al-Azhar

To my wonderful friends and family:

I am sorry for the lack of updates! Things have been quite crazy here lately, and unfortunately I will not have time to elaborate much on this post. One big event of the week was a meeting with Muslim students and a high-ranking administrative dude at al-Azhar University. Beforehand, our director made it clear that meetings such as these between Christians and Muslims in an academic setting simply do not happen, but through his superb connections, we were able to meet with students from this prestigious, original school of Islamic studies. The first part of the meeting was somewhat irking, for the higher-up guy skirted each and every tough issue and question that was raised. The time I spent with the actual students was redeeming in that we were able to get down to the polemic issues of politics and religion, which though are hard and uncomfortable to dialogue about, bring about a certain mutual understanding of where the other side is coming from.

Few things could have prepared me for the nonstop go-go-go nature of this semester in Cairo. Anyone who knows me might suspect I value downtime... ya know, that time of the day you sit in the couch and do absolutely nothing. Here, I have done that about twice. Napping during the day? Oh maybe once of twice. And staying up until 2 o-clock to study for 2 tests - in Arabic and Islam - the very next morning, has quickly become the norm.

What's the answer for this? Well, maybe I could go to Mount Sinai in the middle of the night and climb to the summit in time for sunset... sounds like a good idea to me! So I will. Tonight our group is traveling to the Sinai Peninsula, and should arrive at Mount Sinai at 2 AM. The idea is to get to the top in time for sunrise, where, so I hear, amazing sights can be seen and deep thoughts can be pondered. The rest of the weekend I will spend in Dahab. Upon return, I promise to write more (though I will not promise it'll be good!)

Salaam,

Tony