Inshallah, my blogging issues have been resolved. I’ve been having some serious issues posting (as seen by my lack of posts) but it seems that the bugs have been worked out. In the interim, I’ve been posting on facebook, so feel free to find me there.
This second semester has flown by. I’ve already had midterms, and spring break will be in a couple of weeks. The khamseen, or sandstorms have also come to Cairo. The first sandstorm was pretty fun, but now it just makes my room sandy and my head hurt. The weather has also been very unpredictable. It’s will go from 80 degrees on day to 50 the next. But that being said, the Cairo “winter” was pretty dang easy to take.
Last weekend, I went to Minya, which is in middle Egypt. We saw a bunch of really cool tombs and historical sites, but what most excited me was that I was able to take lots of pictures of Egyptians. Most of the time, people don’t want me to take their picture, especially in more rural areas, or they want a tip, which is usually impractical. But for whatever reason, I got lucky this weekend.
Most of my pictures are of children. It was yom it goma, or the Friday Sabbath, which meant that there were large school groups out and about. The children made me feel like a rockstar. At on point, while waiting for a ferry to cross the Nile, I walked up to a school bus with 70 or so kids in it. The bus erupted in greetings and smiling faces were plastered against the window. When I asked “soora quawiyysa?” (picture good?) the group got even louder. They totally hammed it up for me, and I was laughing so hard I could barely hold that camera still enough to take pictures.
Friday was one of those golden days. The kids had an elemental joy that made me so grateful to be in Egypt, and they made me feel connected to this country in a way I‘ve never felt before.
