I'm leaving at 6pm on Wednesday. I had been procrastinating on checking, but I finally did.

Not sure what I'll be up to on Wednesday, as most people will be gone by that point. Maybe movies and web stuff during the day! We leave Philadelphia at 6pm, but with getting there a couple of hours early and around 2 hours travel time, it'll be early afternoon when we start out.

At 8am Thursday, I'll be in Frankfurt and then a 2 hour layover, then to Cairo about 3:30. If I can stay up through the evening, I'll have a good start on getting over the jetlag.

After the talent show, I said goodbye to the grandparents in our group, Nick and June. Such wonderful people! Tuesday will seem odd without having them here. I took more pictures and maybe Wednesday I'll post them!

Well, I was going to point you to some of my other pictures in my Yahoo briefcase, but it seems that you now have to pay them if you want people to be able to access those files. *grumble*

Any suggestions for good free places to upload pics and have them publically available?

So we had our talent show tonight. I decided to write a little something...

It's a game too -- name that tune!

Just sit right there and you'll hear these words,
Details of this small group
Beginning lives all ‘round the world
Now in this tiny town
Their leader she sure smiles a lot
The prez he knows all names
This motley crew is leaving soon for many things unknown
Many things unknown

The weather started getting cold
Like showers in the morn
If not for the heating in the flooring tiles
Their footsies would be cold
Their footsies would be cold

The group’s now set to leave this place
With new friends in mind
For Bangladesh, Rwanda too
Kentucky, and Brazil
To Egypt, Bolivia and Vietnam
And other places new

--it's the Gilligan's Island Theme Song-- *laugh*

Kids all around today! What fun! Right now, most of the kids are surrounding me. Almost. Getting ready to start a movie now...

So this morning escaped me, as far as getting phone calls. I ended up going shopping and then the space shuttle blew up. So things were a bit crazy! People were also on the phone most of the morning.

Anyway, feel free to call me Sunday morning until about noon or Sunday evening. I left my phone at home and won't be taking it with me, but made the mistake of not getting the numbers off it first. So I don't have many people's phone numbers!!

But hopefully I get to talk with a few people before I go. Tuesday night might also be good, since most of the orientation group will be gone by then.

So I've been trying to think about my feelings -- about going to Egypt, now that my flight is 4 days away and also about leaving.

A wise friend told me recently that it's easier to be the one leaving than it is to be those left behind. I'm still processing this statement, but when I shared it with the other volunteers in my orientation group, they seemed to agree.

Last week, I cried when 2 people from my orientation group left to go home. These weren't people that I got really close to, but they were the people who shared of themselves and really brought something unique to the group. One young woman was always smiling, joking, talking about her husband, how happy she was, etc. She felt like a sister, the way we goofed around. This young guy Will was a punk. Literally. He's into the music scene, the hair, and everything. But here's doing amazing work with kids in North Carolina. Kids in leather, kids with piercings, kids who don't have enough people to care about them and care for them.

I feel a sense of loss in being separated from these people who I knew for just a few days...

Think how I must feel about leaving those of you who are reading this...

Hiya...

Friday morning here. Not really much going on. Lots of people are gone for good, or leaving for the weekend. Today is also a quiet day with just some tours of the facilities around here and nothing with the "heavy topics" that we've been having lately. Sexism, racism, finance, and culture in the past 2 days has been pretty intense!

It looks like a bunch of us are getting together to cook on Sunday evening and before that, I'l be going to a birthday party for Carmen, the other English teacher going to Egypt. Tonight we're going to dinner at the home of our new Country Representatives (CR's) who will join us in Egypt this June. We have been emailing the current CR's, but it's good to get to know these folks too.

Saturday looks free. Still trying to figure out what's going on there.

But if anyone wants to reach me by phone this weekend, call:

717-859-1152 x104

I think it goes to a voice system when you first dial the number and then you do the extension when prompted. This will ring at the house where I'm staying, then if anyone is around, they'll answer and take a message. As of now, Saturday morning is probably the best time to try. 9-11:30 or so. I think that I'll try to have a nice, quiet morning...

Well, our first session is about to begin.

Culture shock! That's what we've been talking about today. This morning, it was the ways we've dealt with it before and now this afternoon we're going to get some strategies for coping I guess.

Next Monday we have a talent show. I'm having trouble thinking of things that I should do. Any ideas? I guess I could write some poems this weekend... Other suggestions?

I was just in a snowball fight. It was with this guy Roger and 2 of his young sons. Roger was born in India, but was in Laos the past 3 years. Before that, he was in California. So, the boys are having so much fun in the snow! There are now a few inches of snow on the ground and it's above freezing today. Perfect for having lots of packable snow!

Hmmm...4 minutes until the next session.

I haven't really been writing much about my feelings here, have I? Mostly just things that have been going on, eh? I guess I should get some thoughts together and write something meaningful here in the next few days.

More acronym help:

CELTA is a certification course I'll be taking at some point. I'm not actually sure what it stands for and I don't have the time to look it up right now. Essentially, it's through Cambridge University but I will take the course in Egypt. It's intensive preparation for teaching English as a Second Language.

More tomorrow, hopefully. Off to dinner now!

About Saturday and Sunday:

This weekend has been somewhat busy but unstructured. We had a definite break from our learning activities and had more "free time". Saturday we took short trips to a chocolate museum and store plus "Ten Thousand Villages". That's a business connected with my volunteer organization that pays fair labor prices in foreign countries for goods, imports them, and sells them here. The big store is here, but they have them in other states, too.

Last night, we all (30+) of us had dinner at an Amish house. Very intersting to hear stories and do questions/answers.

Sunday morning/afternoon, I was with my aunt, uncle, and their 3 boys. Fun to be with them for church and then for lunch and birthday cake! *grin* This evening, I watched the beginning of the Super Bowl, then most of the orientation group went to a reception at the home of the president (?) of MCC and his wife. They like to have the orienation groups in so they can meet everyone and talk with them. This guy is named Ron Mathies and he is notorious for remembering the name of everyone he meets. Even if he doesn't see any of us again for 10 years, he will remember our name!

Wow! It snowed a few inches here today. Very cool for the 4 little boys who were born in Long Beach, spent their last 3 years in Laos, and now are heading to Bangladesh!

So I just received this email from the "country representatives" in Egypt. They're the closest thing I'll have to supervisors while I'm there. It pretty well describes what is in store for me once I get there, so I'll just past it here.

Some acronym help -- "MCC" stands for "Mennonite Central Committee". That's the organization I am volunteering with.
Oh... and "Tanta" is a city in Egypt. It's the 5th largest in terms of population and is about 1 1/2 hours away from both Cairo and Alexandria.

------------------------------

It is still our plan "A" for you to go to Tanta. Their English program
has been dormant. In our most recent meetings there it was decided to
wait until summer to start it up again with a bang. In Spring it might
just limp along because so many of the potential students are university
students and the period between Easter and university final exams is
not long enough to have a full session. Though everyone that we have
spoken to is very enthusiastic about your coming, words will have to be
accompanied by actions and between now and the summer the church in Tanta
will either demonstrate or not that it really wants to have an English
program. They would of course love you (and MCC) to come and take
charge, but we have learned from experience that that is not the best
situation. The program has to really belong to the church (albeit with us
supplying an extremely important piece, a full time native speaking
foreign teacher). We are optimistic that things are coming together. If not,
there are programs in Cairo that would like to have you help them.

So, even if the February CELTA is a go, the current plan would be for
you to remain in Cairo for about three months after that. We would want
you to teach EFL part time in a Cairo program and give a major emphasis
to learning Arabic.

If there is not an immediate CELTA (or similar) training opportunity,
we would ask our current MCC teachers in Cairo to put together some
training for you. There would be a mix of observation and practice. That
might sound scary but do know that in the past many MCC EFL teachers have
started cold (but alone with a "full" load!) and only later picked up
the CELTA to help them round out their skills. It isn't easy but I think
you might be surprised at how well it would go. Of course it is even
more ideal for the CELTA to happen first and that is still our hope.

Everything should look mostly how I want it here now.

Off to check out a chocolate factory...yummy...

(not Hershey, but a place that supplies to Godiva)

Right now, I'm getting ready to call Egypt and I
needed to get the phone number from an email message.
It's Sat. morning and it would have been nice to sleep
in, but that didn't happen!

This week, we had different sessions each morning and
afternoon for about 2 - 2 1/2 hrs each. Some of it
has been learning about Mennonite Central Committee
which is the organization doing all the planning for
our assignments. We also had a brief overview of what
is going on in our part of the world one afternoon.

Thursday morning and afternoon we had sessions on the
"theology of peacemaking and service". Those are 2
areas very important to the Mennonite church and I
learned quite a bit. It's also good to note that not
all the volunteers in this orientation are Mennonite
-- it's not a requirement. Christians who want to
serve and share values with the organization are
eligible, regardless of their denominational
association.

A couple of the mornings, we have had an opening
"devotional" time with a very dynamic African-American
pastor. That's good for waking us up! The first day
he came in and started us thinking about how we are
more like pilgrims on a journey into the unknown than
we are missionaries.

Friday morning, we discussed "power relationships",
but I was tired. It was good, but just very low key.
Lots about how if you have power, you need to
recognize that fact so that you can use it to help
people and/or keep it in check and not harm people.

That's been the official stuff so far. Beyond that,
I've been trying to meet and talk with lots of the
people here. There's definitely a "20-something"
group with 5 or 6 of us, but the older adults are
great too. More on that in my journal. I'm going to
post there later this afternoon and hopefully send out
the link.

Wow, I'm caught up on posts, now I just need to email out that I'm writing here again... Hopefully I can get a different picture to come up on the page too!

Today is the 2nd full day of orientation! What a
process! About 35 of us here, including children.
People heading all over the place. All around the
U.S. and Canada, plus various spots around the world.

It's a time for learning, thinking, and even a bit of
second guessing. My thoughts all along were that I
wanted to go far away to serve, but now I see all the
great things people are involved with closer to home.
Oh well, maybe on a future assignment!

Many people are preparing for their first assignment,
with just a few people who have gone places before.

I was able to see Alonna, Michael, and the boys on
Monday evening when I came in and then spent most of
Tuesday at the house and running errands with Alonna,
the boys, and 3 of their cousins!

Things are busy during the days and our free time
begins around 8:30 in the evening. That will change a
bit this weekend, as we have optional trips and more
choices in how we spend our time.

Thoughts from the first full day:

---------------------------------------------

Things are wacky here. That's my best description
right now. There are about 30 of us, including kids
whose parents will be volunteers. It's people from
all over the world (but mostly Canada and US) getting
ready to leave for all sorts of places...

A bit overwhelming at times, but a great positive
experience so far. Today is the first full day and
it's going to be a long one, but we have nice breaks
every now and then.

The story of my train trip:

-------------------------------------------

And so it begins…

Slowly.

After a weekend of goodbyes including the Birthday Bash in Ann Arbor, time with Rob and Beth, plus my friends Andy and Carrie, I stayed up all Sunday night packing. Of course, I still forgot some things. Well, I didn’t forget things entirely. I just didn’t bring enough of some things that I should have. But I’ll be fine.

At some point, Sunday ended and Monday began. Around 3am, I think. That’s about when I started getting a bit frantic that I was running out of time and wasn’t going to get everything done. That turned out to be the case, but I cut my losses and made it to Dad’s house a bit after 5am. I was getting ready for a 7:10am train out of Toledo, so that still gave us enough time to get there.

Note: if riding Amtrak, call ahead to see if anything unusual has happened…like say a train derailment…before you leave for the station. *laugh* So you see where this is going, don’t you?

We got to the station around 6:40am and then they announced that a freight train had derailed east of Toledo, blocking tracks in both directions with hazardous materials. *sigh* They sent a bus to take people from Chicago to Cleveland, stopping at all the stations along the way. On the plus side, this gave us time to get breakfast at Denny’s!

Eventually, at about 9am, the charter (mini-)bus picked us up in Toledo. Most of the seats were filled when we got on, which made it really interesting when 5 additional people got on at a later stop! *grin* From that ride, I now know some of the secret, inner-workings of Amtrak. *bwahahaha* For all their routes, with the exception of the east coast corridor, Amtrak leases the tracks from a freight company. So, Amtrak customers are at their mercy. Thankfully, the Amtrak staff were very helpful and apologetic about the problems. Lunch was even provided for free. *burp*

It’s now nearly 7pm and the train is bumping along. Maybe around 8:15, we will be in Harrisburg, which puts us in Lancaster about 9pm. Not bad, considering that we were scheduled to be there at 7:45 and there have been all these problems! Nice people on the train. The 2 amish couples and their children that we picked up on the bus are on the train too. Young mothers and young babies, but very cute (kids) and friendly (their parents).

I’m definitely not traveling light! My big backpack is stuffed full of stuff, a suitcase on wheels is near capacity, my small backpack holds my laptop and some other goodies, plus I have another shoulder bag for books, camera, etc. I’ve managed fairly well so far but I wonder how it will work with my flight in 2 weeks… Well, by that point I should have finished at least 1 of the books to leave behind, eaten some of my snacks, and resituated things a bit.

Another bit of advice about riding Amtrak. Don’t both to pay extra for “business class” like I did. I thought that the advantages would be a reserved seat and maybe a bit of extra space. Nope. For some bizarre reason, the seats are significantly smaller in business class than in coach. Plus, there was no one sitting there, which would have been very boring. So, I stayed in coach. No big loss, though I may give Amtrak my opinion on the matter and on the delays.

We just pulled in somewhere. Definitely not in Harrisburg yet. Oh well, writing all this town is keeping me occupied for now. I’ve also read about 100 pages in a book and taken about a 2 hour nap. *ZZZ*

That’s all for now, unless something eventful happens. I think I’m going to eat dinner. *woo woo*

In 2 weeks, I will be in Pennsylvania.
After 2 weeks of orientation, I'll be in Egypt!

The holidays have been good, but my procrastination is catching up with me. Fortunately, I took care of lots of phone calls today. I have been able to visit with lots of my friends and much of my family these past few months. Now, the first goodbyes have begun. I was at church on Sunday night and saw some good friends for the last time...

Well, for a few years, at least!!

Still no idea where I will be teaching. When I first get to Egypt, I will be in Cairo for at least a few days, possibly up to 5 weeks, then maybe moving somewhere else. God willing, it will happen...

In these last couple of weeks, I'm going to be doing lots of emailing. If you're reading this, you probably are on the list. I'll be sending out my contact info for while I am at orientation in Pennsylvania and some goodbye wishes.

For New Year's eve, I was with friends in Ypsilanti, then to Covel's in Jackson for New Years Day. Christmas almost didn't happen on the 25th due to lots of illness, but things turned out well. This past Saturday was Rob B's 30th birthday!!! Many familiar faces, plus lots of fun and video games! I also played hours of Bond on GameCube with Andy last week, then more Bond and NFL Football with Chris on Saturday.

So who wants to visit Egypt while I'm there? The list is beginning and reservations will be taken after that. Give me about a year to start figuring things out and then I'll be eager to have visitors!

More soon, I promise!

Nearly 3 months since writing here. I'm fairly sure that no one reads anymore, if they ever did. So is this like talking to myself? (edited: my friend Matt Covel told me that he checked here recently...)

Probably not, because even if this isn't read within a few days of me writing it, then it still could be read by people (like you) who visit later, after I send out an email reminder.

I guess the "big announcement" to put here is that I'm going to Egypt in February. I will return (theoretically) in 2006. Yeah, that's 3 years.
But most of my friends know that.

I'm hoping to do some writing on this journal and also for a newspaper while I'm there. My volunteer position will be teaching English to adults, but that will leave me "free time" for other endeavors.

In the meantime, I am spending my time with family and friends. Thanksgiving was a joyous holiday, spent with my loving family.

My friend Mark VanDyke, who I've known for 20 years was killed in a car accident on the Saturday night of Labor Day weekend.
It's been 2 months since I've written in here, but the last time was right after I went camping with Mark and some other old friends.

At the visitation tonight, Mark's wife told me how he always enjoyed checking my journal to see what I was putting out here. I feel like I let him down by not writing for so long. I never even shared the pictures that I took on the camping weekend...

For anyone reading this, don't take life for granted. Don't take the time you have with your friends and loved ones for granted. Make the most of every minute! That's what Mark did. My image of him is always with a grin on his face...

Never forget...

Ah, the places I've gone...the people I've seen...

Being in/on/near the water this past week really makes it tough to be on a computer.
Oh well! Yeah, that doesn't give me much of an excuse but it's the best one I could come up with.

Let's see...in the past 2 weeks, here's what's been going on:

June 19th I went to Cedar Point with Stephanie and met up with a bunch of my relatives, after that Steph and I went to the Alive Christian Music Festival in Ohio for the 20th and part of the 21st, then to Pokagon State Park in Indiana for a weekend of camping with some of my old high school friends.

I made it back here for about a day and then went to my parent's house at the lake for the 25th to help with watching my niece and nephew on the 26th, played a bit of volleyball, and then went to a Toledo Mud Hens baseball game on the 27th.

Lucky me, I got to be on the big screen in the stadium! How?

Well...

While walking around the stadium before the game, I entered a drawing to play the "Roll the Dice" game. As luck would have it, the promotions people drew my name, so during the middle of the 2nd inning, they took me out to the 1st base line and I started rolling these big, foam dice. If I got all 5 the same, then I would win cash or a car.

I was lucky, but not _that_ lucky! *smirk* I won a $20 certificate for the merchandise shop so I now have a nifty Mud Hens T-shirt and my nephews have a hackey-sack with the Mud Hens logo on it.

Fun to be out there, but I also got to talk with some of the summer promotions interns about what they do, see Muddy (team mascot in huge outfit), and stand underground beside the visitor's dugout for an inning. Very cool to see the game from there!

Back to the lake for part of the 28th, then back here to meet up with Chris and Brian for a trip to Lake Erie for the weekend. Chris' parents have a great condo and boat there and it was good, relaxing fun!

Now, it's hot. Very, very hot. Trying to walk a bit in the early evenings and looking forward to some fireworks too!

Looking back, the winner of the bonus points from my "this is Jack's long-awaited update" is my friend Mel! Congratulations, Mel! She knew that the reference was to "Fight Club". A No-Prize to Erik Eid for his guess of "The Shining". Nice try, Erik.