Egypt (Part 2) - Hope to See You Again Soon!

Since the past few days had been busy and a tad stressful, we decided to slow down a bit on Monday. A driver picked us up and drove us through Moqattam, one of Cairo's largest garbage villages. It is hard to describe the poverty there, but imagine a village constructed and revolving on garbage and you will have a little bit of a picture in mind. Some streets can be up to your knees in garbage, the flies are out in full force, and you have to consciously think not to react to the smells. But the kids are running at our car yelling, "what's your name" and "welcome to Egypt", and that is precious to me.

After one of the saddest drives you can make in Cairo, we come up to my favorite site - the cave church/churches! Three Coptic churches have been carved out of caves. The story is actually really amazing...it is believed that at one time the mountain was physically moved by the faith of a saint. Less than fifty years ago, the caves were discovered but full of rocks and debris and impossible to use. The Christians in the garbage village were not allowed to build a church for themselves. But at the end of every day in Ramadan (a Muslim, fasting holiday month), a cannon goes off to signal when it is time to feast. When this cannon went off, the Christians set off explosives in the caves. Then they cleared out the debris all night and day, set more explosives to go off and repeated the process until Ramadan was over and the churches were built. They went undetected throughout the building process and now have wonderful churches for worship.

The largest cave church can seat up to 5,000 so they hold church services, conferences, and events here! There are beautiful carvings, etched into the rock ceilings and walls, of Bible stories and verses. We really enjoyed looking at all the illustrations and reading about the area. You also get a great view of Cairo!

That night we ate dinner with Amy and Caleb at Chili's. I must say that it is much better food in Cairo than in the States! After dinner, we went to a wonderful cafe that overlooks the Nile, had some of the most delicious lemon juice and were able to relax together.

Tuesday we took a last-minute trip to Ain Sokhna (which is a beach on the Suez Canal/Red Sea). I grew up going to this beach, mostly for day trips. We decided to spoil ourselves a bit and stay the night. It was beautiful weather, the wind was blowing, Nick had shade and I had sun - perfect combo for the beach! We enjoyed huge buffet dinners and breakfasts, full of Egyptian food. That night also happened to be Election Day in the States, so we were excited to have CNN and be able to follow all that was going on with that. We were hoping to stay up late enough to see the result, but we actually woke up around 9 the next morning to President Obama's celebratory speech - so that was fun for us to experience live even on this side of the ocean.

Wednesday night when we got back from the beach we did some food shopping for all my favorite Egyptian snacks - borios (aka Egyptian Oreos), ketchup flavored chips, apple fanta, and other deliciousness.

Thursday morning we started with shopping on Road 9 - the main street, full of cafes and shops. I was so tempted to buy everything but I held back, trying to think through what we actually wanted to move to Seattle and what just looked cool in the store. After shopping, we had a wonderful lunch with a family friend and her two boys. It was so fun to spend time with them, catching up on all their news and hearing about life in Cairo post-revolution. It was sad to hear that Morsi has re-allowed girls to be married at 9 years old and that other shari'a laws are fighting to be established, but encouraging to hear how we must be praying for him and his leadership just as we should be doing for President Obama. I don't normally compare the two presidents, but interesting to think of it from a different perspective...


Friday was the day that we had been waiting for/dreading...going to the pyramids! Let me explain- the pyramids themselves are amazing. They are huge and you can literally climb on them and inside of them (more on that later). But, it has become a huge tourist trap. People hound you the entire time to ride their horses and camels, buy their souvenirs, and show them your tickets even though they don't work at the pyramids. Probably the most annoying aspect of the day was people kept taking pictures/videos of us or asking us to be in pictures with them. We would always refuse and walk away. We didn't understand if they were so surprised to see foreigners that they wanted pictures or what, but it made the day less fun.

However, so much of the experience was great! We got to the pyramids very early in the day (around 8:30 am) so a lot of the annoying people hadn't arrived yet. We were able to mostly walk around the three pyramids in peace and just be amazed by them. Questions such as where did all the blocks come from and how did they stack them so high and why in this location came into our heads. One highlight of the day was actually going into the Great Pyramid! You go in and then can go up a very narrow passage for about 200 feet (sort of a guess) and it is the only way in or out. You are crouched over the entire time so your legs are really feeling it. I don't know if these passages were used in making the pyramids, but if they were then I pity the men who built the pyramids. Either way, I pity the men who built the pyramids. That would be a pretty bad job, but in the end they made a pretty amazing wonder. Since this is only one way in and out, you have to share the very narrow passage so you are scrunched up against the wall while climbing up/down a narrow passage crouched over. You are very happy to get outside again.

After going into the pyramid, we walked down the road and saw the Sphinx. We don't know how the nose fell off, but if you do feel free to leave a comment. Hannah's convinced it fell off during the movie "Aladdin." But it was fun to see.

Our final adventure after seeing the Sphinx was finding a camel to ride. All around us people were trying to get us to ride their camels, but we wanted to try and find someone who looked trustworthy. We had heard horrific camel-riding experiences where they put you on the camel for a certain price and take you out into the desert far enough that you can't walk back and then demand more money. We weren't going to fall for this trick. So eventually we found our camel and camel-driver and we were off. About half way through he offered to take pictures of us...what a nice guy! Then, about five minutes later, he doubled the price and says the original one was per person! Hannah yells at him in Arabic to put us down and says no way Jose! He lets Hannah off but then the camel stands up quickly and I'm back up high. Hannah is arguing with the guy and I'm trying to argue from the camel. Finally, he lets me down and says he wants 20 pounds per picture plus extra then he initially said. We refuse it but give him a little extra for the pictures, even though we shouldn't have. He continued to walk after us for a few minutes, yelling at us for more money but we just kept walking. Just another day riding camels!

Friday evening we went to MCC, the community church, and then helped Amy make signs for the Christmas Bazaar the next day. Saturday morning we were able to spend some time with old friends from Charlotte who now live in Alexandria. It was a really fun, last-minute surprise to see them for breakfast. That afternoon, we went to the Christmas Bazaar and did some shopping. All the vendors had handmade, great quality items and the proceeds went to tons of Egyptian charities...so it made shopping even more fun! Afterwards, we met Amina, one of my friends from high school, for lunch at Lucille's. It was SO amazing to see her again and eat in one of our old spots. We caught up on each other's news for the last seven years...it was long overdue.

Sunday we spent more time walking in and out of bedouin shops and then we went to CAC, my old high school. It took a bit of convincing the guard, but we eventually got inside the campus to get my alumni ID. I showed Nick the pool I life guarded at, the gym, auditorium, and classrooms. So much has changed but the high school has stayed more or less the same, so that was nice to see. We talked with one of my old teachers awhile, heard how the revolution affected the school, and other things going on with CAC. It was so wonderful to see a familiar face!

After our campus tour, we picked up a BBQ chicken pizza from Dominoes (my personal favorite) and grabbed a taxi to the Nile. We enjoyed one of the most beautiful felucca (sailboat on the Nile) rides I have ever been on - the sunset was colorful and crisp, not fogged out by the pollution. The breeze was cool and the wind was blowing so we were able to move pretty fast. So wonderful!

Today (Monday), we started with some last-minute shopping! Then we visited with some more family friends. I used to babysit their son, Danny, but now he is 13 - so that is crazy to see how time flies. It was great to catch up on their news, hear the thoughts on Egypt, and how their family is adjusting. Then we ended our day with a delicious Lebanese meal with Amina and her boyfriend, Tamer. It was fun to hang out all four of us, hear how they started dating, and life for them now!

We said goodbye to Amy and Caleb, Egypt and all of it's chaos, and now we are at the airport and headed home...though I must say that the guard is getting really annoying and not letting us get to the check-in desk for whatever new security measures they have running. Also, it seems that our flight doesn't depart until 3:10 AM, 2 hours later than we expected...hopefully that is not a sign of things to come on this long travel day!