Easter

Hello, hello. Happy Tuesday. Today is my last day of Easter vacation from school and I am using it to research for my upcoming ASMUN conference. I'm taking a break to tell you all of my adventures for Eid. 

I don't know why, but Easter is celebrated a week later here than in America. I went to church for the first time. I went to the Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter (service on Saturday so people can spend time with their families on Sunday). It was all in Arabic, I didn't understand a word, but it was nice to be in church again. 

Maundy Thursday (aka Jesus dinner party)

The church I went to was two stories. It was a lot bigger than what I am used to. They have two monitors at the front that display song lyrics, bible verses, videos, etc. The first evening, my friend was working in the sound booth where they do all the technical things of getting the stuff projected. It was a very cool thing to see. The church even live streams the services on YouTube. 

Church ran pretty late that night so I slept over at her house and we went to church together again on Friday. 

Good Friday

This service was 3 hours long. It was also the most upbeat Good Friday service I have ever been to. 

Communion was served on Thursday and Friday. Since the church was so big, they didn't go up to the front, take the bread from the minister, dip it in the cup, eat it and go back to their seat. Instead some 15 people took bread to everyone. Once everyone got bread, they ate it. Same went for little cups of wine. (They actually use wine because they aren't Methodist.)

This is the body of Christ. Take, eat, do this in rememberance of me. 

This is the blood of Christ. Take, drink, do this in rememberance of me. 

Easter

This service was only an hour and a half. I wore heels and my host dad joined me. I thought this was really nice of him. 

They handed out flowers and sweets because Jesus. It was a very nice happy time. 

On Sunday (real Easter) my family and I went to Suez. My host sister(-in-law)'s grandfather passed away so we went to pay our respects. We dressed in black (I was in mostly black but I didn't know someone died when we left for suez so) and went to someone's house. The women sat in one room, men in another. We just sat there as people came and left. It was very funeral-like, just no body or coffin. 

RIP Host Sister(-in-law)'s grandfather. 

The next day we went to a different relative's house. It's been a while since I've gathered with my own relatives in America, but this felt exactly the same as that. 

There was a baby. 

She spit on me. 

After eating potatoes, fish, eggs, eggplant, etc.,

we painted eggs. 

We also played dominoes, mini-pool, chess, GTA3, and FIFA something. (I lost basically everything.)

After that we took one of the kids to a park. There he ride a little Ferris wheel. Then, we rode the bumper cars and a swing-spin-thing. 

It was a good Easter. 

Happy Easter. Have a good rest of your week. 

Learn something today. 

Byeeeee

Corie.