Today was a day full of adventure. We have been in Cairo for nearly 2 weeks and have been busy getting settled and establishing a routine here for both us and our kids. Our school days have been shorter than usual but they have been very busy with the process of getting set and ready for the first day of class. Setting up for class here is different than some places because the week before school starts is the end of Ramadan and it is a holiday called Eid El Fitr. So, we get a 5 day weekend which is great, but, it gives us less days to set up. Immediately after the Eid weekend parent meetings begin and school starts on the 6th. So, needless to say, we are busy with the school side of things. With all that in consideration, my course load may change as well as Hubby’s. So, it makes it especially difficult to prepare for classes that you are not sure you are teaching yet. We should receive confirmation on Sunday (which is like a Monday here).
On another note...today we ventured from 6th of October and headed out to Maadi. Maadi is a very lively subsection of Cairo where all the majority of the teachers live. Maadi is a bustling area with people of all kinds. The adventure began by loading into a cab. Our regular driver was unavailable. We got to Maadi alright, but once there the driver had no idea where he was going. There are no street signs and every street is named after a number...258, 135, Road 9. So, our driver asked for directions about 20 times until we got where we needed to be. Immediately upon stopping the vehicle young girls were trying to sell us Kleenex and others were asking for money. We were whisked away by some friends that met us at our location and showed us around. We experienced the normalcy of calling and ordering groceries for delivery and waiting way longer for them then quoted. We saw tiny little huts of produce shops and people selling goods on a cart pulled by donkeys. We ate at a restaurant (also a first for us here). But, the main reason we ventured out to Maadi was because that is where the church we are planning to attend is.
We have been blessed that there is another couple here that are also church going folk so we went with them. The service was outside, we were immediately greeted by people, the senior pastor and other kids. Princess immediately connected with another little African girl and it was incredibly cute to see them running around together. Princess can be aggressive with other kids and this little girl was not shy to push back. The kids both enjoyed the Sunday School program and the service was good. It will take some getting used to because it is different from home, but it was a little glimpse of heaven to be at church with people from so many different nations. It was like the song He Reigns come to life! It will be challenging to attend there regularly because Maadi is 45 minutes away from 6th of October. Living in Egypt it is impossible not to think about and recall the numerous parts of the Bible that occur in the Old Testament. Today we drove over the Nile and immediately thought of baby Moses being place in a basket amongst the reeds. Now, I may be naive, but as a child and even as an adult at times I think of that story and imagine a narrow little creek that Moses drifted along before he was eventually was found. I have seen the Nile before and for some reason I still imagined this little narrow creek. The Nile is not narrow, it is actually quite wide, and the reeds on the side are actually quite huge, so it is quite a miracle that little Moses was found in one piece in his little woven basket. This was just one of the many thoughts that ran through my head yesterday, it shows that what we are taught as children can stick!
We also experienced a touch of the nightlife in Maadi. It gets dark pretty early here so we were exploring in the dark. The meal was lovely, the kids devoured their meal and the juice. On a side note...if you are ever in Cairo you need to order the following three juices somewhere...strawberry, mango and orange. It is like they put a full pieces of fruit in the blender and served it as juice. So delicious. It was a challenging meal however because they were exhausted after all the change of scenery. It was then time to go home and attempt to find a cabbie that would take us that far and not rip us off. We found someone who got us home in one piece despite the crazy driving conditions. We passed one 5 passenger car that had 10 people in it and trucks with cargo in them and people sitting on top of the cargo. Sometimes things here remind me of Tanzania and the packed full cars is one of them.
So, we are home now and happy to be here. It has been an busy day and it was nice to walk back into our house. The kids woke up briefly when we walked upstairs but fell back asleep quickly. There has been so much change and transition in their little lives lately I cannot imagine what they are thinking. Dimples seems well adjusted, but he is younger and cannot tell us what he is thinking. Princess struggles with some aspects of the culture because she knows that it is different, although she has grasped on to components of modesty which will be valuable to her in the future. She was wearing a sundress around the house today and upon hearing that we were going to be leaving ran to get her leggings to `cover her legs`. I am glad that is not much of a fight and that she loves her tights. Princess is having difficulty adjusting to the women wearing hijabs and veils. I do not think that it is because of the hijabs themselves but some of the first ladies wearing them that she met wanted to touch her and hold her and they were kind of grabby which made her uncomfortable and so she affiliates all people wearing a head covering to be those ladies. Hopefully that is something that will pass because so far she wants nothing to do with them on a one on one basis.
So, tomorrow will bring a day of relaxation, laundry and some preparation. Then Sunday it is back to work and we will have 2 days to prep before our 5 day weekend. Not sure what we are going to do on the 5 day weekend yet...perhaps we will do some more exploring!
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