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!