Friday, November 26

We're back to life in Cairo. My birthday has passed. Thanskgiving Cairo-style has passed. Our anniversary has passed, and now I must get caught up on all my blogable moments and thoughts. Apparently, just before we got back, there was a plague of locusts that fell upon our school. We missed it by just a day. Half of the school was there, as it was the day after our long vacation. The other teachers told it to me like this - The sky suddenly got dark and red in color. The sky was dotted and the sun was muted out by the swarms of locusts that were flying through the air. Of course, this caused chaos in an already less-than-normal day at school. There was a swarm of locusts moving across Cairo. When they told me this, I almost didn't believe them. It seemed too biblical and ancient. I didn't know things like this still happened! However, I did see pictures from the computer teacher's camera, and a student actually brought me a locust he had trapped the day before. It was huge, red-colored, about the size of your palm. Very weird. I was almost disappointed we had missed such a freak occurrence.

Speaking of freak occurrences - we witnessed our first rain in Cairo. Joe and I went out to wait for our mini-bus that takes us to school. It was kind of dreary and gray, like it gets when it's about to rain a little bit in the States. We both commented on it, but then agreed maybe it was just the usual smog. On the way to school, we began to see rain drops splattering on the windshield. By the time we arrived at school, there was a steady rain. It went on and off all day. The kids, of course, wanted to play in it and spend all class period staring out the windows. They said, "It's like snow in the U.S." I laughed, and told them it would definitely not be like snow in Iowa because it's a regular thing.

One day when I was doing an analogy on the board with them we came across the words, "drizzle" and "downpour." They didn't know what these words meant! I had to explain what a downpour was because they had only seen one heavy rain in their lifetime. They started describing these strange, hard balls of rain that had come down the year before. "Hail?" I asked increduously. They had never seen the stuff before. I'm not even sure a word exists in Arabic to describe it.

As for the weather, we are shocked. It has gotten cold! It's only been 50-60's at some times. Now, that doesn't sound cold, but it actually is. My friend, Gheda, had told me that it would be bone-chilling. I didn't believe her. I thought, "Yeah, right. I've endured Iowa winters. It'll be nothing." But seriously, it is cold! The windows and doors don't shut tightly, so you have a constant draft. There isn't proper heat either. Taking a shower in the morning has been agony. We don't have proper clothes. Joe and I are going to have to shop for sweaters and coats. At school, it is very chilly because we get a cold, desert wind that whips right through the open hallways. Luckily, Joe and I get some sunlight that shines into our classrooms during the day. All of our students are wrapped in scarves and stocking caps. It's pretty cute.

These last couple of days haven't been too bad. It's warmed up a bit. We celebrated my birthday at school on Wednesday. It was also the day of our Thanksgiving dish party. This is what they call their version of a potluck. We had the potluck in the afternoon at school. Needless to say, it was chaos. Imagine nearly 100 people jammed into a school hallway with a double row of desks laden with food. So much for sitting down quietly and giving thanks. The teacher's actually got together and bought a huge turkey, so yes, Joe did get to have some turkey for Thanksgiving. As far as the kids' idea of Thanksgiving foods? Fatoush, koshary, seasoned rice with nuts, etc. All sorts of Egyptian foods. One student did bring mashed potatoes of some sort. They don't know what traditional American Thanksgiving foods are. In the afternoon, we were supposed to have a sort of carnival with the kids organizing booths. It didn't happen. After the meal, the kids just spread out and disappeared throughout the enormous school. This is what always happens, as nothing gets planned ahead of time.

Joe and I and the other American teachers set out to have the students clean up the disgusting mess they made of the hallway. They had a food fight in one of the classrooms also. Truly gross. I have never seen anyone think that manual labor was more below them. The girls looked with disdain at the rag that I presented to them so that they could wipe off desks. They would barely touch it except with their fingertips. One girl told me she wouldn't do anything disgusting. I asked another student if she ever had to clean anything. She admitted, no, the maid did everything. The most they did was pick up their room.

Our students definitely live in the upper class. They are very used to having maids and servants. I can assure you, they never have to do chores like Joe and I did when we were growing up. At school, we have three maids for the American program. At the end of our Thanksgiving party, the kids left all their plates, food, and mess and ran off to play. The "dedas," as we call the maids, came and picked up everything. Then, they proceded to take everything into the girls' bathroom. They washed all the plates and plastic silverware and cups. They picked through all the food, and kept all the leftovers. Nothing was to be wasted or lost. It's saddening when you see such a clash in class. The class system is alive and well in Egypt, that is for sure. I hate that we participate in it by default.

That evening Joe and I went to the grocery store to find some ingredients for a birthday cake for me and items for Thanskgiving dinner the next day. We were able to make a pretty good German chocolate cake for my birthday. For Thanskgiving the next day, I was able to concoct a close simulation of Thanksgiving. We had mashed potatoes, gravy, stuffing, green bean casserole, and cream corn. Not too shabby. Everything but the turkey and pumpkin pie. It was just the two of us. We are having a quiet evening. After our jaunt to Prague, the end of the month is necessarily boring. We figure our trip was worth our birthday, anniversary, Christmas, and Valentine's presents. It was definitely awesome.