Egypt or bust!

It's Sabbat! Church on Saturday still takes getting used to. We leave for Egypt at like 6 am, and I won't have a computer for a week. I am actually a little nervous about Egypt...they've scared us into thinking we're all going to be kidnapped, robbed, and then die of dehydration or food poisoning. Hopefully I'll come back alive! But there's lots to tell...we have had a really full, awesome week packed with homework, class, midterms and quizzes, field trips, firesides, and some free time squeezed in there.

Sunday we had class, and went to the Rockefeller Museum afterwards, which has a lot of ancient artifacts like pottery, coins, sculptures, arrows, and other such things. Next we went to the Old City to do the Ramparts Walk, which is where you get to walk upon the wall that goes around the Old City. We got on at Jaffa Gate, one of the West gates, and chose to go North, and then East on the wall. At first we walked North, and we could not only see the old rooftops and top of the Christian quarter, but we also had a great view of Western Jerusalem (the newer, industrialized, Israeli part of Jerusalem). We could see the Israeli soldiers in uniform all lined up outside the
gate, and it was so fun to walk along the medieval-looking wall and take pictures of the cityscape and the amazing views. Our poor friend, Peter, was with us, and the only guy, so he ended up taking a lot of pictures of us girls. Poor guy. It was so fun walking up there!







We had little kids walking around that would call up to us and say, “What’s your name?”, and we got nearer and nearer to the Dome of the Rock before we got off the wall at Damascus Gate, the North gate.

That evening, we had another fireside by Elder Dennis Nuenschuander of the Seventy. He gave an excellent talk about education and about how we should not fear learning, and we should not fear great experiences. All education comes at a price; we can just go through life and choose to be acted upon, or we can be proactive about life and about what we choose to learn from each of our trials, challenges, and experiences.

On Monday we went to the Temple Mount, where the Dome of the Rock sits. There were signs saying that the rabbi had instructed Jews not to go to the Temple Mount. It was crazy…there were two metal detectors, and guards with guns and dressed in full uniform as we passed through security and walked around the temple mount.

Inside, though, it was so cool. There were mostly Muslims walking past in their unique dress, and children playing together. There were even some young boys playing soccer around the outside of the Dome of the Rock, kicking the ball off the side of the mosque! It was all lovely until I had to use the water closet (aka bathroom). I was disgusted for a few reasons: it was unisex, filthy, and the toilet was literally a hole in the ground. I guess it is all part of the Middle East experience!

We did some shopping in the market, and ended up at Shaban's shop, Ali Babba's. Shaban has been a faithful friend of BYU students for like 3 decades, and takes great care of us. He is the best of hosts—he fed us falafel, and pitas dipped in olive oil with this herb mix. He gave us grapefruit soda, and pulled out this delicious tray of cheese topped with this orange stuff, and it was so amazing. I'll have to remember to get more of that next time I go to the market. We did some hard bargaining and bought some fun tourist-y things.



(Looking down from the Ramparts Wall onto the marketplace inside Damascus Gate in the Old City)



We had six hours of class on Tuesday! For my Islam class, we have a Palestinian teacher. I love that class...it is so interesting to learn about Islam, which is now the world's most predominant religion. I'll have to share some of the stuff I've learned from that class sometime. We were going to folk dancing that night, but after a forty minute cab ride, our driver gave up and we went shopping at this street in West Jerusalem called Ben Yehuda street. It's kind of metropolitan, tourist hotspot. We got crepes, ice cream, window shopped and made fools of ourselves as we danced to some street performers on the sidewalk. So fun.

We had a full-day field trip on Wednesday. Some of the highlights were the Sorek Valley, where Samson and Delilah lived, and the Valley of Elah, where David slew Goliath. We went underground to these things called cisterns, which were like ancient wells. They were huge, and they were all connected by stairs and tunnels underground from one cistern to another. We also went down into a columbarium, which is a large underground chamber with thousands of niches in the walls where they used to keep doves. They used doves for sacrifice, and food, and collected their droppings for fertilizer. Ew. Last of all, we went to Micah's cave, where we had to crawl through a tunnel on our hands and knees with flashlights to get to a chamber where they had religious ceremonies. We read a talk from Elder Packer and sang "Lead Kindly Light."

Ash and I tried our hands at slinging rocks while in the Valley of Elah. We're tough stuff.



Yesterday was the Fourth of July. Other than the fake microwaved hamburgers and anemic-looking hotdogs swimming in their juice at lunch, we didn't really do anything to commemorate. At least they tried to make us feel at home a little bit. That's OK...I guess we are on the opposite side of the world. We did have a midterm and a geography test, so that kept us busy most of the day.

Our professors took us all over to the Western Wall (also known as the Wailing Wall) as the sun set, where we had an hour to do whatever we wanted. Males and females have to pray on separate sides of a barrier, and the guys had to put on one of those little hats that you pin onto the back of your head. The Jews believe that the presence of God resides in the wall, which is why they pray out of the Torah and all want to be as close to the wall as possible. People write their prayers on slips of paper and fold them up into tiny little notes, and slip them into the crevices of the wall. Up close, you can see that the wall is just packed with notes in every single little space possible. Girls and women would stand with their faces up against the wall, crying, with their prayer books and song books covering the side of their face. They were so sincere and so fervent; it was touching to see such devout faith. I was surprised at the feelings I had at the wall, and how close I felt to all the women around me who were worshiping the best way they knew how. It was a bit funny to me that I was sitting in front of an Israeli flag, at the Western Wall, surrounded by so many nationalities, on the Fourth of July. It seemed appropriate that in a land of so much war and contention, I was at such a peaceful place where you could feel a piece of freedom and peace.