11-28 (Wednesday) Siwa

This morning I walked around town taking pictures. I saw the school bus - a donkey cart full of children!

I ran into a couple of girls from our group who where on their way to a nursery school to give out school supplies that one of the girls had brought from home. The school wouldn't let us in or take the supplies so we went to another one. We had our guide with us to do the translating. At the second school they said we could come in and give out the supplies. As we were getting them out of a bag and ready to give to the children several men burst into the school and started screaming at our guide. The screamer asked if we had taken any pictures of the children. I had but I didn't say a word. Lisa and the guide busily stuffed everything back into the bag and we departed. The guide said they didn't want "charity" and we had to have written permission to go into the school.

I went to see an old man I had seen on TV who presses olives into olive oil. He wasn't there but the old stone wheel that he turns by hand and his press were. It was interesting.

This afternoon we went on a jeep safaari. It was so much fun but also scary. We were way out in the desert. We would drive to the top of a dune and then the jeep would teeter at the top and we would go STRAIGHT down. At one place we stopped there were oyster shells and sand dollars. The entire desert was under the sea at one time. We stopped at a hot pool where a few pople from another group were soaking. To end the day the drivers bult a fire and made mint tea for everyone as we watched the sun set.