I apologize for my absence from the blogging world. These past few weeks have been quite busy. Two weeks ago we loaded onto a big bus for a 10 hr drive to Siwa, an Oasis town that has been virtualy untouched by tourists. The ride was long but it was well worth it! Siwa is an incredibly relaxing place with many cool things to see. We stayed at a really cool hotel called the desert rose. Check out the website for some pictures of both the hotel and the village. I hiked the old village ruins pictured on the website with a few other MESPers. www.desert-rose-hotel.com/en/index.html--if you click on the various titles on the bottom of the screen you can see more pictures.
Siwa is about 50 or so kilometers from Libya. the people are mostly indigenous Berber peoples. They are the ones who ran most of our time in the desert. In addition to having free time to roam about, we were also taken on a day through the Sahara. We headed into Jeeps and were taken by local guides throughout the Sahara. Driving down the sand dunes was quite the experience. At several points I thought we were goners, but thankfully we always made it. Seeing the sun set in the desert was incredibly amazing.
Almost the whole group (save one student) slept the night in the desert under a tent. It was not as cold as I thought it was going to be but it was still really cold. I can't say I got much sleep but it was still an extremely amazing experience. On a whole, Siwa has been one of my favorite things about Egypt. We also got to visit the remants of the Oracle's temple--History tells us that Alexander the Great visited the oracle.
Last week was my homestay where I stayed with a Muslim family. I'm glad I got the experience but it was often very uncomfortable and awkward. We were supposed to be placed with a basic english speaker around our age: their interpretation of a 'basic english speaker' around my age was a 38 year old man who knew all of 4 phrases-- "come on", "ok", "no problem" and "bye." I stayed with him and his wife who was just a few years older than me and his 3 year old son. Directly above us was his brother and sister in law with their family (another MESPer stayed with them) and downstairs were his mother and father (a MESPer also stayed with them) I was the only one in my group to actually stay every night. Many of my peers were sick this week--I think some were sick with nerves but that's besides the point.
Egypt just won the Africa Cup for soccer and it was amazing to be here while that happened! The final game was on Sunday. I went with two of my friends to a western mall and the streets were completely empty because everyone was watching the game. We got back in time to eat dinner on a nice boat along the nile! They have several different restaurants in each boat (Chilli's, TGI Fridays, etc) and about 5 minutes after getting there Egypt scored the first and only goal of the match. There were about 30-50 Egyptians watching it with us and they went crazy when they scored. After dinner we decided to walk back to our flats (about 20 minutes) so we could watch the celebrations. People were flipping out! Everyone was honking their horns, screaming, beating drums, dangling out of their cars (the passengers at least) and starting little bonfires. The celebrations lasted well into the morning (around 4)
We're leaving tonight for an overnight train ride for our Nile cruise to both Luxor and Aswan. I'll try to update sometime next week when we get back
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Kyle,
Who was your homestay family? It sounds like you might've been in one of the group of families that I was in, in 3izbit 'el Nakhl (if I am remembering the name of the area of Cairo correctly). My host father was Mohamed, but I can't remember his last name (or if that was how he spelled his first), so that probably doesn't help much. But if you were in el Nakhl and there were two other related families with other MESPers I'm guessing you were with the same extended family that I was with.
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