Vacation: Games in Africa?

Here's to two weeks of vacation starting this Monday.

Destination: Cairo, Egypt

Obviously I'll be without console or net games for over two weeks. Save for a little handheld DS gaming on the plane and during layovers, I'm going cold turkey for probably the longest I've been without video games in years. It won't be hard. It's not like getting stranded in the snow with in-laws for two weeks. This is the first vacation I've had since our honeymoon in 2005. I'm excited to be away from work email and fixing nagging computer problems.

I hadn't thought about it before writing this post, but I wonder what types of games we'll play in Cairo. Settlers of Catan is definetly on the playlist. We picked up that game from our Mennonite friends here in Harrisonburg, and since that's who were going to see in Egypt, I'm looking forward to it again. But I'm interested in picking up some African games. Obviously of the non-electronic type, but I've never said I'm solely a controller jockey.

I'm also going to try to visit our friend's classroom of 2nd grade students. I've been host to a cross-cultural classroom web project where a class of elementary school kids here in Harrisonburg video conferenced with my teacher friend, Adam, about life in Cairo, but surprisingly the kids didn't ask about what kind of games the kids play. Now I'll have a first-hand chance to find out.

My boss outfitted me with a FlipVideo camera to take some footage. I'm going to go to Adam's class and film his students and try to ask them a few things about being kids in Cairo and ask them a few questions. I just might have to squeeze in a couple about gaming just for Part Time Gamer and post the video. How cool would that be!?