egypt 
Sunset at Pyramids
Found on Flickr - by kevin on the road
Isn’t that gorgeous?
I’ve been to Egypt twice, once with my parents and family friends and once with a school group. One of the perks of international schools is when it comes time for competition with other schools, you get to go to other countries. The American School of Kuwait, ASK, my illustrious alma mater, was in the EMAC region - Eastern Mediterranean Activities Conference. So our sports teams and drama group and debate team and choir would travel to Egypt, Greece, Cyprus, Syria, UAE, etc. to compete. Very cool.
I wasn’t sporty… let me rephrase that - my clumsy, uncoordinated self couldn’t dribble a basketball or hit a volleyball to save my life - so obviously I wasn’t on any of the sports teams. (Despite an embarrassing attempt to be a cheerleader - what was I thinking? There is not a bubbly bone in my body!) But I did enjoy the art scene. I participated in drama and choir and due to some creative finagling by my art history teacher, I got to go to Cairo as part of the EMAC fine arts festival in the area of art. (Evidently, being a part of the art history class didn’t actually qualify as “art” class, a requirement for participation.) I almost went to Cairo earlier in the year to take part in a yearbook workshop, but due to some pesky terrorist attacks, the school decided it was better if we didn’t go.
That art history class, by the way, was the best class EVER. Nothing could top it, not even Infectious Disease 101.
Ever since those trips to Egypt, I’ve had the travel bug in the worst way. No, not an actual travel bug, like Dengue or Malaria (Dengue epidemic in Latin America & Caribbean - have you heard?), just the need to see the world - especially the developing world. My interest in Egypt has also never waned. There was just something about it - the sand, the amazing mosques, the Khan Al Khalili bazaar, the culture, even the crazy traffic. And, as you can see in the photo above, it is all breathtaking.
I was inspired to write these things after reading on Global Voices about a Canadian woman living and blogging in Egypt, Maryanne Stroud Gabbani. On her blog I read a post about an art center in the countryside outside of Cairo. It is a place where city kids can come and relax and play and make art. I wanna go.
