My First Weekend in Wau

This weekend was absolutely amazing. It was full of so much joy and excitement. On Saturday, we got to go to the market with Sister Maria Antoinette. Taylor and I stayed with her and went along to all of the places she had to go to buy food for the house. It was quite an experience. There was actually a lot more than I thought there would be. There was obviously a lot of food, but there was plenty of other stuff too- cell phones, random electronics, dishes, clothes, shoes, etc. I didn’t buy anything this time because I haven’t exchanged any of my money yet, but I saw peanut butter so that will definitely be purchased next time I go! It was so fun watching sister Maria Antoinette barter with the people there. She is small, but mighty.

Even though Saturdays are our official day off, I think that Sundays are going to be my favorite. Sunday mass at the parish was beautiful, long, but beautiful. Luckily, the first service is in English so I’m able to fully participate. On Sundays, we have all of our meals with the sisters. They have such joyous hearts so it’s great being able to spend so much time with them. Also, I don’t believe that I have talked about the food here yet, but it’s actually pretty good! There is more variety than I expected. We eat rice, beans, lots of vegetables (egg plant, tomatoes, green beans, and many that I don’t know the names of), meat, pasta, watermelon and a variety of homemade sauces. We have even had some pretty good desserts and yesterday we had boiled peanuts!

After breakfast on Sunday, we went over to the Salesian priests and brother’s compound that is next door. There are two polish guys volunteering with them from the same organization that Marta and Ania are in and they invited us all over for tea!  The 6 of us hung out and talked for a couple of hours. It was great to hear about the work that they are doing here with the street boys and at the vocational training school. We’re hoping that this can become a weekly tradition and I promised them that I would bring over my ukulele next time, which should be fun.

Every Sunday afternoon, we go to oratory with the children. For those of you who don’t know, oratory is something that St. Don Bosco (founder of the Salesians) had for his boys as the foundation of his ministry. It was a place where children could go to find a home, school, church and playground. There were around 170 kids at oratory. It was apparent that most of them came from extremely poor homes, but they were so joyful. We sang and danced to many songs and played games. I am assigned to help with ages 1-5, along with a couple of local volunteers from the school. After we broke out into our age groups, the other volunteers were running out of things to do with the kids so I attempted to teach them Duck, Duck, Goose. I don’t think any of them actually knew what was going on and I had to help every round, but they eventually at least knew that they needed to chase the other person when they heard the word goose. They had a lot of fun, which is really all that matters. At the end of oratory, we all come together and pray the rosary together (in Arabic!). I was very impressed by how quiet and controlled a group of 170 children could be. They were so respectful and prayerful during the rosary. It was a perfect evening, topped off with a beautiful rainbow on the way home.

And now, a super special surprise! It took a lot of patience, but pictures actually uploaded this time! Enjoy:

This is at the market in Cairo. These two guys sang us some great songs.

Giza pyramids: featuring a some camels. 

We couldn't go to the pyramids without getting some nice jumping pictures. 

I told you that our tour guide knew all the best places to take pictures. Here is one of me and my true love. 

This is our dog in the compound, Grigio. It turns out that I get the best wifi on the porch right by where he is tied up during the day. No one knows if I come over here to check my email or just to hang out with him. It's usually a combination of both. 

These are some of the children at oratory. 

This was on the way home from oratory. If you look closely on the bottom left, you can see the rainbow!