One cool thing is that I'm teaching our bowab (the doorman) the alphabet. He gets so excited when he sees me and he wants to practice. Plus he gets excited when he sees me come with more work for him. It's kind of hard because he's working at the same time and I don't have a lot of time with him, maybe only 15 minutes, but he's trying really ( Read more... )

Okay the roommate situation. Patrick is okay. He's 22, just out of college, from the Northwest suburbs of Chicago, never had a job, lived in Germany for 1 year and is totally totally a book worm and pretty clueless about how life. But, he's okay and I can tolerate him because he appreciates how cool it is to be an American in Egypt. Kate, my ( Read more... )

So life in Egypt is much easier now. I understand A LOT of spoken Arabic because I make that when I come home from school I go out and talk with the people. Whether it's eating out, getting ice cream, at the Internet cafe, at the grocery store, I am out everyday. I'm actually really skinny here because I don't have a car and I don't take taxis ( Read more... )

So, I'm in Egypt and the people here hate their government. This dude Mubarek does what he wants & if he kicks the bucket while I'm here I think there will be some trouble. He is something like 80 years old & there is rumor that he's grooming one of his sons to take over his position. That's kind of unnerving, but I'll just have to hope that he ( Read more... )

I've realized that when I speak Arabic I must sound like Tarzan. "Me Tarzan, you Jane." I only know 1 verb & it's 'want'. Other than that I have a verbless language. I just speak in words & can't make sentences. I have my dictionary with me everywhere I go & I've been able to communicate with people by using words, but I want to form sentences ( Read more... )

So, when I was at Ashraf's mom's house they had to explain the facilities to me. Ashraf said, "Hey Sharon, here we have a butt hose." I noticed that in my apartment there is a little pipe line thing sticking up out of the water in the toilet & I wondered what the hell it was for. It's a butt hose! How crude does that sound! hahaha So I was so ( Read more... )

WOW...sooooo soooooo sooo much has happened since I last posted an entry. Remeber in the last my last words were that I felt strangely at peace? Well, all chaos broke loose after that. Immediately when I walked out of this Internet cafe (the one I'm in now) a man walked up to me and said in English, "Can I put? Can I put?" and I just ignored ( Read more... )

abookh abookh means blah blah blah in Arabic. That is my word of the day. The other teachers at the school think it's hilarious that I pick up the most random words. I was at the coffee shop paying my bill and one of the waiters standing at the register said something in Arabic & followed it up with abookh abookh. Of course like a little kid I ( Read more... )

Things have kind of calmed down a bit for me here. People around my apartment in the businesses & at the internet cafe don't stare as much because they know I'm here for the long run ( Read more... )

The bowabs (doormen) are TOTALLY confused about mine & Patrick's relationship. Men & women don't live together unless they're married here & a man isn't allowed to visit a woman's apartment if they aren't married (the bowab makes sure of it) and vice versa. So,our bowabs had to be told to let us both up to the apartment. hahaha Wait until Kate ( Read more... )