New Campus Festivities

On Thursday we made our first visit to the new campus. The commute is a little over an hour to get to the new campus. I'll have to make this journey twice a day for five days a week. On the positive side, I'll be able to finish all my readings for history and study my Arabic. The area leading up to the campus is entirely under development. You could look for miles and all you would see are high rise apartment buildings and huge mansions under construction. I can only wonder if there are enough people with enough money to fill all these new residences. In shah Allah, I will return one day and see the outcome of this massive expansion project. The new AUC campus is at the end of this development zone, and beyond it, only desert. The new campus still has a lot of construction to be done, but if the front gate is any indication of what lies behind, then I can only imagine being pleasantly surprised by what I will find. After we arrived, the males received gallabiyyas, a traditional Arab garb, that is like a really long shirt (almost a dress) and the girls received something that dancers wear. I didn't catch the name. After getting through an endless line to the food, we took our seats in the outdoor auditorium, where we listened and danced to traditional Arab music while donning our new threads. Later, a group of AUC students performed a dance that was really fun to watch. The guys were swinging around wooden sticks that must have been a substitute for swords. It was a fun event, and I'm excited about getting back there and actually walking around the rest of the campus. I might need to invest in a hard hat.

Ma'a salaama,

Blair