Back to School

We know… it must be nice to get the summer off.  We know… we started school two weeks later than in Ontario.  But you know… we’re still pretty drained from the first week back at school.  Here we are on the very first day, still bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. 

The first week of school in Egypt was fairly successful and uneventful, but we’ll share some stories anyway.  We had been warned by teachers returning to the school that the students would be very challenging.    The first day of school started with an assembly for all high school students.  When each teacher was introduced, the students all clapped.  With that, we were officially Mrs. Katie and Mr. Tom.

We were shocked at how loud the students  were while the principal was addressing them.  That being said, when we went to class, we both found our first morning class to be very quiet and respectful.  Tom’s class asked if they could call him “Mr. T.”  We’re not sure if they know who “Mr. T.”  is, but some of the students do call him that.

My first morning class was, and continues to be, a class sent from heaven.  If every class was like my first period class here, everyone would be a teacher.  Here are a couple of my students doing their first lab of the year.  They were pretty excited to get to work (a.k.a. play) with fire the first week.  Ok, so was I!
(In case you're curious, I did ask these students permission to take their picture and put it on my blog.)

Tom and I are each teaching three classes, some of which are more challenging than others.  That’s not different from any school or any group of teenagers in the world though.  On the other hand, our students can be pretty unique.  We teach at private school.  Our students (or at least their parents) are paying tuition.  During a physics lesson Tom asked his students one day whether any of their parents knew how to weld.  He got the response “Mr. Tom, none of our parents would know how to weld.  Maybe our driver would know how.”

There are also little things around the school that remind us that wearen’t in Canada anymore.
One is our office door:

Another is the sign on the fume hood in my classroom.  If you’re not sure what I mean, get your brain back into teenage mode for a moment.

All in all we’ve had a successful first week of school.  We certainly need to get back into the swing of things and spend less time prepping and more time living… and sleeping.  I’m sure we’ll get there soon.  If we get too tired, we will soon have time to unwind.  We have the Egyptian Armed Forces Day and Canadian Thanksgiving weekend coming up soon to give us a four day weekend very soon.  We know… we can’t complain!

A Jordanian Journey

They say that “life’s a journey, not a destination.”  If that’s true, then we certainly are living.  In just over a week-long trip to Jordan, we spent more than 20 hours on buses,  6 hours in taxis, and 5 hours on ferries.  It was all worth it though for the breathtaking trip.  We couldn’t possibly share all the details and sights, as we don’t have the time to write it, nor do you have the time to read it.  Here’s the highlight reel:

The Dead Sea

We visited the Dead Sea on our second day in Jordan.  It is unique in two ways.  Firstly, it lies at the lowest point on the planet.  More entertainingly, it is about ten times saltier than the ocean, so you float on it like a cork.  The feeling is just unreal.  Even if you try to sink (cannonball position and all), you just bob.  When I tried my hardest to get my entire body underwater, I managed to get my entire body underwater for a couple of seconds before bobbing back up.  Tom liked floating much more than swimming in the actual pool.

Petra

This was this site that drew us to Jordan in the first place.  Petra is an ancient city, primarily carved out of mountains.  Instead of bringing in stones to put up buildings, the Nabateans literally carved lodgings, temples, tombs, and the famous treasury right into the mountains.  Later the Romans built some temples in the more traditional way, and the contrast is quite interesting.

Our first Petra experience was “Petra by Night”, a candlelit walk through the Siq (natural gorge leading into the city) and Bedouin story-telling and singing session in front of the Treasury.  It was quite beautiful, despite some obnoxious tourists interfering with the quiet mood.  We went to Petra the two following days, arriving before 6:30am both days in order to beat the crowd.  Even on repeat viewings, the architechture never failed to take my breath away.  For a view from above, I followed Tom through some Indiana Jones type climbing on the second day.  We found an empty plateau and watched the sun come over the mountains onto the treasury.   Stunning!

Wadi Rum

We spent our last few days in Jordan doing one of our favourite things:  camping.  Unfortunately we’re unable to canoe camp here (#1 – it would have cost a small fortune to fly the canoe here, #2 – it’s the desert).  We did the next best things; we camel camped.  We met our guide and got on our camels around 9am one morning, and headed into Wadi Rum, a large mountain desert.  We stopped at several sites including sand dunes, natural springs, and rock bridges.  We drank a lot of tea, ate a lot of pita, and eventually made it to the Bedouin camp where we would stay the night with about a dozen other campers.  The best part of camp was letting our thighs rest.  Canoes don’t give sore thighs.

The following day we headed into a less “tourist” part of the desert on our camels, saw a few more sites, drank plenty more tea, ate more pita we have in the past year, heard “camel ghost stories” (which were actually not about ghosts at all, just about camels rolling over on people during their sleep), then camped under the stars with just a mattress and blanket on a large flat rock.  I can’t imagine many things that would be more spectacular.  Don’t worry, the camels didn’t come near us in our sleep.

We came back on the third day and slept on the tour company’s office (don’t ask!), and got up bright and early to catch a bus that we had to sit on the floor of because it was full.  It got us back to the ferry cheap though!

After a lot more travel and the most disgusting bathroom I’ve ever seen, we are back in Cairo to start our first week of school.  Hopefully that will not provide too many adventures to write about!

Diving In

4 days, 9 dives, 1 awesome trip!

We arrived home around midnight last night from our 4-day boat safari on the Red Sea.  We left Thursday with about 20 of our colleagues at 1pm and arrived at Safaga to get on our boat (Spyrodream) by 8pm.

We had a buffet dinner and a night of socializing on the unmoving boat.  It was tame enough to keep us in good shape for the following morning of scuba diving, but fun enough to keep us up until a small group of French divers joined us on the boat at 2am.

By 9am the next morning, we were on the deck as the boat started its journey.  We ate a breakfast of crepes and eggs, and soon had a briefing with our dive master Ahmed.  The boat was anchored and we were ready for the first dive of the trip.  Tom went with the advanced group, since he's already certified, while I went with the beginner group to do my open water training.  My dive consisted mostly of kneeling in the sand at the bottom of the sea and practicing skills such as pulling off the air regulator while underwater and putting it back on.  My least favourite skill was clearing the mask after the instructor deliberately filled it with salt water.  While my eyes burned and my knees got scraped, I could take comfort knowing that Tom was nearby exploring the beautiful marine life of the Red Sea, likely without any water in his goggles.  His group came in early enough for him to take pictures of me moments after surfacing after the dive.

We ate lunch and headed out for an afternoon dive.  This dive involved less skills and more exploring.  If I knew my fish at all, I could give names of all the unique and impressive fish I spotted.  Unfortunately all I can say is that there were many colourful fish, both big and small.  Oh, I saw some Nemos (I do know that they are called Clown Fish... although I don't know their technical name).

Friday's third dive was my favourite.  It was a fun dive, so the beginner and advanced groups got to mix and Tom and I dove together.  My tank hadn't been refilled until I asked, so we were running behind the group, and wound up in a small group of stragglers.  It was so nice to have lots of space underwater, and a much better view all around.  A fairly large (maybe the size of a frisbee) angel fish sort of joined our group and swam with us for several minutes underwater.  Very cool!

Tom got to go out for a night dive on Friday, although I couldn't be jealous as a party had transpired on the boat.  The Egyptian staff starting playing drums and singing and dancing.  The teacher you'd least expect it from got up and belly danced to a few songs.  Although I've taken a couple of classes myself, I didn't break out my belly dancing until a little later that night, when the pros were all done.  We slept out on the deck of the boat with some of the other teachers.  The night breeze and starry sky were beautiful enough to help me forgive the blazing 6am sunrise.

The following two days included much of the same... dive, eat, nap, repeat.  We saw eels, octopus, lion fish, scorpion fish, stingrays, and way too many small fish to name.  We also saw an old ship wreck.  I got to do a night dive on Saturday as part of my advanced course.  I didn't see a huge number of fish, but diving by flashlight was far more serene and less scary than I would have imagined.  Saturday night was pretty quiet since most people (us included) were quite tired.  We did get the camera out for some evening photography, and Tom even let someone else use his baby... I mean camera... to take this picture of us.

Two Sunday dives followed by 8 hours on a bus got us back to our apartment in Cairo, only to prepare for the next adventure.  We're heading to Jordan tomorrow and will be traveling there until next Thursday night (Sep. 16).  We'll update when we get back, hopefully with some great pictures.

The Adventure Begins

"Welcome to Egypt.  Make sure you go to the duty free shop before we leave the airport."  This was our greeting from our new principal holding up a Canadian International School of Egypt sign in Cairo's airport.  After picking up the "necessities" from the duty free shop, we got in a bus for a ride to our "nice" hotel, and enjoyed a good night's sleep in separate single beds... well-deserved after nearly 20 hours in transit.  It's hard to believe that was almost exactly two weeks ago.  It has been somewhat of a whirlwind since then, combining being tourists, new residents, and high school teachers.  We hope to blog weekly so that you don't have another two weeks to miss us!

Our first few days were like a convincing infomercial for living in Egypt.  We went on a felucca ride down the Nile at sunset, with the rest of the new teachers.  Here it is before our rowdy bunch got in.

 
Two days later we saw the pyramids "in case they disappear this week" said our school director.  I was in complete awe.  They are overwhelmingly large, and tucked within bustling streets.  I am amazed at the fact that these massive structures were built from sheer manpower. 

 
We also went to a mall that could easily be mistaken for a mall in Ottawa.  Wow!  Egypt seemed both beautiful and comfortable.  That perception hasn't changed entirely, but our days as tourists have quickly become days of being new residents, a slightly less magical and more practical role. 

We moved into our apartment in Maadi (a suburb of Cairo), and started working (only administrative duties and prep) less than a week after our arrival.  Despite several challenges including a leaking fridge, a washing machine that wouldn't drain, and ants in our honey, we've kept our heads up.... okay, often down searching for any more ants... but our spirits are up.  Our landlord has been fairly efficient, and all of those problems have been fixed.

It is currently Ramadan in Egypt, a holy month of fasting and increased prayer for Muslims.  For us this has meant that most stores and restaurants are closed in several hour chunks each day, so it's been somewhat of an inconvenience.  While complaining about it one day, it occurred to me that the Muslim people are actually fasting all day in this tremendous heat... they do not consume any food or water during daylight.  It makes the slight bother of having to shop after 8pm seem pretty trivial.  Their devotion to their religion is quite admirable.  Luckily the 4am call to prayer over loud speakers in the streets hasn't woken me up yet, or I may be less positive about it all.

Our school year was postponed until after the end of Ramadan, so Tom and I have an unexpected vacation starting tomorrow.  We are headed on a boat safari with about 20 of our colleagues for a few days of scuba diving in the Red Sea, supposedly one of the world's premier dive spots.  After that, we'll come home for a couple days then head to Jordan to see Petra and do some desert camping.  We're looking forward to enjoying the life of tourists again!