Study Break: Tikal
29 February 2016 Thursday night we all stayed at CASAS because we were to leave early Friday morning at 4:45 a.m. for our 6:30 flight to Petén. Half of the group played the card game “Scum” in the airport. It was a lot of commotion at that hour, in such a small airport, but was....
Wadi Rum and family stays in Palestine
Wadi Rum, Jordan On Thursday, January 24 we arrived at Wadi Rum, Jordan after staying in Aqaba, Jordan for one night. What we had planned in Wadi Rum was a two night Jordanian Bedouin camp stay which included a three hour camel ride into the Wadi Rum desert. Once we arrived at the Bedouin camp....
A scarf, a border crossing, and learning empathy first-hand
5 February 2016 I bought a purple and gold scarf in a market in Luxor on the banks of the Nile. He started at 220 Egyptian Pounds, but by lying about how much money I had and threatening to leave, I got him down to 70 pounds, which is ten dollars. The scarf is royal....
Chichicastenango
1 February 2016 This past weekend, we headed to Chichicastenango. Chichi is much smaller than Guatemala City, and I think we all really appreciated getting out of the city. On our way to Chichi, we stopped at Iximche which is one of the Mayan ruin sites in Guatemala. We had a tour of the 5 Plazas....
Sinai
31 January 2016 My curiosity about the Sinai began when Linford announced we would be hiking and camping with a tribal group of people called the Bedouins. My interest, in the Sinai, turned to excitement when David Landis, a guest speaker during orientation, described the Sinai in two powerful words: rugged beauty. The Sinai is....
Guatemala City
26 January 2016 Greetings from Guatemala! We are finally here! We landed safely in Guatemala at about 3:00 in the afternoon on Thursday the 14th. Both flights went well and we have all been enjoying our first few days in Guatemala City. We spent the first two nights at the CASAS-Semilla guesthouse, where we participated....
Reflections on the Empire
It has been two full days of Egyptology! Pyramids, the Sphinx, Tahrir Square, street markets, Museum of Cairo, a carpet factory, and a scenic drive out of the city to the Coptic Christian retreat of Anaphora. We’ve seen artifacts from before 4500 BC, trekked inside (and then sang in!) one of the pyramids of Giza,....
Coptic traditions at Anafora
We had the opportunity to spend a few days at a Coptic Orthodox retreat center an hour out of Cairo called Anafora. The Coptic church traces their roots back to the apostle Mark and a visit he made to Egypt. So this experience was a chance to worship with one of the earliest church traditions. The leadership at Anafora....
Egypt
18 January 2016 So, we are finally in Cairo and I am jet lagged, but am so excited to see the Pyramids and the Sphinx. Cairo has a distinct smell to it, a mixture of smoke and incense. The streets are chaotic and bustling with life and everyone is trying to get you to buy something.....
Tibetan experience in Xiahe
6 November 2015 The town of Xiahe, in one of the four Tibetan regions of China, has been the most memorable part of my cross-cultural. Only accessible by winding, rarely paved roads, Xiahe (Shah huh) is set back in the ridged steep mountains covered with auburn leaves and evergreen trees. The culture alone was completely....