Climb Every Mountain

I climbed Mt.Sinai this weekend.

We ledt Cairo Thursday evening and took an eight hour bumpy bus ride out into the Sinai desert. We stayed at a great little place called Fox Camp where the local Bedouin manage a hostel/desert camp for budget travellers. The man in charge is Valerie's contact for the Bedouin, his name is Farag. Farag looks like a Bedouin version of David Hasselhoff, its weird.

Anyway the first day we went out and met up with families that Valerie and her goat program has provided goats for, and it was incredible. The goats make such a difference in the lives of these people.

Later that afternoon we went out to the St. Catherine's monastary, home of the famed burning bush and Moses' well.

And then in a fit of insanity I got up at 2am and climbed Mt.Sinai. It was amazing. When you climb the mountain you go with a guide, and they take you up one of many different routes to the apex. Anyway my guide was an ass, he walked too quickly and was impatient with my asthma, while trying to keep up with him I slipped fell, bruised my bottom, my pride, and now my tailbone really smarts. Anyway the reason we left at 2am was because that allowed us enough time to arrive t the top in time to watch the sun rise, which was glorious.

And then I lost my guide.

Which was awesome because as previously mentioned...ass!! Anyway I picked a route followed it and made my own way down the mountain and through the valley back to Fox Camp, when I got back I was on a high for the rest of the day, just an amazing experience. When I arrived at school this morning one of the kids asked me what I did over the weekend
Me: Climbed a mountain!!

I am going to call Allan tonight, he keeps sending me emails about working it out but I am so over this whole scenario!!

Inner Peace

This week I have worked three and a half days which is fantastic. Today I had the day off so I went to school anyway and did a few drama classes. This weekend we are going out to the Sinai desert to climb the mountain and buy some goats for the Bedouin children.

It has been a really crazy few days. I am sure by now most of you have picked up on the fact that I am listed as single on facebook. I broke up with Allan and while I'm not proud of my way of going about it, it does feel like the right choice.
The next morning I awoke to a horrible throat infection, and 22 emails from Allan. Argh.

Anyway it has been a really nice week, and I am happy with myself. I have lost a total of 11 pounds since I first arrived, people are beginning to notice and it feels really good.

I know a large amount of the students in the school now because I have worked with almost every grade. I hope when I am certified I will have a chance to come back to this school.

I don't know when I am coming home. Valerie might fly out of Cairo right after Summer School to teach in Hong Kong for two weeks, if she does that I might go with her or fly home to Canada early. Another possibility is for me to stay on here for another year and work as I have been doing.

I think of you all frequently and wish that you were here!

Bits and Pieces

I have been doing very well. Last week I taught 4 out of 5 days. On the day when I wasn't paid to teach I taught three drama classes. Our work weeks in Egypt go from Sunday to Thursday it is a little hard to get used to at first. Had a funny moment yesterday when I was subbing for the grade four teacher. One of the darling girls wandered up to a grade 9 student and said "I will kick you till you bleed!!" Nice.

This Saturday is the big Spring Fling, our school's massive bazaar. I will be supervising the pony ride tent. There is a genuine Egyptian pop star coming to play at the school I think his name is Remy Habra.

Cairo Quirks
Taxis are very cheap here it costs about $50 pounds to drive around for an hour and a half which translates to $10 Canadian.
You are expected to tip everyone for everything.
The hot water that comes out of the hot water tap is almost boiling there is no burn protection.
The metro (subway) has a special car designated just for women, that men are not allowed to ride on.

Onward and upward

Everything is going well right now. I have 2 and a half days scheduled for next week and I am subbing tomorrow. I have been teaching drama to most of the intermediate grades and it has been so much fun. All the primary kids now know me as "The drama teacher" and they wave and say hi, and then ask me when they have drama next. It is a nice feeling and it is nicer than say being known as the math teacher :)

Wish you were all here !!

The latest

I have worked every day since the dreaded grade 10 incident. I have taught grades 1,3,4,7,9,10,11, and 12. I think the funniest class was probably the grade 12 physics class, I was so lost luckily they needed no help from me. I worked with the grade 10s again this morning and it was ok. The two demon spawn did not show up (thank you god!!). I kept a sense of humor and I think I may have turned a corner with them. The reason I was teaching them today was because they sent their science teacher into a stress related break-down.

I am beginning to relax a bit and just enjoy the fact that I am in Egypt. We went for a felluca ride last night and it was wonderful, we were on the nile!

Restraint

Those of you who have had the pleasure (hah) of knowing me for many years, may know about my lack of tact or restraint and some have gone so far as to suggest I may have a potty mouth.

Yesterday I had three high school classes to instruct because the English/history teacher was home ill. My first class was the grade 9s who have a reputation for being little shits. They weren't bad, not great but I could deal with them. The second class was fine no problems there. The final class, I was warned about by the students in my first class.

Let me say here that I think I am a patient person it takes a lot for me to really lose my temper. I am a potty mouth but it is usually in the context of a joke, or merely voicing an opinion.

Anyway the grade 10s were bad. BAD BAD BAD BAD BAD BAD BAD. I was told to call the principal if there was misbehaving, I didn't really want to do that because once you surrender your authority it is hard to get it back. But as a supply teacher I have no follow up abilities with the kids and they pretty much ignored me so I called the principal...no answer. I waited a little while and called again, no answer. I was stuck with these kids in a room for 80 minutes, while they pretty much did whatever they wanted. They drummed on desks, the sang, they played soccer, and one of them showed up half way through with a big envelope which he opened and shared with the rest of the class "Ahmed is often disruptive in class..." NO SHIT!!! No sooner did I stop them from doing one stupid thing, then they started doing something worse. They were given an assignment to finish by th end of class, and only 5 of the 14 handed it in. I was told after the fact that there are 5 boys in that class that would have been expelled in any other school but because the school needs a certain number of highschool kids they keep them in strictly for the cash. The culminating event of the afternoon was having the soccer ball thrown at my head. I kept that ball, and holy shit you wouldn't believe the histrionics that caused! "Oh miss they will kick me off my team!!!" "Miss why are you being so mean??" "Miss we didn't do anything wrong!"
The last one came from Omar who had been as gross as he could possibly be all afternoon long. I lost it I went up one side of him and down the other and I didn't swear which took a great deal of restraint. I was going to write out a list of the misbehaving assholes but decided I should instead write a list of those who behaved because that was only 4 names.

I want to teach them again. Not for revenge or because I am a masochist but I want to go back to show them that they didn't get the best of me. I didn't get personal with any of them, I repremanded them for their behaviour and told them there were consequences for behaving that way. It was a challenge and it was what I needed.

Connection Broken Please Try Again

Argh, internet has been down for most of the last week. I try to get online where and when I can but it is a bit hectic.

Today I had my first call for supply teaching, I taught for a half a day but they paid me for a full day because of all the volunteer work I have been doing.

I have supplied the drama units for grade one, three, four, and both of the grade seven classes. None of this was paid work but it introduced me to teachers and got my foot in the door.

Summer camp is a bit of a question mark I don't know what is going on there. Enrollment looks low so I'm not sure if it is going to go ahead or not, please god let it happen!!

I really enjoy the kids in Valerie's class, they are just too much fun. They all misbehave but that is part of their charm :)

Hired

I have been hired to teach summer school which is $500 a week, in July. I don't know how long summer school is going to run for, plese let it be at least three weeks. I also have one day of supply work coming up in May which is $75. Things haven't worked out very well. Valerie bought me the ticket here when there were very few teachers available for supply, unforunetly for me, the Principal's two adult daughters arrived only days after I did. One of the daughters is a trained teacher so of course she gets preference over me (as it should be), and the other daughter has been hired on to do some of the admin stuff that I had also been hoping for. Which leaves me with a great oppurtunity for volunteering, and that would be fine except I am dreadfully broke.

In other news, I finally got my camera back so very soon I will start posting pictures. I really enjoy teaching Valerie's class, and working as a support teacher for her. It has made me re-think teaching primary. I had one of the teachers watch me do a drama lesson with a group of grade ones and then she told me I should be a teacher LOL! Lady from your mouth to the administration at any universities ears!! I'm going to ask her for a letter of recomendation.

I have started buying some small things to bring back and sell in Canada, and buying and shopping are always fun. :)

Lippy Dippy

Today I did my first lesson plan with the kids, it was great. They had fun and they learned, who knew that was possible? HA ha. I did their unit on theatre and I had them doing theatre sports and lessons that I remembered from when I was their age. Next week I am doing a dance unit for them.

Then we went and did math. Wow, these kids are good at procrastinating and trying to get out of things. They don't listen and it seems the only way they co-operate is if they have the fear of something or someone coming down on them.

I felt sorry for one of the kids because he is clearly the smartest in the class, and he gets things ages before all the others. Then he sits there, gets bored, and promptly finds his way into trouble.

Unfortunetly I am still not getting paid and it is a bit stressfull. I think Valerie was overly optomistic when she estimated how much time I would get as a supply teacher.

School Daze

Today was my first day at the school, it was a trip. One of the children had a birthday so when she arrived her driver brought in a massive platter of candy for the children. Then after lunch her mother arrived with this extravagent delicous cake, and party poppers, she also brought more candy and three bottles of coke. Thank-god the children were sent off to someone else for the afternoon!!

The school is something else, there are two tennis courts, a special basketball court, gymnasiums, a pool, and it never seems to end. There are lots of resources, the children all learn three languages, and all the kids are very affluent.

Not dead yet.

We have been in Jordan for the past 5 days, far away from the internet. Our way home included a ferry boat ride, and a 6 hour drive from the Sinai into Cairo. On the drive home, our fellow traveller Leilani recived a phone call from her mother informing her that a car full of canadian tourists were killed in an accident on the road between Cairo and the Sinai...urk! It wasn't us!! We are all safe! Althought I can't say I am surrprised to hear of the accident, the driving here is insane and on a daily basis we pass evidence of horrible car crashes in the desert.

We have had some interesting adventures over the last few days here are some of the highlights:

Getting into Jordan
We had arranged to catch a ferry from Egypt into Jordan, unfortunetly there was a communication break down and our travel agent had arranged for us to walk across the border between Egypt and Israel, and for us to catch the ferry from Israel into Jordan. This was a major problem because the teachers who were with us didn't want a stamp from Israel in their passports because it makes traveling in the Middle East very difficult, some arab countries will refuse you entry if you have that stamp. Soooo we had to hop back on the bus that we had just spent 6 and a half hours on and drive another hour to a port called Newauba (I have probably spelled that wrong) where we were finally able to board a boat.

Symmetry
In an earlier post I had complained about the drunk Australians on the plane, well when we arrived at Newaiba we ran into a lovely group of travellers from...Australia!! Two of them spoke Arabic and they helped us negotiate some of the trickier parts of travel between Egypt and Jordan, we shared lunch with them and chatted about world politics. Our first day in the ancient city of Petra, Valerie and I were royally ripped off by a Bedouin woman, it was a nasty experience. The next day as we explored further we came across this elderly Bedouin gentleman who had a home on one of the cliffs looking over Petra, he gave us some tea and let us sit on his balcony, he had bar none the best view from a balcony, I have ever seen. Just goes to show, there are angels and assholes everywhere :)

Petra
In Jordan is the most amazing ancient site named Petra. Some of you may have seen it in the Indiana Jones film the Last Crusade. Anyway it is the MASSIVE ancinet city of caves, and stone facades, and really there just aren't words to describe it. You have to walk into the city (or travel by horse drawn cart) through this narrow canyon, and as you come around the bend at the bpttom, you are greeted by the sight of this gigantic building carved into rock, it is breathtaking, and the city just goes on and on and on...

Theatres
In petra there are two theatres, one is a large Hellenistic theatre, and the other is a tiny theatron. We weren't allowed in the theatre because excavations were taking place, but I did get to test the acoustics in the theatron, and I made a bunch of German tourists jump. So my theatre history classes came in usefull after all, who knew.

Car Problems
After petra we had a day planned of driving from site to site on our way back to Aquaba the ferry port. We hired two drivers, and the day started off smoothly enough , we all got in the trucks and were enjoying the country side, when we stopped to get gas. Our driver wanted to check his oil, but when he turned something under the hood it broke off in his hand, so those of us travelling in his truck squeezed into the other truck and drove off to look at a Crusader Castle (very cool). He picked us up from there and on our way to the dead sea, we swerved violently into the middle of the road, so we had to pull over and he had to fix the axel or something or other. After we visited the dead sea (also very cool, lots of floating people and hairy Europeans) we all piled back in the truck, took off and then BOOM our windscreen fractured, we You could barely see through the mess of glass, so we pulled over and the driver used clear packing tape to secure the glass and drove with us to Aquaba for 4 and a half hours!! It was a little bit scarey, I don't know how he could see! We went through 4 army check points and they laughed and waved us through but a police officer saw us and pulled us over. It turend out that the driver wasn't licensed to carry passengers so we had to lie for him, but the police officer reported him anyway! Poor guy.

Tomorrow I start working at Valerie's school. I am quite nervous, wish me luck!