Sunday, March 13

We have been doing the usual. On Thursday, we spent the day at a teaching conference, which is always a little boring, but at least we didn't have to go to school. It was held on the Cairo University campus. The day was pretty uneventful except for when we skipped one of the sessions and went to look for the campus bookstore. A guy sent us to some building, and Joe went in to an office to ask where the bookstore was. He was in there for a while, so Tom and I were beginning to wonder what he was doing. I stepped inside, and some guy had Joe by the arm. He looked like a little kid who had just gotten in trouble. The funny thing was that you could tell that Joe was trying to walk away and the guy was still holding on to him. He wasn't letting Joe go for anything! He kept on talking to us, and walked us out into the entry. He still had a hold of Joe! He told us he was from Canada (he was of Middle-Eastern decent). He seemed so excited just to have North Americans in the building. It was so funny to us the way he wouldn't let go of Joe. He was holding on tight. People here are so much more touchy. You definitely wouldn't hang on to someone like that in the States. I think they would get pretty irritated with you.

We went this weekend to see the movie The Grudge. You know Joe; he's got to go see every horror movie that ever existed. He's still creeped out by the scary Japanese ghosts. It was funny because even one of the teenage boys in the theater had to get up and run out because he was scared.

Other than that, the weekend was quiet. We went out to our principal's club tonight after school. It's a swanky country-type club. It was nice; we had dinner and sat around. It's always a little awkward because the American teachers sit together and talk and all the Arabic teachers and administrators sit together and talk. Joe and I are actually starting to pick up more and more Arabic, though. It's definitely slow-going, but we are proud of ourselves because we can now write short sentences.