Sunday night started at 6 o'clock with all the MESP students waiting around the Villa (where our classes, lunch, pretty much everything is held). The program of the night was that we would have a reception as parents came to pick up the students that they were housing. It felt like an orphanage as slowly by slowly (time to Egyptians is a relative thing) families trickled in and picked up one of the kids. When 3 guys walked in, I just had a feeling they were there to pick me up. All the girls are staying alone this week, but all the guys had to be paired albeit 2, and I was one of the two. I had asked to be alone because I knew that if I was with someone I would be too comfortable leaning on them to do the socializing. Anyway, the three walked over to me, and well.. none of them really spoke English and my Arabic is a long shot. As we were sitting around trying to communicate we managed to get some info out, their names, my name, where they were from and where I was from. I was actually just staying with one of the guys, my brother "Emad", while the other two just came for the ride. What was also cool was that Emad and his family (my family now I guess) were coptic while his two friends were muslim.
After a half hour drive I arrived to the apartment, a pretty small place but filled with charm. They even put up an American flag which we all got a laugh out of. I then met baba and mama and the only daughter (my sister Basma). Basma can speak English pretty well so it is so funny when I would have NO idea what was being said and then she would translate a little bit. We then spent the night watching movies, butchered conversations, they loved helping out with my Arabic homework (definitely the big hit). Edward, Basma's boyfriend/fiance came over too and I met him. He definitely laid out on the table those usual American dinner table conversations you don't have like politics ("Do you like Obama?" Me: "Yeah" Edward: "Good, I don't like Bush") or religion ("You Christian? Me" "Yup" Edward: (very happy) "Good!").
After hang out time near 11 I was thinking bed time but nope, it's the perfect time for dinner! My brother Romany came and joined and he is definitely a character, loud boisterous and fun. It was great. We had a DELICIOUS green basil sauce with bread, cucumbers, rice. I felt that hospitality as my plate got filled three times (without me even finishing it), it was so great. They also gave me some slushie thing and it was so good! After another MBC Action Channel movie (Bruce Willis in some African rainforest?, I sucked it up and went to bed. Here in Egypt, the night life is very active at all times of the night/morning, so we were told to try and stay up so it wasn't awkward if they wanted to stay up more. It's a guessing game to find the perect time! My host brother Emad supposedly hadn't slept for two days straight! It was really hard to wake him up the next morning for him to take me to the Taxi stop.
Adventures still to come:
- figuring out how to get back home
- showering in the bathroom/using the bathroom in general
- figuring out how not to gain 100 pounds this week
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