...and now I do homework…

*ugh*

I have about 4 hours now to work on an assignment due for class on Saturday. I have to analyze the Past Simple and Present Perfect verbs to contrast them, discuss their use, and talk about an example lesson. We’re only talking about 1000 words, but I’m not looking forward to it.

Thursday was unusual. In the afternoon, Darren and I went to the Khan, the big bazaar for tourists and locals. In the really touristy areas, there was a serious military/police present. We saw a few dozen Western tourists, but they were not English-speaking groups. Maybe French and German.

So, we felt fairly comfortable and I was even answering the “where are you from?” question by saying “I’m American”. One vendor had a response to that, by saying:
”America attacked Iraq today – I give you discount!” *laugh* Many of the shops had their televisions tuned to the news, so we took a peek every so often. I was looking for a silver ring, but I couldn’t find anything I liked. Darren came back with a red and white checkered head scarf and a strap of sorts to keep it on his head. I think he’ll only be wearing that around the flat, so I’ll take a picture at some point.

I felt safe all afternoon and didn’t really see any problems. We came back about mid-afternoon and then I went to a study session for class. While I was there, Craig and Karen (my CR’s from MCC) called to say that there were “violent protests” going on downtown and that I should avoid the area.

It’s a good thing they gave me a mobile phone on Tuesday! It’s really come in handy these past couple of days. There’s no charge to me when I receive calls, so that’s mostly what I’ve been doing. It gets expensive quickly to make calls, either to a regular phone or another phone.

After class, I decided to go visit the Presbyterian crew that is all living together. It’s the group that held the “green food” St. Patty’s Day dinner party. They had been asked/told by their coordinators not to leave their residence yesterday, so they called to say that they were going to watch the news, watch movies, and make cookies. I went over and Darren was there already. He made the curious choice of watching “Pearl Harbor”. Not really the movie to take your mind _off_ war, but it was good to watch it again. I watched it not long before leaving Michigan when I borrowed the tape from my sister Heather. (thanks!)

On the way home, Darren and I stopped at KFC. He needed to take care of his craving for greasy chicken, plus they were watching the news on TV. We saw footage of the protests downtown and they looked fairly peaceful. I had popcorn chicken, which I’ve never tried before. They have chicken legs, breasts, etc like you’d see in N. America, but also many sandwiches. Sadly, they do not have biscuits. I told Darren about the many times that my Dad and I shared meals together at KFC together after Detroit Tiger baseball games or on days when we went to the movies.

Today, the church service I have been attending was cancelled. It will not be held on Sunday, either. As a precautionary measure, Westerners are being asked not to gather in places as they would on a regularly-scheduled basis. So, since church is always in the same location, at 9:30 on Friday morning, we’re not meeting today.

My CR just called as I was writing this. Apparently, there were 2 protests downtown yesterday. One group was composed of American University of Cairo students and the other was members of the Muslim Brotherhood. The police tried to prevent the 2 groups from merging, but they got together and started moving toward the American Embassy. One report is that they were stopped about 100m away, but that was the Associated Press, so we’re not sure about the accuracy of that. It wasn’t really violent, but there were reports of some of the protesters being hit by the police.

And with that report, I need to start on my homework. I hope that we still play Frisbee this afternoon so that I can take a break!