Well, I have lived to see another day in the land of the Pharos. This morning, while beleying a few Egyptian youngsters up a 40-foot rock climbing wall, I had an epiphany. With sweat rolling down my cheeks and dripping into my eyeballs I couldn't decide which was more annoying, the sweat that I couldn't wipe away because my hands were busy holding the life of a teenager, or the really obnoxious flies buzzing all around me. My favorite fly was the one that parked in my nose. It got me wondering. Are these flies direct descendents of the plague flies 5,000 years ago? That gave me just a bit of comfort knowing the blood of these flies flew in the face of the Egyptians while persecuting my people. J
Rambling on, today has been a good day. My body is still adjusting. Won't go into any details but let's just say I'm just about out of the Imodium tablets my wife packed me. We got to sleep in a bit. No early morning meeting. Left our room at 8:45 and headed over to the stadium to help prepare for the construction competition. (Sidebar: flies seem to like the shade much more than direct sunlight. So, I have a choice. Find things to do in direct sun and enjoy fewer flies, or play in the shade with swarms of them.) They also don't like stiff breezes.
Here is a photo of my roommate Rob Estes catching a flyless and heatless breeze in the openings at top of stadium bleacher seating. He liked the photo and ordered a few 8x10s.
The object for the teams was to earn points by completing activities, such as pushups, sit ups, lunges, running laps (that was my assignment), running stairs at the stadium, and so on. I think there were three-legged races, too. I was assigned to running laps. They run a lap around the field they earn 20 points. I let them run two for 40 and many of the kiddos appreciated that. Yes, I am a generous man. One young man named Ali kept coming back. He ran 15 or 20 laps in all. He was a little on the heavy side but a very nice kid. He was working hard. He was sweating and smiling and earning points for his team. He apparently loves to run. I know this because he said, "I love to run." In fact, I gave him a dog tag necklace and told him he was the best runner at camp, which was why he had earned the dog tag. We have a bunch of these. Us coaches give them to kids for demonstrating perseverance and great attitude, among other things. They love these dog tags. A little bit later he came to my station at the climbing wall and said, "Scott, my man" in Egyptian accent. To my complete and utter shock I remembered the kid's name. I said, "Ali, the greatest runner in all of Camp Wadi. Good to see you again so soon."
These are the types of moments we are all having with these teenagers. It's really quite fun, fulfilling and rewarding. Plus, on a selfish level, I can't remember the last time I was so active and not concerned with doing something because I didn't want to get hot, translated, leave my air conditioned home. BTW, the objective of earning points in construction competition was to buy enough supplies to build something. I never saw what they were building but I heard they were building porches/decks. Not sure why we need such things in the middle of the desert, but that's not my concern.
Here's a funny photo. No idea what they were trying to accomplish, but it's a photo of Egyptian teenagers crawling through a sand puddle. That's all I have to say about that.
Another photo without a story, view from our hotel of some homes next door.
Went back for lunch and found that my prayers were answered! Good old fashioned pasta with red sauce! Oh yeah! First complete meal I've eaten since arriving. Leslie, only thing it was missing was the broccoli and chicken. Good stuff.
After lunch went back out to my beleying assignment where I spent two more quality hours hoisting teenagers up the rock climbing wall. Not much more to say about that, except that it ain't easy and it's a heck of a good workout. Brad sits up at the top of the rock climbing wall, under shade with a nice breeze at 40 feet, hooking kids up to the zip line and pushing them over the edge. You can see where us rookies fall in the pecking order and how assignments are doled out. Earlier most of us coaches were carry large 2x4 boards out of storage for the kids to use in construction and we noticed Brad sitting in the middle of the field with Brennan having a picnic. Huh. No wonder he likes Egypt so much. Kidding with you, Brad!
Had a short break this afternoon, which gave me time to do a load of laundry. Put the clothes in a giant ziplock bag, poured in detergent, filled it with hot water from the shower, squished it around for a bit, dumped the water, refilled with clean water, swished it again, then drained the water.
Was on our balcony wringing out the laundry and I noticed the water going over the balcony was evaporating before it had time to hit the ground. That's crazy, right? I'm on the third floor. Not quite as high as I was on that pole yesterday.
After break went back to my assignment, two more hours of beleying at the rock wall. (did you notice that's the name of our town? Isn't that ironic? Rock wall in Egypt half way around the world from Rockwall.) Hurried from there over to the baseball field where Lindsey I herded cats for another 90 minutes. Kids were a little more excited about being there today. That's because we told them yesterday there would be sweets waiting for those who showed up on time. Leslie packed me a couple bags of blow pops and tootsie pops. I have always preferred the tootsie pops myself. Just something extra satisfying about that chewy tootsie center. I digress. Kids practiced fielding the ball and hitting the ball and throwing the ball because, well, that's what baseball players do. Tomorrow we plan to divide them up into 4 teams and have them play real games. It's hard to learn their names but I am trying very hard. If I can't remember I guess either Ahmed, Omar, Ali, or Mustafa. One is usually correct, at least for the boys. I'm giving them
nicknames. One is Yankee (he wears a Yankee ball cap). Another is Doc (her first name is Raana, which is same name as my doctor). Another is Prince (his name in Arabic means Prince). Another is Freda the rock star (remember one-hit-wonder Freda from the 80s? I know, there's something going on). I'm not even sure what Freda's real name is. Funny thing is they consider it an honor to be given a nickname so it's been fun. I have two nicknames it seems.
One is coach. The other is Scott.
So, after baseball we were surprised with a Dominos Pizza party on the lawn. Photo is of Brennan and Megan and rest of the gang.
Apparently Dominos delivers to the middle of nowhere. It's very nice here in the evening. Being outside is pleasant. The flies have mostly gone to sleep. I think they should consider reversing the schedule here and have camp during the graveyard shift. That'd be good. Just need more lights. I'm going to put that in the suggestion box as soon as I locate it. Immediately following dinner we made our way 10 yards to the big gazebo for an evening meeting. Included a few photos.
Christie is sticking her tongue out at the camera. Sorry if I misspelled your name, Christy!
We have lots of meetings. Brad loves meetings. They are important meetings so I'm not knocking them. Just making an observation. Without them we wouldn't know what we are supposed to do the next day. Yesterday I actually didn't know what to do because I slept through the meeting. Rob, the roommate ,forgot to set the alarm. It all worked out, though. I got to where I needed to be in plenty of time. Did I mention that we have lots of meetings? I think we may have more meetings than I do normally in a work week.
Heard a funny story I think I'll share. Please stop reading here if you are easily offended. One gentleman in our group who won't remain nameless is Kevin. He and his wife Amy and daughter Megan are coaching horseback riding. They say it's going well. I don't know the full context of this story, but he asked the admin person responsible for helping them with the horses/stables if they had a gelding. The limited-English proficient Egyptian said, "Gelding? I don't understand." Kevin says, "Do you understand castrated male?" The LEP Egyptian replied quickly, "oh yes, yes. Thank you." Funny story. Had to share.
I have one other pretty funny story, too. It involves a lesson my father-in-law taught my wife many years ago about self defense. I was standing with four teenagers this afternoon at the ropes course. Three of them were horsing around, practicing head locks, other self defense moves, and what not. They were on the larger side of size while the fourth kid was standing about 5 feet away admiring the three in headlocks, obvious a bit nervous but smiling as he tried to engage with these other three campers. He was on the smaller side of size. His name happened to be Omar. I walked over to Omar, put my arm around his shoulder and walked him away from the three head locked gentlemen and asked him if knew the secret to defending himself against bigger kids picking on him or bullying him. He said he didn't know. I turned to him and put my hands on his shoulders, looked him right in the eye, and said, "knees and nuts". Then I explained that his first move would be to kick the bully in the knee. That would cause said bully to bend forward and grab his knee, which would bring bully's shoulders low enough for him to reach up and put his hands on the bully's shoulders then raise his knee and slam it squarely in the tender region. He smiled and blushed and nodded and said thank you and walked back to his larger friends, head held high. I know I have made a difference in that kid's life. I may never be invited back on a mission trip, but that's okay. It was worth the risk to see Omar's face light up.
I am really glad I decided to come on this trip and appreciate Brad's leadership and encouragement over the last several months. I can't even imagine how much work it has been to put this mission together and am honored that he would trust me to be part of the coaching team. Thanks, my friend. Owe you a really big one.
Heard a funny story I think I'll share. Please stop reading here if you are easily offended. One gentleman in our group who won't remain nameless is Kevin. He and his wife Amy and daughter Megan are coaching horseback riding. They say it's going well. I don't know the full context of this story, but he asked the admin person responsible for helping them with the horses/stables if they had a gelding. The limited-English proficient Egyptian said, "Gelding? I don't understand." Kevin says, "Do you understand castrated male?" The LEP Egyptian replied quickly, "oh yes, yes. Thank you." Funny story. Had to share.
I have one other pretty funny story, too. It involves a lesson my father-in-law taught my wife many years ago about self defense. I was standing with four teenagers this afternoon at the ropes course. Three of them were horsing around, practicing head locks, other self defense moves, and what not. They were on the larger side of size while the fourth kid was standing about 5 feet away admiring the three in headlocks, obvious a bit nervous but smiling as he tried to engage with these other three campers. He was on the smaller side of size. His name happened to be Omar. I walked over to Omar, put my arm around his shoulder and walked him away from the three head locked gentlemen and asked him if knew the secret to defending himself against bigger kids picking on him or bullying him. He said he didn't know. I turned to him and put my hands on his shoulders, looked him right in the eye, and said, "knees and nuts". Then I explained that his first move would be to kick the bully in the knee. That would cause said bully to bend forward and grab his knee, which would bring bully's shoulders low enough for him to reach up and put his hands on the bully's shoulders then raise his knee and slam it squarely in the tender region. He smiled and blushed and nodded and said thank you and walked back to his larger friends, head held high. I know I have made a difference in that kid's life. I may never be invited back on a mission trip, but that's okay. It was worth the risk to see Omar's face light up.
I am really glad I decided to come on this trip and appreciate Brad's leadership and encouragement over the last several months. I can't even imagine how much work it has been to put this mission together and am honored that he would trust me to be part of the coaching team. Thanks, my friend. Owe you a really big one.
Scott
For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. Ephesians 2:8-10
Let's see: poverty, no building codes, unsafe water, unsanitary food (along with a vist from Johnny Trots), pyramids, language barrier, heat, insects . . . sounds like you went to Mexico. Maybe next year, take a shorter flight for the same experience . . . except the Mexican kids would slap you around on the soccer field.
ReplyDeleteThe story between the lines reads volumes . . cha, cha, cha.
L'Chaim