The Week of Calm and Havoc

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  Cairo, Egypt
Wednesday, September 3, 2008

I have 30 minutes to write this, I've finally had my first break of the day, at 12:40 this is only because my students have Arabic class right now. So here's a very, very quick update of what's been happening since I last updated. Last Friday and Saturday (that's the weekend in Egypt) was a pretty good weekend that went by way to fast. Friday I went to different pyramid sites and actually got to go into one of them. I had a chance to go see the Giza pyramids (there's 3 of them) and that's where the Sphinx is. I got some pretty good pictures of me and the Sphinx. I then went Imhotep and Saqqara, and that's where the Step Pyramids are and there was a pretty interesting museum with an actual mummy in there! The last stop of the day was at Dashur and that's the pyramid that you actually got to go into. My legs hurt for a couple of days after the adventure due to the incline of the stairs that you sort of had to hoist yourself down. All in all a very good adventure and pretty cool day, we also saw some pyramids in the distant, including a pyramid that was initially built at a wrong angle so you could see halfway up a change of angle. Pretty amazing what the Egyptian architects could design and calculate.
One cool fact about the pyramids that may or may not be true but I found fascinating, apparently if you take the constellation of Orion and place it over the areas of the pyramids it lines up pretty accurately and the Nile river follows the path of the Milky Way. Not sure if this true but it would be interesting if it was.
On Saturday, I went to Ain Sukhna for the day, Ain Sukhna is off the Red Sea and on the horizon you could see big cargo boats that are waiting to go across the canal. Spent the day being a beach bum and looking back it was the calm before the storm.
Sunday was a holiday (Canadian Labour Day) but I went to school to set up my classroom, I will post pictures of my classroom but it's been very, very busy. I also fumigated my kitchen and hopefully all those ants will be gone.
Monday was orientation with the parents, and Tuesday was when all havoc broke loose. This was the first day of school, I had a student get so worked up that she threw up on herself, I had criers all day...it was an interesting day where I found myself trying to figure out what I was doing out here in Egypt. But I talked to the other seasoned teachers and they all had havoc so I guess it wasn't all too bad then.
Today was a lot better, only one crier but he eventually dried up his tears. But I already have a troublesome child whom I would love to just glue the seat of his pants to a chair; he's always wandering here and there, and always needing to change chairs. URG!
Ramadan is a month long holiday where those old enough (some start at grade 4) will fast from dawn to dusk, so that means no food or water. They do this because they want to feel like the poor people who have no food. They're also supposed to invite a poor family to their house for their dinner (iftar). Because of this holiday the school is also finished earlier, 2:05 instead of 3:30. It's a pretty interesting concept. Anyways it's home time now...yay! Talk to you later.
 
Sorry if everything seems so un-flowly. I had many students interrupting going "Miss, Miss"

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