Happy Thanksgiving!

Yesterday our little teaching family got together for a nice Thanksgiving dinner. We had to work on the actual day of Thanksgiving, but two of the girls, Erin and Wendy, invited everyone to their apartment with the promise of turkey. There are a bunch of Americans that work here, which isn’t always the case, and everyone was craving some turkey so it became very exciting for everyone. It turned out great, everyone brought something – mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, sweet potatoes, stuffing, corn pudding, gravy, chips, mac and cheese, apple sauce, cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie, apple crumble, apple pie – everything was delicious, and the school ended up paying for our turkey. Our supervisor Boni and our boss Mohamed came (as did his wife Laura), and most of the girls from the school were there also. It was nice seeing everyone out of work mode, and into a party mode. The two girls from Scotland came, as did the girl from Austraila. It was all of their first Thanksgiving to which one of the girls said “Its like Christmas with out the presents and the baby Jesus! Its all about the food, this is great!” (which btw, she has converted to Islam, so that makes a bit more sense). It was funny, because they then also brought balloons, not knowing what types of decorations to bring. It was nice though, and gave it all a very festive feel. This was a lot of our first Thanksgivings away from our families, and I’m really glad that we were able to make it special.
Tomorrow is exam day for English classes, which should be not so much fun. The grading part is going to be horrendous, but at the same time, the end of next week is the beginning of our week long break! Whoo! Classes are going well, they seem to be beginning to listen to me. I’m a tough teacher…Erin and I are the hard asses of the group. We’re probably the most disciplined of the teachers or at least expect the most discipline. I’m not sure if that’s good or bad.

This is going to be a long one...

So this week was interesting, and the last 24 hours have been packed with stuff. I'm going to keep the school stuff out, but it still leaves a lot. I'll try to keep it less detailed, but its going to be long no matter what.

The little things first. I did my first load of laundry this week, which was a blast (not). We have a washing machine in our bathroom that is pretty tiny, but it gets the job done if you have a few items. The problem is that i don't necessarily trust the water here...as you shouldn't...so I feel like washing my clothes in it is kind of backwards logic. The flip side of that coin is that once the clothes are clean, we have to hang them outside to dry. My roommate and I both have lines outside of our windows in order to hang our clothes, but our apartment is on the sixth floor so its a little nerve wracking. I'm pretty sure that at some point, I will drop clothes down there and never see them again. I didn't this time, thankfully, but the air is so full of dust, sand and whatever that it probably makes them just as dirty as when they were being washed in the first place. Its a problematic cycle. But then again, I never really feel too clean in general, dirt is everywhere. Its just a state I'll have to live with until I leave. The upside is that I think everyone feels the same way.

Thursday night (the weekend here is Friday and Saturday, I'm not sure if I've mentioned that before), I went to a bar downtown Cairo called Mojitos. Bars are not really prevalent in Egypt. Its against Islamic beliefs to drink alcohol, so most resturants don't sell it. I went to Chili's with Erin and they had 'margarita' on the menu, but they really just meant 'slushie'. Any way, I went to this bar for the first time, but its where most of the girls go on the weekend. Its at the top of the Hilton, and there is another bar at the bottom of the Hilton called Latex, which just is weird. I think they pick English words that they think sound cool, but don't really know what they mean. The signs outside of all of the bars say you have to be over 21 to get in, but they don't check IDs at all. We asked a guy there (who happened to be 18 and IN the bar), and he said that its really more about the IDEA of not letting people in, but they generally don't care. The bar seems to operate on the 'idea' of rules. It doesn't have a closing time, just whenever the manager feels like closing is the time they start kicking people out. But even then, people hang around. This is standard in Egypt. I'm pretty sure people just do what they want and ignore you if you say something different. Also at the bar, their alcohol choices are limited. I asked for a Jack Daniels and Coke and the waiter almost bit my head off. They didn't have Jack, they had Captain. The had limited liquors and like three beers, the only one recognizable being Heineken. I'm going to be drying out a bit here I suppose, but I guess the trade is worth it.

This morning, Erin, Anna (an American teacher at my school) and I went to church at Maadi Community Church, which is a non-denominational Christian worship space that caters to foreigners. Website is here: http://www.maadichurch.net/Home/tabid/77/Default.aspx if you want to check it out more. It was interesting, and obviously nothing like a Catholic Mass. But it was comforting, and felt more like a group bible study than anything else. It was all in English, and half of the worship were upbeat songs that we would or have sung at LifeTeen Mass at St. Elizabeth Seton at home. Everyone gets into it, people around us were raising their hands and doing motions along with people on the stage. It was like being at YLC (Youth leadership conference directed at teens for those of you that don't know). I think all of us had a good time. At the end, it was odd being able to understand all of the conversations going on around us. In the classroom, the kids speak in Arabic to each other so I'm use to tuning them out since there is no point to listening. But here, everyone spoke English. It was something that just seemed to remind me how adapted I've gotten to this environment. We met up with Anna's roommate Shana (another teacher from America) for lunch and got some breakfast type foods at a deli nearby.

More food that is impossible to find:
Pancakes (though Erin and I heard rumors of a place that has them. We're trying tomorrow)
French Toast
Bacon - I didn't know this, but Egyptians don't eat pigs. There are no pork products whatsoever. They do have beef bacon, but its just strange.

Later in the day, Erin, Shana, Debbie (another girl from the school, she's from Scotland) and I went to Giza to see the pyramids and ride camels. It was pretty amazing. Debbie has been there before, so she knew of a stable we could rent the camels from that wouldn't rip us off. We arrived there after about a half hour cab ride, and proceeded to wander a bit while Debbie tried to remember where the stables where. There are so many stables in the area, but most of them rip of tourists. I have been told before that you shouldn't go to the pyramids without an Egyptian man, because otherwise they'll charge you ridiculous prices. One girl went with a local guy she was dating and they charged them 40 pounds for the ride, but said if she came by herself, they would have charge up to 200 Euros. Its crazy. We knew Debbie's stable would charge us a good price...if only we could find it. Fortunately, we happened to run into her contact while we were wandering around and he took us to the barn. The pyramids themselves were closed by this time, but we rode up next to them in the desert and took picture in the vicinity of them. And we rode camels to do it. The scariest part of riding a camel is the fact it needs to be sitting in order for you to get on or off. When it stands or sits down, its terrifying. Well, to me at least, but I'm pretty sure I heard yelps from the other girls as well. We had two boys leading our camels, and two men from the stables rode up with us to explain things we saw and I'm assuming to keep us safe. They were pretty funny, and took some great picture for us. We also saw a lot of dead horse and camels on our travel, which we turned into a game. Ten points for camel or horse, five for a dog, three for a cat and none for a donkey because that is just sad (these are the rules that were explained to me, almost verbatim). The point totals ended up being like 30-40-30-53 or something like that. Mostly horses, which is sad at first but they aren't fresh. Its mostly skeletons or looks fake, so its not as sad. People were whizzing by us on four wheelers and dune buggies but most people were on horses, speeding up the sand. It was pretty cool to see. The ride itself was all about the scenery and photo ops, of which I took advantage of. It was the perfect day, not too hot and not too cold. The worst part was all the dust, everywhere. My hair felt so grimy afterwards.
On our way back to the stable, we went through the town and passed this small field and/or play area. There was a car parked with its doors wide opened, and about four guys on horses near it. The car was blasting music, and the horses were actually dancing. Seriously one of the oddest things I have ever seen, but also really fun. It was too dark to take a video or picture, but the horses looked like they were having a blast. We saw two more guys on the way back as well dancing on their horses, but the car with the music just added to the strangeness of that. Our guides said that it isn't that odd, sometimes they have parties where people bring their horses to dance. There are even horse dancing competitions, which they had pictures of in the stable. I took picture of those, but they don't even begin to illustrate the randomness that horse dancing looks like.
After we were done and paid (40 pounds each with ten pound tip for everyone, so really 50 pounds each. Awesome), we went to get food at KFC. Don't judge. The KFC was directly across the street from the entrance to the "Light and Sound Show" that plays at the pyramids in 5 different languages, but it is like eighty pounds to get in. We sat on the third floor of the restaurant (very small floors, so three is more like one normal sized KFC at home. And there was a Pizza Hut on the second floor. ) and while we were sitting there, the show started. We figured out how to get on the roof, and were able to kind of watch some of the show and hear most of it. It was neat to see the Sphinx lit up, since we couldn't see that on our ride. We watched for a while, but it was hazy so we left. It was a long day, but fun!

Pictures are up on Flickr from the ride. I uploaded them in the same folder as the previous pictures, just keep clicking till they're new.

Miss you all! Go Bucks!

School

The resources at the school are limited. While at home, any of the elementary schools would have a nice computer lab or two, a library full of research material and gigantic amounts of printer paper, our school has barely of these things. We do have a computer lab, but there are about eight computers in it, and one printer. We have one computer in our staff room that sometimes has internet, sometimes doesn’t. We have to wait turns for the computer and the printer, which isn’t a huge inconvenience but when I think back to my schooling, it makes me a bit sad. We hardly ever have printer paper. Most of our worksheets are printed out on old worksheets, and then taken to the one photocopier in the school. When I say photocopier, I not only mean the machine, I also mean the person. We have one woman that does all the copying for us, which is actually a good system. You drop off your worksheet, and then come back the next day and there are 100 copies waiting for you. She generally has printer paper, but occasionally your worksheets have something on the back. I had a worksheet the other day that was printed on leftover Halloween coloring sheets, which ended up being good because my kids love to color.
I’m not trying to sound down about the school, because I do like this school a lot. But when I think about how much my schools had when I was young had, I feel sad for these kids. The standard of living that allow me to live cheaply are also the same ones that inhibit these. Its just a little sad.

A Bit About the Girls

While I know I've written a lot about specific instances, I haven't really taken the time to write about the people or my living arrangements. The school that I work with has a native english speaking teacher for every grade that teaches for basically two periods. There are three classes, so we're basically working six periods of a nine period day. Similar to what our teachers did in high school, but they weren't teaching the same class two periods in a row. The school day is broken up into three sections, but each period gets shorter as the day goes on. So while I may teach two forty-five minute periods at the beginning of the day, I teach two half hour periods at the end. Its kind of odd, but by the end, niether I nor the kids have enough patience for the long ones.
There are twelve girls total that teach at our school, three for kindergarten and then one for every grade above that. Its similar to when I was working at the Book and Bean with ten girls. Everybody can get along and be helpful, but generally prefer company of only a couple of the others. I like everyone so far, but its a group of girls, so you can imagine how that works out. Most of the girls are American, but there are two Scottish girls and one Australian as well. Its interesting to hear about their take on the differences between here and their homes. A bunch of us went to dinner the other day and discussed songs we use to sing when we were kids (example of American ones: She'll be coming around the mountain, Oh Suzannah, Take Me Out to the Ball Game...etc). I enjoy the difference perspectives.
My apartment, as you can see in my pictures, is very nice. It is spacious and relatively clean for Egypt. My biggest problems since being here are all the construction that has been occurring here. Our gas is being switched from propane tanks to natural gas, so they came in and drilled holes in our wall that leads to the outside. And then left it for like a week. Then they replaced our water heater, which broke this morning and had to be fixed again. The good thing though is that it is all very distracting and keeps my thoughts on things other than home!
Miss you all though!

Field Trip!!

Today was a field trip, which was interesting, to say the least. For the Primary one and Two classes, we went to a place called MagicLand, which just SOUNDS fun, right? To begin with, I was told about this field trip on Sunday. Yesterday after work we decided I actually going on the field trip. This whole thing is a whirlwind, as if I was a character dropped into a movie in the middle, but expected to pick up the plot by the context clues around me.
So anyways, the day started with me and the other Sarah sitting in the Staff Room waiting for the signal to get on the bus. The school I work at, while I do enjoy it, is a bit disorganized (just a disclaimer). We ended up following down one of the classes, which was good because the teacher that had led them down all of the sudden disappeared. So Sarah and I watched this one class run around, chanting “Magicland! Magicland!”. It was kind of cute, but at the same time utter chaos. Then the two other classes walked down with more teachers, and all of the sudden people were pushing everybody, punching each other and just shouting in general. We found out that we were assigned to the Green class for Primary one, which consisted of 25 students. The buses were suppose to leave around nine, but we didn’t get on the bus until 9:30, and didn’t leave the school until about ten. Then, it took a little more than an hour to drive to Magicland, which began with children bouncing off the walls, and ended with bathroom emergencies, more bouncing and everyone leaving their food wrappers everywhere. We all got off and stood around outside for another half an hour. The poor little boy that had to go to the bathroom kept asking when he could go, but we couldn’t get inside until they figured out the ticket situation. The children that we were watching were going nuts, it was hot waiting in the sun and they didn’t want to just stand. They were just bored out of their minds, and all of the supervisors (myself included) were ready to kill them. We finally got in the gates, and stood around while waiting for characters to greet the children. It was odd, because the kids were thrilled, but the costumes were beaten down and didn’t make any sense. There was a clown, Winnie the Pooh and a rabbit. There may have been one more, I’m not sure. I was trying to keep my kids sane, and they were spraying some sort of foam spray around the kids to which they yelled with glee. The clown came over and started talking to me, which creeped me out on many levels. I don’t think you should hit on teachers while in a clown costume, but that is just me.
Finally! Around eleven o’clock, after a bathroom break where we somehow lost four kids, we ventured over to the rides. They didn’t have very many, but they had a carousel, a ride similar to teacups but were pineapples, and another ride where they sat in cars while it went around in a circle quickly. I’m pretty sure that they have them at every carnival, but I don’t know what its called. We also saw a dolphin show and then rode a prehistoric jungle cruise, where we rode in boats and mechanical dinosaurs peered out at us and made noises. The kids were terrified of the dinosaurs, a couple even cried. The funny thing was that the kids all wanted to sit next to me, Sarah or Jasmin(my assistant. That may be spelled wrong). They were dying to hold hands, or sit in our laps. It was cute, but it may get old fast! Everyone was pretty tired towards the end, and they did buy cans of their own foam and were spraying each other with it. It was kind of funny, because they were asking each other to be sprayed. It pretty much sprayed soap bubbles, so they dissolved quickly. There was a kid that tried to steal a can, but the shopkeeper and I both saw him as he ran off and made him put it back.
After all this fun, we got back on the bus at two (so only about three hours were actually spent at MagicLand), for the ride home. The kids weren’t nearly as rowdy this time, and several fell asleep. A couple boys in the back kept causing trouble that I had to get up and resolve (problems such as jumping over seats, putting their hands out of the window, pulling hair…etc) , but besides that it was a relatively quiet ride home. A very hectic day, but it was fun for the most part. The plus was that it gave me a chance to get to know some of the kids, for even the other two Primary One classes were coming up to me and saying “Miss Sara! Miss Sara! Look!” and showing me whatever they bought or wanted to ride. When Sarah or I rode a ride, they would all stand and wave at us. It was a great way for them to get to know me a bit better.

Parent teacher confrences are this weekend, but thankfully I am not expected to attend. I'm getting a headache from everything!! Also, check my links on the side, I've added a link to my photos on Flickr. They're the same as mine and Ash's blog Get Lost Traveling, so there are a few from Cali on the site. Ignore those please!
Miss those of you that know me!

Teaching

I’m not sure if this has been mentioned yet, but I am not teaching Kindergarten any longer. I am now a “Primary One” teacher, which in the U.S would translate over to first grade. Sunday was one of the first days that I have been in front of the classroom. The other Sarah, who use to have the class I am overtaking, taught the first two classes, and I taught the last one. For the first two classes, I basically just walked around and helped kids understand what their worksheets were asking them to do. My secondary job was breaking up fights and taking kids food. I am a basically a bully. Yet, for some reason at the end of the classes, three girls gave me a hug and one boy told me he loved me. That surprised me, since I don’t think I really talked to them very much. A couple of the girls asked my name, and giggled when I told them it was the same as their original teacher’s. I’m not too sure what was so funny, but it amused them a lot.
One of the biggest problems I have had so far is that when kids are upset they talk to me in Arabic instead of English – since that is what is natural for them. Sarah knows Arabic so she can understand them but she said that she has to pretend she doesn’t know what they are saying since we aren’t suppose to respond to them talking in Arabic. A useful procedure for me! I did ask one boy to explain himself in English, and he said that he didn’t know what his problem is in English.
The last class went over well, I basically repeated the same thing that Sarah had said to the first two and then assigned the worksheets per usual. The little kids are cute, and they all speak English pretty well. I always have to ask if they understand before I move on, because otherwise I feel like I might explain something too quickly and they’re just going to be confused forever.

First Weekend and the first hunt.

To one and all!
Egypt is beginning to grow on me. But I’ll explain everything in full detail…
First impression of Maadi – very dirty. And I’m not even being the least bit overdramatic. There is garbage on the street, there is sand EVERYWHERE, and the buildings are old and worn down. People can’t seem to get this whole organizational thing down - cars are parked and then double parked, and I have yet to even see a parking garage or lot. Even outside the grocery store. Cats roam everywhere, and a few dogs as well. There is a sense that there is a chaotic structure that I don’t yet understand.
Surprisingly though, I have seen a lot of people washing their cars. It isn’t that people don’t take pride in their belongings, its just that they don’t seem to care about things that aren’t their belongings. Trash is thrown onto the street, and garbage bins just don’t seem to exist. It isn’t too bad, its just a lot to get use to.
Speaking of things to get use to, there is a call to prayer at specified times of the day. One of these times is 4 o’clock in the morning, when someone announces over the loudspeakers around the city. Apparently there is one very close to my bedroom window, so that is always fun. I haven’t been sleeping very well, but I think its just being out of a schedule. I’m hoping once I get into a routine, things will of be different.
Food wise, I haven’t been overly adventurous yet. I’ve had a couple of burgers, pizza and I did have a pancake today. It was more like an elephant ear or funnel cake then what we might call a pancake. I’m biding my time with the food adventures…I’m just not ready enough. Though I have been going out to eat a lot with the other teachers of my school, and they said that there are a lot of American restaurants. One girl orders from KFC (they deliver here! Who knew?), and I’ve seen ads for pizza hut and, as always, McDonalds. One thing that is completely different about their restaurants is that they have hookahs everywhere. They call it something else, but basically that’s what they are. People smoke them while they are eating dinner, and they sell them in the markets. I haven’t tried it, and I’m not sure if I will, but a couple of the other teacher do smoke them during their dinners. I find it bizarre.
As a side note, I have figured out a way to watch a few of my shows online…so HA Mom. They do have American television here, but it’s a few seasons behind.
I also bought a phone today, so I might be able to text people, but I wouldn’t bet on getting very many of them. But it was driving me crazy not being able to communicate with anybody since the phone in my apartment doesn’t work at all, and our apartment is the farthest from everybody’s. I’m getting pretty comfortable in the apartment , and the street we live on is just off of the main road, so its not too busy, but the taxi will still come down here.


Now I need to tell a story about mine and Erin's adventure today.
So Erin called me this morning to see if I wanted to go to a local mall with her. In this mall, there is a supermarket, which is interesting in itself. Erin had decided to cook dinner tonight, so she made a list and we scoured the whole place for this list. Pretty basic ingredients. But it took forever to find anything in the store, mostly because it was organized in a way that we didn't really understand. But the first thing that we couldn't find was celery - which we quickly gave up on because we had other things to find. The next items on the list that we couldn't find were stuffing or croutons and sour cream. We must have asked at least ten people in this store where we could find them, and no one knew what we were talking about. Finally, we asked a manager, and he said that the sour cream was 'finished'. They didn't understand what crutons were, so we left (and went to Starbucks ;)). We went to Erin's apartment to drop off the groceries and then headed over to my apartment to pick up some things that her parents had sent with me. On the way to my apartment we went to two more grocery stores, in which the same thing happened...the workers didn't understand what we were talking about, and the managers (yes, plural, like three in each), once they understood what we were talking about said that it was 'finished" but to come back tomorrow. Sunday is the start of a new week here, so apparently a new shipment was coming in tonight. We wanted it for tonight, so we left and went my apartment, where my roommate recommended two grocery stores nearby. SAME THING happened in these, but we did find stuffing there, which was nice. The one stock boy told me it was coming at nine that night, which was nice, but no help to us.
So lesson of the story: Do not grocery shop in Egypt on a Saturday night. Ever.

Also, I am now keeping a list of things you cannot find in Egypt:
Sour Cream
Celery
to be continued.....

Travel Day!

Just to warn you...this is a bit long...

To begin with, the day started early. I am not really a morning person (that may be an understatement…), so getting up at six isn’t really a thrill to me. I had finished my packing at like 11:30 the night before, so I didn’t really have to worry about anything related to that. By the time I had rolled out of bed and showered, my dad had wrestled the luggage into the car. Jack and I tried to weigh the luggage the night before by weighing him first and then having him lift the luggage up so we could see how much they weighed together. The fact that I couldn’t even lift it myself should have been a clue to the fact that I was way overpacked, but our round about calculations led us to belive that my biggest suitcase was a little over fifty pounds, which is the limit for most airlines. The fact that I was down to two checked suitcases was enough of a struggle, so I figured that a few pounds over could be argued. Stupidly, I had assumed I was allowed to have three suitcases checked and didn’t find out until Monday that Delta only allowed two. It was $150 for the extra bag, so I consolidated. Badly.

But to get back to my last morning in the US, I finally got my stuff together, and said goodbye to the household as they left one by one (the dogs seemed very upset, I think that they knew that I was leaving). Mom and I drove to O’Hare, and proceeded to struggle to get my baggage to the check in counter (another clue to the true weight of my luggage!). Eventually we just gave in and got a cart to push around, because even the duffle bag was too heavy for us to drag around. The airport is pretty long, and usually really crowded, which is why we left the house at seven for my 11:30 flight. But today for some reason it was deserted. Perhaps everyone was voting (don’t worry, I sent my absentee ballot in!), I’m not too sure. When we got to the Delta counter, we found out that not only wasn’t my luggage under fifty pounds, it wasn’t even close to fifty pounds. It was eight-five, which was a three hundred overage charge. My mom and I then rolled the annoying suitcase over to a relatively secluded area and proceeded to stuff my duffle bag with some of the excess weight, while Mom put some of the other stuff in the cart to take back to the car (including one of two gigantic wine bottles I was trying to bring along…that may have contributed to the weight…maybe). I didn’t think we took too much out, but we brought it back to the counter and the lady reweighed it. Somehow we had cut it down to sixty-five pounds, which astonished me. Mom paid the extra charge for that because it was only $150, instead of the $300. The lady also gave my duffle bag a disapproving look, and made me measure it against the standard size chart. It was a little bit bigger, but I think she felt bad for me for the first luggage thing so she told me it was ok, and let me go. At this point, it was eight thirty, and my flight wasn’t until 11:30, so we decided to kill time. We kept the cart and wheeled my backpack and duffle bag back to the car so Mom could put the excess items back in the car. We wheeled ourselves over to the Hilton attached to the airport to get a cup of coffee. Time passed quickly and before we knew it, it was time for me to go through security. The lady at the security area took an interest in us, and told me to keep the cart to push my duffle bag around. She also measured my duffle and told me that it was a little too big, but again, she’d let me go through instead of making me check it. For which I again was grateful, because I didn’t want to pay for the extra fee. Security went by quickly, and the terminal was short, so I got to my gate quickly. Which didn’t help too much when they switched it to the other side of the terminal because of an equipment change. Apparently there weren’t a lot of people on our flight, so they downgraded to a smaller plane. Normally I wouldn’t be too thrilled, since smaller planes and I rarely mix well, but I was tired and I ended up sleeping through the whole thing. The only thing that really stunk was the fact that I had to walk down stairs with my ridiculously heavy duffle bag to the plane and have them stash it under the plane for the flight (I wasn’t the only one. There just wasn’t a lot of overhead space for bags). But as soon as I got into my window seat, I bunched my coat up, and closed my eyes. The next thing I knew, we were in New York.

The limited time between flights meant I couldn’t explore, but I did buy a cup of soup at a deli in my terminal. I also checked the Departure screens to see if there was a Delta flight to Amsterdam since I had been told by several people that my Uncle Steven was flying there today. I found one and wandered over, but I didn’t even know what airline he was taking so I didn’t look too hard and wandered back to my gate so I could call Becky before I left, like I had promised. The flight boarded right on time, and it appeared to have a tour group of some sort heading to Cairo also, so it was a pretty packed flight. The biggest issue came when some guy brought his cat in carrier case onto the flight. It obviously didn’t fit underneath the seat in front of him. From what I gathered, he had assume it would. I’m not sure why , it was a pretty big carrier. There were a few people that were allergic to the car in the vicinity, so they all began to raise a ruckus regarding the cat. An hour after our original departure time, we were still on the ground and the cat man was leaving the flight. He was only a few rows in front of me, so I heard everyone complaining, but I think the gist of the story was the carrier didn’t fit anywhere. It was just too big. Which doesn’t make any sense as to how he got through security or anything but, it didn’t matter too much anymore since he just got his bags off the plane and left. We left pretty soon after that. The flight itself was uneventful and I spent most of it dozing off. There wasn’t really a solid period of time where I was sleeping, but I did get a few naps in so I felt relatively rested.

The landing was smooth and soon enough we were walking down stairs to our buses to take us to the terminal. If you’ve never had to do this before, it’s an interesting experience, only because Americans tend not to expect it. There was a tour group with us that seemed slightly confused by the process. I got my Visa, through customs and found my luggage rather quickly, and took about twice that time to find the person that was suppose to drive me to the school. It was mostly my fault, I didn’t see his sign, so I wandered around for a while before figuring it out. Mohammed greeted me in perfect English, and we went to his car. He is the director’s son and basically the principle of the school (though he had a different name for it. But in the description, it was pretty much the same). It took a little bit og time to maneuver my stuff into his car, but once we were ready to go, Mohammed BACKED over the curb surrounding the parking lot. The fact that the parking lot was jammed packed had a bit to do with it, but I wasn’t really expecting that move at all. Driving here is absolutely crazy. I think most traffic laws are just suggestions for them, no one actually follows it at all. People were driving over white lines, in between cars….on a three lane road, there had to have been at least five lanes of traffic. The driving is extremely erratic, and people do numerous other things while driving, or just drift over in their lanes. People honk their horns for variety of reasons…and they do it constantly. It is a very loud traffic area and dangerous…Yet people seem to dart out of nowhere to cross traffic. Also, instead of waiting for a break in traffic to turn, cars turn into oncoming traffic and just hope that those cars get out of the way. Its an organized chaos, as everyone else seems to understand the right of way rules…though from my perspective, it just seems as though whoever is approaching needs to redirect their route. Mohammed took me to the school and I got to see Erin, my friend who secured this gig for me, and Boni the head of my department. She took me to my apartment after introducing me to my roommate Lisa, and we stopped at the store on the way to pick up some bread, water and other food I may need for the time being. We went into the apartment and settled a bit, and then she left and I took a shower and fell asleep. I was woken up by odd noises outside my window which I have now been told are completely normal and I will get use to. To which I say, ummm right. Erin and her roommate Wendy took me to dinner with them and a few of the other teachers, which was nice, but now I have to unpack.

Its been a LONG day.

Miss you all!!

The beginning....

Dear Family, Friends and random people that happen to be reading....

Yes, I am going to Egypt.

Let go to the beginning. On Monday of this week, I got a Facebook message from Erin Potterton, a friend and neighbor that happens to be teaching abroad in Egypt. She's been there for a month or so, and is enjoying her experience (correct me if I'm wrong Erin!). Anyway, she emailed me to tell me there was an opening at her school. I sent my resume to the director, who in turn emailed me as soon as he could. After a few emails back and forth, he called and told me that if I wanted the job, I could have it. But I had to be there by this coming Wednesdays. Soooo I said ok. And quit my two jobs. And began to make plans accordingly....starting yesterday.

A couple of detail about the position...
I will be at Sakkara Language School, teaching kindergarten. My contract will be until June 15th, so I'll be there approximately six months. The school is in Cairo, Egypt. The school will be providing my accomidations, transportation and reimbursing me for my flight, all of which are fantastic. Egypt has universal health care, so insurance is not an issue. And yes. I have a passport.

You can mail me at
Sara Keough
C/O Sakkara Language School
Block 3, Zahraa El-Maadi
Maadi, Cairo, Egypt
(there is no zip/post code)
FYI TO PEOPLE WHO LIKE TO MAIL CARE PACKAGES: Don't mail packages. You get taxed heavily on the items in there. If you are to send anything, just send a letter.

Sooo as of now, I am getting ready to go out for halloween. Instead of packing for the 11am flight on Tuesday, in which I will be on for aproximately 16 hours. Hooray. I'll try to type more later.