visit to the orphanage (yesterdays blog)

today was another interesting day

started off by sleeping in and waking up and just reading in bed for awhile relaxing.. finally decided to get up and get ready and was done by 1030.. lacey her friends heather and daniel and i went out to the stores that are like right off the ship and within the port limits to try and spend the rest of my european pounds.  i was able to by myself a tunic that is white and has silver stitching i like it and im really glad i was able to find one i liked.. although the one i really really wanted was white with white stitching but no one had it in my size and in short sleeve so i went with the silver.. i also bought two other things as gifts.. the guy i bought these from didnt like my knowledge of one of the items and my toughness in bargaining =) after i finally got my way and payed he turned to daniel (they had been to this guy a few times and he remembered them) well he turned to daniel and goes "next time you come alone.. dont bring her she is tough!" ahahhahahhahahah go me =) 

so we went back on the ship and got lunch then i had about an hour to kill so i updated my list of things ive bought everywhere and made a list of what i got for everyone so far and what i still need to get and... well let me just put this out here ahead of time you boys are real hard to shop for everywhere!!!! im trying but my options are limited! so i hope you all like and appreciate everything i have gotten... i guess we will find out in a few weeks huh! 

so at 130 the trip to the orphanage left and i went.  on the way there the tour guide was telling us about the place and some different laws that are related and throughout egypt.. there is no adoption in egypt so all kids in the orphanage are there until they get married or in public orphanages there until they turn 21. the orphanage we visited was a private one owned by a "rich" couple and there were about 35 kids in it... the guide said they decided to open it and treat the kids as if they were their own even though they cant adopt them... she said that they get the best of food and treatment in egypt and they go to private school as well... but what i was anticipating after that and what i saw were two different things.. more general information though before i explain about my actual time there.. there are a few ways that a child becomes an orphan.. either by being a "street child" or their parents getting in an accident of some sort that kills them and sometimes when the parents really really really cant take care of them.. the unusual way though that you become an orphan however is when you dont have 2 parents.. and this was really surprising to me.. if you are a woman and you get pregnant without being married you are not allowed to keep your child they instantly go to an orphanage.. you are not able to give them a "name" when you are a woman... meaning the last name... and even if you were for some reason able to keep your child you would be completely shunned in your community and from your family.. you would not be able to get a job, stay in your apartment or family home, or anything! really different from back home... Egyptians (which really means the Muslims) live with their families until they are married.. and marriages are many times still arranged.. although some are selected on your own.. there is no dating allowed, you do not have a boyfriend, it is not allowed.. if you select your own spouse the guide said you only see/meet up with them like 3 or 4 times before saying yes we are going to marry.. then they have a year long engagement where they are able to get to know each other better.. divorce is allowed for Muslims in Egypt but the Christians here which was interesting too.

So when we got to the orphanage and walked inside we had to walk up a few flights before getting to the room where the kids were.. the young kids were all lined up against the wall and the first few sasers in were able to plop down in front of them and play with them.. but then rest of us were kind of left hanging… after like 10 minutes a few more older kids showed up but overall known of them were all to interested in hanging out with you… if you didn’t have anything fun to do they didn’t give you a second glance.. if you had something fun they would come up to you take it from you and then walk away leaving you stranded there by yourself and now joining the crew of people with nothing fun to do… this happened to me.. so after awhile I ended up sitting in one corner and started talking to one of the girls who was working.. there were a bunch of workers around too, I believe I was told there were 10 there.. well one little boy, sammy, came over to show this girl this picture he made which was just a bunch of foam animal stickers on a piece of paper.. (all anyone brought this time was craft stuff, which is good since we were inside). The girl started pointing to each animal and having the boy say the name of it in english, I was really impressed he was real good! There was even a hippo! And both the little boy and the girl working said hippo and looked at me to confirm it was right and I said yea.. but really its hippopotamus and they both tried to say it, it was cool.  Then she had him tell me his name and ask me what mine was. Later I asked her hers and its Hema.  Then she wrote my name in Arabic for me.. and then my last name too!!! Sooo cool. Did you know they write from right to left, not left to right?!  After this I just started talking with hema a lot! Soon after we were given the option to either go upstairs and talk with the owners or stay and play some more. At this point I was really wrapped into talking with hema so stayed and 3 others ended up staying too and joining us in the corner, and 3 other workers joined us too. It was just really neat to get to talk to them and compare and contrast some differences from the US and Egypt.  I also learned some words in Arabic! I learned how to say hello, my name is, and elephant (it was one of the animals on the paper.. she named them all its just the only one I could actually say and remember!)  =)  it was a lot of fun! After this we headed back to the ship and we were there for the night because on ship time was once again 6. 

At 930 we had another sea meeting, it was our last chance to get ready and prepared for today!!!  After the meeting I somehow managed to get myself very involved in the making of our sea banner…. So I was up working on that for at least an hour.. then when we finally finished we took it into the room where the lip singing group was practicing because that’s where our sea captains were at..  everyone loved it!! so we sat down and decided we wanted to see their routine and how it was coming along..  they had a lot of cool idea but mesha and I sitting there watching them were able to tell them more of what each needed to do to go along with everyone else.. and just help them clean up some of it.. we didn’t leave till 1230… I got back to my room and Kristi and lacey were already asleep.. I climbed into bed but decided I should really listen to some songs and try to come up with one to use for our synchronized swimming routine that we were coming up with in the morning.. I went through 250 songs… I came up with love today by mika… and figured that was good enough as an idea for the night and id see what the others came up with in the morning so at 130 I was finally able to go to sleep for the night!