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.
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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.
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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.
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