Thursday, December 2

Has December really arrived already? It's hard to believe, especially when there is no snow and the culture we are surrounded by doesn't emphasize shopping and buying Christmas presents. There isn't any Christmas music in the air. We were excited to see that our local grocery store is setting up an entire area for Christmas decorations. They have a Christmas tree, nativity scenes and even a big, waist-high Santa Claus. We've heard that the owner of the store is Christian.

We've had a normal week. We've been trying to get the students back into the groove of things after so many vacations and celebration days. Maybe by next week they will settle down. It's always interesting for me as a teacher to compare how the students are here with the students at home. Today, one of the Egyptian teachers came in to the teacher's lounge very upset. She refused to go in and teach her class. She said that the students were being extremely rude, arguing with her, and generally being disrespectful. I listened to what she was saying and I totally agreed with her because these same twelfth-graders have been a constant struggle for me.

She, I and another teacher got into a conversation about whether the Egyptian students were better or worse than American students. The other American teacher was saying that students in America wouldn't be so rude; they wouldn't keep arguing. And they wouldn't be so disrespectful. I had to disagree. I feel that the students we have now are nowhere near the students in the U.S., but then I conceded that it depends on where you teach in the U.S. My former school had a lot of hard cases.

I guess maybe the difference is that our students here are form affluent families, and I think they are very used to having their demands met. They argue and argue as if they are going to be able to change your mind. That tells me that they have succeeded in this many times before. They just don't get it that I'm not going to budge on my decisions. However, that is pretty much all there is to complain about. They talk way too much, and sometimes you might as well not be there (which is extremely frustrating), but they are very sweet. And so innocent! I think I mentioned before that 9th, 10th, 11th, and 12th graders walk around with Mickey Mouse, Barbie, and Pooh folders and notebooks. You'd get beat up for that in the U.S. Their knowledge of "worldy" things is really limited. They are innocent and protected here. You don't have to worry about drugs, violence, sex, etc. It just isn't a problem. The worst thing the 12th-grade boys do is sneak up to the school roof to smoke a few cigarettes. I find that so many of my students are sweet, caring, kind, and generous. So, when all of the teachers are complaining, I really feel grateful to be working with these students. I feel that they have very kind and caring hearts.

There, I got school out of my system. On another note, our neighbors have brought a great deal of joy to Joe's life. Why you might ask? He finally has his PlayStation up and running again, all thanks to our eight-year-old neighbor boy. We were debating buying a new T.V. because we could only get the PlayStation in black and white with no sound. The neighbor boy came over and hooked up an attachment to the computer, and well, Joe's playing happily away right now. We knew all this time, that there had to be a simple solution to our problem. It's weird, but we can't figure things like this out in Egypt. We have to wait until the answer falls randomly into our laps. It was pretty funny to see Joe and Mostafa talking video games. I saw Mostafa today, and his mom told me that he had asked if he could go and ask Joe to play video games.

His mom was telling us about her youngest son. He's about 6 or 7. He's absolutely adorable. Everyday him and Mostafa wait outside for their bus and when we see them we wait with them. I guess whenever the youngest son (I think his name is Zayed (pronounced zi - eed)) sees us he gets excited and says in Arabic "foreigners." We thought that was pretty funny. He's deathly afraid of Leia, but when he's outside and Leia comes nearby he walks away. His brother asks him, "Are you afraid of the dog?" and he answers, "No, I just wanted to see this flower over here." He's pretty cute. Very shy.

Tonight, actually early this morning, my sister Angela will come to Cairo. I can't wait to show her the things we have discovered. I also can't wait to see her reaction to this country. It's our first visitor, so we are really looking forward to seeing someone from "home." (Well, okay, Iceland.) Hopefully, we will take some new pictures during their visit.