Red Sea-ish

I don't update my blog enough. Ana asfa. (I'm sorry.)

It is 11:35pm, and I am hoping that typing this will not take too long because I want to know what I am doing for my classes tomorrow before I go to bed. I am starting to get sick again. My tonsils were swollen and I am very congested. Krista asked what color it was when I blew my nose to determine whether it's a cold or allergies. I refused to tell her because I refuse to be an allergy nerd. (No offense to those of you with allergies. I know you can't help it, but I just refuse to have them.) In my tenth grade class, we are still reading Night, which is definitely a challenge for the students, but they're starting to like it more and get used to the big words. We also have finished five units of vocabulary lessons, so we are going to have a unit test soon, and I am planning on having a spelling bee using all 50 words on Thursday. The ninth grade classes watched "Akeela and the Bee" in Jessica's class, and they got super excited, so she had a spelling bee with them. They got really into it. We just finished studying the past tense in ninth grade, and I gave them a fatty unit test. The results... oh boy. I am determining which directions of mine were unclear and which failures I can attribute to laziness. I praise God that I have a book to follow and that I am getting into the swing of things. It's about time, eh?

My standards for food have dropped astoundingly. When I first got here and saw the gibna (white feta-ish cheese) I almost died. Now, I eat it like it's nothing. Everything is deep fried or cooked in oil. We made lunch today for the guy SMs, and we used oil in everything. I've heard, "Just choose healthier things to eat." Really? Bring on the granola... but if you can't, I don't want to hear it. It's hard to find much of anything else. Everything is white and processed, and there are no laws against trans-fats. They have Hostess Hohos here (which are flat, by the way), and I refused to eat them at first. Now, they're like nothing to me. Ugh. I disgust myself. The fruits and vegetables are good here though. We go into town to buy some occasionally. That it good. Oh what I would do for walnuts... You have no idea. Michael got them on top of his ice cream when we were in Alexandria, and he gave me one but it fell on the ground. There was no restraining me. It was a walnut after all. I would kill for omega-3s... almost.

Home leave was amazing. Krista's dad came here (and we had an early Christmas with all of the things that he brought from our parents). We went with him to Sharm El Sheikh, which is on the Red Sea. The bus ride took eight hours on the way there - it should have taken six, but there were many check points where they had to look at our passports. There were some crazy Egyptian movies playing as we rode to Sharm. All of them were incredibly dramatic. The man and woman were screaming and each other, more people were screaming, some people were in love, there was lots of really corny suspense music, and in the end the woman tried to light herself on fire. It was just too weird. (I decided to give myself a vacation-ish last week, and I showed my ninth grade classes "The Ultimate Gift" and had activities for them to do with that. When it was over, some of the guys said that they were not good actors. Um... yes they were. That's how people in America act. "When someone dies in Egypt, the people throw the dirt in their hair and scream." "Oh... not in America...") I snorkeled in the bluest water I had ever seen in my life. If I hadn't been there myself I would have believed the pictures were photoshopped. It was amazing. The water felt soft. Jessica read the story of the Israelites crossing the Red Sea for worship. It was so nice. I snorkeled for two days, and I got to have an introductory scuba diving lesson from Guiseppe ("Joseph"), or instructor. It was the most amazing thing I've ever done in my life. It's a whole new world down there. I felt like the Little Mermaid, and probably would have tried to swim like her had not been holding Joseph's hand the whole time. I just stared at the fish in awe and considered that they are there and act the same way even when there is no one there to watch them. (Well, duh, but it was felt so profound to consider that.)

We heard some pretty great lines while shopping at Naama Bay: 

"You marry me, I give you my shop." 

"I've been looking for a pretty American girl to marry." To which I responded, "Well keep looking."

They thought that it was so funny when we responded in Arabic. They were very surprised too. One man said, "I love you! Will you love me today?" "La. (No.)" He burst out laughing, "But why?!" "Alashan ana oltekeda. (Because I said so.)"

We got the prices much lower than they were selling everything for because we live near Cairo. "Seriously? We live in Cairo. I can get this for 10 pounds."

I get really close to people through one-on-one interaction, and I've had the opportunity to talk to some of the students on a very deep level. Some have shared some very deep problems with me, and many struggle with addiction, insecurity, loneliness, depression, and every other problem that young people struggle with. Please please please pray that God would be everything that they need and that He would strengthen them. I have two particular ones that are struggling with addictions and temptation, and I want to ask you to lift them up in prayer. Thank you so much.

I've been singing a lot more here. Publicly and just on my own. I feel like my voice has improved, and I love singing so much. 

I have to give Krista her computer now. My mosquito repellent is not very effective. We've been sleeping in our mosquito net and joking about the "caged bird" singing. Things always seem to be funnier at night. Much funnier.