An Eid Holiday in Ras Mohamed National Park

A little history/culture lesson: The Eid-Al-Adha holiday falls around the end of October. The dates change because Muslims follow the lunar calendar. This is a religious holiday celebrated by Muslims worldwide. It is to honor the willingness of the prophet Abraham to sacrifice his first-born as an act of submission to God. But God intervened and provided Abraham with a lamb to sacrifice instead.

To honor this holiday, Muslims sacrifice an animal. It can be a sheep or lamb. Rich families will often sacrifice a cow, or other larger animal. Then the meat is divided into three parts. The family keeps one-third, another third is given to relatives, friends or neighbors, and the last third is donated to the poor and needy. It is a very charitable holiday.

My school sacrificed a cow, (on campus!) and gave the meat to our poor service staff. During this holiday, you will see many animals being sacrificed all over, including in the streets. While I truly appreciate the charity of the holiday, I personally can't stand the thought of seeing an animal being slaughtered in front of me. And that's why Mike and I decided to take a nice holiday break and get out of Cairo for a few days! It was very necessary as I was starting to get a bit stir-crazy and all the little things about Cairo were starting to get on my nerves and make me feel overwhelmed...plus, I couldn't stand the thought of seeing blood all over the streets for 3-4 days!

Some friends invited us on a big group camping trip in Ras Mohamed National Park. So early Thursday morning, the first day of our holiday break, 19 of us piled into a bus at 5am to drive 7 hours to our destination.  What should have been a 7 hour drive turned into 12 hours because the military made us stop at every security check point to wait for a police escort to the next check-point since we were all foreigners. It was nice of them to care about our security, but we just wanted to hurry up and get there!

So 12 hours later, around 5pm, we finally arrived at our beautiful campsite on the fabulous Red Sea. We spent five days hanging out, enjoying some sun. We spent our days swimming and snorkeling in the super salty sea. Mike played some volleyball while I laid in the sun to read. We spent our evenings playing cards with our new friends that we met from the trip and sitting around a campfire that the Camp Host prepared for us each night. We were fed three delicious, home-cooked, Egyptian meals a day by the Camp owner. It was a truly relaxing, quiet time away from the noisy chaos of Cairo. We loved every minute of it and it refreshed us enough to be ready to jump back into our lives in Cairo. AND! on the way back, I learned that we had technically been in Asia the whole trip! So I got to cross another continent off the list. 3 down!

Here are some photos of the highlights of our trip. Head to facebook to see more.

Entering our destination

Inside the park, headed to our campsite

Inside of our teepee

View from our teepee

Volleyball Game

The moon was so bright there!

The Red Sea right in front of our camp

Where we slept for 5 days

Sunset in front of our camp

Look at how clear the water was!

Where we spent our relaxing time...there's my kindle at the bottom

Sitting around the fire

Our mascot, Godiva

Look at those reefs!

Mike and Danny

Mike and I relaxing after a crazy snorkel

You know you teach in Cairo when....

• every time you hear "Miss" you turn your head
• you are often referred to as, "the Miss" ..... E.g. "When the Miss is talking, you need to listen."
• there is a cow slaughter at your school.....and the upper grades are invited to attend
• you are breaking into the supply room through the window just to get some laminating sheets and tape rolls.....all to avoid the hoops you have to jump through to get the supplies properly
• you have "dedas" (basically servants) who will come in and clean up your classroom after painting.....and if you try to do it yourself, you get yelled at....
• you have Matrons who run all your errands for you and will cut out things for you or hang up your art projects in the halls or basically all the grunt work a teacher usually does themselves or pawns off on their family
• you have a school Doctor instead of Nurse
• you send a student to the School Doctor because he smashed his finger while playing basketball and it's swollen or because he was pushed and smacked his head on the curb...and he comes back with a lump of "magic cream" on it, when what he really needed was some ice and rest
• you're pretty sure you know more about medicine than the school Doctor
• a Deda comes into your room saying a whole bunch of stuff to you in some foreign language and you have to ask your students to translate....oh, she just wants some scissors, sure! 
• you tell the IT guy who speaks very little English that the wifi in the staff room is not working...and he simply laughs at you and says no, there's no wifi in here.....so instead you have the deda go grab the key for you to the room where you know the router is and just reset it yourself
• boys are called out in front of the whole school by the Executive Director and told they need a haircut
• you want to send a simple note home to the parents, but first it needs to be approved by admin to check for any cultural issues
•  a group of six year-olds are teaching you a different language during their lunch break :)
• you hear the Holy Quran recited every morning in front of the whole school and then we salute the flag and sing the National Anthem

..More to come as the year progresses

Day Trip to Al Azhar Park

Mike and I and a few other teachers were starting to feel cooped up in our little Maadi bubble and were feeling desperate to get out and do something with some different scenery than Maadi.

We had been wanting to visit a large park in Cairo called Al Azhar park, so we decided to make a trip over a long weekend. We headed there on a Sunday morning that we had off of school for Armed Forces Day. Five of us met up and split into two taxis to make the 30min drive over to the park (and piled into one taxi on the way home, hey, the locals do it!).

When we got there, we just walked around and enjoyed the scenery a bit and then found a nice spot in the grass under a nice shady tree and set up some blankets. We lazed around for a bit, some of us reading, some grading homework, some napping. It was bliss to enjoy a bit of peace and quiet in a nice park. Such a western thing to do, but sometimes it is needed!

After our short relaxation time, we walked up the hill to a wonderful cafe that overlooked the Citadel and Mohamed Ali Mosque and got eat some yummy Egyptian food.

Al Azhar park is a truly beautiful park. It is listed as one the World's 60 greatest public spaces. Lots of unique trees. Overlooking Cairo and the Citadel. A small pond inside and a nice fountain. Lots of green space to sit down and enjoy some shade or a nice picnic. Hosts four lovely cafes with gorgeous views. Lots of young Egyptians and couples frequent the park as well. We went early to avoid the crowds. :)

It was a really nice little escape from our routine lives in Maadi.

Here are some shots of the day.

Click to enlarge.

Fountain inside the park

Trail of pretty trees

Pond

Mosque in the background

Mosque across the pond

City of the Dead

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My View as I was laying down

Looking up into the trees

The Cafe we ate at, from afar

View from our table at the Cafe

Entry to the Cafe

Inside the Entrance

Rebecca, Victoria, Che Te and I standing in the fountain!

My Students -- In Pictures

Here are the smiling, hardworking (or maybe crazy) faces of the children from Grade 1b who have been consuming my life over the past 7 weeks. :)

Working on our Picasso inspired Self-Portraits