alo!

Just wanted to drop a quick line and make sure that I'm not too technologically inept to work this thingy.

wow. It's strangely normal to be home. It feels really good being able to do normal things that I took for granted before- like drinking tap water or using soft TP that can be flushed. :)

Hope that averyone is doing well, adjusting to being home, finding fab summer plans, and all that good stuff. I'm stoked to graduate this saturday. Not stoked about getting a cavity filled Monday. Inshaa allah, all will go well.

I miss you all like crazy. Weird waking up and not having 25 people to go to breakfast with.

Love,
liz

hey guys,

[I wrote this when I got home, but was just able to post now. Love to y'alls. Claire, hang in there you wild, wonderful, strong woman.]

It is 6:45pm on Wednesday the 27th and here I am on Cape Cod, having just said final goodbyes at JFK 5 hours ago. Yeah, so anyway I think Paul and I are probably the first home, the rest of you who are in America are on layovers or are just taking off now for more 8 hour flights. (Just one more good reason to live on the East Coast...I MEAN, my heart goes out to you as I know how tedious seemingly eternal tansit is.)

The weirdest part of being back is how it seems like normal. I think I expected that America would seem as foregin as Cairo did upon the first 24 hours of arrival; rather, everything here is freakily familiar. My room is precisely the way I left it. Were the past months just a dream?

Mom, cousin Ralph, and my sister Tiffany made up a song with all of your names in it so when they met you the names would stick better. They sang it, multiple times, during the 5 hours from JFK to the Cape. It was completely ridiculous, I was rolling in the aisles laughing. Also,as each name was uttered it brought a different kind of sadness as I envisioned each individual and how much I miss you. (Internally it was kind of like that weird laugh-cry thing I did when women's flat 5 said our final prayer together.)
And so... I know the past months weren't a dream, because I couldn't manufacture that kind of bitter yet sweet hurt.

That, and there is an exploded mango juice in my carry-on, and for certain it ain't from the Cape, we don't grow mangos here. (sorry, had to mitigate the melodrama).

Allright, I have to go now to cousin Ralph's for Chinese food and maybe a side of Turkish delight. Just wanted to let you know I'm thinking of y'all in your respective situations right now, and for those Stateside I wish you travels that are the least grueling as possible. Those in Israel (ha! I can say its name now), Greece, Egypt, hang tight, be good to each other, and probably smoke another sheesh for me.

you know I love you,
Chels

So I'm back in the ole Sioux Center, Iowa. The first thing I noticed when I woke up at 1:00 this afternoon was how clean and quiet the streets are here. I missed the donkeys and taxis. I spent the day at Dordt, mostly answering the question, "how was Egypt?" It's hard to know what to say, so I say "excellent." I think that I haven't really processed the fact that I'm back in Amreeka now. Tomorrow I'll wake up in Agouza, right? Anyway, I just wanted to write on here to tell you all that I'm home safely, miss you guys a tonne, and wish I could be in Israel with those of you who are there now (but I'm happy to be home too--for now.)

Hope you're all well

We're safe and sound in the Holy Land. Wow, what a trip we had. We crossed the border in about an hour. It wasn't too bad. They didn't detain us or anything but there was definitely blatant racial profiling on our dutch friend, Andrew, who got pulled aside. Actually, they made it a tad more difficult for the two brown girls, Marcia and Monica. They checked everything in our bags and rubbed it with some anthrax detector, but Josiah thought the situation was redeemed by the good looks of the guards.

We've definitely experienced some culture shock. I don't think any of us expected to see girls in bikinis walking down the streets, packing heat in a serious manner. Many civilians had automatic rifles, nonchalantly swinging at their side. "I kid you not." Not quite what we're used to in Cairo. The guns are actually loaded here.

We actually decided to all stay in Eilat for the night and enjoy the gorgious beach. But, when we discovered that all of the hostils in Eilat were completely booked because of the Passover holiday, we decided to bus it to Jerusalem. We walked to the ticket counter to change our tickets when the man told us our bus was leaving "now" and that we have two seats and four people standing. So, four of us stood while the bus filled up. Then, by God's grace, the bus began to leave with exactly four empty seats - which we soon filled. Pretty sweet, huh?

So, we're in Jerusalem at the Hebron hostil in the Muslim Quarter of the Old City. We're super pumped to walk down the Via Delarosa tomorrow - being Good Friday and all. We'll let you know more as it happens. We love you and miss you all a ton.

Andrews and Josiah

P.S. Marcia's cell phone isn't working if you were planning to call.

hi friends. well, i saw the acropolis today. it was wierd being in a tourist spot and not having sixty men ask me if i want to ride a camel.

athens is cool, but the people aren't too terribly friendly. i met one really nice girl who rode the bus with me from the airport to downtown. i'm starting to think she's the only nice Greek. i know that's not true, but i guess you don't really encounter the nicest people until you speak the language. i keep wanting to speak arabic.

please pray for me. i'm getting all the emotional stuff that i'm sure all of you are too, but its kinda hard with no one to talk to about it. if you want to know something crazy, i'm thinking of cutting my trip short and coming back to cairo early....i walked by the egyptian embassy today and got really worked up inside.

i hope you all are recovering well, thinking what you need to think and feeling what you need to feel. my love to all
claire

This is Andrew and Josiah reporting in. Here we are in Jockey Net one night after the party. We're extremely sad and depressed and have thus turned to other means to comfort us. Those means have been to smoke sheesha 2 times in the past 24 hours. Josiah is thinking about a third later tonight. I'll try and hold him back. Josiah just ran outside to use the Menatel phone - how many people actually used that this semester? I never did. Anyway, he's out there calling our good friend Rutie from the Israeli embassy, getting the hookup for a smooth passage through the border tomorrow.

Agouza just isn't the same without all of you here. It's been a pretty boring time here wondering what we should do before we take off. We did go to the forbidden zone of the Khan to do a little shopping, and corrupt Lindsay's boyfriend as he smoked his first sheesha.
We love you all and miss you like frickin' crazy.

-Andrew and Josiah

I feel like the cool kid who finally gets to be involved with the activities of everyone else. Thanks guys for making this...this way none of you can escape me.

I love you all and am going to miss you a lot. Inshalla I will see a few of you at my wedding.

Ah ain't never seen uh computer do this befer. mabruke to the mastermind behind....this