Birthday bashing in Cairo

[Yep, still here, in Cairo. Heat is a much more reasonable 37 C, and believe me, 6 degrees makes a huge difference. Kristin's here, we leave for Germany/Belgium/France on Monday night. School fizzled out today around 2:30 after 4 straight days of doing nothing in an empty classroom. AIS end-of-year procedures are worth an entire other blog...]


My birthday this year, the big 2-7, was celebrated over many days, and in fact will be celebrated once more with a friend in Zamalek tomorrow night! How many people will be able to say, in their lifetime, that they celebrated their birthday in style, on a boat on the Nile river. Well, my mom was able to in March, and now mine too!

Last Wednesday my grade 7 French class threw me a "surprise" party. They of course could not keep secrets, so the only real surprise was that they threw it a day earlier than they had whispered about, so I was completely unprepared for my party. Grade 7 parties involve sugar, cake, more sugar, more cake, and chipsies. (this is the Arabic word for chips). Then we all sit around, the kids spill their drinks, scare Ms. Cooper's baby, and listen to the CD player. The Miss sneaks to her desk to mark.

On Friday the 18th (the actual day of my birthday), I played piano for our weekly worship service at St. John's and then had a lingering lunch with friends.


I threw myself a party this past Wednesday, waiting for Kristin to be in town. It was so nice to have her here, and so wonderful to have all my new friends in Cairo celebrate with me. I brought together groups of friends from Church and School; we took a felucah onto the Nile and hung out for a while. It was a beautiful evening with a beautiful sunset.

All throughout my birthday celebrations, and in these past few days of 'bye-for-now' gatherings, I have been reminded of how blessed I am to be here in Cairo, with many amazing people in my life. Further reflection and wrap-up will happen in another blog, probably after a 5 day time-out at Taizé. For now suffice it to say that I am ready to head home to baby Ella and the rest of my family, but also thankful that I get to come back here for round two in September!

Life at 45 Celcius...

It's hot.

Air conditioners break.

Power goes out. Regularly. In fact, it went out while I was writing this. Thrice. Hence the broken AC.

When the wind blows it feels like a hair dryer on your face.

At midnight the city comes alive. It is still 35 C.

The street dogs don't have the energy to chase or bark. This is bliss.

Moving quickly from an Air Conditioned apartment to outside makes your skin tingle.

I've stopped cooking. I think that is why Middle Eastern cuisine has so many dips and spreads - most don't involve fire or cooking of any sort. And they're delicious. Hummus, baba ganough, tahina, and my personal favourite (which isn't actually egyptian) lebaneh.

The kids go into shock when they walk into a classroom where the AC is set at 21 C. Then you realize that this is more than twice as cool as it is outside. It's hard to explain to 12 year olds that the only way to combat their 'distinct odor' is to keep the AC at 21. It would help if their maids washed their uniforms more than once a week.

Leaving Cairo in 9 days.

Camel Market

We spent Friday morning at the camel markets. I told someone earlier this week I thought it was a tourist attraction. I couldn't have been more wrong! The 30 AIS teachers who arrived via bus were the only non camel-selling people present, and it was quite a shock.

As you can see from the two videos below, the camel market/auction is not at all like what you would expect from an auction back home. Basically there are camels tied up in flocks (or caravans, I've been told), and there are people hitting them with sticks to keep them in place. As you will also see in the video, the camels don't follow instructions any better than a gr. 7 boy ! SO, it was easy to suddenly be in the way of an errant camel.

The auction part went like this: A group of men stand in a circle chanting/yelling, there's a camel in the centre. All of a sudden the yelling stops, and the camel is sprayed w/ spray paint and taken away. If this sounds organized or clearly laid out, I can assure you it is not!

The other highlight was having my picture taken. Now I had to pay 20 LE to take pictures at the market, but all the men were taking my picture for free. If I had charged money, I could have made a small fortune.

Winning the Change game

During a recent skype conversation with John, who has been an American in France for 5 years now, we were lamenting how quickly life becomes 'normal' and how difficult that makes updating a blog! John told me everything I did was interesting, so here goes.

I have grown up in a cashless society. I am used to seeing my money go from a paper cheque to an account, where I move it around digitally. When I needed to buy something, I would swipe a little piece of plastic that represented money, and voilà, my purchase was complete. In my wallet at any given time there was rarely more than $80. But that's just me.

Then I moved to Egypt. The idea of credit, or even debit, doesn't really work for the masses here, and I'm not about to 'charge' two dollars worth of carrots, tomatoes and cucumbers. Furthermore, if I tried to charge my vegetables, Mohamed would be so concerned about my well-being, he'd give them to me for free!

So I walk around with cash. At any given time, I will have close to 2000 LE (divide by 5) in my wallet. What makes this more complicated, is that I have to have the right kind of cash to get anywhere. As my friend Jason says "carrying a 200 LE note is like carrying a rupee. Utterly useless." No one ever has any change, even when you know they do.

When my parents were here, we laughed that Tom had to empty his wallet and sort his money every evening. I must admit that sorting cash from all the little pockets and wallets I have is one of my weekend tasks. Also, before they came, I saved small change for 3 months, because I knew there would be lots of taxi driving and small errand-running.

Hence, the change game. Right now, with 30 5 LE bills, I'm winning.


These 5 LE notes are worth more, on a daily basis than this:

Breaking these large notes is all part of the change game. Here's how you play.

1. Purchase approximately 37.50 LE worth of groceries.

2. Hide your face behind your purse, and carefully pull out the 100 LE bill, without letting the cashier see the exact (or smaller) change lurking near by.

Inevitably, the cashier will ask you if you have small change. You say no.

3. The cashier smirks and says, I so sorry, no change."

4. You have a choice. Give in, and keep the 100 LE note for another day, or walk out without your groceries.

5. You chose to walk out! Good job! Because the cashier will 99.9999 % of the time call after you, "I have change!" And she will lift the top drawer of the cash box, to reveal a drawer brimming with small change.

6. Leave the store victorious, knowing that you now own a 5 LE note to give to the taxi driver, who will start the game all over again for you.

7. For bonus points, try playing the Change Game in Arabic.

Ya miss, I need to go to the nurse!

This 'demand' has brought a smile to my face more than once this year. More than one teacher has said, "these children would go to the nurse for a hangnail if I let them!"

Even more ironic, is that the school does not employ a nurse, it employs 2 full time doctors. The students always say nurse though.

I should add that the nurse/doctor/person in a white lab coat will 95% of the time send the sweet innocent not-so-sick children home if they show up in their office.

Here are my favourites:
-My lips are red, can I see the nurse?

-My glasses are broken, can I see the nurse?
Me: what on earth is the doctor going to do with broken glasses???
-Maybe she has more!

-My cheek is bruised, may I go to the nurse?
Me: if you stop punching yourself in the face it will go away, I promise.

But today's conversation was by far the weirdest ... but I guess everything gets weird when there's 20 days of classes left...

Omar comes to class, very pale and sickly looking. [No confidentiality problems here, I see approx. 65 students named Omar every day...]. Omar asks to go to the bathroom, but does not have his book of passes. Miss says "nope."

Omar "I'm going to puke."
Miss: "Go, but please don't come back. You need to go to the nurse.
Omar: "I puked 1st period. I went to the nurse and she said since I didn't have a fever I had to go back to class."

There's something fishy here. Seriously. Either Omar's not really sick, or he didn't really see the doctor... so Miss goes down the hall to the Middle School office. The secretary says, "Omar's mom sent him to school today because he has almost reached his limit of thirty-two absences this school year. He did not go to the nurse this morning but was too embarrassed to tell you the truth. I've checked his records, he's only at 26. I will call the family driver right now for him to be picked up."

For the record, Omar had to disinfect his own desk, chair and textbook before leaving to meet his driver. It only seemed fair.

Another day, another shake of the head...the weekend begins in 18 hours!

Random updates...

I'm writing after a brief excursion outside, where it is 43 C. I am dripping sweat on my computer and willing the electricity to come back on so that I can turn on the AC. (Battery powered computer, yes, I'm pathetic...). Brownouts are common in the heat, because of all the AC and extra electricity needs.
[Middle School teachers recently took the students to task at Ball Hockey. Despite having an almost all Canadian team, and although I scored 2 goals, we were beat 6-5 at the end. There will be another game - I don't lose well, especially to my students!]

We have finally "Sprung ahead" here in Cairo. It makes a huge difference in attitude, heat and the amount of time I spend awake now that the sun doesn't set until around 8pm. Sadly, time falls back again on the first day of Ramadan, so that the majority of the population can eat sooner. With Ramadan starting on August 5, I'll come back in September to a dark city.

Countdowns are on... 9 weeks until I come home, and there's a lot to happen in the mean time! Between church and school I have a lot of friends leaving at the end of this year, and that is sad. The expat community is an ephemeral one, and we send people on with a blessing and a "see you again, friend." It means that June is a month for parties and fun.

[Farewell for now to Anne-Marie who will hopefully (was that an Insh'allah?) be back in Cairo in about 4 months time.]

Teaching is going better. Rather, I'm doing better because I had to stop caring so much. Before you take me as a callous, heartless person, please understand that I do still deeply care about my students; I've just decided to care differently, and give some 12 year old children opportunity to see exactly how decisions and outcomes are related :)

[This birthday celebrator is one of the reasons teaching is going better. I have a very supportive principal who stood up to a parent or two for me. Here he is at his surprise 50th Birthday party.]

I am looking for a new place to live, and after months of sadness and frustration, I'm finally excited about this process. I will be living alone for the first time in my life, a prospect which also finally excites me. Because of the endless social opportunities through work and church, I am not worried about becoming a hermit (and a few good friends have promised that they won't let this happen!). I will have more details on this in a future blog post, or I will be homeless next year.

[A view of downtown Cairo from the previously mentioned birthday party yacht.]

Sinai Liberation Day

The past two weeks have been close to two of the worst weeks of my teaching career. It would be unprofessional to explain why here, but suffice it to say that a combination of mean teachers, attacking parents and horribly behaved students who have given up like it's already June lead to an unhappy Mademoiselle!

So an email with this message was more than welcome at the end of Wednesday:

Due to Sinai Liberation Day on Sunday, April 25 we will not have school.

Doesn't get much clearer.

Today was a free day - not to be wasted! The only way to describe today is that it felt like one of those perfect mid-July days when you have no where to be and not much important to do. It was a balmy 29C, so after waking up without an alarm clock and reading for an hour, I headed to the gym for a run. Returned home to make banana bread, and then headed to Al Hazar Park for a picnic with my friend Bethany.

Now at home, making dinner and enjoying that I didn't think about school, I did not spend the day cleaning, and I did not waste it in front of the TV.

The other benefit of these 3 day weekends is the 4 day week that follows.

Is this REALLY the last long weekend of the school year???