Cairo Update
Greetings!
(Are these updates getting later and later . . . )
Another
busy weekend here!
An
Egyptian full-time children's worker gave me a call on Saturday
to ask me to go to a large children's meeting at a regular meeting
place on Sunday (yes, the next day!). There was not much room
for manouver since she informed me that all the children were
already expecting me, and that invitations and notices had been
printed to say that I was going as the main attraction . . . hmm.
These are typical Egyptian tactics to get you to go at short notice.
She wasn't lying about the notices and invitations either because
I saw them when I was there.
She
informed me that there would be 150 children and that I had 2
and a half hours. I managed to get the time down to 1 and a half
hours since I knew that this would be on the verge of both the
Children's attention span and the limit of what I could cope with
at short notice.
The
meeting went exceptionally well. One of the teachers who work
there came to me afterwards almost in tears to say that many of
the children made first-time commitments.
While
I was there they informed my that they were already planning a
meeting next week (this coming Friday) where they want me to speak
again, this time there will be over 500 children present. I'm
just glad that they gave me a week's notice!
I
arrived back late and I felt exhausted, I had already poured in
a lot of time and energy into the preparation and delivery and
the best that I could do on the way back was to relax in front
of a Shakespeare video. We collectively own a video recorder here
and we get a turn to borrow it one week in three, I was glad that
this week was ours!
I
was shocked to hear about the attack on tourists yesterday with
over 60 killed. Both Christians and Muslims here are always horrified
at this kind of event. There are some things about the last tourist
attack that I could write about but it is probably best not to.
As
far as I can tell, an Islamic group called a cease fire to attacks
on tourists several months ago, then asked for dialogue with the
government. They refused, saying that there was nothing to talk
about. Now it appears that the troubles have started again. We
don't really feel that we are in any danger here because we never
visit tourist places or travel with them- the target seems to
be tourists and not foreigners.
It's
a short update this week, time's short . . . (know what I mean?)
Jason
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