A trip down memory lane

Here are some things that I remember from our semester together that make me smile. Some of it is in some sort of order, but most of it isnt.

-Those hours that we all sat in JFK airport, sizing each other up
-David talking about the importance of seatbelts.
-The funny mummy
-The time that Emily got hit on the head by a pommegranate that fell from a shelf while we were playing cards on the bus.
-Swimming in the Dead Sea
-Dancing Diaa
-Singing songs from old musicals while crammed in the front of the bus
-Telling horror stories about bad dating situations while crammed in the back of the bus
-Phil's amazing rap skills
-All of those old Europeans on the cruise ship who wore speedos and who didnt know how to wait their turn in line
-The soup and the bread at the Austrian Hospice
-The breakfasts at the Austrian Hospice
-The restraunt owner in Syria who was... is there any word that can actually describe that guy?
-Dahab
-The time that Dr. Heather got really embarrased while we asked her questions about sex
-Our rather awkward guide at St. Catherine's monestary
-The movie night on top of the villa
-Steve's smile
-Dena's smile
-The three words that are the same in every language: "Amen, Hallelujah and Coca Cola"
-Conversations about real things that really matter
-Christmas at Dena's flat
-Potluck at Steve's flat
-Calling our places of residenc "flats" instead of "appartments"
-The Khan el Khaleli
-Spectra deserts
-The fact that you can order McDonalds to be delivered to your door
-Goodbye hugs
-The Ma3salema Party

I miss you all
Micah

The Middle East is in my blood on my hands...

Hello Habobi (is that plural?) Mandy here, in hot, hot Phoenix. My internship with Food for the Hungry is off to a great start. I've been here almost three weeks now and am learning a lot. I'm learning I am slightly liberal curved, suprisingly enough, compared to some of the other interns. But there are many who share similar points of view as me.

Since I've been here, my connections with the Middle East have EXPLODED! I'm meeting all sorts of people who've traveled to the Middle East, lived there and today the greatest of them all. I met the man who founded MESP. Isn't that outrageous! He lives in Phoenix now! I met him at a Brown Bag lunch speech (it's where ASU gets speakers to speak during a lunch hour and all these business people come and it's amazing). We talked about former MESP, my time there and the future (all in the span of five minutes). He and his wife will be taking me out sometime in the coming weeks to an Arab restaurant--YUM!

In other news, the internship is proving educational, useful and interesting. I'm doing writing for our blog (www.fh.or/relief_blog), I've written all of the June posts and will continue to write for it. I'm also going to be writing for the magazine FH puts out quarterly, giving updates on what we are doing in the field in relief. I get to look through TONS of amaZing pictures like these and then write about it--who could ask for anything better?

It's hot here, but I'm getting along well with my roomies and the people in the office. I feel like a sponge--or at least I'm trying to be.

Pictures: left: a girl and child at New Life Center in Northern Uganda for girls abducted by the LRA, right: two girls from an IDP camp in Darfur.

Much love and hummus.
call me to chat sometime!!

Updates

1. Julia is beautiful
2. Julia is married
2 and 1/2. Julia is married to an ADORABLE guy.
3. Road trips and motel sleep overs are not as fun in Minnesota and Iowa as they are in the Middle East (no offense guys)
4. Hummus tastes just as good in the states as it does in Egypt
5. Shakira and Nancee are timeless
6. Egypt friends are timeless
7. Becca, Suzannah, Abbie, Micah, Brian, Brian's girlfriend, and Julia rock my socks
8. We've come a long way since we borded the plane in Cairo
9. God is powerful and wonderful and glorious
10. I miss you guys!!!!!
11. I'm going out on a 12 day trip with 8 high school girls on Monday--please pray that God will reach them in powerful ways and use me to do His work

work is kinda lame

haha anna, that made my day!

granted its a very boring day. I'm back in Grand Rapids as of last night and started work today. I have about an hour and a half until I could possibly leave early. hehe. my coworker saw this and was like, "what the heck is mumkin?" haha, I tried to explain. He was confused.

So anyway Ireland, since some of u have asked. it was pretty lame in comparison with MESP, or even comparison to my life in general, which is probably saying a lot. I just drove around with my family in the rental car. Pretty stuff but it just depressed me how we were wasting all this money and time and stress on something that was supposed to entertain us but was really just depressing and somewhat meaningless. At least I got to have some good talks with my brother and bond with my fam and stuff. My dad opened up a little with the affection and he bought me alot of drinks. I got the closest to drunk I've ever been off of alcohol my dad bought me, haha.

So ya now life is slightly overwhelming. I am gonna miss my friends from San Diego, a few especially, and I already miss you and egypt so much and I miss the people that aren't here for the summer and I miss my brother and I'm overwhelmed with all the stuff I want to do this summer. My roommate and I are tutoring our arabic teacher's son in social skills and school stuff in exchange for free arabic lessons, hehe, that will be fun.

O I got a letter from my host brother! Margie, if u haven't heard, I guess our host siblings are engaged! freakin awesome. Other news, my roommate for my entire time at college is also engaged as of a week ago. And julia's getting married tomorrow, and my other roommate's getting married next week. AHH! Love is in the air...

ok I should probably pretend to do work even though I have nothing to do anyway...

Egyptian men

So one of my friends taht I work with asked me to go out with her last weekend but being the good little christian that I am I politely declined. Well, apparently she met a hot Egyptian man and has since gone on 3 dates with him. I was a little jeleous to say the least. Mumkin he has a little brother for me.... inshallah...
Things are going good for me. Summer camp started this week at my day care so that means that I have 25 hyper little kids running around a room made for 15 kids, and I get to go on fun feild trips every day. The best part is that I get to work with my hot hot coworker Mr Joseph every day and flirt shamelessly to pass the time.
I also started a new job on saturdays at a dump... yes I work at a dump... I am the "traffic director" and greet people when they come and leave. Who ever heard of a dump having a greeter? I like it though.... I meet a lot of interesting people and get hit on by dirty 50 year old men. I haven't been hit on that consistently since being in Egypt so it makes me miss the Aguza boys... kindof, and Dr Holt's creepy boowab....
I hope you all are having a great summer! I miss you alll!! Have fun at the wedding! by the way, I'm driving to West Virginia in a few weeks so maybe I'll be passing through some of your towns....
ANNA

Job opening in Egypt

Hey kids! I just found this job posting on Idealist.org. It's for working with an Coptic orphanage:

http://www.idealist.org/if/idealist/en/SiteIndex/AssetSearch/search?assetTags=JOB_TYPE&assetTypes=Job&countries=Egypt&fetchLimit=30&languageDesignations=en&onlyFetchAssetProperties=1&siteClassifierName=idealist&sortOrderings=modificationDate&startIndex=0&types=FULL_TIME&validStatusTypes=APPROVED&validStatusTypes=UNAPPROVED&validStatusTypes=DEFERRED

wow. ok, that's a long link--if you just go to Idealist.org, look for full type work in Egypt, this will come up.

Take care! I leave for Spain tomorrow...mwah, I love you, my friends. I'll post lots of pictures, and give updates once i'm back.

Alissa

Update

Hey,

How is everyone? I have some bad news, because of poor planning on my part, I won't be able to go to the wedding coming up. I apologize for not going to Iowa, please take lots of photos.

Here's an update on my summer. I graduated in May and I've spent the last month visiting family, went across the country, and am now going full steam ahead in the job search, I have 2-3 interviews lined up. Also, right now I've been learning how to play the piano with my grandma. I think I'll be in the lone star state for a little while to work, save money, etc. If you happen to be in area and need a tour guide please send me an email.

(Right now is a good time to visit, the Spurs are about to win their fourth NBA title and there will be tons of touristy things to do in the coming weeks/months.)

Cordially,

-David

I forgot the coolest part

Diana and I went to a Med. restaurant / hooka bar Saturday. It was great! We had a great time. The food wasn't great but it was fun to have hooka again! :)

Long Overdue Update

Hey guys! Haven't updated in a while. Well I'm graduated now. Have a few really rocky weeks, but now I'm back on my feet and life is good. On Tuesday I start a new job. I'll be working for the Kroger company with there help desk as a Level I Analyst. It's a temp job with the possibility of being taken on if I prove myself.

I'm hoping to go to Julia's wedding, but I don't know my schedule yet. I have to work every other weekend so keep your fingers crossed that I can come. Who else is coming? I hope I get to see some of you guys!

More about Torture

Two posts ago, I wrote about torture a little and some of you responded. I think that the issue is important. Also, Im not sure how many of you go back to check comments on old posts. Anyway, I want to keep this thing fresh in our minds because I am not entirely convinced one way or the other. I know that I would like to hate even the mildest of torture in all its forms, but Im not entirely convinced that it doesnt have its uses.
One thing that Jon wrote was that torture in Gitmo doesnt do any good. I am pretty sure that I completely agree. I havent heard of any intelligence comming from Gitmo that did any good. However, this does not mean that interogation meathods dont work as a whole. The front page article of the most recent issue of the Atlantic Monthly talks about how interrogation techniques brought down Zarqawi, the head of al-Qaeda in Iraq. Interrogation does work sometimes. It is not completely barren of usefulness. In terms of human rights, I also mostly agree with Jon. I believe that humans have been given certain rights by our creator. However, for millenia, it has been argued that a person sacrifices claim to those rights if he or she threatens the rights of others. An example of this in an extreme form would be where a terrorist who has planted a bomb in a city (threatening the right to life of those civilians who would be killed) may forfeit his right to good treatment. Im not sure. I want to disagree with it. However, people for centuries and centuries have agreed that torture is ok in certain circumstances. Im not comfortable simply brushing this asside because "we highminded-sophisticated people" are more "enlightened" than our ancestors. By the way, I am not saying that any of you said this. I am just afraid that it may be in all of our minds. I know it is in mine.
I think that David makes a really strong case. The fact that our own troops may in turn be tortured is something that makes me very uncomfortable. But, someone who supports torture may claim that the enemy will use torture anyway and our "high-mindedness" will only hurt us in the end.
Very interesting stuff. Any more thoughts?

Where are our hickies?!

Okay, so after reading the blogs about the past MESP semester, does anyone else feel that we missed out??! I mean seriously! Where are our hickies? I know we had fun together, and we enjoyed each others company...yeah yeah yeah. whatever. I want to know why the hell we did not get hickies! I mean seriously...all of the hot people on our trip and the two people who hooked up wait till we get back to the states to give each other hickies?! Seriously??! Come one people! We cannot seriously be that sexually deprived! I feel like we need to do the semester all over again. Just so while we are on the trip someone can get some hickies! End of discussion. I mean forget the Israeli/Palestinian problems...Seriously. who cares. I want to hear some gossip about some hickies, people! Where is my gossip! Forget about the genocide of the Kurds! Forget about the holiness of Antioch and Jerusalem where is the stuff that really matters....hickies! ow ow! It's not like we were on that trip to learn! I mean seriously! Us learn! Please I want to learn about hickies!