Just a quick entry…
-Wednesday, we had an all-too-brief visit to the Egyptian museum. The sheer weight of history was astounding and, although people here are rightfully proud of it, it was sad to see the museum was poorly organized, had few explanatory markers and unforgivably lax security. It's a miracle the objects displayed have made it this long, to lose them now to the destructive fingers of one too many tourists would be tragic. I particularly liked the treasures of King Tutankhamen, which were even more dazzling than they appeared on TV and in my Middle School history textbook. Keeping in mind he was a minor pharaoh, one can only imagine the treasures of far greater kings that have long been lost to grave robbers. The room of the Mummies was also a fascinating experience, as I had never seen any in person. It was a bit surreal to be looking down at the shriveled corpse of Ramses the Great, once a living god and one of the world's most powerful rulers
-Thursday afternoon, with the school week done, almost the entire group went to the enormous movie theater in the mall to see the new Harry Potter movie. Movie-going here is not so different an experience, except that Egyptian movies have an intermission at the middle, something American theaters did away with before I was born. Also, you can get sugar on your popcorn.
-The movie did bring up the issue of literature in youth culture in Egypt. From what I can tell, from various sources, reading as a leisure activity is quite rare among Egyptian teens. I have yet to meet anyone who has read the Harry Potter books, perhaps the most universally read literary touchstone for youth in the West.
-We spent Friday and Saturday on our "Mid-stay" orientation. The location, kept a surprise until we boarded the bus, was a resort along the shore of the Great Bitter Lake. The lake, as I learned tonight after I arrived home, sits in the middle of the Suez Canal, which explained the parade of large tankers off in the distance. According to the Quran, the pleasant pedal boat ride my friends and I took this afternoon might have taken me over the bones of Pharaoh, who perished in the lake as he pursued my ancestors in their Exodus from Egypt.
The resort was very, very pleasant, and we all spent most of our free time in the pool or out on the lake, despite its uncomfortably muddy, rocky bottom, painful salinity (at least for anyone who had cut their face shaving that morning, ha ha ha) and the unfortunate experience of being chased by a group of Egyptian children throwing dead fish at us. This last point probably deserves more consideration. Try as I might, I can't come up with a reasonable explanation. We had been talking quite amiably with this group of kids when they started throwing the fish at us, and continued even after we had told them to stop. It got so annoying we left the water. The AFS volunteers, I should point out, advised us to wait until the water was less crowded (they also advised us to move in a group, with the guys surrounding the girls so no one could bother them, a strategy that came in to play less to prevent sexual harassment and more because some of the girls really didn't like getting a dead fish to the head, for some reason). I think it was probably all meant to be in good fun…Egyptian kids just have different definitions of fun, some of which can make Americans quite uncomfortable. The fact that we stuck out like sore thumbs, in a resort clearly not frequented constantly by Westerners, probably didn't help much.
All in all, though, it was a wonderful break. It was very nice to have a change of scenery, some peace and quiet, fresh air and my first glimpse of a night sky filled with stars since I left home. Being treated to good food and a performance of bellydancing and Whirling Dervish…ing was a nice bonus (being pulled up by the dervish to try out whirling was not as pleasant). The big takeaway I had from these two days of rest, relaxation and fun was a confirmation that I've made some really amazing friends here, friends I want to try to keep long after this incredible experience is over.
This is Barry again. Your comment about the girls raises an interesting question about gender roles and equality. I'd not be surprised if some of the young men in your group disliked fish in he head as much as the girls. What would it say about about gender roles if the men folk were expected to protect the girls from the fish, just because they were girls in the good old USA.
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