I'm volunteer-teaching an adult refugee English class on Wednesday nights.  I've never taught a formal course before so at the end I might have to evaluate the efficacy of a program utilizing completely unqualified teachers to "teach English".  The program is run by a student group (of which I'm staying as far away from in administrative terms as possible...I have a history of becoming overly involved haha) and the students test into levels and everything.  I'm teaching level 1b.  The students range in age from 20ish to late 40s.  They are from Guinea, Chad, Sudan, Ethiopia, and Somalia.  I'm starting to get to know personalities (who's shy and becomes easily flustered, who shouts out answers before the others even try) and names after this week and hopefully I'll have cemented the names by next week.

As I type this there is a sort of "moving in/wedding party" that appears to be going on in the street below our window.  I first heard the typical jubilant squeal/wail that usually accompanies weddings...which didn't exactly makes sense because there surely aren't wedding party venues in our block.  However, once we opened the shutters (we keep the shutters to the very front sort of busy street shut since there are windows on the side rooms that we can leave open with more privacy) to peek out and realized it's a newly married couple moving into their new apartment.  The ladies and the small children are singing/clapping with one young guy banging a drum in beat, punctuated with the jubilant squeal/wail (it has a name in Arabic but I can never remember...being able to do it properly seems a sort of pride with many Egyptian women).  The men and older buys are unloading truck loads of things and having to walk through the singing/clapping/drumming women while carrying things through the doorway.  It's super fun looking, lots of smiles and laughter.  Except for litle Mustapha (our bowab's three year old son) who seems to find something to whi

Our good friend Alisha was here last week.  She is currently studying in Spain and decided that money is fake, so she grabbed a plane ticket over here to Egypt for a visit!  As she was here we went to various touristy places that Justin and I mostly hadn't been to since I was studying abroad here two years ago.  It was super fun to have an excuse to get out and about and Alisha was just wonderful to have here!  I've posted random pics of touristy sites and activities we experienced with Alisha this last week. I titled each photo so you know where the not obvious ones are (although pyramids should be obvious).

Ramadan has ended. For the past few days, we've been in the middle of the Muslim holiday Eid al-Fitr, three days of festivities celebrating the breaking of the fast. Many people compare its significance with that of Christmas in the United States, but it seems to me that a more reasonable comparison (in terms of cultural significance) would be to say that it is like Christmas, Thanksgiving and Easter rolled up into one, taking the religious significance of Easter, the food of Thanksgiving and the gifts of Christmas and the family focus of all three.

The night before the end of Ramadan, I met up with our friends Tim, Abigail, and a few others for drinks near the main commercial drag downtown. Walking down Talat Harb, Tim and I had to swerve our way through gobs of people buying clothes from all the sales at the shops.

Jsut bought a package at the store. I think its related to the apple, but Cara disagrees. She says that it's fibrous, starchy, crunchy like an apple, with a slight sweetness and the aftertaste of a potato.

Any ideas?