I’m pretty sure that across every time zone it is no longer my birthday…which is sad, but only 364 more days until the next one. It was kind of weird not hearing any of the voices from my family but I did get a plethora of emails and messages which ranks a close second. My mom doesn’t have a phone but I did try to call her neighbor to get a hold of her. Aside from probably wanting to talk to me on my birthday I also realized that she really hadn’t heard anything from me since I left so she might want to at least know that I am safe. I left a message on her neighbor’s voicemail so hopefullly she gts it. Despite the fact that we did go out and have a nice time last night, it certainly is not the same celebrating your birthday with people who barely know you. They don’t really make a big deal about you or anything, and well…let’s face it it’s always nice to have a day when you are a big deal. But I am used to being swamped with home work and midterms around my birthday so it was nice to be absolved from that stress.

Without fail, I wake up every morning at around 4:58, exactly 2 minutes before my alarm is set to go off. Man internal clocks are weird. Today I only managed to sleep in until 6:00. Just like last Friday though, I opened my eyes and immediately felt tired aniticipating the fact that I go right back to work tomorrow. I tell myself it’s a short week though to try and keep my energy up.


Once I finished feeling grumpy about the fact that I will be tomorrow 24 hours later, I got up and cleaned my room. Even though we have people that clean the rooms, and I’m sure we pay them very well and they are actually quite grateful for the job, I still can’t help but cringe at the seemingly colonial tone to it all. Stemming from that, I finally asked one of the area supervisers on site why some of the Egyptians ask me so many questions and tell me everything before they are going to do it as if I know any better than they do about what is going on (especially since they have been through a season of field school out here). He said it all harks back to colonialism…the sheer fact that I am an American implies to them that I am in charge. Naturally its one thing if they need assistance with something that requires two people, or if they think I may have some sort of opinion, but they will check in with me before signing out new feature numbers and things of that nature. Finally I let them know that I’m not someone they have to check in with or answer to…it didn’t really make much of a difference though. Oh well.

I did spend the day out by the pool. It was quite the arrangement trying to put on sunscreen. Elbows down got spf 30 while elbow to shoulders got SPF 15 in an effort to somewhat even out the color of my arms. It worked a little bit. But I still look like a doll with mismatched limbs. My hands are super tan, and my arms just get lighter and lighter as you go up, my torso and chest are pretty much pale and my face is pretty bronzed...but that could be just dirt still lodged in my pores.

By about 3:15 I was pretty exhausted so I walked back to the villa. I was hissed at by some people on my way home and that made my grumpy. Here it is 90 degrees out, I’m fully covered, aiming to be as respectful and modest as possible, intending full well to be polite if anyone talks to me, and yet I’m still hissed at in disapproval. At least it was a short walk. Last night when I was walking home from the villa after going out, I was also harassed by a group of men, however then I was being followed by security guards so I felt safe…but sometimes you just can’t win…I had my head scarf and everything, but I’m still the foreigner trying to live in a culture whose perspectives on Americans and westerners will always be mixed.

So many ups and downs, fortunately more ups than downs.

Well i should probably get some rest, more work starts tomorrow, and its supposed to be a hot one...grr..night