Counting Days
We’re drawing near the end. As I write this, it is Saturday morning, 18 June 2005. We don’t have our plane tickets yet (the school is getting them for us), but we should be flying out on or somewhere around 1 July.
At this point, Faith and I are having mixed feelings. On the one hand, we are so excited to be coming home. We have been away for almost one year—away from our families, our friends, our familiar landscapes, and our country.
On the other hand, we are also sad to be leaving. We have lived here long enough for Egypt to feel like home. When we first came here, we would step outside or look out the window or just sit at our dining room table and say, “wow—we’re in Egypt!” But now, this is just one of many places we have lived in and become attached to.
We are also, of course, thinking of the friends we will be leaving, our roomy apartment, our students—and the fact that you can have pretty much everything (from the grocery store, the pharmacy, etc.) delivered to your home!
We also wonder how we will survive without a maid coming in once a week to clean for us. ;-)
I am also saddened by the thought of not being here to observe more closely the changes Egypt will be experiencing over the next 12 months. The government bussing in thugs to beat people up and sexually assault women who were protesting during the recent referendum on changes to the Egyptian Constitution was not inspiring, to say the least, but the process of reform has probably already acquired a life of its own. There are forces at work in Egypt and in the world that even President Mubarak cannot control, and change (as everyone here admits, including the government) is inevitable. My main hope is that change can come with as few people being hurt as possible.
We are very uncertain what we’ll be doing next. But it looks like we WILL have the option of coming back to Egypt. To our surprise, the school is asking us to come back! I think the main reason is that the Kindergarten Annual Show was a huge hit and Faith is getting a lot of the credit for it. We are going to talk to Mrs. Azza, the School Director, next week and discuss some ideas, but we are definitely NOT making a decision until we come back to the US, explore some options there, and think things over.
I, however, am definitely not interested in teaching in a regular classroom setting here, so that might present a bump or two—but I think there may be other possibilities which we’ll look into.
In short, coming back to Egypt will be one option among many. But right now we’re feeling we would only come back if we failed to find a suitable and sustainable alternative in the states. As much as we love Egypt (despite all its flaws), we really would prefer to stay in the US for the time-being.
I guess we’ll see.
At this point, Faith and I are having mixed feelings. On the one hand, we are so excited to be coming home. We have been away for almost one year—away from our families, our friends, our familiar landscapes, and our country.
On the other hand, we are also sad to be leaving. We have lived here long enough for Egypt to feel like home. When we first came here, we would step outside or look out the window or just sit at our dining room table and say, “wow—we’re in Egypt!” But now, this is just one of many places we have lived in and become attached to.
We are also, of course, thinking of the friends we will be leaving, our roomy apartment, our students—and the fact that you can have pretty much everything (from the grocery store, the pharmacy, etc.) delivered to your home!
We also wonder how we will survive without a maid coming in once a week to clean for us. ;-)
I am also saddened by the thought of not being here to observe more closely the changes Egypt will be experiencing over the next 12 months. The government bussing in thugs to beat people up and sexually assault women who were protesting during the recent referendum on changes to the Egyptian Constitution was not inspiring, to say the least, but the process of reform has probably already acquired a life of its own. There are forces at work in Egypt and in the world that even President Mubarak cannot control, and change (as everyone here admits, including the government) is inevitable. My main hope is that change can come with as few people being hurt as possible.
We are very uncertain what we’ll be doing next. But it looks like we WILL have the option of coming back to Egypt. To our surprise, the school is asking us to come back! I think the main reason is that the Kindergarten Annual Show was a huge hit and Faith is getting a lot of the credit for it. We are going to talk to Mrs. Azza, the School Director, next week and discuss some ideas, but we are definitely NOT making a decision until we come back to the US, explore some options there, and think things over.
I, however, am definitely not interested in teaching in a regular classroom setting here, so that might present a bump or two—but I think there may be other possibilities which we’ll look into.
In short, coming back to Egypt will be one option among many. But right now we’re feeling we would only come back if we failed to find a suitable and sustainable alternative in the states. As much as we love Egypt (despite all its flaws), we really would prefer to stay in the US for the time-being.
I guess we’ll see.
