Coming Home
Seth and I are coming home this Saturday Dec. 6th. Seth’s dad is having major surgery in Indianapolis, IN on the 8th and we wanted to be there with him. We’ll be spending most of our time in Indianapolis but will come down to Kansas City at some point depending on how well Mr. Spurlock is doing. We were lucky that this upcoming week is Eid El Adha and then we start winter break on the 19th. So we get to be home for a month with only missing 7 days of school. We’ll be returning to Egypt on Jan. 1st.
We are really excited to come home, especially for Christmas although we wish it was for better circumstances. We can’t wait to see our dog Desiree as well as our family and friends. Plus we have a list of food that we miss and can’t wait to sink our teeth into. On the top of that list is a nice big glass of ice cold real milk, Mom’s pumpkin bread and cranberry tea. We’ll also have to make a stop at Chipotle, Panera Bread Company, and Cold Stone Creamery. We are also looking forward to going out to a bar and getting to order alcohol. Surprisingly, neither one of us is missing driving, although it will be nice to be able to get in a car and not pray that you’ll arrive at your destination alive every time. It’ll seem almost weird to be in a country with traffic rules.
Although we are looking forward to coming home, at the same we are disappointed that we are not staying here. We are going to miss out on several school/staff activities that we were looking forward too as well as the traveling we had previously planed for over the breaks. We were going to take a cruise down the Nile River, see Luxor and Aswan as well as spend New Years Eve at the pyramids. I’m sure we’ll be able to some other time though.
As I mentioned earlier, Eid El Adha starts next week. It means the Feast of Sacrifice and takes place approximately seventy days after the Eid el-Fitr (the feast after Ramadan). The Eid el-Adah coincides with the end of the pilgrimage to Mecca; the culmination of the pilgrimage, the Day of Afaft, is the day before the Eid. This is when the pilgrims spend the day in prayer and devotion on Mt. Arafat, where the Prophet Mohammed delivered his last sermon.
The Eid el-Adha is a celebration of the obedience to God shown by the Prophet Ibrahim because he was ready to sacrifice his firstborn son when asked. Ibrahim was rewarded for being a true believer when a sheep appeared in the place of Ismail, and it was sacrificed instead. For this reason, Muslims slaughter either a sheep, or if they are able to afford it, a cow, to commemorate Ibrahim's trust in God. People have been buying their sheep or cows for the past week or two and fattening them up, they keep them tied up on the street outside their door, or just in the alleyways with someone watching them. I’ve even seen a couple on balconies. So it’s been interesting walking around town the past couple of days, and we saw even more when we were in Rosetta last weekend. It’s sometimes comical every once in awhile when one will escape and seeing people chase after it. People have arrangements with butchers to butcher them before the Eid but sometimes they do it themselves. We keep on being told how horrible that butchering day is and how all the streets are flowing red with blood. We’ve been told we want to get out of town or stay inside and not even open a window that day it’s so disgusting; so I’m glad we’ll be gone. With the meat, they keep 1/3 of it, another 1/3 has to go to relatives, and the last 1/3 has to go to the poor. If they are rich they will usually just buy two animals and give the second to the poor. So during this time, Mosques are filled with meat for the poor.
There is a special dawn prayer on the morning of the first day of the Eid. So if we were staying here we’d hear on the loud speakers from the five mosques we live by; the congregation reciting over and over again: "Allahu akbar, Allahu akbar, la illah il Allah" (God is great, God is great. There is no god but God).
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Holidays With the Schutz Family
Working Thanksgiving Day sucked in principle, it is irritation that for an American school we get all Egyptian and Muslim holidays off but not a very important American holiday off. However, our chefs worked very hard all day and prepared us an extremely nice candle lit Thanksgiving Day Dinner. It was very good and nice to share with our Schutz family and then the coaches from the soccer tournament that we are also hosting this weekend. 
On Saturday evening we all got together and put up a Christmas tree and decorated the dinning room for Christmas. It was so nice, we had Christmas music playing and we iced sugar cookies and drank hot chocolate. It’s great to have this nice family here away from home.
Saturday, November 29, 2008
Rosetta
Yesterday we got invited along on a day trip to Rosetta, Egypt by our Head of School, Nada and new baby Malcolm and some of her friends from Cairo. First though, we stopped by the soccer fields and watched one of the boys and one of the girl’s games. We are hosting the ISAC soccer tournament this weekend. The other four schools are from Cairo, Abu Dhabi, Kuwait, and Go Falcons!
Rosetta is where they found the Rosetta Stone in 1799 and how they were able to relearn the ancient lost language of reading hieroglyphics. It’s only about an hours drive east from Alexandria along the Mediterranean Sea coast; it was a lovely drive with all the tropical palm trees and orange groves which are now in season.
We were a little disappointed though that we didn’t get to see any museums or anything about the Rosetta Stone. So many things are closed and under reconstruction since they are tying to create a place that will attract more tourists. We stopped at a little restaurant on the water front to order some food for lunch. The owner was very happy to serve us and informed us the food will be ready in one and a half hours. When we were shocked by this, he said, “Fresh Fish!” He was literally going to go out and catch the fish and then cook for us. After much debate we decided this was ok but we were going to go see the town while he fished, we gave him half the money for the meal since we was worried we wouldn’t come back.
So we took a nice long walking tour of the village and saw around nine Ottoman houses from the 17th century
and also the Azouz bammam (public bath house) from the 18th century which is almost entirely intact since it’s made out of marble. I really like the ceiling which had little holes covered in stained glass to let in the light. In one area the holes were all sorts of different shapes and colors and it reminded me of the little marshmallows in Lucky Charms.
Since we were so hungry and were still waiting for our fish to be caught we bought some very good cookies from a baker in the street. The whole two hours that we walked around a little local girl followed us around the entire town. It didn’t help that we gave her cookies. The little girl was not our only companion on the walk, like always when we are out touring, it’s inevitable that the military police always get alerted to our presents and one (or several) always joins us for “our protection”. Not that there is anything to need to be protected from, it is very safe here and very few instances of trouble of tourist. It is just that, they are always very concerned for Americans safety because they don’t ever want to have to deal with our government if there was a safety issue and they really want to increase their tourism industry. I think part of it also is that Egypt has a mandatory service in the military law and I think there are just too many military men and they just plain need something to do sometimes. The funny part about it was that Nada’s friends from Cairo are Canadians that teach at the Canadian school there and they were shocked because they never get military escorts. Nobody ever cares about the Canadians. When we went back to our little restaurant to enjoy our “fresh fish” our military escort turned into a full truck load of men. And by the time we left town we had a whole caravan of military trucks ahead and behind us. So I can now say I have been escorted out of town by the police.
Rosetta is where they found the Rosetta Stone in 1799 and how they were able to relearn the ancient lost language of reading hieroglyphics. It’s only about an hours drive east from Alexandria along the Mediterranean Sea coast; it was a lovely drive with all the tropical palm trees and orange groves which are now in season.
We were a little disappointed though that we didn’t get to see any museums or anything about the Rosetta Stone. So many things are closed and under reconstruction since they are tying to create a place that will attract more tourists. We stopped at a little restaurant on the water front to order some food for lunch. The owner was very happy to serve us and informed us the food will be ready in one and a half hours. When we were shocked by this, he said, “Fresh Fish!” He was literally going to go out and catch the fish and then cook for us. After much debate we decided this was ok but we were going to go see the town while he fished, we gave him half the money for the meal since we was worried we wouldn’t come back.
So we took a nice long walking tour of the village and saw around nine Ottoman houses from the 17th century
and also the Azouz bammam (public bath house) from the 18th century which is almost entirely intact since it’s made out of marble. I really like the ceiling which had little holes covered in stained glass to let in the light. In one area the holes were all sorts of different shapes and colors and it reminded me of the little marshmallows in Lucky Charms.Since we were so hungry and were still waiting for our fish to be caught we bought some very good cookies from a baker in the street. The whole two hours that we walked around a little local girl followed us around the entire town. It didn’t help that we gave her cookies. The little girl was not our only companion on the walk, like always when we are out touring, it’s inevitable that the military police always get alerted to our presents and one (or several) always joins us for “our protection”. Not that there is anything to need to be protected from, it is very safe here and very few instances of trouble of tourist. It is just that, they are always very concerned for Americans safety because they don’t ever want to have to deal with our government if there was a safety issue and they really want to increase their tourism industry. I think part of it also is that Egypt has a mandatory service in the military law and I think there are just too many military men and they just plain need something to do sometimes. The funny part about it was that Nada’s friends from Cairo are Canadians that teach at the Canadian school there and they were shocked because they never get military escorts. Nobody ever cares about the Canadians. When we went back to our little restaurant to enjoy our “fresh fish” our military escort turned into a full truck load of men. And by the time we left town we had a whole caravan of military trucks ahead and behind us. So I can now say I have been escorted out of town by the police.
Thursday, November 27, 2008
Friday, November 21, 2008
Cairo Trip
Today was a very exciting day and one I’ve been waiting for a long time and will never forget. We spent the day in Cairo with our friends Debbie and her husband Mahmoud. Debbie is Canadian and has taught at Schutz for fifteen years, her husband is Egyptian and a professor at the Science Institute.
We finally got to see the Pyramids in Giza up close and personal. It was an amazing sight. On the Giza plateau there is the Sphinx, the Great Pyramid, three other large pyramids as well as several other small pyramids, some ruins and even some Greco-Roman ruins, and the Heliopolis. We didn’t have a whole lot of time to spend so we didn’t go inside of any of the pyramids or see the new Solar Boat Museum, or take a camel ride out to see every single pyramid close up; but we did climb the Great Pyramid! When you get right up to it and try to climb it, it is a pretty awe inspiring monument. Each block is huge, about five feet tall and very hard to climb up. I can’t imagine how they moved them and build these things. The Sphinx isn’t quite as big as I imagined it to be, although when I thought about it every picture I’ve seen they are always below it looking up so it seems bigger. It’s still pretty big though.
It’s sad that the city has grown so close to them. On one side the city is pretty much right up next to the pyramids, which is odd because when you see pictures it looks like they are way out in the middle of nowhere. On the other side of them it does stretch out into the open dessert. I hope they stop the building from getting any closer though. It’s also always sad to me when we are out touring that Egypt hasn’t taken precautions to preserve their national treasures and they don’t have national park systems set up like we do in the states. It would be nice to also have signs and guides to give educational background on the landmarks and security to help control the tourist. There was a lot of security at the pyramids but they didn’t care what people were doing and there was also a ton of trash all around.
We finally got to see the Pyramids in Giza up close and personal. It was an amazing sight. On the Giza plateau there is the Sphinx, the Great Pyramid, three other large pyramids as well as several other small pyramids, some ruins and even some Greco-Roman ruins, and the Heliopolis. We didn’t have a whole lot of time to spend so we didn’t go inside of any of the pyramids or see the new Solar Boat Museum, or take a camel ride out to see every single pyramid close up; but we did climb the Great Pyramid! When you get right up to it and try to climb it, it is a pretty awe inspiring monument. Each block is huge, about five feet tall and very hard to climb up. I can’t imagine how they moved them and build these things. The Sphinx isn’t quite as big as I imagined it to be, although when I thought about it every picture I’ve seen they are always below it looking up so it seems bigger. It’s still pretty big though.
It’s sad that the city has grown so close to them. On one side the city is pretty much right up next to the pyramids, which is odd because when you see pictures it looks like they are way out in the middle of nowhere. On the other side of them it does stretch out into the open dessert. I hope they stop the building from getting any closer though. It’s also always sad to me when we are out touring that Egypt hasn’t taken precautions to preserve their national treasures and they don’t have national park systems set up like we do in the states. It would be nice to also have signs and guides to give educational background on the landmarks and security to help control the tourist. There was a lot of security at the pyramids but they didn’t care what people were doing and there was also a ton of trash all around.
The other thing that surprised me about our visit is that I was expecting bus loads of American and European tourist at the pyramids but there wasn’t. There were maybe two or three tour busses but you didn’t really see them much, who was there was hundreds and hundreds of Egyptian school children. They were what we would call “inner city” children and it was probably the first time they had seen the greatest thing about their country even though they probably live just a few miles away from them. And although, they were probably from Cairo they were acting like it was the first time they have ever seen an American in person. I was surprised how many kept on coming up to me and taking my picture. I joked around with the first few and held out my hand and said “baksheesh” after they took my picture which means tip. You’ll see a lot of camel owners or venders asking for baksheesh if you take a picture of them, but after awhile it got tiring getting my picture taken.
After our lovely adventurous romp around the pyramids we went to the Mena House Hotel and had a charming lunch in the tea room with a great view of the pyramids. The Mena House has been there since the late 1800’s and is absolutely gorgeous with it’s marble walls, mirrored ceilings, and intricate wooden mashrabiyya. It’s been a dozen old famous movies and hundreds of famous people have stayed there over the years.
After lunch we changed into some nicer clothes and went to the Cairo Opera House, we had tickets to see Stomp. I had been wanting to see Stomp for several years and think it is the coolest thing that I got to see it at the Cairo Opera House. The performance was amazing and I would highly recommend it. It was very creative and entertaining.
After the show we went to the Grand Hyatt hotel, first stopping at the Hard Rock Café Cairo to get a few souvenirs but didn’t eat there. We had a lovely dinner at a Lebanese restaurant right down at the waterfront of the Nile River. It was so peaceful and relaxing watching the felucca’s sail by and the lights from the Cairo tower change in a nice light display. The food was great and they had local women make traditional Arabic bread in a brick oven.
It was a wonderful, exciting day with experiences we will never forget. It helped to get out and do something fun so I wasn’t so upset about Moonshine.
Thursday, November 20, 2008
In Loving Memory
After 17 wonderful years of love and companionship we had to put down our cat Moonshine. She had been living with my parents and had been fighting cancer for the last six years. The tumor had returned and grown so big that it was the best decision for her but the hardest one for me, especially since I was so far away. I felt like such a bad person, abandoning her when she was so old and sick. I said goodbye to her over skype but it was really hard and I cried horribly for days. I had secretly been hoping that she could hang on until I got to see her in December so I could say goodbye in person but after my parents let me take one look at her on skype I knew it would be cruel to make her hold on just for my selfish needs. My parents made her a nice little place to rest in the back yard.
She was a wonderful cat for so many years of my life. I got her as a kitten from the stable I took riding lessons at and she has been through so much with me and my family including moving states four times. She absolutely loved playing with our first dog Taffy, but by the time my second dog Desiree came around she decided she hated dogs with a passion, even though Desiree loved her. What she did love though was tuna juice, quail feathers, head butts, and napping in the sun. She was a beautiful Russian Blue but she was born with genetic mutations. But they were the best mutations ever; she literally had thumbs and could pick up pencils. I will miss her funny little mitten paws. She slept with me and my family in bed but it was funny because the older she got the more she thought she moved up in status. She started sleeping at the foot of the bed as a kitten, and slowly moved up the bed until by the time she was at her oldest the thought she had earned the right to sleep smack dab in the middle of your pillow and don’t even think about shooing her away.
She was a wonderful cat and will be missed dearly by many.
PTA Bingo Night
The annual PTA bingo night was tonight. It’s the PTA fundraiser that has become a tradition at Schutz and is a very popular night. The auditorium was packed and children of all ages, parents, and staff really enjoyed themselves and get pretty serious about the game. The reason why it’s so popular is because they have some really nice prizes to win, like plane tickets, weekends at a five star resort, day at a spa, and dinner for two at some of the nicest restaurants in town. We were really hoping to win the free plane tickets but all we won was a meal at McDonalds. Oh well, we can’t all be big winner and we had a lot of fun. Bingo does get really frustrating though when you’re down to one last number to be called to win that big prize and you never get your number called.
Saturday, November 8, 2008
Monasteries Trip
We took a trip to several Monasteries on this day but I haven’t had time to write a good story and post pictures a bit it yet. So don’t forget check back in a few days to see it.
Friday, October 31, 2008
Fall Festival
Yesterday was the big Fall Festival here at Schutz, it’s an annual tradition where we put on a Festival around Halloween and every class has two booths with games they created to raise money for their class. The eight grade and seniors do a big class trip at the end of each year. A lot of us dressed up, making costumes out of what we could think of. Friends and parents are also invited to come.
Overall everyone one had a great night, except perhaps Seth and I. Seth’s advisory class came up with the idea of doing a booth where you can put money in a jar with a teachers name on it and the top two money raising teachers would have to kiss a donkey. Well, Seth and I where the top two teachers. Although I’d like to point out that Seth had well over two hundred more pounds in his jar than me. The donkey is thought of to be a very dirty and bad animal in Egypt and these rich kids have never had any contact with a farm or any animals really so they thought this was a huge deal. Of course, Seth and I being the teachers from Kansas and around farms and animal lovers kind of spoiled their fun when we didn’t over react about having to kiss a donkey and actually liked the donkey and enjoyed petting it. We had also volunteered to get a pie in the face at the end of the night with a bunch of other teachers, although we will never do that again. Instead of using whipped cream they used shaving cream and that really stings your eyes.
Overall everyone one had a great night, except perhaps Seth and I. Seth’s advisory class came up with the idea of doing a booth where you can put money in a jar with a teachers name on it and the top two money raising teachers would have to kiss a donkey. Well, Seth and I where the top two teachers. Although I’d like to point out that Seth had well over two hundred more pounds in his jar than me. The donkey is thought of to be a very dirty and bad animal in Egypt and these rich kids have never had any contact with a farm or any animals really so they thought this was a huge deal. Of course, Seth and I being the teachers from Kansas and around farms and animal lovers kind of spoiled their fun when we didn’t over react about having to kiss a donkey and actually liked the donkey and enjoyed petting it. We had also volunteered to get a pie in the face at the end of the night with a bunch of other teachers, although we will never do that again. Instead of using whipped cream they used shaving cream and that really stings your eyes.
Sunday, October 26, 2008
Volleyball Tournament
I just got back from taking my volleyball girls team to Amman, Jordan for our EMAC (Eastern Mediterranean Athletic Conference) volleyball tournament for four days. How sports work in international school is that we practice for four to six weeks and then you go to a tournament hosted by another country to compete against other international schools from all over the Middle East. (We’ll be hosting the soccer tournament next month, and Seth will travel to Oman next semester for Basketball) The school pays for everything for the coaches and the students have to pay half of their expenses. At this tournament there were two schools from Amman, Doha, Kuwait, Cairo, and us.
Coach Malak, the boys coach, and I had 19 kids to travel with, ten boys and nine girls. One of my players got hurt the day before we left. I was worried about traveling internationally with high school kids but it turned out to be nothing to worry about. These kids travel so much and all over the world they are pros at it. In fact, I think they can tell you exactly where the Starbucks is at every major international airport in the world.
The players and the coaches are hosted by the local team. We lucked out and six of my girls all got to stay at the same HUGE house out in the country and the other three were all together too. I stayed with the high school chemistry/physics teacher named Stephanie; it was her first year in Amman but her third international school to work at. The best part was she had a cat named Chloe and a German Shepard puppy named Jai. So I was very happy to have animals around and she was happy that I liked animals so much, in fact they even slept with me while I was there. Stephanie was very nice and we hit it off pretty well. The school provides them with furnished apartments around the city and also provides them with cars to rent. Her apartment was so nice a new and much bigger than ours, I was jealous.
I was really impressed with Amman and would love to go back and see more of it. It’s in the mountains so has nicer weather than Alexandria and even better it has grass and trees! Although the ground is extremely rocky, I have never seen such rocky ground before. They also have a lot more shopping and almost every American and European brand you would want, unlike Egypt. It felt a little bit more like home. It was also a lot cleaner and nicer, and the city was a lot better organized with nicer architecture. Over all my opinion of Amman was that it is better than Egypt in everyway. Not that I don’t love living in Egypt, but it was nice to be there for awhile. I would have loved to see more, especially the Dead Sea but all our time was consumed with the tournament, it was an exhausting weekend. We did have social events at night for the kids, but unfortunately that meant we just went to another large mall. The kids LOVED it, I hated it. Although, they did have tons of American and European stores, they were designer stores that I couldn’t afford in the States much less when they were marked up prices for Jordan. I couldn’t believe how much our student bought though and how much money they spent. I was surprised that our guys even bought a ton of designer cloths. It’s funny, because at school most of them don’t wear this stuff, they dress like any American high schooler would dress, but when they go out, it’s all designer clothes. I also had to laugh because my girls would get so dressed up in the evenings and do their hair so nice, which they don’t do at school. These international conferences are their way of meeting boys. Of course they don’t like any of the boys at our school since it’s such a small school and they’ve all been together since they were three years old. Plus so many of them are related in some way.
I really enjoyed meeting all the other teachers and coaches and learning about and comparing our schools and countries. It was interesting to see how different they all are. Schutz has a great reputation for being a very good school, but it is also a very small school compared to most others. We also have a good reputation for having very well behaved players and almost always win the Good Sportsmanship aware at every event. However, with such a small school and having a little less than hundred high school students we aren’t always the best in sports since we don’t have a huge population to choose from. In comparison, Doha is almost 98% American students due to the oil company there and they have almost 3,000 students. This year alone they hired 90 new teachers; we only have 36 total teachers. They are so big and rich they can hire professional coaches, rather than have any old teacher coach like the rest of the international schools. Their coach told me she had over 60 girls come try out for the volleyball team. We don’t even have 60 girls in our high school! So needless to say Doha is a little out of everyone else league to compete against.
We played games for three days, the first two we played every team and then got out seed placement for the round robin tournament. Over all I was proud of my girls and could tell that all the hard work we had done had paid off and they had improved a lot this season. However, we did have a few bad games…and I mean bad. We forgot how to play as a team a few times and once they were fighting with each other I got so mad at them I couldn’t even yell at them, I had to have Coach Malak do it. But after a good talking to, and a few pep talks, they pulled it together and played the best game of their life the last set of the tournament. They were very proud of themselves and knew they had done well, we also know which areas to work hardest on next year. We ended up getting fifth place out of six. Which, hey is very good for them! This is the first time these girls having come in last place in volleyball for the last four years. That was my one goal, I didn’t want to get last place again. So I was pretty happy. I think they were even happier than the team that got first place! Our boy’s team got second place. Go Schutz!
Coach Malak, the boys coach, and I had 19 kids to travel with, ten boys and nine girls. One of my players got hurt the day before we left. I was worried about traveling internationally with high school kids but it turned out to be nothing to worry about. These kids travel so much and all over the world they are pros at it. In fact, I think they can tell you exactly where the Starbucks is at every major international airport in the world.
The players and the coaches are hosted by the local team. We lucked out and six of my girls all got to stay at the same HUGE house out in the country and the other three were all together too. I stayed with the high school chemistry/physics teacher named Stephanie; it was her first year in Amman but her third international school to work at. The best part was she had a cat named Chloe and a German Shepard puppy named Jai. So I was very happy to have animals around and she was happy that I liked animals so much, in fact they even slept with me while I was there. Stephanie was very nice and we hit it off pretty well. The school provides them with furnished apartments around the city and also provides them with cars to rent. Her apartment was so nice a new and much bigger than ours, I was jealous.
I was really impressed with Amman and would love to go back and see more of it. It’s in the mountains so has nicer weather than Alexandria and even better it has grass and trees! Although the ground is extremely rocky, I have never seen such rocky ground before. They also have a lot more shopping and almost every American and European brand you would want, unlike Egypt. It felt a little bit more like home. It was also a lot cleaner and nicer, and the city was a lot better organized with nicer architecture. Over all my opinion of Amman was that it is better than Egypt in everyway. Not that I don’t love living in Egypt, but it was nice to be there for awhile. I would have loved to see more, especially the Dead Sea but all our time was consumed with the tournament, it was an exhausting weekend. We did have social events at night for the kids, but unfortunately that meant we just went to another large mall. The kids LOVED it, I hated it. Although, they did have tons of American and European stores, they were designer stores that I couldn’t afford in the States much less when they were marked up prices for Jordan. I couldn’t believe how much our student bought though and how much money they spent. I was surprised that our guys even bought a ton of designer cloths. It’s funny, because at school most of them don’t wear this stuff, they dress like any American high schooler would dress, but when they go out, it’s all designer clothes. I also had to laugh because my girls would get so dressed up in the evenings and do their hair so nice, which they don’t do at school. These international conferences are their way of meeting boys. Of course they don’t like any of the boys at our school since it’s such a small school and they’ve all been together since they were three years old. Plus so many of them are related in some way.
I really enjoyed meeting all the other teachers and coaches and learning about and comparing our schools and countries. It was interesting to see how different they all are. Schutz has a great reputation for being a very good school, but it is also a very small school compared to most others. We also have a good reputation for having very well behaved players and almost always win the Good Sportsmanship aware at every event. However, with such a small school and having a little less than hundred high school students we aren’t always the best in sports since we don’t have a huge population to choose from. In comparison, Doha is almost 98% American students due to the oil company there and they have almost 3,000 students. This year alone they hired 90 new teachers; we only have 36 total teachers. They are so big and rich they can hire professional coaches, rather than have any old teacher coach like the rest of the international schools. Their coach told me she had over 60 girls come try out for the volleyball team. We don’t even have 60 girls in our high school! So needless to say Doha is a little out of everyone else league to compete against.
We played games for three days, the first two we played every team and then got out seed placement for the round robin tournament. Over all I was proud of my girls and could tell that all the hard work we had done had paid off and they had improved a lot this season. However, we did have a few bad games…and I mean bad. We forgot how to play as a team a few times and once they were fighting with each other I got so mad at them I couldn’t even yell at them, I had to have Coach Malak do it. But after a good talking to, and a few pep talks, they pulled it together and played the best game of their life the last set of the tournament. They were very proud of themselves and knew they had done well, we also know which areas to work hardest on next year. We ended up getting fifth place out of six. Which, hey is very good for them! This is the first time these girls having come in last place in volleyball for the last four years. That was my one goal, I didn’t want to get last place again. So I was pretty happy. I think they were even happier than the team that got first place! Our boy’s team got second place. Go Schutz!
Seth enjoyed the time without me it sounds like, he was very social. A lot of the staff when over to Debbie’s (grade 4 teacher) for Canadian Thanksgiving. He said it was fantastic. I guess he did miss me though, because everyone told me he did.
Monday, October 13, 2008
All School Sports Day
Today was All School Sports Day, it's been a tradition at Schutz for years. All the students from pre-kindergarten 3 year olds to the seniors are divided into teams with one student from each grade level. The morning they compete in games, like relay races, sack races, egg on a spoon race, and hole in the bucket water carry. Then in the afternoon they play soccer, basketball, and volleyball with their teams. It's a full day of fun games and sports and bonding between all grade levels. It was a lot of fun to watch and great to see the older kids helping the little kids. At the end of the day the winning team got to run a relay race against the teachers and then we had ice cream. After school, my girls volleyball team scrimmaged the teachers. It was a lot of fun for students and teachers all day.
Sunday, October 12, 2008
Rain
It rained this morning! I was extremely happy to see the rain, I was just happy to see any change in the weather. Today was the first day in the two months that we’ve been here that we’ve had any change other than the sand storm we had a few weeks ago.
Friday, October 10, 2008
Big Man On Campus
Last Friday, October 3, 2008 we added a new addition to our Schutz Family. Malcolm Lake Collins was born to our elementary school principal Nada, and our high school Social Studies teacher, Mike.
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
Eid Vacation to Dahab
Last week (Oct 1st-6th) was the Eid El Fitr holiday which is the holiday at the end of Ramadan. Eleven staff members, including us, went to Dahab for the vacation. Tamer, who is also a new teacher this year, was born and raised in Egypt but has lived in the US for the last 12 years where he met his wife, Jean, and had their son Noah who is now 4 years old. Anyways, Tamer’s brother is a travel agent here in Egypt and has recently moved to Dahab to manage a restaurant/ bar there. His brother, Iman, set up our whole vacation for us including the bus that took us from Alexandria to Dahab which is on the Sinai peninsula on the Red Sea.
The bus ride down took about 9 hours and was pretty uneventful except for some sites we got to see from the windows we got to see our first bit of Cairo as we drove past and saw the pyramids from afar. We drove over the Nile river and under the Suez canal. After the canal the scenery turned to a very dramatic desertscape. We went hours without seeing anything, plant, animal and especially not a town; just sand and rocks. Occasionally we’d see a little big a plant life, some wild camels, including one stubborn one that didn’t want to get off the road, some wild donkeys, and a Bedouin trip moving their goats. After we crossed the desert we reached the Sinai Mountain range; I was absolutely astonished by these mountains, I’ve never seen a mountain like them before. They looked like there had just been an earthquake on the fault and the mountain just sprang out of the earth yesterday. They are so shear and rocky, they haven’t been eroded by the wind or water for thousand of years like our mountains in the U.S.A. What surprised me most was the total lack of any vegetation. From what I could see there wasn’t even any moss growing on the rocks. It’s amazing what a mountain range looks like when there is not wind, weather, water, or vegetation to erode it. I kept on wondering how over two thousand years ago Moses and his people managed to cross these mountains and how have so many holy wars been fought in them.
Dahab is a very nice little town on the Red Sea. It is mostly a tourist town and visited mostly by Europeans and backpackers. It has a lot more laid back atmosphere than the rest of Egypt and kind of a hippy vibe to it from the backpackers. Not many Egyptians vacation there because its’ local culture is different from other Egyptian cities. Our hotel was beautiful and brand new, had just opened up that month. It was right on the ocean and it was great to either sit by the pool or on the beach and look out onto the Red Sea and across the sea we could see Saudi Arabia.
View around Dahab:
Our Hotel:
(our 5th grade teacher, librarian, and principal reading by the pool)
We spent most days just relaxing by the pool or on the beach reading a book or walking around the town doing some shopping. One day we spend the whole day snorkeling, we went to one coral reef right off the shore from the town, and then that afternoon took an interesting Jeep ride (which took 3 different Jeeps b/c they keep breaking down) to the Blue Hole. We had underwater cameras and hopefully got some great pictures of the Red Sea Reef and the Blue Hole with all its’ coral and sea life but we haven’t gotten it developed yet and will post it when we do. Another day, Seth and I got a relaxing Egyptian massage in a little hut on the beach. It was very relaxing with the sound of the waves and a nice cool breeze. Later that same day the other girls and I went and got a pedicure...although not a good one.
The food was very good there, although they lived up to the relaxed hippy by the beach atmosphere and took about two hours for the whole “out to eat” process. However, it was very relaxing, all the restaurants are literlly on the beach and are open air reutrans with carpets and pillows to sit on the ground and eat at a low table. Dinner is suppose to be a relaxing process where you sit and smoke sheesha for hours after you eat.
(soft bodied starfish)
(the Blue Hole is behind this camel)
All in all it was a relaxing vacation and great to see another side of Egypt. However, the bus ride back ended up taking 15 ½ hours after our bus broke down and we were stuck on the side of the highway for hours. Luckily, we were just outside of Cairo but this time and not in the middle of the mountains or desert. Within minutes we had four police cars with us for road side assistance…although I’m not sure how much assistance they where. After three hours the company finally sent another bus to pick us up, the driver was in such a rush to finally finish this trip by that time that we ending up getting stopped for speeding and had to sit on the side of the road again while the police processed the speeding ticket…a lengthy process with bribing of the police officer involved.
Friday, September 26, 2008
Sand Storm
We had a sand storm yesterday. It was interesting and defiantly a new experience. We were teaching in the class rooms and next think I knew it got all white outside and all the kids were out of their seats and at the windows. At first it looked like the city was covered in a thick fog very quickly but then the air turned an odd orangish color and stayed that way all day. You couldn’t see the buildings the next block over. It was icky to be outside, a little hard to breath and it made you cough and your skin felt very gritty. I had to take volleyball practice inside to the weight room. I looked at the weatherchannel.com to see if you could see it on the satel
lite, which you couldn’t, but it gave the weather report for Alexandria as 95 degrees and sandy. The photo is the actual photo from their website. I had never seen a weather report like that before. Now there is a thin layer of sand over everything, and since the architecture here builds all the buildings with everything open for air flow there is sand inside all the buildings too. Luckily we still have the AC on in the apartments and the windows closed.
lite, which you couldn’t, but it gave the weather report for Alexandria as 95 degrees and sandy. The photo is the actual photo from their website. I had never seen a weather report like that before. Now there is a thin layer of sand over everything, and since the architecture here builds all the buildings with everything open for air flow there is sand inside all the buildings too. Luckily we still have the AC on in the apartments and the windows closed.
Saturday, September 20, 2008
Anniversary
Today is our six month wedding anniversary. We celebrated by going to the hospital and getting my cast off. It’s so nice to have that off and be done with the crutches. My ankle is still a little sore and swollen and I need to wear a brace for the next couple weeks. Seth also gave me gorgeous flowers.
Thursday, September 18, 2008
How to take a shower...
How to take a shower when your leg is in a cast.
I also found out that the lights in the hallway up to our 4th floor apartment are on a timer....I can only make it halfway up the stairs before they go off.
Many kids have made me get well cards, they are so special. The little kids hop on one foot at recess pretending to be me. It's so cute. The older students have been so good asking to help me and getting things for me.
The upside is that earlier in the day I fell, two friends and I went and got pedicures so at least my toes have looked nice sticking out of the cast.
I also found out that the lights in the hallway up to our 4th floor apartment are on a timer....I can only make it halfway up the stairs before they go off.
Many kids have made me get well cards, they are so special. The little kids hop on one foot at recess pretending to be me. It's so cute. The older students have been so good asking to help me and getting things for me.
The upside is that earlier in the day I fell, two friends and I went and got pedicures so at least my toes have looked nice sticking out of the cast.
Monday, September 15, 2008
Ramadan
Ramadan started on September 1st this year and is the Muslim religious celebration that takes place during the ninth month of the Islamic calendar. Muslim's believe this is the month that the Qur'an was revealed to Angel Gabriel, to deliver it to the Prophet Muhammad. During this month Muslims fast and do not eat or drink anything from sun up to sun down and offer up more prayers than usual. They get up before dawn to eat Suhoor, the pre-dawn meal, and perform the fair prayer. They do not eat or drink anything after this prayer is said, until the fourth prayer of the day, Maghrib, is due and then they break their fast with Iftar. Only people that have reached puberty are required to fast but most often the children want to try to fast also. This makes this month difficult for our students. Since we are an American school we don't change our schedule for Ramadan. So our kids are often tried and very hungry and thirsty, but for the most part we have been very impressed with how well the handle themselves and their school work. They usually get up are 4:00 am to eat their Suhoor and the go back to sleep for a little bit, then come to school. After school they usually take a nap because they are tired and hungry and wake up to give their Maghrib prayer and break their fast with Iftar. During the month of Ramadan, Muslims are very active and social, they invite huge gatherings of friends over for the Iftar and celebrate late into the night eating, they also participate in many sports and it's common for our students to have soccer tournaments at the Sporting Club till midnight and sometimes even later. The streets are decorated with streamers and special Ramadan 
lanterns. They are also lined with lots of food sellers for the big Iftar fests every night, including lots of butchered animals hanging up at the butcher shops (gross). There are extra calls to prayers during this month that we hear and on Friday's (the Holy day) it seems like the Muslim services, which are played on loud speakers all over the city, never stop. During noon on Friday it's almost impossible to get around town, there are so many people on their pray mats that they spill out of the mosque and sometime into the streets for one or two blocks past the mosque. We are also woken up by a special call they have in the morning to wake people up for their Suhoor before the sun rises. The holy month of Ramadan ends with the week of Eid ul-Fitr which we have off from school and are going with a couple of our friends to the Red Sea.
lanterns. They are also lined with lots of food sellers for the big Iftar fests every night, including lots of butchered animals hanging up at the butcher shops (gross). There are extra calls to prayers during this month that we hear and on Friday's (the Holy day) it seems like the Muslim services, which are played on loud speakers all over the city, never stop. During noon on Friday it's almost impossible to get around town, there are so many people on their pray mats that they spill out of the mosque and sometime into the streets for one or two blocks past the mosque. We are also woken up by a special call they have in the morning to wake people up for their Suhoor before the sun rises. The holy month of Ramadan ends with the week of Eid ul-Fitr which we have off from school and are going with a couple of our friends to the Red Sea.Wednesday, September 3, 2008
Volleyball try-outs
I (Kristal) am the varsity volleyball coach this year. I’m very excited. We are part of the EMAC league with other international schools in the surrounding countries. We practice about 6 weeks on a sport and then all the teams go to one school for a long weekend tournament. The volleyball tournament this year is October 22-25 in Amman, Jordan. Today was the first day of try-outs. I had 15 girls try out and can only take 10 on the team. I saw a lot of skill and a lot of hustle on the court but heard little communication on and off the court. We have another try-out tomorrow and then I post the roaster on Sunday morning. I felt like a dorky and bad coach sitting on the side line with my leg in a cast.
Sunday, August 31, 2008
Kristal's Injury
Saturday night (8-30-08) I had just got done working out at the school gym and was walking back through campus to the apartments when I fell on some stairs. I heard a huge “POP” when I rolled on my left ankle and immediately was in a lot of pain and couldn’t get up. I yelled help several times thinking the gate guards would hear me or that I was close enough to the apartments that someone would hear me. Luckily, after only 2 minutes or so another teacher was working late in his classroom and came and helped me to the apartments lobby. For one reason or another it ended up that everyone on campus was called and came down to help me. We couldn’t get a hold of the school nurse, Sahar, or any of the local staff to come with me to the hospital. Plus with my physical therapy background I was over analyzing it and determined exactly which ligament I sprained and how bad of a sprain was it and decided not to go to the hospital. Long story short, after a long night of pain and swelling I went and taught my class in the morning (dumb idea) and then went to the school nurse who rushed me to the hospital. And when I say “rush” I mean it, our transportation director, Habe, drove me and the nurse and he was so worried about me (he’s the nicest guy and always so concerned about us) he was driving crazier than a normal Egyptian drives. I was positive we were going to hit someone and get another passenger to take with us to the hospital. I kept telling him it wasn’t an emergency and he said he was worried and felt like he needed to drive like an ambulance. Anyways, we went to the German Hospital which is suppose to be the good hospital in town. I wont elaborate what it’s like to go to an international hospital since our parents are reading this, but lets just say I’m glad I didn’t need any procedure that needed to be sterile and I was glad to have two Arabic speakers with me. Anyways, they took an x-ray and did some test and determined that I completely tore my anterior talo-fibular ligament (sorry, had to put that in for my PTA friends reading this) and I’m now in a full ankle cast up to my knee.
I can’t even elaborate enough to explain to you how much it sucks to be on crutches here. Let me remind you that we live on the fourth floor and both my classrooms are on the second floor in two different buildings across campus and there are no ramps or elevators here. The entire campus is uneven and there are little steps everywhere with out handrails. I’m just absolutely exhausted by the end of the day and my arm muscles are so soar they might actually hurt just as bad as my ankle. I’m going to have strong arms by the time I get the cast off. I totally believe it’s true that medical people make the worst patients. For example, I thought I didn’t need to go to the hospital, when I did go I was annoying the poor doctor by asking him questions, and recommending special stress tests for him to try on my ankle ligaments. And Seth is constantly yelling at me to stop doing things that I know I shouldn’t be doing. It has given me an appreciation for some of my patients though and I can sympathize with them about some things…but not too much since I know none of my patients ever had to do four flights of stairs to get home.
The plus side is that my wonderful husband has been so good at taking care of me. He really has done a lot and put up with my bad mood when I get frustrated with all the dumb stairs. Everyone at school has been so good to me too and doing so much to help me. All the grades that I teach have made get well cards for me, the 1st and kindergartners are so cute. The cooks will make me special meals and bring them to me if Seth can’t. Our maid did extra cleaning for me and so many other people have gone out of their way to do something for me to save me the trouble of trying to be mobile around campus.
I can’t even elaborate enough to explain to you how much it sucks to be on crutches here. Let me remind you that we live on the fourth floor and both my classrooms are on the second floor in two different buildings across campus and there are no ramps or elevators here. The entire campus is uneven and there are little steps everywhere with out handrails. I’m just absolutely exhausted by the end of the day and my arm muscles are so soar they might actually hurt just as bad as my ankle. I’m going to have strong arms by the time I get the cast off. I totally believe it’s true that medical people make the worst patients. For example, I thought I didn’t need to go to the hospital, when I did go I was annoying the poor doctor by asking him questions, and recommending special stress tests for him to try on my ankle ligaments. And Seth is constantly yelling at me to stop doing things that I know I shouldn’t be doing. It has given me an appreciation for some of my patients though and I can sympathize with them about some things…but not too much since I know none of my patients ever had to do four flights of stairs to get home.
The plus side is that my wonderful husband has been so good at taking care of me. He really has done a lot and put up with my bad mood when I get frustrated with all the dumb stairs. Everyone at school has been so good to me too and doing so much to help me. All the grades that I teach have made get well cards for me, the 1st and kindergartners are so cute. The cooks will make me special meals and bring them to me if Seth can’t. Our maid did extra cleaning for me and so many other people have gone out of their way to do something for me to save me the trouble of trying to be mobile around campus.
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