Service and Some Relaxation

Yesterday, we all ventured back to the three service places of the NGO in order to show them the website that Sai has amazingly created with her team as well as buy anything at the workshops. First stop was glassblowing where I found a beautiful set of aladdin lamps and a perfume bottle. The knitting place was next and we were all excited to give the pictures that I had gotten developed from the last time to our friend Fadwa. It took her awhile to get there so in the mean time I shopped around a found some great placemats and a bread basket. It seemed as if we were having some trouble with the manager who wasn't satisfied with the website but I wasn't exactly sure what was going on. Finally we stopped at the carpet place but I wasn't feeling well so I stayed in the van. From what I hear, the woman was upset about the font of the factory's name on the website. OMG, get over it!

By that time most of us were cranky and tired, and our idea to go to the beach with Lyna was shot down by Prof. Sullivan from the van door. But we got over it and headed back to Zamalek to relax and then go out with the crew around the town. They're great people.


This last week I also started my service work at St. Andrews. There I am working to help tutor English to refugees who are primarily Sudanese. What I thought would be tutoring has mostly just been conversations with different people. The two men that I met last week were very interesting, Albino and Dmbek. Albino spent a long time talking to Joyce and I about his philosophy of life. He made everything so simple and divide life into three things - past, present, and future. If you do something in your past, it will affect the other two and so the cycle continues. Albino described this circle that all of us are in and there is no way for us to escape it so whatever goes on in that circle will come back around to us. I found this fascinating. Dmbek was a character and he talked about his love for Tupac, so I got out my mp3 player and played some California love for him. So far the experience at St. Andrews has been awesome, I can't wait to go back.