1008 miles east...

or 1622km for the rest of the world.

We've been meaning to announce this on the blog for some time now...but just haven't had the time to get around to it, but we slack off on the blog a lot!

But next year, we will be living in a new country, 1008 miles east of Cairo.

Things didn't quite work out the way we wanted them to with my school this year. We absolutely love Cairo and Egypt and while it may not be the easiest life here, we are very sad to be leaving. But things just didn't work out for us to stay, so it's time for our overseas adventure to move east.

I was hired at what seems to be a wonderful school where I will be given a lot of opportunities to grow professionally, which I didn't get here. We also will be able to accomplish more of our financial goals there...and our travel goals, which is a huge perk. It may not have the same excitement, culture and charm of Cairo, but it's the right move for us at this time.

During my spring break, I took a trip over to our new home to check things out, spend some time at the school, but the main purpose was to move over many of our belongings ahead of time so we didn't have to trek them back to the states over the summer just to bring them all the way back this way again come August. I took the trip on my own while Mike stayed behind.

Here was my flight path....

Kuwait is, obviously, a lot different from Cairo. It was very organized and very westernized. Before I went, a friend told us that Kuwait is like the 51st state. Going there, I found that statement proved very true. It felt like I had just traveled to America....just with a lot more Arabs walking around. While I was there I stayed with my new principal and she showed me around. We went to different grocery stores and malls. I also spent two days going to the school and meeting people and watching how things work. The school is huge and has an enormous amount of resources and everyone was really nice. The staff were all happy and laughing and had life in them. A very different environment from where I am working now. That was the best thing to see. They seemed to deal with a lot of the silly BS that I deal with, but not to the point where they have become totally beaten down about it.

Kuwait will be a very different experience for us, but we are excited for what lies ahead.

Here are some pictures from my trip.

View from my principal's flat

Zoom-in of the skyline

Clean, organized paved streets

Stop lights and cars in lanes

Arabian Gulf

Very western stores

Soooo many western products

View from inside The Avenues, one of the big malls ---see the men in white, those are Kuwaiti men :)

The classrooms are HUGE!

You can just see from this picture how many resources are available

Kuwait coastline at sunrise

Construction work in Egypt

I was in the construction field for about 10 years before coming to Cairo. All I have to say is "WOW!" The things they do here are crazy, no regulations are in place obviously by what I have seen. Don't get me wrong I and plenty of others I worked with bent the rules here and there but not as bad as it is here. I would NEVER and mean EVER do construction here in Egypt. I have framed plenty of houses in my years in construction or service something that might have been on a roof. But I always was safe about it, we were required by one company that if we even placed a single foot on a roof we had to be tied off. Here not so much. The pictures below show you what I am talking about.

 The first two picture are of an Egyptian man climbing the antenna tower where most of the mobile dishes are for cell phones and a couple dishes for TV. However he climbed this antenna with no kind of safety equipment whatsoever. He was also alone, so if he fell who knows how long he would be on that roof before some one found him. We live on the 9th and he was above the height of our floor, the top of the antenna is probably 5 stories from the roof. The second two photos are of two men servicing a AC unit. This was right in front of my building too. The first picture shows how high off the street he is. He is eight floors up from the ground. The man with him is only standing there I thought he was at least holding onto the other guys belt loop but after I put the photo on my computer i realized he was just holding the wall up. Again no harness, no safety whatsoever.

These are some of the examples I have taken pictures of since I have been here. But the list of things goes on forever. Their scaffolding here is just timber tied by rope. No nuts and bolts or anything like what we used back home in the States. I have seen men climbing ropes to the roof or floor of building they are working on because there is no elevator installed yet. Even though there are stairs going to where they need to be they choose the most direct path. They work in flip flops here doing major construction, I am not sure they even know what steel toed boots are here. Manual labor is a must if you want to do construction here. I have watched on many occasions men unloading well over 500 bricks from a truck by hand, this taking a full 8 hour day to get done.

The one thing that I will say however, is that I have a new appreciation for the resources I have back home to do construction. Back home you very rarely had to hand drive a nail, cut a piece of wood by hand unless it was finish work or even hand tighten a screw. Here there is no power tools except for tile saws which are not wet tiles saws. So they make cuts with a dry tile saw and again no safety they don't even wear eye protection. Watching these men build something is exhausting to even watch. Day in, day out hand driving framing, cutting wood by hand, everything is tightened by hand. It makes me have new respect for the people that did construction before all the glory of power tools in the States. I think many of us in the construction field would only work half a day if you took our power saw, compressors and cordless drills away from us.

The only other thing that baffles me is how much rebar the use in their concrete work. They use probably quadruple the amount that we do back home. That being said it is understandable seeing that all their building here are made out of concrete and brick. They first start off with their base slab and then go from there. The do floor by floor of concrete pillars and the floor. After they complete those steps they go back and fill in the openings that make the wall with brick. The use no wood for framing here except on the top floor units. They use wood to frame out the windows but then remove it after the brick has set. As they do the brick the run their conduit for electric, phone/cable and also water. After all those steps they then add a stucco to the exterior and interior walls. They use different custom concrete finishing tools to make crown molding on the inside and outside details of the buildings. That's where the biggest thing I noticed that is different, their finish work is flawless, perfectly level tile floors, perfectly textured walls and straight that can be expected. Seeing I don't think I have ever seen a level being used.

Even though I would love to learn from a seasoned "finish carpenter" here I could never get passed the fact that everyday I would go to work, I would literally wonder if I would make it home without a broken bone, a laceration or even worse. In all what I have seen they really could use someone to come here and teach some onsite safety training to get rid of the many onsite injuries here. Would I ever do construction work in Egypt?? No! They couldn't pay enough for me to even except a supervisor position where I don't even do any hands on labor. I wouldn't want to live with the burden of someone being severely injured or dieing. The culture of work safety here is nonexistent!

Spring Break - Gouna, Egypt

My Spring Break from school didn't start until April 25th! Probably the latest Spring Break in history.

We planned a 6 day, 5 night trip to Gouna. Gouna is a small resort town in Egypt set along on the Red Sea home to 17 hotels. It was the perfect place for us to escape to and be able to really let off some stress and get refreshed enough to finish off the school year.

We stayed at the Steigenberger Golf Resort.

We woke up and had a cup of coffee on our little room patio, with this view.








We spent our days laying out enjoying the sun and sea.

And our evenings taking a tuc tuc into town and eating a nice dinner and then hanging out with shisha and good conversation....and some Monopoly Deal!

In the back of the tuc tuc

On my birthday we took a boat out to Mahmya  Island (pronounced  mok-may-uh) to spend the day. There was a nice sandy beach there and we had our own little beach cabana of sorts. And for dinner we went to a delicious Italian restaurant owned and run by an Italian couple. It was absolutely delicious, but we are terrible at taking pictures of food....we get too excited when it comes and just dig in! Then remember the picture after we finish. Oops.

Our beach area, complete with bean bags

And the hotel sent me a surprise birthday cake when we returned from the island! .......with a trick candle!!!!!! At least they have a sense of humor!

 

It really did prove to be a very relaxing refreshed break away from the Cairo chaos.

Ahhhhhhhhh

Honesty?

We haven't posted in so long. Part of it is because I think I just kind of lost my excitement for the blog.

When we started the blog it was so that we could "journal" about our experiences. I don't just mean the fun stuff like seeing Sufi Dancers and going to the Pyramids. I mean, all of our experiences, the good, the bad, the ugly and the downright frustrating/infuriating moments of our life here.

We have dealt with a lot in the last three months and really it just keeps coming. But I can't share about it on the blog. I can't pour out my thoughts and feelings here like I would have hoped I could. And it's not because I don't want to worry family or upset our readers or offend people or any of that. This is our blog and I will write what I want to write regardless of if it may offend people or whatever the case. Or so that's what I thought I would do. However, I can't do that. Our blog is too public and the reality is, we don't live in America. We are not protected by the 1st Amendment. There is no freedom of speech here. I can't post about the struggles I deal with at my job because I am not protected by the same rights and laws that employees have in America.

It's hard to say if I would have done it differently if I had known better. I could have made the blog more private. Maybe given it a password to enter. Or only viewable by people who have the link. But that's not what I wanted. I wanted it to be public and viewable by anyone. When I was researching about moving abroad and learning about different countries, one of the resources I used the most was blogs from teachers living and working in that country. The blogs gave me the best perspective of what it would be like as a teacher living there. That was part of my goal in starting this blog also. So making it private didn't ever cross my mind. Not to mention, when you are an American and have lived in America your whole life, you never think about not being protected by laws and rights. You are so used to being protected by them, that its so normal and you needn't ever give something like speaking your mind on the internet a second thought. American's really take their rights for granted. If there is one thing I have learned here, it is that.

So we are going to try to post more often and show you our adventures and show you what Egypt is like.....but you won't see a truly negative post or a post about my job, the reason I came here, unless it is photos or taking events or something positive. Not being able to fully express my thoughts and experiences here bums me out and it's why I don't get motivated to make posts anymore. If you want to know the "bad and ugly" you will have to just talk to us in person. :)

However, do believe, once we are back on American soil, I will post the honest truth.

Sandstorms!!!

This was the worst sandstorm of the season... This was after it had cleared up from the morning. Look at the last picture to see what our view is normally.

Well what can be said about sandstorms but that it's windy and sand flies everywhere. I have come quick to know now when a sandstorm may hit. If the winds are high and blowing east there is a chance of a sandstorm blowing in. Seeing that it carries the Sahara Desert to us. But as soon as they shift west the sandstorm subsides and is gone just as fast as it came in. Seeing a sandstorm is insane. We have had several in the last month or so. The worst of them being a couple weeks ago. Miranda woke up early to tutor a student trying to get into her school and then came and woke me up. I walked out into our living room and looked out our window but saw NOTHING!! Visibility was maybe 100 feet. It was the worst of what we had seen from all the sandstorms this season. It lasted all day long from morning to night. It finally cleared out at around 7pm. This time of year is the season of "50 Days of Sandstorms" better known as "Khamaseen." The down side of this bad storm was the fact that internet was running slow due to a damaged line. With everyone home, internet was even slower, so we made due with the slow internet we had, and watched shows and movies that we had been putting off. Many people have asked if it kicks up allergies, the answer to this is no not really. While it looks like it would, it is just sand, not so much dirt or pollen. Normally we just close windows and doors to try and keep the sand out as best as we can. Although even with everything shut we always end up with a nice thick layer of dust everywhere. Having glass top tables and marble floors clean up takes a long time! Moving out furniture to clean under, cleaning off all the tables that have glass over them. It's a mess and a pain, every time I see one coming in, I don't think "Oh man, a sandstorm" I think "Oh man, I'm going to have to clean again!" Below is some pictures of the sandstorm from our 9th floor flat and also what our balcony floor looked like after the huge sandstorm we had.

The sun being blocked out from the storm.

 All of the pictures you see have been taken from a few different sandstorms we have had in the last couple months. As you can see they get so thick that the sun can barely break through it and if it does it is not shining. They are a pain to deal with seeing the fact we can't really go out unless we want to breathe in half of the desert. It's not like the sand is beating against you. But a person like myself wearing contacts has a hard time keeping sand from getting stuck in them.

How much sand blew onto our balcony

Although the sandstorms are a pain, dealing with the sand inside and out, having to stay in your house because it is to much to deal with outside, when the storm clears and the sand has settled we get the joy of this view and see an amazing sunset. It's like there was never a storm around.

The calm after the storm....

Holidays in Cairo

Having some fun!

Miranda and I, New Years 2013

    The holidays here in Egypt are much different than back home. But still, stores still set up their Christmas displays and vendors sell real trees to purchase. Where they get these trees from is a bit of a mystery. But one can only assume that they are imported haha. We decided not to invest in an artificial tree or lights or anything like that. We enjoyed our Christmas even though it was completely different than any other Christmas in the past. We didn’t do a gift exchange or make a feast for ourselves. Instead we decided to just stay in watch some movies and order an Italian dinner. It was a nice night to just enjoy each others company. Most of our friends all headed to different parts of the world, some returning home, some going to another country in Europe, Asia whatever country they decided. So it was basically Miranda and I for the holidays. One of Miranda’s good friends decided to stick it out in Cairo with us, so we went and hung out with her some nights, getting dessert at our favorite dessert spot on Road 9. We also did go to the 6 floor mall here called City Stars and do a little “Christmas Shopping” for ourselves. My gift to myself was going to see The Hobbit in 3D at the theater at the mall. This theater was amazing, plush Lay-Z-Boy recliners and if you wanted food you ordered it at your seat and they brought it to you. The only thing that threw me for a loop is that they have an intermission during the movie. In the middle of a scene the movie stopped and the lights came on. I had no clue what was going on, but then Miranda’s friend told me about the intermission. She assumes that it is for people to go have a smoke break, seeing the theater is one of the few places where people are not allowed to smoke indoors. After the movie was over we went and found Miranda, because she had no interest in seeing the movie. She had bought herself a few “Christmas Presents” herself. We ended the day with a nice lunch at a French Restaurant in the mall, the food was good but the desert was absolutely delicious! This was the sum of how we spent Christmas this year, all though not the typical Christmas, but still a wonderful one.

              

     Now New Year’s on the other hand is just like at home. Everyone is celebrating somewhere. We decided to spend our New Year’s at the Ace Club, which is the local expat club. We got there around 10:00 pm and rang in the New Year with about 100 other people. It was a good time. The club had brought in hats (which we never got one) and sparklers and party poppers. There were no firework displays anywhere in Cairo, but people in the neighborhoods were setting them off. It was a good time at Ace and a few people we knew were there. We had a couple drinks while we there, after the New Year came we left and went home to relax and start the New Year with a bang! Below is some pictures and video from New Year’s at Ace. All in all the holidays were nice here even though they we not typical.

                It was different for us however being away from family for the holidays. In the last few years we have found the perfect balance to go visit family on the holidays. This year felt like something was “off” we didn’t have to be anywhere or go anywhere. We were so used to waking up doing our thing at home and then rushing off to one family get together, then to another family get together and then another. It was exhausting but well worth the fun of being with family. Made me a little homesick, but that is expected when you spend your first holiday over 5000 miles away from the closest family member. All in all through the homesickness, we had wonderful holidays abroad. I am sure this is one of many to come our way while we are on our adventure abroad and we are going to love every minute of it!!

                                                   Video from Ace Club New Years!!

Sufi Dancers

A few months back I, Miranda and a few friends decided to go see a Sufi Dance performance over by The Khan. We got our first taste of using the Metro train to here. This is the cheapest way for us to get from Maadi to Downtown. It cost 1LE($0.15) to get on the train and then go where ever it may take you. We went out on a school night thinking it would be a quick show. It ended up being about a 2 hour show but it was totally worth it. This was amazing to see this performance. The performance involved singing, playing of different instruments and also the dancing itself, also called Sufi Twirling. It was absolutely amazing watching these men just twirl around for such an extensive period of time. One spun in place for about 15 minutes straight. We couldn’t believe it. 

After doing some research I found that this is actually a form of physical meditation. The hats they wear represent the “tombstone of the ego” and the skirt represents “the ego’s shroud.” Below is a bit more of what everything in the performance represents:

In the symbolism of the Sema ritual, the semazen's camel's hair hat (sikke) represents the tombstone of the ego; his wide, white skirt represents the ego's shroud. By removing his black cloak, he is spiritually reborn to the truth. At the beginning of the Sema, by holding his arms crosswise, the semazen appears to represent the number one, thus testifying to God's unity. While whirling, his arms are open: his right arm is directed to the sky, ready to receive God's beneficence; his left hand, upon which his eyes are fastened, is turned toward the earth. The semazen conveys God's spiritual gift to those who are witnessing the Sema. Revolving from right to left around the heart, the semazen embraces all humanity with love. The human being has been created with love in order to love. Mevlâna Jalâluddîn Rumi says, "All loves are a bridge to Divine love. Yet, those who have not had a taste of it do not know!"

Sadly I was not able to get much video of this performance because video is not allowed but I have uploaded a very short video I was able to get before I was told to stop recording. Also please enjoy the pictures I was allowed to take. This was an amazing thing to see, it was a different taste of the culture here. To be able to sit and watch it was wonderful. I hope to go back once more to see it again before our departure in July. But we still have other things we want to see before we go. I hope you enjoy.