Water Fight, Dream Park, etc.

5:25 pm

This past week was a little bit different. Tuesday was a holiday, so we played sports in the morning and had a huge water fight in the afternoon. There were supposed to be three teams, who attacked anyone who crossed into their boundaries by practically drowning them above water using water bottles, mop buckets, tupperware, and anything else that could hold water. I forgot about the teams... so I just ran out and started dumping water on people. I almost died. haha. Boys were just running at me with their mop buckets, and one after another they would pour everything over my head. I couldn't see, and it was hard to breathe. It doesn't sound like fun, but it was a really good time. I am attempting to upload a video onto Facebook of being attacked. Let's see if it actually uploads. After the water fight, we were planning to play a game called "Hunt the Staff," where the staff hide somewhere on campus, and whichever team of students finds them wins however many points the staff member was worth. I was worth 30, Jessica was 40, and Michael was 80. This gives some perspective. Krista told me to go hide, and then they would explain the game to the students. I thought, "I'll show you 30 points! You think that I'm a wimp and would probably stand behind a tree." So I went and hid crouched in the dirt under a tree in the orange orchard. The mosquitos attempted to annihilate (10th grade vocabulary word) me, but I thought that I was taking one for the team. I waited a long time, ate some oranges, stood up, squatted back down, smashed mosquitos all over me. I heard a voice yell, "Ya Miss?!" But no one found me. After probably an hour, I decided to quit and then found out that the game had been cancelled. Thanks, friends. Pastor Tom had told Jessica and Krista that he had just seen me talking to people, so the students that they sent out must have found me. LIES! I ate your oranges, so take that.

Thursday we had an SA field trip to Dream Park, an amusement park. It was like a mini Egyptian Six Flags. It was a lot of fun hanging out with the students and going on the rides. I owned all the guys in the go-carts--I just had to mention that. Sometime in the late afternoon, there were a bunch of us standing around, and there was some commotion, which ended in a huge mess. Apparently some guys at the park were saying things or blowing kisses to some of our girls (which is a huge no-no), so one of our guys started to get protective. These outsiders (whose ringleader I will refer to as Green Shirt) started to get aggressive and were mocking this guy now. Another one of our students stepped in and started to defend the first guy. Other NUA guys tried to walk Green Shirt away from everyone and just avoid a fight. Green Shirt left, and the next thing I knew, he was running back with a couple friends, he whipped off his belt and just cracked it against one of our guy's legs (who was not involved at all). To their surprise, our school made up a huge chunk of the people at the park, and they came to his defense. They tried to separate crazy-eyed Green Shirt from everyone, but soon belts were flying, people were on the ground, and it was a huge mess. Jessica, Krista, and I couldn't do a thing because we are girls and we have no authority with these outside guys. One of Green Shirts friends ran in with his ID yelling (in Arabic) that they had messed with the wrong guys because his father was so-and-so. Apparently connections are everything. The fight was a big deal, and we ended up leaving the park. But apparently fighting is really commonplace, and using your belt to fight someone is not unusual. "Well, it's unusual to me." It seemed really animalistic. (I don't think I just made that word up.) Different cultural perspectives are so interesting. I watched the whole thing, and I recognized that most of our guys tried to avoid a fight as much as possible, but even some of them that I have the most respect for said that it would bring great dishonor to the girls if no one "defended" them, and to treat them the way that they were treated was completely inappropriate by Egyptian standards. One of the guys was saying that in Upper Egypt (which is really Southern Egypt), the fights are crazy. People will fight until tons of bones are broken, blood is all over the place, and sometimes even until death. One of my students was saying that even if a guy knows that he will lose a fight, he has to be the one to initiate it if the girl he is with is mistreated. Pride seems to be a much bigger deal here than in America. I didn't like it at all, and it was really scary to see some of these people so angry. Green Shirt looked completely crazed, and his eyes were on fire when his friends were holding them back. I didn't like it.

Some people honestly believe that women are worth less than men. In Sabbath School today, we were just having an open discussion about Biblical questions, and one guy brought up a passage in 1 Corinthians about how men are the head of women, etc. Pastor Tom explained the cultural information behind that passage, which made complete sense, but this guy next to me kept whispering to me about how men and women aren't equal. I threw out the verse in Galatians 3:28 about how there is no difference between Jew and Greek, slave and free, male and female. He looked bothered, and I had thought that he had been joking until he kept going on and on. I recognized how American I was with my passion for equality, but I told him in the most straightforward way that my soul was just as valuable as his was in the eyes of God. Some people... To me (Yes, I'm an American), but speaking like that is just as ignorant as racism. YOU ARE IGNORANT! No, I'm not going to argue that I am stronger than all the guys--we were made differently, but good luck trying to run a country or even family for that matter without a female perspective. I'm not one of those obnoxious feminists who think that we're all the same (because obviously we're not), but you are ignorant, buddy.

Krista needs her computer. GOODBYE!