20 Degrees and Sunny

It is December 9th and it is 20 degrees and sunny outside.  Princess is running around in a sun dress outside, while Dimples and Hubby take a nap.  It is a glorious day off from school and students.  (Remember, Friday is like your Saturday...and Friday is the Holy Day here).  We had a busy morning sweeping and cleaning like most Friday's, it is amazing how much dust and dirt accumulates here over short periods of time.  Later today we will go to Maadi for church and a staff potluck.  This led to me spending the morning slaving over my hot, gas powered stove prepping some very, very high calorie, starchy side dishes for the party.  (More on this later).

I have always like cooking for people and having dinner parties, or dessert get togethers.  That has been one of the more challenging this here for me to adjust to.  We just do not know as many people here, and the people we do know well, live almost an hour away, so getting together for dinner is not convenient.  But, we did have some friends over a couple weeks ago, before we went to the pyramids and had a delicious array of vegetarian food.  (We are not becoming vegetarians anytime soon, but have been enjoying the diversity of many different items we have access to here.


Then, we had an invitation to an Egyptian Feast at a friends house.  The food was simply divine; although I did avoid the livers and the salad.  Livers because I do not like the texture and the salad because I did not clean it, so I did not know if it had been cleaned according to my standards.  We have to be meticulous with cleaning our fruits and vegetables here.  When we are ready to eat something, I fill the sink with water and dish soap and let it sit for 5-10 minutes to ensure that the dirt is loosened, and any little bugs that decided to find a home in the veggies has left the area and drowned.  Plus, there could be any number of bacteria and chemicals and the fruit/vegetables and it is not worth the illness to ignore a thorough washing process. Fruits with thin skins like strawberries, lettuce and broccoli are the most challenging to deal with.  In fact, we just had our first strawberries since arriving and they were fabulous.


Anyway, the food at the party was excellent, rice with an interesting green sauce, foul, stuffed veggies, fried chicken, fried beef, salad, corn soup, an aubergine dish, livers, shamy bread, fruit salad, and three types of desert.  Three hours after starting our meal I rolled off my chair and waddled out of their house.  I was stuffed with deliciousness.  I wish I had taken my camera because the food was simply amazing, and I developed an affinity for Guava because it was prepared so deliciously.


Last night, the student council at the school put on a dance for students in grade 7-11.  (Remember, our school only goes to grade 11 right now, we are adding grade 12 next year).  Since I am a teacher supervisor of the Student Council, it was part of my duty to be at the dance.  I have never been inside the school at night, but it looked so incredibly different!  Almost like a 5 star resort.  The students did an excellent job putting it all together, and a few behaviour issues aside, it was a great success.  Hubby dressed up Dimples and Princess in the Christmas outfits and they came to the dance for about an hour.  Princess had so much fun dancing with the grade 7's, it really was quite cute.  Dimples just loved the balloons...particularly popping the balloons.  Since the students are always in uniform, it was neat to see them all dressed up, ready to impress.  They all had such great fashion sense and some of them I hardly recognized when they came in.  It was a fun way to celebrate the season with the students in a different context.

Dimples ready for the dance with his Mickey Santa hat.

Princess and Dimples ready to party!

The school at night...I just love the palm trees in the courtyard, probably my favorite feature.  My class is on the top floor, the second door beside the big row of windows.

Dimples enjoying the party.

Hubby, Me, and our Friend at the dance.

Princess and our school Christmas Tree.

So, that brings us to today.  We are heading to Maadi for a progressive dinner where I am sure, I will be filled to the brim with delicious and wonderful food.  I have no idea if we will make it through the entire meal with the kids, but we will certainly try.  My contributions are very starchy and are not waistline friendly, but they are certainly tasty, and are perfect "winter"food.

It is still hard for me to think that it is Christmas time.  It is already a couple weeks into December and it just does not feel like it.  So much of my life has been spent with a White Christmas, that it is necessary to be cold and white for it to feel like Christmas.  We are heading to Spain for the Holidays, where it will be cooler, but there will probably not be any snow.  The most fascinating thing is that we have not done any Christmas shopping.  It has hardly crossed my mind.  We play Christmas music and watch Christmas movies, but it just does not feel the same without the snow on the ground.  We thought about getting a tree, but chose not to, and instead we have a single Poinsettia plant. 

As Princess is getting ready to celebrate her third Christmas, it has been especially important to ensure that she knows that Jesus is the reason for Christmas.  When we were riding the camels and saw a donkey, I reminded her that Mary rode a donkey to Bethlehem and the Wisemen rode the camels to see baby Jesus.  In a way, it is easier to make the birth story of Jesus real here.  She has seen Santa in some of the Christmas movies, but she thinks he is just a character in the movie.  She could care less if he was real or not.  I am incredibly happy that we do not have the whole Santa thing here.  I am not sure if I would want her to believe in him or not.  Although, Polar Express has been her favorite Christmas movie for the 2nd year in a row.  We may have to deal with the whole Santa issue next year.  But, it will probably be easier because we do not see him in Egypt...at least humans dressed up as Santa anyways.

The second round of elections are this week, and since we live in Giza, and it is Giza's turn to vote, the school is closing early for Christmas.  This will give residents the opportunity to go and vote, and keep the staff and students safe in the event that the elections do not run smoothly.  So, next week, we teach for three days, and get an extra two days tagged on to our already lengthy 3 week holiday.  We are looking forward to the opportunity to travel and hope that the elections run smoothly so our plans go on as expected.

Thanks for taking the time to read and catch up with our lives here.  This post has become a very lengthy dialogue of our last couple weeks, I hope to post more frequently from here on out.