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

My Classroom --- The After Shots

Well you remember what my classroom looked like when it was first presented to me. A desolate room with random bits of furniture and nothing properly ready for students. If you don't remember, you can see the before shots here --> http://www.pyramidst.blogspot.com/2012/09/my-first-time-at-school.html

My classroom was finally ready for me to enter and begin setting up just two working days before students were to arrive. Somehow I seem to work miracles. Here are some shots of what I had it looking like for the students' arrival. Managed to make my classroom child friendly in a matter of two days when most teachers in America start working on the set up of their classroom at least two weeks but usually a month before students arrive. Miracle worker, I'd say.....but I guess you could give some credit to Mike's helping hands too. ;)

View from the Door

Reading Carpet

View of Door

Front of Room

Reading corner from different angle

Teacher area

Back of Door --Awaiting the children's smiling faces

The Hallway

The Front of our Door

And here are some more shots of my classroom after I was able to spend some more time on the set up and decor of the room....

Job Board

Rules and Behavior Clip Chart

Some labels for our bins

Schedule

White Board

Living in Egypt....

Disclaimer: This was supposed to be a one month recap. It has now been two months. Miranda is a big slacker (or very busy teacher) so she has just finally gotten around to editing and adding her .02 to this post.

We have now been in Egypt for a month and still everyday there is something new we find or another shop that we haven’t seen before. It still is amazing to think we live here and it is not just some prolonged vacation.  Reality is kicking in though now. Miranda has started work now and is working hard at planning and setting up her room. This is her first week so she is still working out the kinks. Life in Maadi, to put it simple, has been wonderful. The city is large and would probably take 10 years to visit every shop and every restaurant. Every night we get to see an amazing sunset, well the nights we are home I should say. The people here are nice, courteous and treat both of us with respect.  Our Boab, Haded, is very respectful. Every night he says hi to Mike and waits for Miranda to say hi to him before he replies “Hello Madam.”  In this culture/religion it is inappropriate for a man to speak to a woman so he waits for Miranda to say Hello to him, before he will say hello to her. It feels very safe here and we have no worries in the world. It’s amazing how much at peace you can be when you are surrounded by 20+ million people and horns honking all the time.

Since we have been here for a month, we figured we would do a one month recap of our time here, places we’ve gone, things we’ve done, etc. 

Living here has truly been eye opening compared to the states. We are able to walk mostly everywhere. Not like Kent where not really anything is in walking distance. Here there is about  3 grocery stores (markets) within a half mile of our apartment and there are far too many restaurants to count that are within a half mile radius around us. The added bonus to all these things around is that they all deliver to us if needed free of charge, except restaurants and they only charge about $1 to deliver.

Every day we are greeted by our building boab. A boab is a man who is like your building maintenance person. He will also collect rent or other bills, picks up our garbage at the front door, help you carry groceries up, etc. You have to pay him a small fee per month. Our fee is the top of the range and it is only $33. People here are very respectful of Westerners and are always aiming to please you. There have been no issues of any kind since we arrived. No hassling, no attitudes. We quickly realized how hospitable Egypt really is. We read about how it was rumored to have the most hospitable people but until you come here, you don’t really grasp how nice people are here and they are sincere about it. They hold doors, they will call the elevator for you, the cabs will wait as long as you need and not charge more for it. 

The clutter here takes some getting used to that is for sure. It is dirty and there is garbage all over the place. There are sand piles here and there. But we don’t look at it as garbage. We see it more as part of the culture of the city. It’s just Cairo. Does that mean it doesn’t sometimes gross us out? No, once in a while we will get a smell of nastiness but for the most part we don’t even notice the garbage.  Another aspect is walking in the streets. There really are no sidewalks to walk on here. You walk in the streets with cars coming inches from hitting you. Mike has been hit twice, not hard but in the hand by a mirror of a car doing about 20 mph, and then a bumper grazed his shin when someone was backing out. You get used to crossing the street while cars don’t really slow down. Sometimes they will stop to let you cross, but most the time you just find opening to slip through and cross. Traffic here is crazy, we have only seen one stop light since we been here (and they weren’t even following it). Other than that, the traffic just flows with no lights and no stops signs. How?  We have no idea but it just works here. They have a system and it just seems to flow. Merging is a joke though just like home, maybe someday all people will learn how to merge into traffic.

The cost of living here are also about 1/10 of the price as it is back home. We have been able to buy things here for a fraction of the cost. For instance, a cab ride here costs about on average $1-2 depending on where we are going. At home it cost’s $5 just to sit in a cab. Groceries range in price, if we want an American brand we have to pay a few more dollars for it. If you choose to buy local, we can do our grocery shopping for about $70 for the month. We also are able to go out to dinner at a nice restaurant for about $20 for both of us. Back home, we could maybe go to Denny’s for that price and that’s pushing it. Mike’s Pepsi is also only about $0.75 for a liter whereas the states they cost $2 each. We have also noticed that Egypt makes a lot of Western products locally such as Heinz, Pepsi, Frank’s Red Hot Sauce, Kraft and a few other things. Our apartment also is ridiculously cheaper. We are on the 8^th floor( 9^th in the states) with an amazing view of the city Maadi. Back in Seattle the view we have would easily cost thousands of dollars. We pay $50 more for our 8^th floor three bedroom, 3 bath apartment in Maadi then we did for our 2^nd floor one bedroom, one bath at home. Also our square footage is triple what it was back in Kent.

The food here is delicious. We have Chinese, Lebanese, Indian, American, English, Fast Food and a few other multi-cultural foods to choose from. All have been very good. Egyptian food is delicious, pretty much a version of Mediterranean food. They have hummus, shawarma, tahini, falafel and other types of food. Mike has had stuffed pigeon and chicken liver. Mike is not one for trying new things, but one thing he told himself moving here was that he would be open to trying new things and he has. He really enjoyed both the chicken liver and the pigeon. Miranda hasn’t tried pigeon yet, but she DOES NOT like chicken liver. We have an Expat club here that we joined called The Ace Club. The food there is good, but sometimes there are things not available because they don’t have the things to make it. We went about a week without being able order a salad because of no lettuce. They have all kinds of food ranging from filet mignon to pizza, burgers, and fajitas. They serve very western dishes. It’s also a place to get a nice cold beer or cocktail. It’s nice to have a place to go for a drink because most places won’t carry any alcohol since it is against the Islamic religion. But there are also a couple places you can go and buy alcohol and have it delivered to your door step. Like I said they deliver everything.

 

We have seen so many sites and cultural things since we been here too. We have seen the Pyramids, the museum, the old market, the Mohamed Ali Mosque and many other things. The architecture is truly amazing. The villas here are huge and are an architect’s dream. Mike has always been fascinated by architecture and the different ways things are built or different styles others use. The thing that baffles Mike the most about the buildings here is how things are built. It is nothing like the years of building and remodel he did at home. They don’t use 2x4 and beams here. They use concrete and brick. They start with a concrete slab and then build up with just concrete supports throughout the building. There are openings between the columns which they then fill in with brick. After they put the brick in, they run the entire conduit for electrical and other things like phone line and cable. After that they do a skim coat of concrete over the entire building. They form different types of things and sculpted décor of the buildings. Mike looks at it and thinks how does it stay standing, but this is also a culture where they have buildings that are thousands of years old and are still standing. Well also you know the 5000+ year old pyramids are still standing, so they are obviously doing something right. But if you want to hang something you need a mason bit and a drill because there is no drywall. So nailing something to the wall isn’t going to work. 

So all in all living here has been very eye opening. To see the many differences of living here and living in the states is crazy. I could write a book on the differences of living here and in the states. The crazy thing is that there has been no culture shock being here from either of us. We knew what we were getting into before we came and have been adjusting quite nicely. We joke that it will be a culture shock going back to the states next summer than it was moving here. We joke that we will walk in the streets instead of the sidewalk or have a small heart attack when we go out to eat. When we rent a car we will have to pay for gas again and to do anything we will have to drive instead of walk. You get used to walking an average of 5 miles a day. We will stop here for now, we hope all of you have enjoyed a small glimpse into living in Egypt and the different cultural differences. Please follow more as there will be more to come from the cuisine, traveling and also teaching in Egypt. That is a post that Miranda will have to do when she gets situated at her job.

Softball In Cairo

    A few weeks ago Miranda and I were at the Ace Club having dinner and one of the guys we have met since we've been here started talking about a softball league he had joined. He said that they still needed a couple more players for the team. After some consideration, and a kick in the butt from Miranda, I am now playing for a softball team in Cairo. We are called the Oilers. It is a legit league. We have about 2-3 games a week. We are not doing great so far, but we have also been playing the "A" League teams and we are in the "B" League. It has been a lot of fun since I started playing. I forgot how much I love to swing a bat and just play in the outfield. I love it!!  We have plenty of sponsors for the league and our team. Coke sponsors the fields we play at and BP Inc. is the sponsor for our team. It has been another way for me to meet more people. Every week we are here, we manage to meet at least 1 or 2 new people and expand our circle.

       Playing sports in Maadi on the other hand is not like the states at all. First of all, the first game I played in some of the areas of the outfield, the grass was higher than my ankles. For those of you who play sports, you may understand why it is complicated to play any sport in long grass, except maybe golf. The fields have improved over the last few weeks of play. I guess there was shortage of diesel for several weeks and diesel is what powers the lawnmowers. So the grounds have improved, but there is still another problem. The dirt they use for the infield is filled with little pebbles and rocks, which makes sliding into a base very painful!! I have done it once and will not do it again. Another problem is random cats running onto the field, mainly kittens. So we may have to pause a game just to remove the little furballs in order to continue playing. I thought joining the team would be a taste of home, but again it is not. While it is a small taste, Egypt finds a way to put her mark on it. Not meaning in a bad way, only that no matter what you do, Egypt is all around you no matter what you try to do.

Below is some pictures of my jersey.

We have played a total of 8 games so far. I missed the first game because I hadn't heard about it yet. Since then I have played in every game as a full time right/center outfielder. About 5 games in, I pulled muscles in both of my thighs but I was able to pull through it and keep playing. Since then, they have healed and are feeling better. My stats so far for the season is Batting average .500, 8 Runs Batted In and 5 runs scored. The batting average means I have hit successfully 50% of my at bats, which is good for as many at bats as I have had. I had 2 really bad games with no hits at all. I will put monthly updates on the softball league instead of doing one for every game. We are currently 2-6. For my non-baseball friends and family, that is 2 wins and 6 losses. Hope you enjoyed this update, if you want to follow our league here is the website....

http://www.caslegypt.com/index.html. 

My first time at the school

Let's talk about my first time going to the school. Sorry this blog is really late.....buttt I have been really busy.

The teachers had to go in for meetings and classroom set up two weeks before the students were supposed to start. Of course, everyone was excited to get to go get to see the school and get to see their classrooms.

My experience was not the most pleasant. Here is how my day went.

We were served a catered breakfast by the school first thing in the morning. This was probably the best part of the day. It was odd though....a typical Egyptian breakfast. There was falafel sandwiches, foul sandwiches and pickled veggies.  Foul is mashed fava beans...tastes just like refried beans. I still ate up though because I was super hungry!

After breakfast, we had an all staff meeting. It was pretty basic. They went over a lot of the same things that I already knew.

Then I had a new staff orientation.....again, where they went over things that I already knew, like the dress code! I was kind of disappointed. I think I was hoping for more of like, "We are so happy you are joining our team" kind of meeting and it was nothing like that at all.

After the meetings were over, I got to go see my classroom....Here is where the fun begins.....or should have anyway....

My classroom was NOT ready AT ALL! They were supposed to be working on it over the summer. They clearly did not do ANYTHING in our rooms. This was the same for all of the Grade 1 and 2 classrooms. My classroom had a few tables in it that were pre-k sized tables and some storage shelves....that was it.

The classroom was missing:
-Floors (they were supposed to put hardwood down)
-Rugs
-Tables/Chairs for students
-Teacher desk/cupboard
-Computer
-Projector
-Cubbies
-Blinds
-Bulletin Boards
-AC!!!!!!!!!!!!

Literally my classroom had nothing and was not ANYWHERE near being ready for students. So the three hours that were allotted for me to spend setting up my classroom were now wasted. What was I to do for 3 hours until it was time to go home?! Sure, I could have worked on decorations for the classroom or planning things for the first week of school.....but our staff office was also not ready....which meant I had no place to work, no internet to use, and no printer to use.

This was such a frustrating day for me. It was my first time really feeling a clash with the different cultures. My whole day felt like a huge waste of time. Yes we had meetings in the morning, but I was frustrated with those also since they didn't even share any new information with me....

But as always in teaching, you go to sleep and wake up and head back the next day with a smile on your face. And that's what I did.........after I went out for a drink that night. ;)


Here are photos of what my classroom looked like on the second day after they had brought a few pieces of furniture in.

Our hallway

 

Day 3: Khan al Khalili (The Old Market)

On our final stop of our 3 day tour of Cairo, Sharif took us to the old market, Khan al Khalili. This place was huge and full of shops everywhere. This is a place where you name your own price. Sharif told us that they usually mark it up crazy prices and then you haggle for the price you want to pay. It was very interesting to see how many shops there was here. We walked around the shops for about an hour. Before we set off on our own Sharif gave us pointers on how much we should be charged for things and if they didn't like the price we wanted to walk away. So after our quick tutorial on "How To Haggle" Miranda and I set out to see what we wanted and to play name your own price.We had a lot of good luck with haggling and was able to get some really nice stuff.

One of the many alley ways of the market

Sharif giving us a quick lesson on how much we should pay for alabaster sets.

Another view down one of the alleys.

 After we walked around for about an hour and half we went back to go meet Sharif at a restaurant where the famous Egyptian author Naguib Mahfouz wrote his book that won him the 1988 Nobel Prize in Literature. Mahfouz sat outside and watched the people of the Khan al Khalili and this is where he received his inspiration for his book. It was an amazing restaurant. We had falafels and shisha. Both were amazingly good. We sat with Sharif showing him what we got and made sure we didn't pay too much. Granted at this point it was too late, because all sales are final unless you buy at a mall. He told us we did a very good job, which was nice to here. One of Miranda's fellow teachers was not fairing as well as we did come to find out. She wasn't able to haggle as well, seeing that she is a blonde haired Westerner. She is learning to cope with that now. One of the other teachers literally tried losing her while shopping cause she got tired of the price going up every time the blonde haired teacher walked in haha. There was no history lesson about the market really from Sharif minus the restaurant and how much we should pay for stuff. We ended up spending the most amount of money here than any other place we had been Egypt. Below you can see what we got and it was for all less than $120.

Our set of alabaster tea lights. The middle one has an arabic saying on it which is "God is great"

This is the purse that Miranda got.

The Louis Vuitton wallet Miranda got.

And we are beginning to become avid collectors of papyrus paintings.

One of two shirts Miranda bought

After all the fun we loaded on to the bus and headed for home. The three days of touring Cairo was not only amazing, but it was also very enlightening on the history of the people and everything around us. It's crazy to think that we now live somewhere where they have 7000+ years of history and buildings that stand that are 5000+ years old. This is truly an experience of a lifetime living here and to think this was only week 2 in Cairo. To think we have two years here to see even more. We still have the whole southern half of the country and even many, many other things to learn and see. The final thing about these 3 days I would like to talk about is our amazing tour guide Sharif. He was an awesome guide, none of us were too keen to the idea of a tour guide but after spending 3 days with him I am glad Miranda's school paid for him to come and do it. We feel that our knowledge for Egypt is so much better then we thought. We did a lot of research to move here, the thing is we did no research on the history. It is amazing the wealth of knowledge and history you can learn here. From Ancient Egypt to the biblical history that is inside the walls of the buildings around us. Truly amazing!

Sharif, The Egyptian Encyclopedia, and our guide!! He was giving us a history lesson of the Mohamed Ali Mosque.