January 1, 2002

One last photo by the Red Sea.

A night of buffet followed by a morning of buffet - nothing could be finer (except, perhaps, Cracker Barrel). We lounged about at the Red Sea, finding it warm enough (but too late) to swim. Off in the distance, we could see ships lining up to enter to Suez Canal.

The Egyptian desert is impressive in its expanse.

We drove back to Cairo, the terrain reminding us of the long desert drives in Iraq. We arrived back at the Seminary in time for the cookout - a pork cookout! We don't get much of that, since Palestine is mostly Muslim and Israel is mostly Jewish, meaning almost nobody eats it.

Volleyball in the seminary courtyard.

Marthame played soccer and volleyball with the students for a few hours, while we both visited with many of the students and faculty that we have gotten to know over the past few days. The amazing thing is that, even though we have learned a basic level of conversational Arabic, it is almost completely useless in Egypt - the Arabic spoken in Egypt is quite different in vocabulary and accent than that used in Palestine/Israel, Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan. For example, a typical greeting is: "Zayak?" (how are you?) In our neck of the woods, it's "Kiif Haalak?" Not even close. Even so, we've really enjoyed getting to know this committed group of young folks who want to further their ministry in Egypt.

Our friend and the seminary president have been planning on heading to the States in a week and a half to do some talks at churches. However, word came today that, even though he's visited the US before, the president's visa application has been rejected, most likely because he's an Arab (perhaps specifically because he's from Egypt). Thoroughly disappointing. When there's trouble, let's round up the wagons...

Marthame and Darren, leather models.

We had been looking to buy a leather jacket, since Egyptian leather is supposed to be of a superior quality (as well as being reasonably cheap). Instead of dealing with the hassle of the markets, we had a friend of a friend make a housecall. Marthame and Darren modeled the new look for Harley Davidson's clergy line.