Coptic Cairo

One of our local teacher friends organized a nice day trip for us a few weekends ago. We spent the day in Cairo and visited two important places, the first one the Monastery of St. Simon in the Zabbalin village and the second the area of Coptic Cairo.

In 1969 the Governor of Cairo decided to move all the “trash collectors” to the hills of Mt. Mokattam. They build themselves little houses of tin and other scrap metal and today this village of Zabbalin has a population around 30,000 and is mostly Coptic Christians. Since the Egyptian government does not have a government run waste removal system, for over a hundred years this community has made their living by cleaning the city. Each morning the village men go out on their donkey carts to their district in Cairo and gather the trash.

Picture taken from:

http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2008/10/24/cairos_trash_collectors_lose_an_advocate

Picture taken from:

http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/inoursuitcase/freedom_07-08/1223650500/tpod.html

They have contracts with companies and residents to gather their waste for them. They bring it back to their home and the women and children sort though the pile. They feed the refuse to the pigs that they raise. This is the only population of pigs in the country. You might have heard that when H1N1 (Swine Flu) came to Egypt; the Present ordered that ALL of these pigs be slaughtered. This greatly

hurt this community by not have any pigs to eat or sell, but also hurt all of Cairo, since the refuse waste that was taken to be fed to the pigs, now just sits in the streets and rots! Driving through Zabbalin stirs up lots of emotions. It pains my heart to see bare foot children sitting waste deep in a pile of trash in front of their shack of a house, but at the same time, it’s impressive to see their effectiveness with sorting through so much. They are able to recycle 60% of Cairo’s trash. (Most first world countries recycle about 70%).

Picture taken from:

http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/inoursuitcase/freedom_07-08/1223650500/tpod.html

As with most sights in Egypt, there are no signs and clear directions marked, but it didn’t matter to get to the Mokattam Church, driving through Zabbalin, everyone just points the way without us having to stop and ask.  It was amazing, diving through Zabbalin, where you felt like the piles of trash were caving in on you and little sunlight reached the streets, to all of a sudden you take one more turn and under a walkway, and all of a sudden the surroundings open up, a huge mountain appears, and the warmth of the sun is shining down on you and you see a huge Coptic Church in front of you with biblical carvings in the mountain all around.   This is the Monastery of St. Simon which the Cathedral of Virgin Marry and six other churches hidden in an underground network of caves in the Mokattam hills.  In the tenth century when Egypt was ruled by Caliph Al Muizz, he got into a debate with the Coptic Pope Abram where the Caliph challenged the Coptic’s to prove the bible verse stating that if you have faith strong enough you can move a mountain.  The Caliph saw this as an opportunity to move the Mountain that was spoiling his view, and if the Coptic’s were unable to, it he would be finally able to prove that the Christians were wrong and do away with them in his country.  Simon was chosen to be the one to move the mountain so after three days of fasting and prayers the mountain moved.

Next we headed to the area called Coptic Cairo. This is the oldest area of Cairo and was settled around the 6 century B.C.  Later the Romans build a fort around it called Babylon.  Within the fort walls there were twenty Coptic Christian churches, several mosques including the earliest one built in Egypt, and the Ben Ezra synagogue all living in peaceful religious harmony for thousands of years.  We visited the Mar Girgis Church, Keniset Mar Girgis, El-Mu’ Allaqa (the Hanging Church), Ben Ezra synagogue, and Abu Serga.  At the Nunnery of St. George, the sisters take care of the original chain and shackle that St. George was tortured in.  Here we watched man women come pay homage by the custom of taking the chains and wrapping them around your body and neck, saying a prayer, and kissing the chains.  Since the city is so old, the modern street level has risen several meters above the original, which means, to get to the original floors, we always had to walk down stairs to what felt like the basement.

 

 

 

 

Jordan Picture Video

Jordan

Day 1 Thursday Nov. 27, 2009

For the Eid el Adha/Thanksgiving break, we went to Jordan with our friends Mike and Nada and their baby Malcolm.   For our first day (Thanksgiving Day), we had a driver take us to Wadi Musa, the town outside ancient Petra.  Mike, Seth and Kristal went walking around town while Malcolm took a nap.  That evening, Kristal got reservations at Petra’s Kitchen to take a Jordanian cooking class.  Nada and I cooked while the boys watched Malcolm.  Our menu:

Soup:

            Lentil Soup (different than Egyptian Lentil soup)

Cold Mezza:

            Arabic Salad

            Baba Ganuj (very different than Egyptian)

            Bagdonesiah

            Cucumber with yoghurt

Hot Mezza:

            Galaya Bandura

            Araies Lahmah

Main Course:

            Magloubah

After all the dishes were prepared we sat down and enjoyed this huge feast.  There were a few other Americans there, including a guy from Hutchinson, Kansas, that sat with us so we had our own little Thanksgiving Day celebration.  Even though there was no turkey, potatoes, pumpkin pie, or cranberries it was still a very nice Thanksgiving and it made it easier to be away from family. 

Day 2 Friday Nov. 28, 2009

We were awoken quite early by the mosque outside our hotel.  Today was the first day of the Feast of Sacrifices and the mosque kept on chanting the same phrase over and over again for over an hour.  We headed off to Petra, the ancient Nabitean city carved into the cliffs.  To get to Petra you must hike about 30 minutes through a high gorge, called a Siq, that was ripped through the mountain by an earthquake thousands of years ago.  If this was all there was of Petra we would have been impressed enough.  We really enjoyed this walk though the high Siq.  The colored limestone was gorgeous and shown in all shades of reds and oranges that dazzled in the morning sun.  Along the way were remains of tombs, statues, and most impressive:  a water channel carved into the entire length of the wall that brought water to the city of Petra.  In some areas you could still see the terracotta pipes.  

 

 

When I didn’t think that anything could compare to the wonder and beauty of this Siq, I caught a sliver of a glimpse through the narrow gorge of a large building, a few more steps and the world opened up to a huge court yard in front of the miraculous Treasury of Petra. 

 

First Glimpse

We spent some time resting here and admiring the grandeur of the Treasury and then set off again, exploring other tombs and sanctuaries.  After every turn we were rewarded with more awe inspiring views of ancient royal tombs, domestic dwellings, and religious alters.  Looking at the map and book, we realized that we weren’t even at the city center yet and couldn’t believe how big Petra really is and decided we needed to quicken our pace in hope of seeing even a small fraction of this magnificent city. 

 

 We decided to take the trail up to The High Place of Sacrifice.  We should have read the book a bit more carefully in order to realize just how “high” this place was.  Let’s just say we have a lot of respect for Mike now after he carried Malcolm up the mountain in his backpack carrier and it was a good thing that Nada had fallen behind us, because by the time she caught up with us at the top, she was quite freaked out that her husband had carried their baby up that so-called path.  The view from the top was well worth the climb though.  We were amazed by how large the city of Petra was.  We could see tombs and dwellings pocketing the surrounding mountains for miles.  Unfortunately, we weren’t able to enjoy our view in peace.   A local Bedouin lady was up there and kept bugging us for baksheesh (tip) by showing us pictures of her kids, gifting us pretty rocks she had found, or pointing out which way we should look.  At one point, Kristal left the camera bag with her jacket on top with Mike so we could climb out to the edge and get a better view.   When we returned my jacket was missing.  After several minutes of searching, the lady conveniently “found” my jacket and we had to reward her with some baksheesh.  Although we weren’t rested from our hike up and we didn’t get to enjoy our picnic lunch at the altar, we decided to start our way back down to get away from the annoying lady. 

 

After seeing how huge Petra was from atop the mountain we decided we need to head straight for the Monastery, which of course was clear on the other side from us but it was recommended as a must see by several friends.   On our way we only got side tracked by the Amphitheater and a few temples.   As we started up the mountain hike to the Monastery it started to rain.  We climbed up to one of the ancient cave dwellings to wait out the worst of the rain.  Nada was already worried about bringing Malcolm up this mountain after climbing the last one, with the rain she was worried about the rocks being slippery, then we saw a Red Crescent ambulance come and eight men carrying someone on a stretcher down the mountain; that was the straw that broke the camel’s back so she and Malcolm were not going up to the Monastery.   They went back to the museum while the rest of us set off up the mountain at a quickened pace so that we wouldn’t be caught in the dark coming back down.  By the way, in case you’re wondering, donkeys don’t care if they push you out of the way on narrow mountain paths.  This climb was well rewarded; you are so busy watching your footing on the path that you don’t realize that all of a sudden you are at the top and you look up onto a huge open plateau and just around the boulder on your right you can see the Monastery looming out of the mountain.  By this time, the rain had stopped and the setting sun was shining all of its orange rays onto the grand building and we pretty much had the place to ourselves.  With the setting sun, we knew we needed to get off the mountain fast, which we did.  Unfortunately, we still had about an hour and half hike back through the Petra city center, back to the Treasury, and through the Siq with only the light of the moon to guide us.  It was a spectacular night walk back, but we were exhausted by this time.  We stopped in town to eat at a shwarma place that our friends recommended.  

Day 3 Nov. 29, 2009

We drove up to the Dead Sea today and got a day pass at the Dead Sea Resort and Spa.  We had lunch by the pools and then headed down to the beach for a dip on the sea.  The weather was perfect, just warm enough not to be cold in the water.  We could see the West Bank of Israel on the other side of the sea.  The feeling of floating in the Dead Sea is indescribable.  I know because several friends tried to tell us about it before we went, but we just couldn’t comprehend it until we felt it for ourselves.  Floating out of the water without any effort at all was incredible.  The most fun was standing and letting one leg completely relax and laugh as it floated up to the top.  If you get out further than mid-chest level, you cannot even force yourself to get your feet down to the bottom no matter how much you tried; trust me we tried.  The deeper you went in the water, the high out of the water you floated!  What I wasn’t expecting was to see the salt crystals built up along the shore and to find huge chucks of crystals on the ground like rocks.  Also, the salt water did not dry out your skin as I would have expected, but instead our skins felt like it had oil on it.  Then we went over to the mud hole and got some good Dead Sea mud and rubbed it all over ourselves and each other.  We had soooo much fun this day!  After our fun in the Sea we went back up to pools (there were five of them) because Nada and Kristal just had to have some fun on the water slides. 

 

 

Day 4 Nov. 30, 2009

Today we drove north of Amman to the ancient Roman ruins of Jerash.  These are one of the most intact Roman cities in the world.  We had the treat of hearing a Jordanian bagpipe in the South Theater which is a rare, unscheduled event.  The construction of the theater and the acoustics were amazing.  After lunch we headed back to Amman and visited the Citadel and had a great view of the Amman Forum. 

 

 

 

Eid El Adha

     Eid el Adha is the Festival of Sacrifice.  It commemorates the end of the Hajj, which is the annual pilgrimage to Mecca.  It is just a coincidence that it coincides with American Thanksgiving this year.  The Islamic calendar is a lunar calendar so it advances eleven days every year.  This feast of sacrifice commemorates the trials and triumphs of Abraham by God (Allah).   In particular the trail of when God(Allah) asked Abraham to kill his only son.  When preparing to do so, God(Allah) stopped him and told him that his scarifies has already been showed by his wiliness to give up his most dear in the name of God(Allah).  So to honor this event during Eid el Adah, Muslims kill an animal in the name of Allah.  Usually a sheep or goat but sometimes a cow or camel; these animals have started to be brought into the city over the past two weeks and are currently in the streets.  This is not helping with the filth and noise that is already a problem here.  Some families have already purchased their sheep/goat and are keeping them on their apartment balcony until the day of the slaughter. As with other Muslim feasts, they demonstrate their willingness to give up what is dear to them by giving away part of their slaughter.  Only 1/3 of the meat is eaten by immediate family, then 1/3 is shared with friends, and 1/3 is given to the poor.  This also symbolizes the understanding of the need for strong ties between family and friends and the understanding that all blessings come from God(Allah) and we need to open up our heart and homes to share our blessings. 

“Allah has given us power over animals and allowed us to eat meat, but only if we pronounce His name at the solemn act of taking life. Muslims slaughter animals in the same way throughout the year. By saying the name of Allah at the time of slaughter, we are reminded that life is sacred.” (Hula. “Eid el Adha”, About.com)

It’s pretty hard for me to see these animals sometimes.   They do not have animal transport trailers here (although I couldn’t imagine trying to drive in this traffic here with a trail attached!).  So they (some how) load up the sheep, goats, or even cows into the back of pickup trucks.  Then they spend the remaining days of their lives either tied up so tight they can’t move out into traffic, or corralled up in a small pin outside the butcher shops.  The most inhuman aspect of this is that there are often other animal carcasses hanging above their heads.  Some people will pay the butcher to slaughter their animal in their name, but most still like to slaughter them their selves.  They will do it right there in the street or sometimes on their balcony.  The day of the slaughter the street will latterly run red with blood.

Happy Thanksgiving

Top Ten Things Seth and Kristal Will Miss about Thanksgiving in the States:

10.  Cold Stone Creamery- Pumpkin Pie Signature Creation

9.   Playing card games with family

8.  Fighting to be the first to get leftovers for dinner

7. The cold fall weather and fall leaves

6. Watching football all day

5.  Cranberries                     

4.  Pumpkin pie and pumpkin bread

3.  The Plaza lights.

2.  Being with our families

1.  Grandma Dally's noodles (& of course, Grandma Dally)

Top Ten Things Seth and Kristal are Thankful for in 2009:

10.  We don’t have H1N1

9.  That I (Seth) don't have to go shopping the day after thanksgiving this year -  I can do it online whenever :-)

8.  Not having to work on Thanksgiving this year.

7.   Our great friends here at Schutz

6.  The support of family and friends back in the States while living
      overseas

5.  Having the opportunity to live and travel in foreign countries and          share those experiences with each other

4.  Spending Thanksgiving in Petra, Jordan this year.

3.  Desiree and Sokkwi

2.  Each other

1.  OUR ENTIRE FAMILY

 

Egypt vs. Algeria Soccer

Last week there was a huge soccer match played here in Cairo, it was the World Cup qualifying game of Egypt vs. Algeria.  It was all you would hear people talk about all week, and people started selling Egyptian flags and Egypt Cat in the Hat hats among other merchandise. People were flying the Egyptian flag from their balconies and their cars.  Little children were running around the streets with little flags.  It was was the first time I've seen Egyptians really proud of their country.

When the Algerians arrived in Cairo they were greeted by a mob of Egyptians stoning them.  What hospitality!  Then the Egypt media it turned into a big scandal and everyone claimed the Algerians were making it up even though there is video proof of the incident on BBC News. 

We had received an e-mail alert from the American Ambassador warning us not to go out, especially in Cairo.  If Egypt looses there are sure to be riots, and if Egypt wins there are sure to be riots.  So either way, a good time will be had by all.

Egypt had to win the game 3-0 in order to qualify for the World Cup.  If they got 2-0 then they would have to play another tie-off qualifying match, and if they won by only one point than Algeria would win.  They just proved, that you don't have to be drunk, to be a soccer hooligan having a "drunken brawl".

It seemed like everyone in the country was watching the match that night.  Coffee shops (the closest thing to a sports bar) were packed to the brim and extra chairs were spilling out onto the streets everywhere.  Seth and I watched a movie on our computer but had our TV tuned to the correct channel but muted.  We didn’t need the sound because we could hear it from the entire neighborhood.  Within the first two minutes Egypt scored a goal.  The entire country went wild and we clearly hear everyone shouting for joy, and see the family in the apartment across the street from our window jumping for joy and celebrating together with the women “trilling”.   Seth and I looked up and caught the slow action re-play on our TV.  The rest of the game was rather uneventful, except for some dirty playing by the Egypt play.  Even though we were alone up in our apartment, you could almost feel the nervous energy in the air as the country watched the clock tick down the remaining three minutes and Egypt was only ahead by one.   And then miraculously Egypt scored a second goal!  Cars were honking, glass was breaking, donkeys were baying, women were trilling, shepherds were dancing with their sheep; the country was united together in one big celebration. 

It didn’t really sink in till the next morning when the celebrations subsisted that a score of 2-0 meant they still had to play Algeria again.  This time on Wednesday in Sudan, they had to win the second game by one point in order to go to the World Cup.  The atmosphere was much the same as the first time, although we could actually hear the country as a whole take a collective breath and hold it anytime Algeria was near our goal.  Unfortunately,  Egypt lost 1-0 and Algeria is going to the World Cup.

H1N1 Schutz Update

The Egyptian Department of Health and Department of Education keep on changing their minds about schools and the H1N1 flu. First of all, it hasn’t been made quite clear if we are a foreign entity or if we should follow the same rules as Egyptian government schools when it comes to this issue. Anyways, we had another case last week in eighth grade and according to the new government regulations we closed just the eighth grade. Since then we have had a case in tenth grade, first grade and Pre-K 3 and Pre-K 4 are also closed down. If you are wondering if our classes are totally self-contained…no they are not. Plus in such a small school half our students are all related to each other and they all eat lunch and other social activities together. The rumor for the last month has been that the government is thinking about shutting down all schools after Eid el Adah due to the fact that they are worried that with millions of Muslims traveling to Mecca for the Hajj, then the flu will just spread even more ramped over all Middle Eastern countries. It sounds like this is a very sure possibility, but for how long we are not sure of yet. Mom, stop worrying, I promise you what I have is just a normal cold. Cough, Cough.

Agony in Agamy

We had a special Hash House Harriers this past weekend.  We called it “Agony in Agamy” but it was actually a quite pleasant day.  Agamy is a smaller “beach” town outside of Alexandria, about a 45 minute drive.  A lot of our local friends have beach houses there.  We had two new runners, teachers from the German school,  join the Hash the week before and they had a friend who let us come use his beach house.  We got there early afternoon and spent awhile relaxing.  The Hares were still out laying the trail.  So I enjoyed playing with his two dogs, especially since they just had puppies only two weeks old!  

 

Eventually we set out on our run.  This week they decided to mark our trail with the traditional Hash flour since it was a “live” trail that was just laid out.  Flour blows away easily and beach front tends to be a bit windy; more importantly, try to find clumps of flour on the beach!!! But it was a very lovely run through the town and a little on the beach too.  It was nice to be able to run on quite streets without getting hit by cars.  When we finished our run we enjoyed the sunset while we did our Hash Circle.

 

Progressive Dinner

The staff residents planned a progressive dinner together last night.  We started at one apartment and had appetizers and cocktails and then walked to the next for soup and salad, then to main course and finally to dessert and after dinner drinks.  It was a great evening with some great food.  Everyone cooked food that we don't normally get in our dinning hall so it was quite the special treat.  I was in charge of dessert and made my first pie crust from scratch.  It was delicious and so light, buttery, and flaky.

Short Cut

We were on our way to take some of the new staff to the Portages’ Club (a hangout for Expats) so we hopped a couple of cabs. Seth and I hailed a taxi and got in with our new tech. coordinator. We weren’t far from our destination and traffic wasn’t too bad but our driver decided to take a short cut off the main road for some reason. When he tried to cut down a side street to get back to the main road he apparently found the only one-way street in Alex that is actually is marked and monitored. All the people along the street where pointing and yelling at him telling him it was a one way street. And at the end of the street there were two police officers just waiting for him. So one officer came over and as he was walking toward the car our driver tried the throw it in reverse and back out of the street, however, another car was blocking him so the police man caught up. Then our driver didn’t want to talk with him and acted like he was ignoring him. The officer opened up his door and the cabbie literally started to push the officer away. The officer got the door open so our driver tried to speed away while the officer was still hanging on to the door so the officer tried to hang on and got his feet on the door frame inside the car so finally our taxi driver stopped and talked to the cop. He got him out of the car and they walked away for awhile. We were so shocked at our driver’s actions that we didn’t know what to do. We didn’t know what etiquette was. Should we wait? How long would this take? How long should we sit there? Is the cabby going to try to scam us into paying the ticket? Should we just get out and walk or hail another cab? After about 15 minutes we finally decide to leave a few pounds in the divers’ seat and get out and walk, then the officer and the driver stopped their discussion and said they were finished so we got back in. When we finally arrived at our destination we were 30 minutes late but with a good story to tell about our short cut.

Subscribe

While we were at home this summer a lot of friends and family talked to us about our blog. While some people check our website every single day to be mostly disappointed by my lack of daily post; others unintentionally forget to check on a regular basis.

Well after much research, I have learned how to let people subscribe to our blog. That way you will get an e-mail every time I post a new blog. So if you look over to your right hand side and down a little, you'll see a gadget that says "Subscribe via e-mail" enter your e-mail address and follow the directions. It will then send you a confirmation e-mail to make sure you actually wanted to subscribe to our blog.

The down-side of this is that you wont have to actually go to our ULR and won't see pictures and the blog layout. So please periodically still check out our actual site; besides, I want you to look at my AccuWeather gadget and rub it in that it is always sunny, clear sky's and 85 degrees here!

Volleyball in Qatar

Last week I took my Girls Varsity Volleyball team to our EMAC tournament in Doha, Qatar. Coach Tamer (boys coach) and I traveled with 17 high school students (8 boys and 9 girls). It was a fantastic trip and we had a wonderful time. Unfortunately the girls did not win…I mean, did not win a single game. However, for only having two weeks of practice due to the school closing I think they did a fantastic job and really made some great improvements in such a short amount of time. I was very proud of them and I think it was their best playing of their volleyball careers. At least, I can say that we never lost by much and always played some very competitive matches. The upside is that our boys won the entire tournament beating the American School of Doha’s boys team, a very impressive feat since that school has dominated the tournament for many years! You should have seen my girls cheering during that final championship games. We definitely had the most school spirit and country pride with their Egyptian drums and belly dancing skirts!

Teaching 6000+ miles away

Some of you may know that I did a couple of Skype webchats with some 6th graders last year. One of my best friends, Genie Scruton, transferred to Mill Creek Elementary this year and has asked me to continue the webchats. With the support and approval of her new principal, John Bartel (another former colleague), we started again this year. I got the opportunity to talk to the kids about my experiences here in Egypt, how schools compare, what food is like (I can get McDonald's delivered 24/7!), and insights into Egyptian culture such as Ramadan (holy month of fasting). We even made the front page of the Shawnee Mission School District's website for a couple days! You can see the article by clicking on this sentence. Check out the pictures - I've never been on a big screen before - must have been kinda scary looking!! Anyway, I had a great time talking to the kids and look forward to more. Thanks Genie & John!!!

Volleyball Tournament

I'm leaving today with my Girls Varsity Volleyball team to our EMAC tournament in Doha, Qatar. Wish us luck. It will be interesting, since we only had 2 1/5 of practice due to school closure, but the girls have been great and have learned so much and improved a lot in that short time. GO FALCONS!

Canadian Thanksgiving

This past weekend, all the resident staff were invited over to our fellow teacher, Debbie’s house, to celebrate Canadian Thanksgiving together. She cooked two turkeys, stuffing, and pumpkin pie; plus, every year she brings back canned cranberries just for Thanksgiving. A lot of us brought over side dishes so we had a huge feast with lots of “family” and a joyful celebration.