Donkey Baseball

As expected the semester progressed and Ellen and I became busier than ever juggling school work and play. This weekend we cleared our schedules on Friday for donkey baseball. A game of tomfoolery baseball and good old fashion fun, with an Egypt twist. We rounded up a group of friends, stuffed them in a taxi and flew down the ring road to Margret's. Ellen did an excellent job of directing the taxi driver, by the way. We ate lunch which included schwarmas and kebabs and then set up for donkey base ball. Me and Margret were team captains and we divided it up boy girl.

Rule 1 of donkey baseball: don't spill your drink

Rule 2 of donkey baseball: don't spill drink

Rule 3 of donkey baseball: your feet can not touch the ground, stay on your donkey!

It took about an inning and everyone was really starting to have fun. Hitting the ball with the bat in one hand proved to be quite difficult for some. We had a pitcher and everyone was given an automatic first base so athey could have a chance to make it on the donkey. We played for about an hour or so and then sat around and relaxed with some refreshing drinks and snacks. Conversation with Margret was as eventful as ever and we continued on to Barry's to have a final meal of the day and watch the sound and light show in three different languages. The restaurant is on the roof of a building that is right across the street from the pyramids. We all clambered into to cars and our friend Jeff drove us the back way through the desert which was quite exciting! I miss the days when I used to off road in the family car when we were living here. Now I have to get off to the studying I may have been a little neglect full of during the weekend.

Brianna Lehnert

Settled

We are beginning to settle down into a routine now with our classes at AUC. Started adjusting to the food as well, hopefully McDonald's will only be a special treat to go but the Egyptian food seems filing and spicy enough for me. My Arabic class meets 4 days a week at the early morning hour of 830 and it is really challenging me to speak allot more in class. The teacher is really friendly and it should pick up and move at a really good place because she is going to give us this software that we can practice on. I am also taking a Political Economy class and me and my friend who are in it are still a little confused about what exactly we are studying but it will all work out soon. I am also taking a course on comparative politics in the middle east which looks to be like a really good class as well. I am taking a history of political theory as well which seems to be a very good discussion class and a course on Egyptian government. In the Egypt Gov. course we selected the State or opposition side to represent in future class discussions. I picked the state which should be most interesting I think.

The beginning of the semester has been very fascinating to watch so far. Most teachers barley bother to have class on the first day, but it didn't help that the Africa cup final was later that evening. Teachers put massive amounts of emphasize on class attendance and tardiness. From what I remember going to Cairo American College many of the Egyptian students were often late to class. Though probably the reason most people were late for the first two days of classes was because of the insane design of many of the building on campus. Many long minutes have I stood in front a "map" of the building to not even find the class room on it, but the people on campus have been really help full in helping me find my classes.

The Tuesday break made it feel like the weekend and we had barley while we had barley even started classes. We went and got haircuts down in Maadi and did errands so the break was defiantly nice but we are still in the midst of fighting over laundry machines with the other residents on the girls side. Speaking of laundry go to go change my clothes our from the barbie doll sized washers!!
Brianna Lehnert