April 27, 2007
Up in the Air
It has been a very short week. We are not ready to be leaving yet, it seems that we barely had time to say hello to our dear friends here. We were able to see a few places here in Cairo that we have not seen before, but there are still plenty of notable sites that we have not visited another month may be enough, but allas, work and obligations in Michigan are calling.
We head to the airport at 1am tonight, and then arrive in GR around 4pm tomorrow... makes for a short night and a very long day.
hopefully we can get some more photos up in the next few weeks.
your host for this episode : dan; 11:11 AM | Comments (0)
April 19, 2007
wow.
these kids have incredible amounts of energy. not sure how they do it on so little amounts of sleep. we're all functioning (us and them) on about 6 hours of sleep per night and hot sun during the day.
we had a sandstorm on tuesday and the only way i can describe is this: if sand could blizzard, that's what was happening. because of it we had to hunker down in a basement hallway (the most protected area available to us because all of the rooms were being used for meetings of the conference) on the floor and try to stay occupied. we had planned on doing the ropes course tuesday, and having a bonfire, but because of the stinging sand and gusting wind, neither was possible. instead we tie-dyed, beaded, and sang songs. FLEXIBILITY is a good thing to practice here...
after much prayer tuesday night, we awakened to beautiful blue skies again wednesday and now our biggest struggle is kepeing the kids out of the pool! the weather has been like the best August day you can imagine in Michigan, and we're "stuck" outside!
we've had some pretty incredible responses to the stories that we're telling. some kids really struggle with loneliness because their friends are not in the same country where they are. many have retold the story of the good shepherd, telling us more details about their dark places that he's leading them through, or that they're scared of in the near future. they could really use your prayers.
on that note, know that your prayers for strength have been answered in amazing ways. functioning on just so little sleep, in a new culture, with new kids (who are all high energy), eating new strange (on our stomachs) things, and wanting badly to just lounge by the pool, the Lord has really come through as our strength, and not one of us has been out of commission so far! praise God, and pray that the same continues.
more pictures to follow...
your host for this episode : carrie; 06:58 AM | Comments (6)
April 15, 2007
we have tasted the nile...
we're here. we have arrived. it has been crazy and beautiful. everyone is well. no hassles with luggage, no problems in amsterdam.
we've tried new foods and "our tongues are alive", according to eric...
we spent 5 hours in a flower garden recommended by kathy's parents while we were in amsterdam. BEA-U-TI-FUL. beautiful. such a fantastic layover. (thanks vanderMeulens!!)
spent time in the park here with that fabulous food that sheri and letha were raving about last year... we spent time in the bazaar... we went to the tent market and EVEN bought a tent! don't worry though it folds up small, and they're still going to let us sleep in the hotel...
been to the pyramids. did the camel thing. they are not stable animals, so says annie. duane's was michael jackson, others were madonna, mickey, moses. kathy kissed the sphinx.
here's a couple of group shots
your host for this episode : carrie; 12:49 PM | Comments (7)
April 12, 2007
leavin'... on a jet plane...
here's our team: dan, carrie, sheri, eric, letha, annie, duane, and kathy. in no particular order!
we leave today at 6, have a long layover in amsterdam tomorrow, and arrive saturday in the land of the pharoahs. pray against pharoah's revenge!!!
your host for this episode : carrie; 02:34 PM | Comments (0)
February 28, 2006
Pictures of Egypt
So. We can't figure out how to get more of our pictures onto this site, but I put all of them on snapfish. Here's the link, and you can see them all!
your host for this episode : carrie; 10:02 AM | Comments (0)
April 30, 2005
Out of Egypt.
We are headed to the airport in about 4 hours, to return to Grand Rapids.
Today turned out to be quite different than we had planned. We planned to have everything packed, sleep in, and go see some of the last sights that we have not yet seen here in Cairo.
Thank God that we didn't do that.
There were two "attacks" at or near tourist sites today. If anything will tell you that it is time to go home, bullets and bombs will do the trick.
The details of what happened are very sketchy at best. One report says a bomb was thrown, another that the bomber jumped off a bridge and "unintentionally" detonated the bomb.
The second incident was reportedly two veiled women who opened fire on a tour bus.
In any case, we are, as the song says,
"Leaving on a jet plane,
Don’t know when we’ll be back again."
What happens next on the Dan and Carrie Show now that our heroes are leaving Egypt? That's a good question.
You will just have to stay tunned.
your host for this episode : dan; 07:54 PM | Comments (1)
March 16, 2005
Back in the Saddle Again...
We are back on the ground in Cairo now, after a 24 hour "bump" delay in Minneapolis. Our phone is back on and we are reachable (from the US) at 011.20.12.469.6771. We are staying with Bonnie in Maadi, until our return to the US on the 1st of May.
Thank you to everyone who made time to see us during our time in MI, every visit was such a blessing. Our apologies to those of you who got rainchecked due to the nasty cold we got hit with. Maybe in May we'll miss cold season and be able to see more people than this last time. We are starting to take reservations now for our return, so if you'd like to get on the list, let us know, or let us know what events we need to plan for!
your host for this episode : carrie; 02:13 PM | Comments (1)
February 14, 2005
Homeward Bound???
We've lost our sense of home being a specific location, but this week we are in process of packing our bags for a trip to Michigan to see family and friends and, very importantly, snow! We will have our computer with us and we'll do our best to post some pics of what used to be home. We'll be there for about 2 weeks and then head back to Egypt for a while more. The end of April (or thereabouts) we'll be returning to the States indefinately, and waiting on God to open or close doors for us to work either here in Egypt or there in the Michigan. Do you have any suggestions for jet lag recovery, in order to enjoy family to the fullest during our two weeks home?
your host for this episode : carrie; 10:37 AM | Comments (0)
January 20, 2005
Visitors
We took the month of December off from classes once again and played host to several guests for a good portion of the month. Carrie’s parents came to see us here for just less than 2 weeks and we also had 4 good friends (Matt & Vicky and Aaron & Aubrey) for the Christmas holiday. We got to play tour guide as we took them all over Egypt. Ok, so we did not take them everywhere, but we were all worn out by the time it came to get them off to the airport.
Mom and Dad had it the easiest as we allowed them two days before we started the high-speed tour. Before the others arrived we took Mom and Dad to the Pyramids as well as some other places around town where we spend our time. Must not forget the shopping, both in the Bazaar and in other parts of town.
The others were not nearly so lucky, it was go-time almost immediately from touch down. Allowing them a mere 8 hours to recover from their flights, we loaded them onto the over night train to Luxor. In total we had nine people traveling together: the two of us (C&D), Mom & Dad (DDH), Matt & Vicky (MVP), Aaron & Aubrey (AK2) and our flatmate Christin (who doesn’t have any abbreviations yet). We followed almost the same itinerary as when Carrie and I went Up South in July (see the “Up South” entry) with only a few minor variations, not the least of which was a guide – thanks Hattam! – for the sites in and around Luxor. We spent two days in Luxor, visiting the Luxor Museum, Karnak Temple, Luxor Temple, the Valley of the Kings, Madinat Habou, Hatshepsut’s Temple, and the Village of the Artisans. Although it is smaller, and contains what could be argued are perhaps more “minor” artifacts, the Luxor Museum is very nice and it's much more enjoyable, as it is better laid out than the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.
After our whirl-wind tour of the Luxor area, we took the morning train down to Aswan. The time in Aswan was perhaps slightly slower in pace, at least for the first day. We hired a felucca and spent several hours sailing on the Nile and visiting the botanical gardens on one of the islands there.
Early morning the next day was time once again to “beat feet”, so with a 3am start we boarded a micro-bus – a.k.a. the rocket ship – and took off across the desert to Abu Simbel. This excursion broke the primary rule of travel: be at the destination longer than the traveling required. Four hours in a microbus, each way, for a mere two hours at the site. However, it was enough time to see everything and definitely worth the trip. The monuments themselves are amazing, but the fact that they were actually moved from their original location makes them doubly impressive. They are now approximately 55 meters higher than where they started, a move resulting from the building of the Aswan High Dam.
We returned to Cairo the morning of Christmas Eve and saw a beautiful full double rainbow. Unfortunately, we were not able to get the whole thing on film because of its sheer size. However, later that same day, using the 10x zoom on MVP’s camera we were able to gain photographic evidence that we can indeed see the Pyramids from our bedroom window.
Christmas day we had 10 people for brunch, a tradition in Carrie’s family, complete with sparkling grape juice. We had a total of 23 people here - at the same time - for dinner and desert, although four of them came for desert only.
On the 26th we went to Old Cairo, also known as Coptic Cairo, which is the oldest part of the city, and went to the place where Coptic tradition says the Holy Family stayed while they sojourned in Egypt. Because Friday is our “Sunday” in Egypt, we forgot that there would be services in the churches there on Sunday. The downside is that we only got to stand in the back of the churches for a little while instead of really looking around inside, but the upside was that we got to see part of both a Coptic Orthodox mass and a Greek Orthodox mass, and the churches were lit by more than just candles.
After leaving this area, we went to an area called “Zeboleena” or the Garbage City. Not much of a tourist site generally speaking, although we have been through there several times, this is a very poor area where a major portion of the garbage collected in Cairo gets taken. It is sorted by hand by men, women, and children for anything of use and/or recyclable. The sale of recyclable materials is the major source of income for the residents there. While it is very eye opening to see this, it was not in and of itself our destination. Our destination was a place in the heart of this area known as the Cave Church. This is a Coptic Orthodox Church and Monastery. Carved out of the mountain, it is the largest church in the Middle East, with the main hall holding several thousand at once! The face of the cliff and many of the surrounding boulders have been carved with depictions of biblical scenes, from the ten commandments to the crucifixion. The story of the Cave Church and Garbage City is a story for another time.
The next stop on our whirlwind tour of Cairo was the new El Azhar park; a recently constructed park with water gardens, trees, grass, and amazing views of the city and even in-ground sprinkling, much to the delight of Aaron, who felt a need to inspect the sprinkler heads. Because the sun was so bright by this time in mid afternoon, the girls without shades decided to use their scarfs as eye protection...
After lunch at the very good authentic Egyptian restaurant there, we wrapped up the tour with a trip to Khan El Khaili, the centuries-old shopping bazaar, where you can find everything from cheesy plastic “I Love Egypt” toys, pyramids, and the ubiquitous “Sheesha pipes” to amazing works of art, hand-made oriental rugs, and genuine antiques. The shopkeepers range from pushy, obnoxious, and creepy, to kind, genuine artisans who take great pride in their work.
The next day it was off to the Museum for the kids, while we took Mom and Dad to the airport. Of course, a family vacation wouldn't be complete without a last minute rush to find "that something special" so Carrie and Dad did an early morning run to Khan El Khalili, to pick up the jewelry box that mom had ordered and to make one last purchase: a beautiful game table. Even if you have no use for a game table, you can’t help but love this work of art. More than once I have been tempted to buy it, but knowing that I would need to find a way to transport it back to Michigan has always stopped me. So thanks Dad for buying it, so that I can’t… well I guess I still could, he has plenty more. Ayman "the Box Man" refinished the surface of the table, wrapped it up, and met us at the airport with the finished product, and it's now safely at home in front of the fire place in Michigan waiting for grandchildren.
For the final day, the final adventure, the “grand finale,” if you will, we went back to the pyramids with AK2 and MVP. Christin tagged along again as she had not been to the pyramids at Dashur, or Sakarra. In spite of the hazy skys we had a great time. We had the bus from 7am 'til 5pm and saw 19 pyramids from close range, climbing half way up and then down into one, and into another smaller one, painted with stars and carved with hieroglyphics. Lunch and a flat tire in there somewhere, and back home for a packing frenzy, before the next bus came at 11pm to whisk them off to the airport. We've already got pics up of these sights, under "the Early Days", but here's one you won't find there... the two surveyors in our troop, upon locating the marker at the fourth corner of the Great Pyramid.
your host for this episode : dan; 06:13 PM | Comments (2)
September 05, 2004
On driving in Cairo: by Dan
Driving in Cairo is not as intimidating as it seems. When you first arrive here it seems as though there are no rules, and the traffic is utter chaos. After living here for a while you begin to realize that there are indeed a few rules, which can of course be bent, and while the traffic is chaos, it is a sort of “organized chaos.” Or rather it only seems chaotic when compared to what we are accustomed to. To an Egyptian this is totally normal, one of them described it to me as “synchronized driving.”
The rules of the road are these:
1 - Tonnage Rights: the one with the bigger car has the right of way.
2 - The one in front has the right of way: even if they are turning right from the far left lane, if they are so much as an inch in front of you, you must yield. Never mind what is happening behind you but be EXTRA aware of anyone in front of you, as they can, and most likely will, do anything at any time with no warning.
3 - Try to stop when the officer holds his arm out. (never mind those traffic lights)
4 - Always assume that all the drivers on the road are drooling morons whose entire reason for existence is to be a menace to you while driving.
Ok, so I made that last one up, but I think you get the point. The biggest problem, really, is being worried about the vehicle, especially when it is not yours. Minor accidents are very common, major accidents are rare, due mostly to the fact that you can rarely drive fast enough to have a major accident.
Other than driving, our stay with the children yielded little worthy of note, they wore us out with their propensity to stay up very late, and our habit of waking up early. I must confess that after a month of nagging them to clean up after themselves and go to bed at a reasonable hour, we were all happy when mom and dad were finally home.
your host for this episode : dan; 10:45 PM
July 12, 2004
Up South
On the last day of language school last month, we made a decision to go the distance “up south” to the ancient city of Thebes and visit some of the ruins of Ancient Egypt. There was a ten-day break between class sessions and we were hoping to get out of town for a couple of days, perhaps to the Red Sea or the Med. But, as we wanted to get “Up South” before friends come in the fall, and it's only going to get hotter before it gets cooler, we decided that we should go while we had the long break. And so off we went by first class train to Luxor, Aswan, and Abu Simbel with some schoolmates. The train itself was an adventure, missing the train at Ramses Station in downtown, trying to beat it to the next station via metro, and then missing it again! We were evantually able to get our tickets changed, and took the next train two hours later.
When we arrived in Luxor we met up with a friend of one of our schoolmates, who had happened to run into a classmate of his, from another school, and her family.
We ended up being quite a strange lot of people for the time we were there. It was the two of us, another American girl, a Canadian guy here studying Arabic and Islam, a British friend of his doing the same thing, a Spanish girl that he is in language school with, her family, and then on the 2nd day, another British guy joined us, after having been denied entry to Israel! Ten of us, stayed in the same hotel in Luxor, ate together, toured together, and hired a van for the 3-hour convoy to Abu Simbel together.
The first day in Luxor we visited the Karnak temple, just outside of town, in the morning, and then spent the afternoon by the pool and napping, as it was much too hot to be out and about.
Carrie and I went out in the early evening to wander around Luxor, and then met up with the others after dark at the Luxor temple.
It is amazing to see these buildings, and all the detail that went into them. The giant pillars, each one covered from top to bottom with hieroglyphics, some of which still have the color visible from when they were painted thousands of years ago! Let's see Sherwin Williams do that!
The question which these ancient monuments ask is, “what happened to the Egyptians?” All of these monuments, with mind-boggling attention to detail, can they really be built by the ancestors of the people who it seems today don't know what detail is when it comes to buildings?
The second day we rented a van to bring us to the Valley of the Kings, Hapshepshut's Temple, Medinit Habou, and the tombs of the nobles.
The Valley of the Kings was not quite how I had imagined it from the descriptions I had read, but I don't know that I could describe it any better. The rules are: no video cameras in the valley, and no photos in the tombs. Which means you can take pictures of the entrances of the tombs, and the hoards of people queuing to get in, but not of the carvings and paintings inside. So we don't have any pictures of this on the computer. I have a few from my “real” camera, but they are not yet developed.
Again we spent the heat of the day back at the hotel, and ventured out again in the evening.
Most of the time we were in Aswan was spent in our hotel, as it was quite warm, and we were only there for one full day. Although we did take a feluca, which is a traditional sailing boat, on the Nile at night.
There are no major sites in Aswan itself, and we left at 3:30am for Abu Simbel, a good three-hour drive through the desert. We spend only a few hours in Abut Simbel, but I would say that the sites there were worth the travel time. The rock cut temples made by Ramses II, and the mountain they were carved into, were moved by UNESCO in the 1970's to save them from being lost under the waters of Lake Nasser, when the High Dam at Aswan was completed.
Perhaps our favorite site on the entire trip was the last one we visited, the Philae Temple. This temple was originally built on an island in the Nile, and when the first dam was built in Aswan, it left the temple half under water for half of the year. Finally, UNESCO intervened again and the temple was moved to a nearby island, which was re-landscaped to duplicate Philae Island. While it was probably the smallest of all the temples that we saw, and perhaps not even the most complete, it was the least crowded with tourists, and it had a unique atmosphere.
your host for this episode : dan; 11:08 PM