The past few days have been a hot, bleary, hazy mess. You may wonder why? First the heat, the no showering, the food poisoning, and the dehydration (i think),which all contributed to my 36 hour sickness... as they say in arabic, it was definitely a "mish kwais" experience. Well, here I am sitting in the middle of an urbanized/suburbanized dessert, McDonalds in Madam Tahrir to be exact, feeling much better than I did during my 36 hour ordeal. I'm not quite sure where to begin. Couple of things come to mind when I think about the past week, and yes, it's been 8 days since my arrival to Egypt. In the pas several days, Kirsten, Alissa, and I have been into our new home in el Massarah, and let me just say, it is quite the place. We are living without airconditions, no bathtub, no washing machines, and what else, oh, we have chickens cockadoodling in the mornings as our alarm clocks and goats 'goating' around in the mornings. Indeed, el Massarah is a lower middle class society- crowded, loud, hot, and poor. Yet, in one sense it really defines the meaning of true community, so I like el Massarah. It's full of life here, similar to Embebba. When I told Mr. Samah Alfonse and Ms. Sohair, Ms. Aiyliah, and Ms. Gihan that my current home in Egypt is el Massarah, they all looked at me incredulously, with wonderment and almost a worried fear. They all asked, "why, el massarah?" and "how did you get introduced to el Massarah?" The quote, "ignorance is bliss" is probably true in this instance. Had I known all the dangers or considered all the external measures, I for sure may have reconsidered living in el Massarah. Still, I stick with my original effection for el Massarah. It's a rare and raw form of local Egyptian life. Our host family is a the fantastic Hani family. The Hani house is a building home consisted of 3 or 4 flats that each family member and their family inhabit. A, K, and I live on the first wing of the house, the Abu Hani, Um Hani, and Zarah, their youngest daughter, live in the 2nd flat of the. Abu and Um Hani's oldest son, also an Abu Hani, and his wife, Dawlit, and their 4 year old daughter, Lydia, live upstairs in the 3rd flat, and the the youngest son (who works in Kuwait) and wife, Hanil, and daughter, Marsil lives in the 4th flat. Their oldest daughter, Gigi, is currently living at home with her parents due to her first pregnancy. Gigi's baby is due in 1 month, but she has extemely high blood pressure for a pregnant women...so this is the Hani family of el Massarah. The most important thing about this family is that they are a Christians. In Egypt, it is the Christian tradition to have a tatooed cross on your wrist. Ironically, this simple form of art separates them from Muslims. I will upload some pictures of my home in el Massarrah. Unfortuantely, it's taboo to take pictures, I've already been caught twice, so these will be the only pictures of the Hani family.

You may now be wondering who Ms. Sohair, Ms. Aiyliah, Ms. Gihan are??? They are my supervisors. Ms. Sohair and Ms. Aiyliah are both part of the Palestinian Department. Sohair is the director of Settlements, and Ms. Aiyliah is director of Refugess and UNARWA. Both Sohair and Aiyliah are huge chain smokers in their late 50's going on late 80s, but I really like them . My first several days were quite difficult; who would have ever guessed that there would be a bureaucratic ladder that I had to climb? In addition, there was a bit of misunderstanding on and there was a bit of mistrust. But alas, I've finally found my nitch of things and am curently working in Ms. Aiyliah's Refugees/UNARWA department. I have till Monday to read reports in Eglish and Arabic and to write a brief summary based on my observatiosn and my readings.... Oh, and to clarify, the Arab League is simlar to NATO not the UN, so for those who I've misled, I apologize.

peace-