Sunday, April 3, 2005

Dear Friends,

It is hard to believe but my 3-year term here in Egypt is
approximately 1/2 half over. I have been here for almost 1 1/2 years. I hope that I
will feel more effective in the last ® of my term because I already know a
little language and culture and how to get around.

     The past several months have been somewhat difficult. One of my
good friends, Carmen finished her term with MCC Egypt and left in March.
She lived in a flat in Heliopolis, which is a much nicer area of Cairo than
Ezbet El Nakhl. On weekends I would go to her place for a break from living
in Ezbet El Nakhl. To make things even easier I left enough stuff there, like
clothes and toiletries, so that I didn't need to pack all my stuff every
weekend when I went. The flat is still there, but right now no one is in the flat,
and as most of you know I am somewhat of a people person, so 
I am not sure at this point if going to an empty flat is really what I
want to do for the weekend. She has only been gone 2 weeks so 
I am not yet sure how I will handle my weekends. Here is a picture
of the garden at Carmen's flat. 

     On top of that, things have been extra difficult at school. Some rules
were posted that the teachers were unhappy with. I think some were new,
and some were old but just hadn't been written down and/or applied. For
example, here teachers get paid for every day of the month whether it is a
day off or not. So this means they get paid for Fridays and Sundays which
are not generally working days. Since Saturday falls between two off days,
apparently more teachers tend to be missing on Saturday. (Saturday is my
day away from the school, when I do Arabic, prepare workshops, etc. so
I'm not quite sure how things go on Saturday.) In any case, the rules state
that if the teacher is missing on Saturday, they will get 3 days of pay taken
off for that. And when their pay is so little (new teachers get paid around
150LE/month which is approximately equal to $30 CDN/month) any pay that
is taken off can make quite an impact. There were some fireworks over
this and needless to say, affected the morale in the school. Also as a result,
several teachers quit. There were approximately 5 teachers who quit
within the last month, (though not all because of this) including one of the
"head" teachers (sort of like a resource room teacher). There were also
several teachers who were missing for at least a week or so due to other
circumstances. It becomes difficult to do good training when the turnover
of teachers continues throughout the school year.

     What's more we had a "rain day" in March. During Carmen's last 
weeks in Egypt I stayed at her flat and commuted back 
and forth to Ezbet El Nakhl. Well, one evening we had rain, 
beautiful, beautiful rain. (March is actually a little late for rain here I

think.) And you can't imagine how wonderful it is to
hear and smell rain when you don't have it very
often. I never realized that coming from the sunny
prairies I could miss rain so much. So I very much
enjoy the rain. However, the downside, which I can
never quite forget, is what rain does to my street in
Ezbet El Nakhl. Thinking no more of it the next
morning though, I headed off to school. Everything seemed extra slow
that morning, the metro, the trucks, etc. And of course, even though I was
able to get a ride a good portion of the way, I have to walk the last little
bit to the school and so through the mud I waded. Only to discover when I
arrived at school, that school was cancelled because of the weather (it was
still raining off and on during the morning). This did happen one day last
year as well; however in my Canadian mind it never occurred to me that
there would be no school because of the rain. After staying and chatting
with a few brave teachers who had made it through the mud as well, I
headed back, through the mud once more, to Heliopolis. I waited awhile
for a ride on the truck, but they were filling up too quickly (and there is no
such thing here as taking turns or standing in line). So rather, than elbow
my way onto a truck, or make a running leap, or just becoming frustrated
waiting, until finally there would be an empty truck, I decided to go on my
own two feet. It is somewhat comparable to walking on ice. The difference
of course is the consequences if you slip and fall, and the fact that you
don't sink into the ice. It wasn't too bad if I could follow the tracks made
by the trucks, however I had to be careful that I didn't meet a truck when
all there was to walk on was a narrow track in the middle of the road. I did
make it back to Carmen's place eventually without sinking too deeply into
the mud.

     Mother's Day! Yes, that is right. In Egypt, Mother's Day falls on March
21. Someone noted that it is on that day to coincide with the start of
spring. So on March 22 we had a program for mother's day. And Egyptians
love to party, the longer the better. It was initially to start at 10:30 AM, or
so I understood. On the morning of the day, I was told that the children
would be taken to the "theatre" first thing in the morning. I protested
somewhat that it was too long a day, but did not protest enough. Sure
enough by about 10:30 when it was supposed to start, many of the
children had already had enough of being in the "theatre" and it went
downhill from there. Following this I suggested rather strongly that from
now on, any parties or programs were to be no longer than 1 hour
maximum at least if all the children were involved. There are some
children who could handle a longer party, but as many of you know, many
children with disabilities (especially with sensory issues) have a hard time
handling a party of any length, never mind one that goes on and on. As
you can probably tell from the letter the combination of Carmen leaving,
and school have really completely occupied my mind in the past month.
Besides that of course I am always thinking about learning Arabic and that
is a whole other full-time job. 

     There have been some highlights as well in
the good sense. Christmas was a wonderful time.
Most of us from MCC, and a few others went out
to a monastery in the delta. And there we had a
beautiful, peaceful, green Christmas. The bishop
there welcomed us warmly and even provided
gifts for all of us. 

     In January I had the opportunity to go to Alexandria with some
Egyptian friends. This too was a lovely time. My
impression of Alexandria had not been very good
before this, as there tended to be a lot of
harassment on the street. However, I discovered it
does depend somewhat on which part of
Alexandria you are in. There are some beautiful
gardens there, where we spent some time just
walking. And of course for me, I just enjoyed walking along the shore of
the Mediterranean Sea.

     I also visited a small village near Tanta. It was a bit of a process
getting there. Carmen and I took the train to Tanta. There we were picked
up by an Egyptian friend who took us by taxi to a microbus station. We
took the microbus to "a road" in the middle of nowhere. There we got on
an old car   I can't remember the exact year of the car but it was
somewhere around a 48 model. These are unlicensed cars and so this is the
only place where they can drive. We rode the car into the village where
our friend's father was in the process of building a house. It rained that
day as well, and so the streets were very muddy. However it was an
enjoyable, relaxing day. Yes, rain occurs only seldom. It just always happens
when I am in a position to have to walk through mud. On a trip south of
Cairo to a little village a month later, wouldn't you know it, I encountered
rain again, and again had to walk through mud. I'm getting pretty good.

     Dorothy has arrived in Egypt! The other evening I heard some music
and went to investigate. I discovered a party for the children of the
Mahappa School (school in garbage area, run by the sisters) was taking
place in the "theatre" here. The children were singing some songs and
doing quite a nice job of it too. Then they had a puppet show which I
recognized very quickly to be "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz". "Dorothy" is
not easily said by the Egyptian tongue and so "Dorothy" became "Rose". It
was a fun show and I actually understood some of it. Of course it helped
that I was familiar with the story.

     Easter! Right now I am between Easters. Western Easter was very
early this year, and Eastern Easter is very late   May 1. Because of all the
things going on in March, and because living in the convent makes it easier
to focus on Eastern Easter, this year I decided to focus my Lenten fasting
and Easter preparation to coincide with Eastern Easter. I started fasting
later than the sisters did however, as I waited until after our Easter to
begin the fast. I went to a beautiful sunrise service in the Commonwealth
Cemetery here in Cairo. The grounds are very beautiful, and somehow a
cemetery does seem a fitting place to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus
Christ. Following this we had a lovely Easter dinner at James & Linda's, our
MCC country representatives.

     Right now in the convent or near by and at least eating at the
convent we have 6 foreigners: myself, a French woman, 2 Swedish women,
and 2 German men. It is quite an interesting mix. The other women will all
be leaving within a month or so, but it is kind of strange to have so many
foreigners around right now.

     In February a new MCC'er arrived. Rosemary will be in Cairo for a 3-
year term working with the refugee program at St. Andrew's. At the
school, a new Tasony (sister) arrived. She has some previous experience
working with children with disabilities and seems to enjoy working with
the children very much.

     Here the weather has been quite nice. Not too hot, which is my
biggest concern. Wishing all of you a lovely spring!

Love,

Gloria

gd@dueck.ca
14 el-Sobki Street, Heliopolis, Cairo  11341 EGYPT