (in this case the groom, John, had to ask her brother since she grew up in an orphanage). Then next comes the engagment cermony which we were invited to last Tuesday night. Amidst the parade of clanging cymbols and priests chanting, walked the beaming couple towards a stage at the front of the church hall. A wall of men holding video cameras surrounds them, documenting each step of the way. Then the proccesion haulted and the priests prayed over the couple, had them put on the engagment rings, and sign legal documents. This is part of the ceremony is then followed by all the guests greeting and congratulating the future bride and groom. After pictures and the enthusiasm of the guests dies down they pull out the cakes and sweets, because what is an Egyptian gathering without a mountain of food being forced on you?

Winemaking

"Wine is bottled poetry."

I can't drink wine...but i can make it! Monday night we visited Hana' and Irini and their baby Daniel. They were so excited to share their wine recipe with us and show us how it was done, so after a meal of crepes and salad (a very unusual meal by Egyptian standards of rice and molokhya) we started to make the wine. Basically we ground grapes to get the juice out of them and then added yeast and sugar! It was very simple but the next step is to cook and stir the concoction until it ferments, which takes over a week to do. Even though the meal was unusually western, Hana and Irini's Egyptian instinct to stuff their guests came out and we went home very full and with our hands sticky with grape juice.

Anafora

"When a man takes one step toward God, God takes more steps toward that man than there are sands in the worlds of time."

Anafora is a place off the beaten path of most people in Egypt. It lies on the desert road between Cairo and Alexandria and has become a favorite vacationing spot and meeting place for our family and other MCCers over the years. The man-made canals, palm trees and other plants and flowers, creative architecture, camels and cows and donkeys, enchanting church filled with inscence and silence, the domed roofs forming a great late night jungle gym, looking up at the stars at night and seeing millions of them dotting the sky, the unique dinning area where you sit on rug carpets on the floor and eat off of low tables, and the place that gives you the chance for some alone time and fun new experiances. This is Anafora. The place where darkeness is not obscured by flashing shop signs and bright street lights. The place where you can hear that unfamiliar hum of complete silence.