Sudanese Dinner

on sunday night, one of the refugees from our english class invited all the teachers over for dinner at his house on the outskirts of cairo. we got to meet his entire family--about 14 or 15 people lived there from what i could tell. and they couldn't have been more welcoming, it was sort of like christmas. they showed us home videos of birthday parties and celebrations, chatted about politics (they happen to really like the bush administration, which really surprised me in this part of the world. i guess they think he's a strong leader because of his aggressive foreign policy, and they're desperate for someone to take an active role in sudan), and we listened to their favorite music: tupac. we sat down to dinner with 'california knows how to party' blaring in the background and prayed over traditional sudanese food. from what i could understand, there was bread called 'kisr' or something like that--it's made of flour and vinegar and water--and a soupy, meat dish in a big bowl that you're supposed to eat with the bread. and, not to make light of their amazing hospitality, it sort of had the consistency of snot. blech. i really couldn't get over that. and mollie and i certainly spent a huge amount of time in the bathroom all night... sigh. what i couldn't get over though is how incredibly physically beautiful these people were--they were all well over six foot five, and had this gorgeous dark skin, and graceful lean bodies. i felt like a dumpy, pale midget.

we also had a conversation class for english where i brought in a couple people from my apartment to help break the class into small groups and just talk about whatever. it might sound stupid, but when people speak really broken english, a part of me thinks that they aren't going to say anything intelligent. man, was i wrong. they didn't want to talk about movies or anything light. they talked about freedom of assembly, torture, terrorism, poverty, family units in africa compared to those in the west... it was incredibly interesting. and they're all appalled that i live so far away from my parents. so i told them my brother lived in korea. and they said 'so you have a bad family? run away?' hahaha. it was really difficult to explain to people who marry their cousins and have lived in the same house for generations why i would want to leave home.

in other news, nick gets here tomorrow!! i'm really, really excited. we'll spend the weekend in sharm el-sheikh in the sinai. when i told nick that he should bring his passport to the sinai because there will be checkpoints along the way, he said 'god, it's the SINAI. the real thing. insane.' kind of how i feel everyday.