Camping with 21 kids...

...Is an adventure. I spent the past four days hiking and camping in the White Desert of Egypt with a group of 8th grade students from Cairo American College. To be honest, I was blessed with a slightly lethargic group---I would have liked to have hiked longer and faster but we kept at a nice pace to observe the scenery and I got to know several of the students really well through long chats. We spent the week with an incredible tour guide, Ziad,

and had two jeep drivers and camel tenders with us to set up camp and cook great food each day. I slept under the stars, we scattered our sleeping bags all over the camp sites and soaked up an amazing night view of more stars than I've ever been able to see in my entire life. The whole desert by day looked like the moon, crazy white rock formations all around... really beautiful.. .

The week without technology, bathrooms, or beds led to a certain amount of complaining by the tweens, but by the end of the week, everyone had come to realize how great it was to be away from the fast paced world we live in. Personally, I loved it. I love getting away, cutting off connections that make life so hectic from day to day... I listened to silence (though often mixed with middle school chatter), sketched and journaled, and really took advantage of the Arabic speaking camp crew to learn more and more Arabic. I was actually understanding a good deal of conversations they had around the campfire the last night.... that's a good feeling. Definitely added kindling to the personal spark to learn the language that already existed within me...

It was nice to get away, but nice to come home last night too... My friends greeted me and welcomed me back home with a night out catching up and eating ice cream :) It's nice to be missed......... that's another sure sign you've made a home for yourself..... Already less than a week away until my next big trip all over Egyptland--Luxor, Aswan, Sinai.... Time to throw the hands in the air for the downhill plunge and laugh and exclaim my way through this month....