Don't drink the Nile water...I wish they woulda told me

Well last week, after my episode and encounter with some not-so-friendly critters known as lice(for which you can see us treating ourselves in the picture below and thoroughly enjoying it), I looked forward to the prospect of a fresh new start being bug-free for the rest of my stay here in Cairo. I was not so fortunate. Last Sunday we were scheduled to renew our visas since our "travel visas" expired after a month. Jackie and I were to meet Moody at the government office at 8:30am because he was going to help us with all the paperwork since we had absolutely no idea what we were doing. I knew it was going to be a long day and a long process to get our new visas, and little did I know how truly long of a day it would be.

You see, I woke up with a very strange feeling bubbling in my stomach followed by intense, sharp cramping....OUT OF NOWHERE....and realized my dire need for the nearest unoccupied latrine at that very moment. My first thought was,

"Why now?? I've made it this WHOLE TIME without even getting a little stomach ache!"

Somehow I knew my lack of diarrhea prior to this moment insured certain and impending doom. Such did this event foreshadow the rest of my week. Needless to say, it was a very long day of going back and forth from office to office in the government building...up the stairs, down the stairs, then back up, and down again...then waiting two hours in McDonalds (sprawled out on 3 chairs sleeping..or attempting to snooze) JUST for a little sticker which allows me to stay legally in Egypt, I mean come on, how important is that REALLY? ;) Luckily we got all of it taken care of before 2pm and I was able to go home and crash for the rest of the day.

Usually, this kind of sickness happens to foreigners because of eating the local food, drinking the water, etc. BUT it usually only lasts for the longest, 3 days. After 6 days, of not being able to eat anything because anything I ate or drank just came out (one way or another) within just a short time, I was pretty much fed up and decided, "Hey, maybe I should ask someone what is wrong with me or take some medicine or something."

So, Joy suggested that maybe I may have a parasite or amoeba since I had been sick for so many days....I'm thinking, "Oh great, I probably have this huge worm inside me that has been growing all this time and its going to like come crawling out of me while I'm sleeping."

With my fears or gigantic worms aside, I learned Joy has experienced a similar sickness and she told me of some amoeba killer medicine that worked for her. So I figured, "What the heck, nothing else I'm trying is helping me get better so I might as well just try to kill the little bugger." Now in Egypt you can go to a local Pharmacy and get this stuff over-the-counter...I don't know about you, but anything that is potent enough to kill a worm/parasite/amoeba thing shouldn't be so readily available.... I don't know maybe its just me:) But, this is pretty potent medicine because you take one whole box (4 pills, I just like to make it seem more dramatic) a day for 3 days at the same time everyday. Sure enough, the day after my first dosage, I felt SO SO much better...I couldn't believe it. Plus, my mom had my whole church in Montesano praying for me and I know that definitely had a lot to do with my quick health turn-around. After the three-day dosage I felt completely better and was back to my healthy, normal, food-digesting self:) I think I might have gotten a bug from not washing my fruit before eating it...whoops, but I really don't know. All I do know is that I can now experience Cairo and all its wonderfulness for the 8 days I have left of it....so weird to think that time has gone by so quickly then I will be heading to Uganda for 4 months. Welp, I will have a busy week ahead of me and I look forward to it...lice/parasite/wormy/amoeba free:)

Garbage Village

So, the last two Saturdays I have been going to a place called Garbage Village in Cairo with Joy to help out at a school for handicapped kids there. This village is basically its namesake and pretty much a dump with a bunch of buildings in it. The people who live in these villages collect garbage from all over Cairo and bring it back to the villages, where they sort through it all and recycle it to earn money. So, it is actually a good little business they have going on, but it doesn't provide for the best living conditions. In this particular village (there are a couple of Garbage Villages in Cairo), people were living in simple little huts and shacks until a few years ago when the wife of the richest man in Egypt decided to pay for them to have buildings constructed for them to live in. She also built the school I've been working in.

There are about 20 handicapped kids that come 3 times a week to this school where they are taught basic things like numbers, letters, etc. Others are given physical therapy. Some are there just to be loved on and shown the love of Jesus to. The conditions of these kids differ from cerebral palsy to down's syndrome to mental retardation.

This Saturday, I went with one of the teachers to go pick up two sisters that both have cerebral palsy. When we got to their house, I was overwhelmed by the stench of garbage and manure....there were thousands of flies everywhere and on everything. I was also overwhelmed by the amount of people living in this one-roomed "house" at the end of this alleyway which looked like the community compost pile. We waited while the mother finished getting the girls ready for school and I played with the other children that were flocking around us. There are 7 children altogether (not including the one on the way) and the oldest one could not have been more than 14 years old, but was carrying out the same duties as the mother. There are 6 girls and 1 baby boy and they are all soooo beautiful, with great big brown eyes and million dollar smiles that mask any hint of the fact that they are living in poverty.

So, we wheeled them back to the school and I got to help one of the girls (Donnia) with her physical therapy for the day. This included doing a bunch of exercises to strengthen her legs and help correct her balance. It was so much fun because she is such a sweet girl and always so happy. While I was helping her walk, I noticed that she had something in her hair...they were little white specks. When I took a closer look, I realized that they were lice eggs. Okay, to back up my story a little bit, I have been telling Jackie like since we got to Egypt that I had this feeling like I was going to get lice at some point and she can back me up and tell you that this is true. So, when I saw those eggs in her hair, after she had been hugging me and I had been holding her closely for most of the time.....I knew my time had come. Sure enough, while I was there, I felt something on my arm and looked and discovered a little lousy trying to burrow itself into my arm hair. I killed it, then went and showed Jackie, Joy and one of the teachers. The teacher told us that both of the girls usually had lice really bad because their mom never washes their hair so it just gets worse and worse. They have done the whole lice treatments on these girls multiple times, but it just comes back because nothing is done about it at home.

After we left the school and got back home, the first thing Jackie and I did was go to the Pharmacy and buy some lice killer hair stuff. We just wanted to be extra sure that we didn't have any other hidden critters roaming around up there. After an hour with this putrid "Licid" in my hair, I washed it out and was going through my hair (just to check) and sure enough, I found a dead little lousy on my scalp *shudder*. I just slightly freaked out, then had Jackie check the rest of my head to make sure there wasn't anything else. Praise be to Jesus who loves me, there were no eggs or any other dead (or alive) bugs. I was able to kill the little sucker before it could lay its spawn in my hair....haHA!

You know, this could have been a tramatic event that could have freaked me out and made me extra cautious about how close I get to the kids. Only with God's help was I able to put aside my own vain concerns and look past the dirty, lice-infected, smelliness and see these kids as God sees them.....as beautiful and unblemished. Sure, I don't WANT to have little bugs in my hair, but you know what? I can overlook that and truly give a child the love and attention he/she deserves and show them love that can only come from God....the EASY part is getting rid of lice.