Life Theme

I taught my ninth grade students about short stories after our unit on the past tense. We read many short stories and attempted to summarize them (fail), listed characters and their traits, setting, point of view, and theme. The theme was always the hardest part to figure out. After that we wrote our own stories and had to identify each part in them.

This morning Jessica had an epiphany. "Sara! I found my 'thing'!" We had found mine and Krista's a long time ago, but Jessica's was more of a mystery. Her favorite Bible verses all have to do with God's plans for the future. "I know the plans I have for you, says ths Lord..." (Jer. 29:11) "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will direct your paths." (Proverbs 3:5,6) All of her favorite verses are about committing our way unto the Lord and how He has blessed us with talents and how He had great plans for us even before we were born. She needs to hear that. The sermons that she gives and the worship thoughts for her classes are about trusting that God is in control. She tries to control her life by planning and planning, but the way that God fulfills her the most is by reassuring her that she doesn't have to... and she actually can't. She doesn't know how.

My favorite verses are about God's undying love for us and how nothing can separate us from the love of God. "For I am convinced that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come... shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Romans 8:38-39). But I also absolutely love verses that talk about complete and utter devotion to God and to purposes and letting no shame or opposing opinion stand in your way. "They looked to Him and were radiant, and their faces were not ashamed" (Psalm 34:5). "For a day in Your courts is better than a thousand. I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of wickedness" (Psalm 84:10). "The Lord is on my side; I will not fear. What can man do to me?" (Psalm 118:6)

I have this deep resonating theme in my life that basically says, "I am not worthy, but You love me anyway, so I will give myself fully and completely to You. I will not let anyone else's opinion sway me or make me feel ashamed." That is the theme of my life. That is who I am. That is how I feel with God, and I have realized that that runs so deeply into every aspect of my life. It resonates in my relationships with my friends and the people that I am drawn to. It reflects the way that I treat the people that I care about and what I want from them. It speaks of what I want in the person that I will marry and what I will need to feel fulfilled in my future career. I talk to my students about God's everlasting love and how He doesn't care where we've fallen and He doesn't care about the past. I tell them to make up their minds about what they want. Do you want God or not? Let nothing stand in your way. If you want Him, mean it. Do what you need. "Do you not know that whom you present yourselves slave to obey, you are that one's slave whom you obey, whether of sin leading to death, or of obedience leading to righeousness?" (Romans 6:16) So speaks my theme: "I would get tired of myself, and I don't know why You still love me, so I will cherish our relationship and devote myself to You. You give me what I need and can find nowhere else, and I am grateful."

So we all have different paths and different goals and come from different experiences and walks of life (even if we have grown up in the same house), but our life themes are different and are the underlying motives for everything. They're the reason why some simple things make us happy that no one else understands or the why we feel sad for reasons we can't immediately identify. Certain friends and settings make us feel comfortable though others can't understand.

Read the Bible so you can better understand yourself. In learning more about the One who made you, your eyes will be opened and you will be free.

Logic? The definition of clean. Flies.

I’m sitting across from this very cute Sudanese girl who always looks confused, pouty, and somewhat offended. Somehow she ended up taking the vocabulary test over chapters 6-10 today instead of 11-15 with the rest of the class. I felt really bad for wasting that time during class—I don’t know how that happened. Watching her take the correct test reminds me of an incident the other day. We have assemblies every Tuesday during the day for the entire school. The SA President was making an announcement about the race that we were going to have after school that day when one student raised his hand and made some comment about how we haven’t had basketball intramurals yet only because a lot of Sudanese students like basketball, and it’s not very popular with the Egyptians. Really? This student is somewhat of a silent instigator of the separation, but his comment was just ridiculous and addressed wrongly. Pastor Tom jumped up and restated what this student said to clarify how he was feeling because we will not have any racism on campus and we don’t want anyone to feel that they are being treated differently because of the color of their skin. Pastor Tom also defended the SA President and Vice President really well. Hey buddy, basketball intramurals has been the last sport every year… just because we haven’t had it yet doesn’t mean that we are against the Sudanese. (But then again I’m sure I don’t understand and am not completely aware of the ways that they are treated.) Some of the Sudanese students started a basketball league, and the one that made this comment told Michael that the league was for the Sudanese and the staff—so don’t you dare accuse anyone of anything. After that, some of the Sudanese students had that thought going through their minds, and this cute girl came and had the most absurd conversation with Jessica. She was saying that black people around the world have no value. “But (Name), our president is black.” “Yeah, but some people still don’t like him.” Seriously? That’s your argument? Anyways, she was upset because she was not one of the people chosen from her fine arts class to perform at the end of the year for something. Only two people in the class were chosen. Jessica said, “(Name), have you skipped any practices this year?” “Yes.” “Have you…?” “Yes.” “Have you…?” “Yes.” “Well maybe he only chose the people that really put in the most work and really wanted to perform.” “No, it’s because we have no value.” “Who is ‘we,’ (Name)?” No answer. “Okay. Two people were chosen. One is Egyptian and one is Sudanese, so why do you think that you were not chosen because you’re Sudanese?” “Because black people have no value all over the world.” There just seems to be a general lack of logic.
During Jessica’s conversation, I was having my own discussion with one of my Egyptian students at lunch. He was complaining because it is the harvesting season so some students are called to work more on the farm. The farm brings in about 25,000 Egyptian pounds during this season, so the work is very important.

“We are not animals, ya Miss.”
“Okay, I know that you don’t like to work on the farm, but the work has to be done. What do you think would be a better idea?”
“There is this machine that can do the work in one hour.”
“Oh wow! Do we have this machine?”
“Yes.
“The school owns this machine.”
“No. It’s very expensive.”
“Okay… well in order to use that machine, we need to pay a lot of money for it. We don’t have that money. So either students can work a little bit more on the farm, or everyone can pay a lot of money so that we can get this machine.”
“It’s not fair to have students who already worked on the farm work on the farm again.”
“But the work needs to get done.”
“Why did we buy those trees? We should have used that money to buy this machine.”
“We bought those trees because we will get money from them in the future.”
“Yeah, in five years! I will be gone.”
“But the trees are for the good of the school, so maybe that means the people after you.”
“But I won’t be here. We should get the machine.”

There have just been so many situations where we say no, and students will do it anyway, and then we try to discipline them and they have no idea why. “I said no, and you did it anyway.” “But I needed to study!” “Okay, but the point is that I said no, and you did it anyway.” “But I had to study!” “I said no. Do you understand why you are being punished?” “No. I had to study! There was no time. We had fine arts last night!” Okay, maybe he didn’t study. But his fine arts class was cancelled and I had passed by him playing ping pong a couple times. Some arguments are just ridiculous. I have never experienced this lack of logic before in my life. It is astounding sometimes. Of course I’m not speaking about everyone—just more than I’ve ever come across with people over the age of eight. And some of them are my age or older. It’s so strange. Some of the thinking is very self-centered. Interrupting is looked at as very disrespectful and rude in America, but here it means nothing. But I interpret that as saying, “What I have to say and do is more important than you, so drop whatever you’re doing and ignore whoever you’re working with to talk to me.” People don’t wait in lines. It’s like survival of the fittest in the line for metro tickets. To me that says, “I really don’t respect the fact that all of these people were here first. All I know is that I want a ticket, so I will just plow over all of them.”

This one girl missed my class because she was sick, and I accidentally gave back the rest of the tests before she took it, and I caught her studying one the guy's tests, so I took it away. I told the guy that I found his test, and he was the first student all year to actually be completely honest and tell me the whole story. Pastor Tom and Gladys said I could reward him for his honesty, so instead of giving him a zero and having Pastor Tom call his parents, I took 30% off of his test. He complained later. Seriously?

I never knew that “clean” was so relative and could actually be defined differently than I have always known it. Clean is taking a shower every day and brushing your teeth at least twice a day. Clean is cleaning up the kitchen when you are finished cooking and not leaving tomato juice and seeds all over the counter and bread crumbs all over the stove. In Egypt, clean is having impeccably clean finger and toenails, shaped eyebrows, hairless arms (for girls), and a clean bedroom. Some of the girls make little comments about our arm hair—I’m not Chewbacca. I have relatively nothing, but apparently it’s “dirty.” And if I have clothes not put away in my room I am worth talking about (probably because that would make us bad wives), but I would rather keep the kitchen (the place that we SHARE where bacteria and nastiness can fester—how’s fester for a descriptive word?) and have some clothes on my bed. It’s just weird. They might cringe when they see that I have short fingernails like a man, but I cringe when I see dandruff and know that they last washed their hair a week ago. (I hope that the way that I am talking doesn’t make it sound like everyone has a filthy kitchen and dandruff because that’s not the case, but it’s culturally very acceptable.) Every once in a while I get a little … can’t think of the word… but… I’ll give an example. One boy who jokes about marrying my sister assured me that he was kidding and said that he will not marry an American girl. I said, “Is it because we have hair on our arms?” and smiled really big and half-innocently. They looked kind of shocked and laughed. Yep, they think it’s gross. But then I use those opportunities to mention casually how funny culture differences are and how we feel like people should shower every day and they think that girls should be hairless. I kind of stick it to them jokingly, but it gives me the opportunity to justify my hairy arms.



Yesterday I attacked probably fifty flies with Krista’s flip flop. They were congregating all over the window and sink in the staff room, and I went to town. It was beautiful. A really sweet student that I get along with well came up behind me and said, "Miss, what are you doing?!" as I cackled and shrieked and smacked the windows. (How dare he spy on me!) I felt so successful and called some people in to show them my work. I’m feeling compelled to work again, so I will be going, but the flies here are stupid. They are slow and easy to kill (or maybe I’ve just gotten really skilled.)

Much love to you!

Krista's Arabic Vocabulary

This picture was taken on Thanksgiving. Jessica is on the left, I'm in the middle, and Krista is on the right.



Here are the things that Krista (the math teacher) knows in Arabic. She is a really good and logical teacher who runs a pretty tight ship. Things don't get past her, and she feels that it is her responsibility to teach these students life lessons--especially about responsibility and accountability. I love her. :) The first week of school she probably sent 20 students to Pastor Tom, and she won the award for collecting the most cell phones in the ad building out of all the staff members.

-"Why?"
-"Hurry."
-"Now."
-"Run."
-"Let's go."
-"Wait."
-"Saturday night only." (the only night that she will show grades)
-"Use your mind."
-"Because I said so."
-throw up (because it's very close to "squared")
-fart (She found this out while teaching geometry and saying, "If C is between A and B..." and everyone giggled everytime she had to repeat herself.)
-arithmetic problems (She practices them when she goes to students' houses.)
-numbers
-bambi, akhdar, aHmar, asfar, and all the other colors--It is her mission in life to make sure that every child in Egypt knows his or her colors. We didn't realize that that was emphasized more strongly in America than in other places, and there are some three year olds that don't know their colors.
-"Goodbye."

and

-"Photosynthesis." (She wanted to sound smart if an Egyptian person walked by and heard her saying that... most of the students don't know the word for it in Arabic though)

Zewak - Spring Break

Our first stop during spring break was in a village called Zewak, where at least 25 students from NUA live. It is in Upper Egypt, and it is very conservative. In Egyptian culture, a guest must at LEAST have a drink with the family that they visit and can't really reject food. If they do, it is taken very personally and is insulting to the family. We stayed in Zewak for only two days... and I don't think we could have survived any more than that. The people were wonderful. We learned a lot, and it really opened my eyes to where these students come from and why they think the way that they do. Here are parts of my journal entries. If I tried to just write about them in blogs, I would be overwhelmed with all the details that I would feel the need to include, and I would never end up writing anything.



Friday, March 25, 2010 between 7:30 & 8:30pm - Ashraf's living room
I am so full I want to die... and we haven't eaten dinner yet. Saeeda's house, Wael's house, Malak & Talat's house to Ibrahim N's house, to Wael's again, to Maged S's house and to Ashraf's. Next we will go to Romany A's.

3/26/10 12:04am -- on my bed at (student)'s house
Jessica ate so much she literally almost threw up. (Student)'s mom gave us mahshy when we came back from from Romany's dad's coffee shop. I found a fingernail in mine. Krista told me... (something personal) ... We laughed and then stopped ourselves because girls shouldn't laugh (or even be outside) in public. The Christian women stay inside all day--when Maryam opened the door for Beth and Krista, she hid behind the door--and when they do have to go out, they wear this giant black burka-looking thing. They pull it over their heads and grab two corners, which they hold open just enough to be able to see. It's almost scary looking. I never want to hear them criticize Muslims about covering themselves. Never. It angers me that girls are trapped inside all day. The police keep talking to Wael and bothering him for our information. If he pays them, they will most likely leave us alone.



At Ashraf's house, Michael said, "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no potatoes." It sounds dumb, but it couldn't be more true. I was SO full. It was miserable. And every strawberry, cup of Tang (mixed with tap water), or anything else questionable that we had to eat, we prayed for God's blessing. I pray that no one gets sick.

...I am so full.

I almost stepped on like 20 dead birds just laying in the roads today.

This reminds me of Maryam M's village, but I like how they treat women there much much better.

I feel like if I married a Zewakese guy and then came back to visit his family it could easily be "Not Without My Daughter II." The men get custody, and who would help me if my husband says not to? It was really scary to think about. The people are so sweet, but this will never be my home. ... This is rooted and ingrained in [them]... The man is in control. The woman cooks and cleans like there's no tomorrow and stays inside... I'm glad I'm here, and I hope to always be grateful for everything. I hope to never be the next Sally Fields. Oh God, please be with these women and young girls.

Sunday, March 28, 2010 9:45am - on the train on the way from Zewak to Luxor
I'm sitting across from poor Krista who just threw up in a bag. She threw up right before we got on the train right next to a bench. Mina was with her holding her stuff. They were all so sweet. They offered to let her come back with them and then to take her to a hospital. I went and got her a Sprite. Mina told us to not let anything happen to his mom. (He calls Krista "Omee" and "Ma," and she calls him "ibnee." It's so funny.)

Jessica and Michael had gotten sick on Friday night/Saturday morning. Poor things. We told (student)'s family that we didn't want any breakfast, but they made a ton and tried to force her to eat. Jessica was so good and made herself eat cucumbers, but they kept pushing. We finally told--Break. Krista just threw up again. Poor thing.--We finally told them that she threw up that morning... it didn't make a difference. (Student)'s mom said that she would feel better when she ate more. I downed Jessica's sweet hot milk (along with other juices throughout the day). Finally I got almost mean because I was straightforward in saying, "No, she cannot. She will throw up again if she eat or drinks anything. No." They didn't get it, and it was actually starting to make me angry. She'll get better if she eats more?

We went to Sabbath school at the SDA church. There was hardly anyone there. It was really sad. They need help down there. ...

Yesterday after church we went to Gad's, Mina F's grandma/relative's, Adeeb & Adel's, Benjamin Z's, Wagdy's, Mina E's, Wael H's again (which was like home base for us), and Shagia's for lunch and Mina S's for dinner. Shagia's was fun. There were tons of neighborhood kids that we played w/ and took pictures w/. We rode their horses, and Krista and Beth rode camels. It was fun.





We drank more Tang and Coke/Sprite than ever. At least 10 yesterday. I wanted to die.

I loved all the animals and students, but I could never live there as a woman...

I made a little boy cry yesterday when he hit me and I told him no, so he started to bite my hand. I grabbed his arm and tried to take away his palm branches (for Palm Sunday), and he cried and held a grudge against me... This four(ish) year old told Mina F that he was going to kill me outside. I was trying to make peace with him by showing him pictures on my camera. Then Mina told him to tell me no, so this little boy started to remember his grudge against me. I got mad. Mina had said to me, "But he's only a child," I said, "Yeah, and kids are smart. If you don't teach them to obey when they're young, they don't listen later." Me and the little boy made peace--I'll finish writing this later.

Field Trip to Alex

Monday, March 29, 2010 12:39pm – in the van on the way to… I actually don’t know where.

It’s spring break, and it’s just us seven SMs now travelling around in Upper Egypt with a tour guide who drives a really bumpy bus. That would be pretty fun except half of us have gotten sick this break so far, so it’s an uncomfortable ride for us. Poor Michael—he’s the worst right now.

On Wednesday, we took a school field trip to Alexandria, and we visited the famous Bibliotheca Alexandrina (which gets cooler every time I go.) I read a book about genetics and there was some super racist quote from Winston Churchill, which was just astounding. I also read part of Martyrdom and Rome from which I learned that martyrdom was pretty much unheard of prior to Christianity. Most Egyptians do not like to read (at all!) which has been quite evident throughout this year, so the library was a little much for some. Next we drove down to the beach and ate lunch. It was kind of cold out, but some of the maguneen (crazy people) went swimming. They were hilarious. They were running around and playing like little kids by burying themselves in the sand and running and jumping into the water. I like that they are really playful because they are adamantly opposed to being compared to “children” in any way. I have realized that in America, we really value children. We have been taught that it is good to be a kid when you are a kid. We’re not in a huge rush to grow up and become “men and women.” But here, there are eight year old boys working in the minibuses to count the money and hang out the window yelling the name of the city that they’re going to. They don’t eat suckers because suckers are for “sa children.” Cartoons are “for sa children.” It’s kind of sad. But ironically, many of the things that we consider to be behavior of children are found in the adults here—such as taking extreme offense from impersonal insults (like “None of your father’s business,”) and having incessant need to have the last word in an argument. I’m not saying that my ways and understanding are better, but those are what I understand and those are what I have seen.

We stopped at the beach in Alexandria and ate lunch there. The students had a really good time running in and out of the water—despite the cooler temperatures. They’re so much fun. They were burying themselves in the sand and throwing each other into the sea.

Oh, I forgot to mention that whenever we leave the school, everyone goes all out and dresses up. The girls go shopping for new clothes and do their hair. I can’t tell much difference with the Egyptian guys, but the Sudanese guys are all dressed like they stepped out of an MTV music video. They’re wearing big baggy clothes with a matching wide-brimmed baseball hat and bling around their necks. It’s just so funny to us SMs because they are nothing like anyone we’ve ever met who dresses like that. It’s kind of sad at the same time—that they idolize those famous rappers who stand for things completely contrary to what these students believe. These students, dressed like thugs and gangsters, wouldn’t hurt a fly and are some of the most respectful young people I have ever met in my life.



That night we went to this mini carnival/amusement part type of deal. Some of the rides were really fun, but there was one that made me feel like I was going to die. We sat on this circular bench with a back, and then this thing started to turn in a circle and bounce up and down. After a while, people were flying off the benches and sliding across the circle. They were bouncing around and landing on top of each other. Michael said that he was enjoying it until he saw the terror in my eyes. Haha. People were landing on my feet, my camera flew across circle, my jeans caught on this thing, I was clinging to the bars around the outside for dear life, and the ride finally stopped when one of our girls hurt her head and we motioned to the guy to stop the ride. I just laughed about it later thinking that there would be so many lawsuits about that crazy thing.



On the way back, our bus broke down, so we had to wait an hour and a half for another bus to come, and then we had another two hours to drive. We ended up getting back to the school at 3:30am. I have always been interested in personality types—especially the Myers-Briggs 16 types. Learning about the different personalities has helped me in America with how to deal with certain kinds of peoples, but fortunately that has carried over to Egypt despite the cultural and language barriers. Learning more about these has helped me in figuring out how to teach and how to deal with certain issues. It has also made me more aware of who I am and what kind of people I connect with well and the reasons for that. Most parts of the personality types are complementary (extroverts click with introverts, thinking with feeling, and perceiving and judging), but the ones that don’t really fit are the sensing and intuition because they are whole different ways of looking at life. That’s the conclusion I reached on that bus trip.

I have so much to write about from spring break… later.