Today we took Mom and Dad to the Alexandria Bibliotheca (library). We went on the guided tour and then spent some time looking around the exhibits and the actually library on our own. They wouldn’t let us into the children's library without a child though, we were disappointed about that. It is so depressing when you think about how much was lost when the original library burned down; the largest world collection and so many original historical manuscripts-gone. The new library is doing quite the good job of trying to catch back up to its former glory though. The building itself is spectacular in its architecture and design and is one of the most recognized modern buildings in the world. The outside of the building has every known written language on it. The front of the building is slanted and has windows that provide direct sunlight into the reading tables no matter what time of day and also represent the Eye of Horus. And they have learned from their past disaster and have quite an impressive fire proof system set up. We picked up a book about its architecture to give to Amy and Sean. They are also doing quite the feat by trying to rebuild the collection, not only that, but trying to get their whole collection digitalized and available remotely all over the world! If you would like to see more on the Alexandria Bibliotheca, here is the link to its website. Don't forget to leave a comment.
Saturday, April 4, 2009
April 4th, Spring Break Day 3
April 4th- Sheila's Version
Kristal had warned me and yet I was caught unprepared. To use a public restroom you need to be ready to tip the bathroom attendant and she will provide you with toilet paper. The going rate is 50 piasters. For men is they do not require toilet paper 25 piasters will do. I guess it is universal to primp before the bathroom mirror and I would have liked more time to observe the covered women adjust their scarves.
Today was my first experience riding in a taxi. Seth hailed a taxi by flexing his finger in a palm down position. He had had the front desk person write down the name of were we wanted to go on a piece of paper. The taxi stopped in the middle of the street and we quickly piled in. Our driver did wait until we had closed the door before he took off. We saw during dinner last night that that isn't always the case. Our taxi had a tire that was going flat and another of the taxi drivers signaled that to him. There seems to be a supportive community among the drivers.
During our drive from Cairo to Alexandria we noticed many pigeon coops. There is one also close to Seth and Kristal's balcony. The goal of the sport is to have other peoples pigeons come to roost with your pigeons. The coops are dome shaped to keep them cooler because part of the coop is always in the shade and it creates air movement in the coop.
Our first two days were at Schutz American School. We noticed a couple things about the food, such as the fruit and vegetables are only available in season and they are not genetically engineered. The cantaloupe is green inside and out and is much smaller. But it tastes just like cantaloupe. The cauliflower has much more stem and sparse flower top. We are staying in the apartment next to Seth and Kristal and joining them and their fellow teachers in the dining hall. Everyone has been most accommodating.
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Friday, April 3, 2009
April 3rd- Sheila's Version
I awoke at 4AM to the mournful sound of the "call to prayer". Laying there I was left to wonder if what I was hearing was a human voice or some wind instrument. Kristal later informed me that it was a human voice and that she has heard them sneeze, cough and even drop the microphone. There are four mosques within earshot of their apartment. Each beginning the call to prayer at the first light of day. There are mosques spaced on the desert road and along the Nile such that they will always be able to hear "the call". Today, Friday is their Holy Day with extra broadcasts. Streets may be closed due to people on mats praying if there is overflow from the mosque. There are normally 7 "calls to prayer" each day. We went down to the street with idea that we would get a picture of the mats in the street but stepping out we were met with a funeral tent right across the street. When someone dies they try to have the funeral by dusk of that day. A tent is erected in the street outside the persons home with someone singing or chanting over a loud speaker most of the day. Since it was Friday their Holy Day that person was extra blessed. Their goal is to die during Ramadan their most Holy time.
Walk like an Egyptian
Toady we took a couple of walks around the city and became pedestrians ourselves. Six million people live in Alexandria next to the Nile. Actually almost all of Egypt lives next to the Nile, they have to, it's their only source of water. This creates a lot of congestion and creates quite an experience being a pedestrian. The streets are very narrow and yet they park on both sides of the street with cars and pedestrians moving about. There really aren't street signs so if what was a one way street suddenly becomes a two way street a negotiation of who has to back up takes place. But this is done without the heated tempers that we would expect. Added to the situation is the occasional trashcan sitting in the street to be dogged with possibly a cat or two eating out of it. I even saw a cafe who had put table and chairs in the street for additional seating. Today Kristal and I had a role reversal because I had to take Kristal's had to cross the street. It was also very disturbing that I got cat calls and she normally doesn't. My blond hair is quite the oddity and gets a lot of stares and comments.
After lunch be went to an Armenian festival. One of the teachers Kristal and Seth work with is Armenian and invited them to go. We took the school van with the school's driver. We were sitting in the court yard with the Armenians when a woman came up to Jim and started talking in English. She said that she has relatives that live in Texas. Jim said we have a son who lives in Texas to which she replied Hou son? Jim thought she asked "who's son" so he repeated "my son". She repeated "Hou son", this went on until Jim realized that she was asking if our son lived in Houston. Tourist! The fashion of the Armenian woman is what you could expect in any church basement in the states. It was interesting to see what is behind the walls. Who knew that poinsettias could grow to such heights. There are many walled complexes in Alexandria.
I was surprised by how humid Alexandria is. It gets the breeze right off the Mediterranean and is about 20 to 30 degrees cooler than Cairo. Alexandria gets even more crowded in the summer with people from Cairo trying to escape the heat. Alexandria is also very dusty. Many cars parked are covered to keep the dust off. If they aren't covered many have their windshield wipers raised so that the dust doesn't accumulate on the wiper blades. Egyptians like very ornate furniture and fixtures. Which to me if I had to dust them I won't chose anything that couldn't be easily dusted but the reality is that if you can afford the ornate item you can also afford the maid to dust it. There don't seem to be many bugs. Seth and Kristal have a long sheer curtain that hangs at the door blowing in the wind, very romantic. The sheer is to keep out the bats.
A city of six million creates a lot of strange noises. You quickly accept the "call to prayer" seven times a day. One of the first noises we were bewildered by was the onion man. The men with carts travel the streets with mega phones announcing what they have to sell off of their carts. Sound really travels, I think because all the surfaces are hard. The noises reverberate off of the buildings and you can't actually see where the noise is coming from because there are tall buildings and walls all around. We can also hear the train on what sounds like very rusty tracks. Occasionally you'll hear a rooster crowing from a balcony. Then there is the constant honking. I understand why Seth and Kristal said that the noise was one of the first things they had to get used to.
On our walk we walked by rows of small shops. It reminds me of the self storage facilities with the roll up doors. We saw vegetables, tires, granite, woodworking, ironing, chicken coops, hanging beef, candy and water pipes.
We walked over to the 5 star Four Seasons hotel for dinner. It was quite opulent right on the Mediterranean. After dinner we walked around the mall that's on the hotel's lower level. Walking at night is different because instead of honking they flash their headlights. There is so much ambient light that they don't run with their headlights on. We noticed that the one pedestrian that the taxi drivers actually brake for are the alley cats. I have concluded that their lack of traffic rules is a form of population control. But seriously, I worry about what happens to a person who is injured because Egypt is definitely not handicap accessible.
April 3rd, Spring Break Day 2
Yep, just like we expected Mom and Dad were awoken at 4:00 A.M. with the dawn call to prayer, not to mention all the other noises around here. We did warn them, in fact, I think that’s one of our first descriptive words we use when anyone asks us about living in Egypt…NOISY.
We got a kick out of how many times Mom and Dad would be shocked about something they saw or did and Seth and I would just say, “We’ve been telling you that for months!” and their reply was always, “I know you’ve been telling us but you just don’t understand it until you see/experience it for yourself.” Guess that just goes to prove what Seth and I keep saying….YOU ALL NEED TO COME OUT AND VISIT US.
Anyways, there is a Call To Prayer five times a day and it’s all based around the position of the sun. Every Mosque has a minaret, which until recently, a man would walk up to the top and sing out the Call To Prayer at the appropriate times. However, now a days, every Mosque has (a low quality) speaker system on the top of each minaret and a guy on a microphone (not a recording) sings out the Call To Prayer. It can be quite peaceful if there was only one Mosque with a man who can actually sing well. However, where we live, we are literally in the middle of a two block radius of five Mosques which all blare their speakers at the same time, over one another, and not always is the guy a very good singer. So it just becomes a whole lot of noise. After being here for months, you start to tune it out and it doesn’t always bother you as much…but it took awhile to get used to it. Sometimes it still wakes us up, but usually we can roll over and go back to sleep.
Seth and I would laugh, because we didn’t realize how use to we got to some of these noises until Mom and Dad would get startled, and ask, “What’s that!” and Seth and I would look at each other and look around straining our ears for something odd and Mom and Dad would then proclaim, “Oh my gosh, they don’t even here it, they are used to that noise.” Then Seth and I would realize what they were talking about and say, “Oh, that! That’s just the onion guy.” Which is a guy that goes around with his donkey cart filled with onions and garlic and has a megaphone hooked up to a car battery and yells some indistinguishable phrase that even the locals can’t understand, about coming to buy his onions. Or, “Oh that’s just the train.” Referring to the god awful screeching, which I imagine to be the same sound an ancient Pterodactyl would cry as he hunted, train that runs behind our school.
We hadn’t planned much to do today since we knew they would be jet lagged and tired. We gave them a tour of our school’s campus. They got to see Seth’s and mine classrooms and office and realize just what we mean when Seth and I sometimes say that there are days that we don’t ever get more than 100 yards apart from each other the entire day. They also saw the apartment that we will be moving into next year; a bit of an upgrade with a second bedroom and a bigger/nicer kitchen.
After lunch, I took Mom and Dad to an Armenian Easter Bazaar. Our high school secretary, and my friend Karen is Armenian and she invited us to come to the Armenian Club for the Bazaar. Jane, the librarian whom I work with all day long, came along with us. The Armenian Club is just a multipurpose building with a very nice enclosed garden for social events. Alexandria has a large Expat community. Expat stands for Ex-patriot and means anyone who does not live and work in their country of birth. Seth and I are Expats here. There are large populations of Armenian’s, Greeks, and Italians here and they have their own communities within Alexandria with their own schools, clubs, and restaurants. The large communities formed between World War I World War II when they came here to escape their own countries which were not safe at the time and many have stayed and have fourth generations here now. Usually expats of other nationalities can also go to their clubs and restaurants but not many let Egyptians in. We go to the Greek and Protégées club a lot. Anyways, there wasn’t much to the Easter Bazaar, no handmade crafts like we were hoping but we did by some food. We spent an hour relaxing in their beautiful garden and meeting Karen’s family and friends. They had a HUGE poinsettia plant, I didn’t even know they could grow bigger than the normal little potted Christmas plants.
That evening Mom stayed home with me and I showed off what I’ve been learning about digital scrapbooking (thank you Sarah), while Seth and Dad took Sokkwi to the vet for his second round of shots. We have to get all of his vaccinations in before we bring him home with us this summer. Our cat will actually have a kitty passport to prove his health records. Our vet is actually the brother of someone we work with, we like and trust him, although his clinic in not exactly anything like you would find in the states. It’s just a single room off of their house and not the cleanliness or up-to-date you would find back home. This was the first time that Dad took a taxi in Egypt rather than a driver, although he didn’t get the usual thrill-ride as expected. They actually managed to find a cab driver who spoke fluent English and drove really safely as he politely talked with Dad about his beloved home Alex. Not, to worry, Mom and Dad got to experience many more typical cab rides the rest of their trip.
When they got back we all went to San Stefano, the huge new mall and Four Seasons Hotel that is within walking distance of the school, to eat at Fresca, a nice relaxing upscale café that we like, which looks out over the Cornish and the Mediterranean Sea. This means another walk through real life Egypt and crossing Horraha Street, a major four lane (six cars across) road. It’s hard walking through town with Mom, even though I tell her to keep up and never to hesitate when I go, I would still look back every once in awhile and realize that she was 50 yards behind me, too scared to walk in between two cars. The other hard part was that I’ve always told everyone that I think Egypt is very safe and friendly and that I never get harassed on the street by men, which is true. However, my mom with her bright blond hair which is quite unique here got all sorts of attention on the streets. Nothing too bad just a few, “Hey California Blondie.”, “I like your hair.”, “Hey pretty lady.” , “Hey blond hair woman.”. I had more of a hard time with it than Mom did. It’s a sad day when you realize your roles with your parents have reversed. You have to hold your mother’s hand to cross the street, and your Mom is that one that get the cat calls from the men.
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Thursday, April 2, 2009
April 2nd, Spring Break Day 1
Mom and Dad got to try out our meals provided by our chefs last night. Unfortunately, it wasn’t exactly our normal type dinner since a lot of the resident staff had already left on their spring break vacations and the School Board was having a meeting and joined us for dinner. So dinner was extra nice since the Board was there and our normal eating companions weren’t. They were quite impresses. Of course, it’s the one time I’ve had broccoli since I’ve been here and Mom wasn’t believing me when I had told her of certain foods we don’t get over here.
After dinner Mom and Dad unpacked their suitcases which were full of goodies for us. In addition to some slightly belated birthday gifts for me, and some Easter treats from our families there was a whole list of things we had asked my parents to bring. A lot was for Sokkwi (the cat) and other things we can’t get over here like vanilla extract and Girl Scout cookies from my niece. Yummy!
Although they were super excited to be here and had so excited energy from all the new things they had seen and already experienced and playing with our psycho cat, they were still quite exhausted from their long trip so we let them crash early. Besides we knew they would wake up around 4:00 A.M. They are staying in the empty apartment next to ours on the fourth floor. (ha ha, making them walk up like we have to).
April 2nd- Sheila's Version
After landing we bought our visas and had our passports checked. We knew we had to have cash for our visas thanks to Seth and Kristal and were prepared for that. I got my first stamp in my passport. Seth and Kristal had arranged for a driver to pick us up. He spoke English and was very helpful explaining the new sights.
The street leaving the airport is lined with plants and flowers and murals. That quickly changes to crumbling buildings topped with satellite dishes and rusty air conditioners. Cairo is a very condensed city with the great majority of buildings being multi-story. The flat roof tops of buildings are covered with rubble. The buildings may be constructed with the anticipation of adding on another floor, leaving the building with pillars and rebar sticking out the top. Brick, stucco or stone make up the majority of the buildings. Very little color is used. Laundry hanging from the balconies is predominately what gives the landscape color. Although you don't notice any underwear hanging out with the laundry. The buildings are very close together making the streets very narrow. The sidewalks seem to be of two extremes. They are either granite tile or rubble.
We had been warned about the traffic and the fact that Egypt has the highest percent of traffic accidents in the world but until you experience it for yourself, you just can't understand. And yet what seems like total chaos seems to work for them. As I see it the basis problem is that drivers don't stay in their own lanes. They travel so close together that you can literally reach your hand into the car next to you. On what we would consider a 3 lane street, they will travel with 5 lanes. Added to the cars are the pedestrians which are like rabbits darting across the street or like the game "Frogger". The pedestrians only cross one lane at a time, just standing in the street waiting until an opportunity to cross the next lane. Added to the cars and pedestrians are the merchants standing in the street selling what look like pretzels or newspapers. Added to the cars, pedestrians and merchants are the donkey carts. An upscale cart would be drawn by a horse. There is constant honking to warn of your presence. There is surprisingly little road rage and the honking is really just to inform the other drivers of your existence. Many cars carry the battle scars of too close encounters and yet a surprising number of cars still have their rear view mirrors. As we drove from Cairo to Alexandria our driver said they had just installed cameras on the desert road to catch speeders - but he knew where the cameras were so he won't get a ticket. There were two check points where the police were pulling over cars that had been caught speeding. Another fascinating fact is the lack of traffic lights. The cross streets don't have intersections as we know them. They make U turns and right turns. If you need to make a left turn you go past and make a U turn, come back and make a right turn. We did watch a controlled intersection in Alexandria with a traffic light. One officer stood in the street and determined when to change the light and then signaled to the other officer in the control booth to change the light, who blew his whistle. When the traffic decided that the cross traffic had had their turn, they started again, with or without the green light. Not that the light actually had a colored lenses to indicate the color anyway.
As we arrived at the gate at Schutz school our driver spoke to the 2 armed guards in Arabic and in that conversation we understood the word "Kristal" and the guards responded back in Arabic with the word "Kristal" in the sentence and they opened the gate. As parents it was an interesting feeling to have that conversation with armed guards and your daughters name as the only word you understood and the word that would open the gates. It is mandatory for all boys of a certain age to serve in the military. Therefore they have to create jobs for all these boys. So although the gate at the school probably doesn't need to be guarded but that's another place to place the military. Boys whose father is dead or is the only son do not have to serve.
Spring Break
They arrived around 4:30 p.m. today. They were exhausted from the travel: Kansas City to New York to Cairo and then a car trip to Alexandria which took 26 hours. The look on Sheila's face when she finally saw Kristal was priceless. A mix between utter fear from the driving in Egypt and surprised to still be alive, exhaustion, and gratefulness to finally see her baby girl. She immediately burst into tears; I'm not sure if they were happy, scared, or tired tears.
We immediately fully immersed them in Egyptian life since we needed to walk to a store to get a part for Kristal's computer before we left. Although they were totally out of their comfort zone they were good sports about the trip and enjoyed the difference in cultures of walking through very poor neighborhoods with torn up streets strewn in trash and being narrowly missed by the passing cars by a mere inch. Typical walk here. We had a total role reversal when Kristal had to hold her mom's hand to cross the street. Granted, crossing streets here mean crossing a very busy four lane road with actually 6 cars across since they don't use the lanes and you have to cross only by one car lane at a time, kind of like the old Atari game Frogger.
Once we safely got them back to campus, they got to experiance a typical dinner in our dining hall by our chefs and meet some of the the other staff whom we work with that haven't already left for their spring break trips.
After they unpacked, they brought a full suitcase of stuff that we requested from home including many belated birthday gifts for Kristal; we let them go to bed a little early. Besides, we knew they would be up at 4:00 am due to the morning call of prayer.
We'll try to keep you up-to-date on our spring break travels as much as possible. We are going on a Nile cruise and also spend a few days in Cairo so I'm not sure how much internet access we'll have. Mom is keeping a journal and I plan on letting them write to give you their personal experiences and opinions.
Saturday, March 28, 2009
Birthday Letter
Kristal's Brithday
Friday, March 20, 2009
Our 1st Anniversary
We celebrated the day enjoy the full spa treatment at the Four Seasons Hotel and a nice dinner out. It was a wonderfully relaxing day.
Our real gift to each other is a trip to Italy at the end of the school year. We were going to do our anniversary trip over spring break but Kristal's parents are coming for 15 days and we are going to take a cruise on the Nile as well as many other activities in Cairo and Alexandria. We are both very excited for them to be here for spring break and our Italy vacation later on.
Thursday, March 19, 2009
St. Patrick's Day Party
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Ladies Weekend
However, my nice quite weekend to myself didn’t quite work out that way. I ended up being too social. We had Noah’s 5th birthday part on campus Friday afternoon. It was fun, but I helped Jean and Tamer a lot with the set up and kid control. Noah made out like a bandit and got so many presents. Not to mention the coolest guy in Pre-K for getting to have a party at the school play ground on a weekend!
That evening, six of us girls went out to the Greek Club and met up with our new high school secretary, Karen and a few other girls. We had a really fun “girls night” out and enjoyed a really good fish meal. The Greek Club is literally that…a club for Greeks. There is a fairly large population of Greeks in Egypt and they all know each other. We had to pay to get in since we aren’t Greek. Karen is Syrian but engaged to a Greek so she goes there just about every night. It’s kind of like a country club (without the golf); there is a restaurant/bar, lounge, recreation room, etc.
The next day, we did our normal every other week run to Carrefour (Middle Eastern Wal-Mart) and did our normal shopping and had lunch at Costa Coffee. A nice little sandwich and coffee shop that we really like, there are a few around town, we’ll call it (Middle Eastern Panera)
Then that afternoon, four of us girls went to a ladies house for her Jewelry Open-House. Maia, one of our Pre-Kindergarten teachers, whom we absolutely love, has a best friend who makes local Egyptian silver jewelry and Maie invited us to her open-house sale. I always love going to the locals apartments and seeing what they look like. From the outside, ever building here looks really old, run-down, and cheap. But you can never tell how nice it might be until you go inside and then the apartments could be amazing. The Egyptian style is lost of huge crown moldings along the ceiling and walls with lots of gold paint. They also love large furniture pieces, especially dining room sets. They enjoy entertaining and will often have many different seating areas even within one room. So even if an apartment is large, it often feels small or doesn’t have much moving room once they crowd all their large furniture and several different seating areas in. When we arrived at the ladies house, it was quite crowed with women and very little room to move or walk in-between the people and the furniture. But she had tons of jewelry out on display all over the apartment and it was all so amazing you didn’t mind not being able to more quickly because it took awhile to admire all the pieces. I found two silver rings I really liked. One almost matches perfectly with my favorite bracelet that I was wearing that day, therefore, by Women’s Law: You have to buy anything that would go perfectly with what you’re currently wearing. I also got a silver necklace with an Arabic saying that roughly translates into, “May God watch over you.” We ended up spending four hours there. We were surprised when we first arrived to see our friend Maie, who is a covered lady, with her scarf off. I had yet to be able to attend a women’s only function where the women could be unveiled. After we decided on what we wanted to purchase we sat down and had a nice long conversation with Maie and a few of her friends. At one point of time, I notice that someone got a phone call and one word was spoken to the room and all of a sudden ever women were putting their scarves back on. Maie explained that a husband had called and was coming up so they all had to cover again.
So I had a fun but very busy ladies weekend and not much time to myself. I was happy to see Seth when he returned on Sunday and had missed him. He brought me a little wooden jewelry box from Oman with a silver and onyx necklace on it. I really made out well with new jewelry this weekend!
Monday, March 16, 2009
Basketball in Oman
Well, I got my first exposure to the world of International Basketball last weekend. After several years off, I took the Schutz Girls' Basketball team to Muscat, Oman, for a 3 day tournament. This was the first time in 3 years that the girls had fielded a team and many of them hadn't played basketball outside of PE class. However, they worked hard and put forth a good effort in practices.
Days 1 & 2 of the tournament were round robin between the 6 schools that attended. They were: American British Academy from Muscat (the tournament hosts), The American International School of Muscat, American International School of Abu Dhabi, Al Nahda National School from Abu Dhabi, Ammerican Community School of Amman, Jordan, and of course Schutz American School. Day 3 of the tournament was an elimination day to place all teams first through sixth. Unfortunately, neither Schutz team won a game in the round robin portion. The boys team won their final game to finish in 5th place while the girls lost both games again and finished in 6th place. However, they played hard and despite being blown out in all of their games, they never once quit! I was so proud of their effort. In fact, they played their best basketball on the final day - as it should be! On the first night, one of the girls won the 3-point shooting skills contest...yay Shereen! At the end of tournament banquet, his girls were rewarded by their effort with the Sportsmanship Award Trophy! Another proud accomplishment. In fact, they received 6 out of the 12 votes (each coach and each team or captain vote) and actually received 6 out of 10 votes because we didn't vote for ourselves...something these girls were proud of and excited about.
Overall, I had a good time in Oman, though he didn't get to do much sightseeing. I was able to spend time with our friends Ty (we met him when he brought the Oman team to the JV Games tournament the weekend before) and his wife and son one afternoon for an hour or so and visit their house. I was also able to go by the Grand Mosque built by the Sultan of Oman. It's pretty impressive and very cool to view at night. I was completely exhausted coming home - not feeling well when I left, followed by 18-hour days of basketball, and then a day long trip home. I'm finally almost caught up on rest. Who knows what next year will bring as far as a team goes, but these girls can continue to improve and hopefully win a game next year. It's hard when some of these teams play 30+ games in a season and scrimmage against other local teams or travel to multiple tournaments. They play more like a traditional American basketball season, but our school had 4 events/activities practicing at one time and when you only have 110 students to make these teams, the same kids tend to participate in all of the activities. Not to make an excuse, but that's just how it is at a small school. Either way, I enjoyed my time returning to coaching and was quite touched when some of the girls came up and thanked me in person for coaching them this year. These are the type of students we get to teach and it makes things so worth it!
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Seth leaves for Oman
This basketball team has been a constant source of minor frustration. Schutz hasn't had a girls basketball team for three years now. Basketball is just not a Middle Eastern sport. Seth really wanted to coach again, in fact, that's one of the reasons why we came over here. So there was a lot of pleading, begging, and compromises from the administration, Seth, and the few girls that really wanted to play to get enough girls to make a team. Their skills are defiantly not at the level that Seth is used to coaching; but for the most part he has had fun practicing with them. They should have a fun weekend and we wish them good luck.
Saturday, March 7, 2009
Junior Varsity Academic Games
We are hosting the EMAC Junior Varsity Academic Games this weekend. We have eight other schools from the EMAC conference from
It just so happened that the coach from
