Stabl Antar

Wednesday 5-14-08:

Wake up, breakfast, vans, class…meet up with the group again to make another trip out to an even worse neighborhood to check out the glass blowing shop that the NGO has help start up.

I thought yesterday was bad, and then we went out to a little town called Stabl Antar, another outskirt town of Cairo. We are driving through the town, and I can’t believe that the van actually made it down the roads we were on. They were dirt roads filled with trash, and god knows what else…30 minutes of driving past donkeys with carts, kids playing football (soccer) in the street, poverty everywhere, and bread lines…the food shortage is a serious problem in Egypt right now. We arrive at the glass blowing shop with a football field out front and there is a group of kids playing. I instantly wanted to go play because that was one of the things I wanted to do when I came here…we get a tour of the glass blowing shop. It was actually very nice, and the stuff they made was beautiful. It was nice to see that in such a terrible part of town there are some good things happening. We watched the glass blower make a perfume bottle for Dr. Sullivans daughter, Grace, who is on the trip with us. He wrote grace in both English and Arabic on the bottle for her, it was very cool.

After the tour, we were waiting for everyone to use the bathroom, which was upstairs, and they would only allow one person at a time to go upstairs due to their religious views. So I had some time to kill, and the kids were still playing soccer…with Abduh, and all the van drivers…It took me a while to get up the courage to go and play with the whole group standing around, but I did and it was awesome. These kids were probably about 10-12 years old, and they were NASTY! They were popping rainbows, and step overs, and heel passes etc etc etc. It was a dirt field, so I was slipping everywhere in my nike running shoes, but I had a blast. I cant wait till the next time we go up there so I can play again…We left Stabl Antar, and came back to Zamalek. Tried out a new place for dinner, finished up my paper before I went to sleep, and then crashed.

More for tomorrow…although I might just start doing a post every other day or so, not as much to report since we stopped speed tourism…but stay tuned.

Peace

-Al