Out of Egypt-June 8, 2006

Well, we're in Alexandria.

The weather is beautiful and my hotel room overlooks the Mediterranean Sea.

This region of African is quite different from the Northern areas such as Luxor and Aswan. There are marked economic and racial differences. The people from the North are darker, rural, and are your farmers and what we would call "blue collar" workers. Here in the Southern section, it is more urban and I see more white collar workers. In the North, we rarely saw women working, in fact, 90% of the people seen on the street, or working in stores, restaurants, museums, for the airline, and even in hotels, were men. But here in Alexandria, women are a large part of the work force, granted, they are still outnumbered by men, but they seem to have more freedom in that area.

Hopeful tomorrow, we will hear from some of the indigenous people to give us their perspective on the city. We will also hear from an African American Biblical Scholar who specializes in Greco-Roman and Africa's Influence on the Bible.

Oh by the way, last week I facilitated a session with 3 of my colleagues on Gender in Egypt, specifically, my topic was Ancient Egyptian Sexuality and Gender-, some of the other topics were on Gender and Economics, and Biblical Interpretation, we explored these issues from the perspective of--Feminist-Womanist-and Post Colonial Feminist Interpretations. My professor said we did her proud. It was really interesting and generated a lot of intelligent and insightful dialogue between all of the students and professors.

Well so long for now, I'm going to take a nap!

Blessings,