One night as we sat around a camp fire drinking tea which had to be smuggled in from Libya because it was illegal in Egypt, the English speaking guide regaled us with stories of Bedouin life.
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A trip to Siwa in Egypt, famous for the oracle. Alexander the Great was declared Pharoah material here years ago, and a lovely oasis.
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First of all, I have to say that living in Cairo is an entirely different experience from living in a smaller town/village in Upper Egypt. So far the move has been extremely interesting, and has opened my eyes to the diversity of cultures and opinions and ideologies of Egyptians. It has also made me realize [...]
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It has been another month or so since I last wrote, and since I promised to try and be better about sending out more regular updates I thought it was probably about time to fill you in on all the exciting things happening this past month. The first thing which happened was that I went [...]
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A beautiful liturgy of justice and welcome which can be found in The Eucharist: Bodies, Bread, & Resurrection by Andrea Bieler. Sunshine sent this in around Christmas last year and I (hellaD) am just getting around to sharing it with you all now. The ritual of speaking from the elements is very powerful and the [...]
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My life in here in Beba has been similar to the previous posts I have written. I am still living here at the church and teaching English in two different towns. I have a couple more stories about Egyptians that I find telling about the culture as a whole. Both of them actually happened as [...]
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The other piece of interesting news was that I took a vacation to Jordan and Israel/Palestine. It was a fascinating journey, especially because this time in Egypt has really been my first experience in the Middle East. My time in both Jordan and Palestine made me realize how truly unalike different parts of the Middle [...]
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I have had quite the exciting, travel-filled, and busy month which I will regal you all with presently. However, I have been thinking for the past few months that I need to talk about the generosity of the culture here. It really is quite remarkable the extent to which this generosity is a part of [...]
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I figured since I have been living at a Coptic Orthodox center in the church compound I should probably write about what the Coptic Church is exactly. Although what I know of the Coptic Church is mostly from my observations and conversations I have had with people, I have only read one book on the [...]
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Last weekend I had a trip scheduled to go back to Cairo because one of my friends was getting engaged to an Egyptian woman. Another development also came up which for me was a wonderful opportunity. Egypt was the host nation of the under-20 year old World Cup Football tournament. It just so happened that [...]
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Reflections on language and culture in Egypt
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Our housemates on the top floor above the Bishops residents were mostly young men who were working with the Church. They spoke almost no English but were very passionate about helping us learn Arabic and picking up some English along the way. I actually learned enough to basically get around because of these interactions. They [...]
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