The Pyramids by Dromedary--and Pictures?!?

We have finally seen the Pyramids of Giza, which are right next to Cairo. One of the people from school took most of the American teachers out there and we rode camels into the desert around the Pyramids just in time to catch them as it became completely dark. I must say that riding a camel is quite an experience: they smell horrible, but are fairly comfortable creatures otherwise. The best part is when they stand up. They assemble themselves in two main stages. After they complete the first phase, which seems to involve unfolding their legs above the knee, you think they’re standing all the way up—you’re so high off the ground—but they’re actually not because suddenly you’re being catapulted even higher into the air as they unfold the lower half of their legs and stand up on their feet! They are very sure-footed creatures and took very little interest in us, being focused mainly on finishing their route, glancing around at everything, and occassionally sniffing each other.

Alas, we were not able to get terribly close to the pyramids (the picture represents our closest approach) and we will surely need to return again soon. They WERE very large, even from a distance, and we're looking forward to seeing them close up. Our first view of them was quite striking as we found them abruptly towering above the buildings of Cairo as we were driving down what appeared to be a fairly normal busy street. Cairo runs right up to the Pyramids' doorstep! And yet, they also seem to stand very much apart. They are so ancient, while even Cairo is young compared to them. Maybe they will be there long after Cairo's gone?

Finally, here are some pictures taken by a friend's camera. Some of the photos are a bit spotty, but should still be worth the viewing. Now that I've figured out how to post pictures, we'll try put more online soon. Enjoy!

Michael and Me and 150 Egyptians

So a couple weeks back I attended a showing of Fahrenheit 9/11 at he Genena Mall here in Heliopolis with some other teachers—both Egyptian and American—from the school. It was an interesting experience. First, the place was packed. Second, the audience for the most part sat quietly and watched the whole thing with only occasional laughter and no comment. (Much of Moore’s humor, of course, didn’t quite translate.) The film was subtitled in Arabic, so we Americans had no trouble following it. One of our teacher-friends was curious—since I had seen the movie before in the U.S.—to know if it was censored at all. In fact, it was less censored than the American version, but what wasn’t censored was mainly gory images of dead Americans. (In America, these images were kept "blurred" to prevent their being so graphic.) In any case, I cringed a little thinking how Middle Easterners would interpret some aspects of the film (which are quite conspiratorial), but there was one segment I really appreciated being in there. This was the part where Moore talks to a woman who lost a son in Iraq. Her pain is very powerful and very in the open, and it occurred to me that most Egyptians had probably never witnessed this sort of thing. The press here generally focuses on Iraqi civilians (which is, of course, something that should be paid attention to, definitely more than it is in the US) and basically ignores the human dimension of the injured or killed Americans and their families. (Which is NOT good.) So it was nice to see this out there and have this audience exposed to that reality.

In any case, I never felt at all uncomfortable or worried. As I said, the audience was calm and, it seemed, thoughtful, and after the movie ended we all filed out to head off to our next destination: whether that was MacDonalds, the rest of the mall, a taxi to a restaurant, or home. No one looked particularly furious or sad or radical. Nothing blew up. A fairly nice time, it seems, was had by all.

Faith Gilbertson Superstar

Okay,

Here it goes. The very first day, September 1, Wednesday, the children enter my classroom, one by one, and the parents do not leave. The children see other children crying, so they start to cry and then everybody is crying and they do not stop. So, I get instructions from the main office that the parents need to leave. So, we proceed to take the children outside and then the parents leave but really don't leave. They go outside the fence, the kids see their parents, start to cry more and then, finally, when the parents leave and we get them back upstairs, they go to the room and then the crying turns into vomiting. Three of them. Two boys and a girl. They cried so hard they made themselves puke. I have one child Hassan who I refer to affectionately as "the scratcher" because when I took him away from his parents he proceeded to hit me, pull my lip down violently with his little hands and scratch my face, neck and arm. I have a war wound on my left cheek right in front of my ear. I neosporined my war wounds and showered right when I got home. He is not even 3. He will be three in October.

[That’s right, folks: Faith’s 24-student “kindergarten” class has three and even two year olds in it....

And here’s something a bit more recent:]

Lee and I have survived the second week okay. No puking but a lot of peeing in their chairs. When Dina my assistant asked one of my boys, Mina, if he wet himself (we could not tell for sure because sometimes they spill their water bottles over and it looked like he might have done that, but in the end he HAD wet himself), he said, no, it was another little boy and that little boy had already left. Well, I told Lee that on the way home and I thought LEE was going to pee, because we were laughing so hard. We were envisioning that another little boy got into his pants and peed on them and then left. This Mina kid is quite funny. He is a chunky little boy who speaks to me only in Arabic and throws me and my assistant kisses. He likes to be near me all the time and he does not interact with the other children as much as he should. But he is getting better.

"The Scratcher,” Hassan, has turned out to be a great little boy. We almost had 3 days tear free except he fell off the toy horse during garden time and hit his lip on the ground. We had some blood and tears but no permanent injury. His mother sits in the car and waits everyday. He is her first born. Sweet woman and Hassan is going to turn out to be one of my favorites.

Also, I have another student, Tamer, that I thought was going to be a big problem, but he in fact is turning out to be a great kid. A little rambunctious but I put him once in time out and the threat of going there again scares him. He is so beautiful to look at it just melts your heart. He has this gorgeous milky white skin, black curly hair, brown eyes and long eyelashes. And he is smart, extremely fast, and speaks english quite well.

[One other charming story: one of Faith’s students, Mina I think, blows her kisses all the time and recently told her that he would “wait for her.” This is, if you didn’t know it, a very marriage-centered culture!

In conclusion, for the time-being, on the teaching front, we both are hanging in there and learning more and more each day about how to survive teaching in Egypt, in this school, and with these kids. We have no doubt that things will get better, and are looking forward to whatever comes next.]

Alive and Well—But Harder

Contrary to what, judging by our extended silence, you may have feared, we have not been buried in the sands of Egypt, perhaps to be dug up by archeologists 1,000 years from now. We are, in fact, alive and well. Both Faith and I have been working extremely hard at our jobs and, when we get home, simply staying awake often requires an effort far in excess of what we can muster. Here’s why.

For my part, I have found myself face-to-face with students who, on the whole, are very nice but very undisciplined. It has been difficult getting them to focus on their work, to listen without talking, and to stay in their seats. They have little interest in me as a teacher, but will all perk up and listen carefully whenever I talk like a real person. I can’t count the number of times students have asked what state I’m from, or if I’m married, or how old I am, or how long I’ve been married, or what I think of Egypt. There are a handful of very good students I am working with, but for most part their English skills are moderate to poor, especially in writing and reading. Their vocabulary shortages continue to astonish me: Mr. what is a “plow?” a “limb?” a “foe?” This is a serious problem since they are using textbooks designed for American 11th and 12th graders. Many of them should really be using a textbook designed for students of much lower grades.

It is ironic and a little exasperating, but this is pretty darn close to the sort of situation I was trying to avoid by being an overseas teacher. I was hoping that a foreign private school would have well-disciplined students extremely interested in their educations and the world. There are a few of these present at our school, but for the most part these are kids whose well-to-do parents have taken care of their every need for all their lives. They fully expect, it seems, to be taken care of by families when they graduate. Most see little point in making a real effort at school.

There are further difficulties I’m facing. Perhaps most importantly, I do not have my own room. Instead, all students stay in the same room all day together and the teachers come in to them. This creates some territorial issues, as you are on their turf. The rooms are also of poor quality in several respects. First, they are too small—especially for 25 students and a teacher crammed in against the whiteboard. Second, there is no sound-absorbing material on the walls, so the sound quality in every room is dreadful. Third, the individual air conditioners in each room only work 25% of the time, it seems, and you can imagine what summer temperatures in Cairo with no air conditioning mean to a classroom. The power also fairly regularly goes out. The organization of the school, meanwhile, leaves something to be desired. (And I think I’ll just leave it at that.)

And add to all this, of course, the fact I am a first year teacher.

Still, I don’t want you to get the wrong idea. I am not complaining, while this school is, for Egypt, a pretty darn good school. I am also still very glad we’re here. It’s turning out to be much harder than we expected, but this experience is priceless. The kids, furthermore, can be a lot of fun, are extremely nice even if “naughty,” and have a peculiar sort of innocence about them that seems lacking in many American kids. For instance, I’ve never gotten a really mean or resentful feeling from any of my students—even the ones I’ve had a lot of trouble with. I keep expecting them to be resentful, but instead they smile back when I smile at them in the halls, or after school while we’re waiting for the buses, and say “Hello, Mr. Lee” when I say hello to them.

I will try to include more specific personalities and details in later posts. I’m dealing with some pretty colorful characters in many cases!!!

As for Faith, here are some excerpts from some e-mails she has written. She most definitely, most positively, has the best (and I mean by that the worst) first-day story of all the American teachers at our school. Here you go: