Saturday, September 11

We've just woken up after sleeping for about 12 hours. We spent all day yesterday on a school trip to Ain Sohkna. It's a little place in the middle of the desert on the Red Sea. It really was nice. The sand and the water were perfect. The weather was great. The water is a little extra salty so you are even more bouyant than in the ocean. One of the Egyptian teachers has a chalet there, so we were able to use her place.

The funny thing is that the chalet, or "mansion" as the kids called it, was really just a house by U.S. standards. However, by Egyptian standards it had a lot of space with 3 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, and a large patio. It was really nice of Sara, the teacher, to let us all come in and use her home.

As for the class trip, we are still trying to adjust to Egyptian ways. It's so weird! We tried to make the kids sit in their seats during the two hour bus ride. It was a losing battle. I finally asked a student if they ever sat down in the bus on the way to school. They said that they pretty much did what they wanted. When I explained that in the U.S. it was considered unsafe, the students said, "In Egypt, everything is safe." This couldn't be more true and untrue. Many of the things they do would be unsafe in our eyes, but they consider everything safe!

We decided that we would let it go, because it was exhausting yelling at them to sit down. We realized after that the principal lets them do it because she even lost her sunglasses while sticking her head out the window. It was also weird because as soon as we got to the house, the students went anywhere they wanted. We hardly saw them the whole time.

That meant that Joe, Carly, Kelly, and I had a wonderful time swimming and resting on the beach. Joe found a live sand dollar. We had never seen one before. The kids brought us a couple of crabs and a jellyfish, all of which were dead. The weird thing about the Red Sea was that it didn't get deeper like an ocean or lake would. It was very shallow for a long ways. Even past a long pier there were still little sand bars that you could stand on. Joe, of couse, joined the boys in jumping off the pier. I really was going to but the lifeguard came and yelled at us to come back into the swimming area. In reality, I was a little relieved. I'm such a chicken.

In all, it was a fun day, but exhausting so we are recooperating today.