Saturday, November 25

We just returned from our Thanksgiving holiday at Almaza Beach Resort. It was a very enjoyable trip, we were all sad to see it end. We left Thursday morning around 9:00. Six couples went – we are all about the same age but there is quite a variety in our backgrounds. We hired a van and driver to take us on the 300 km trip. There is a main 4 lane divided highway that runs throughout much of Egypt called the Desert Road. It is very well maintained. Our driver had a bit of a heavy foot – many vehicles are equipped with a warning beeper when the driver exceeds a certain speed. Ours would go off occasionally and we did get pulled over for speeding. I am not sure how we were detected as their was no patrol car or motorcycle nor did there appear to be a plane in the sky What looked like a routine traffic security check ended up with a ticket for our driver. It is quite unique here how this is done. He was given a ticket and had to turn over his driver’s license to the traffic security officers. When he pays the fine, he will get his license back. This made for a bit of an inconvenience on the way back as when we stopped at one of the traffic checkpoints, it took nearly 30 minutes before they let us proceed. On the journey both there and back, there were probably 3 or 4 checkpoints that we had to stop at. Security has been heightened the past couple of weeks.


On the way to our resort, we stopped at El Alamien, site of the famous battle between the British forces under General Montgomery and the German forces under General Rommel (the Desert Fox). This battle proved to be the turning point of the war in North Africa and allowed the Allies to maintain control over the Suez Canal and the rich oil fields in the area. Prior to this time, Germany had been very successful in North Africa. Churchill had replaced several generals before he found Montgomery who was able to defeat Rommel. The conflict was back and forth for several months – one side would drive the other back and then the retreating side would regroup and forge back. Often this was due to the side who was victorious would out run their supply lines while the retreating army would have a chance to re-supply more easily. The air forces and navies also played a key role especially with supplies. The soldiers described the battle in North Africa as a “war without hate”. The desert conditions were so tough on the men of both ides that when in battle they developed a respect and camaraderie that did not exist in other fronts. On the way home we stopped again at El Alamien and visited the British Cemetery which is located nearby the museum.



Over 7,000 men are buried there from all throughout the British Commonwealth. It is a very striking cemetery, much like Arlington except for the granite stone markers and the desert terrain. There are British cemeteries throughout North Africa. The Germans and Italians also have cemeteries but theirs are mass graves with a single memorial monument. Churchill, on the importance of El Alamien, said “Prior to El Alamien, we didn’t win a single battle; After El Alamien we didn’t lose any.” Later on in our holiday, we stopped at Marsa Matruh where General Rommel had his underground headquarters or cave -- right on the edge of the Mediterranean Sea. Several artifacts and maps were located in the cave.

We stayed at Almaza Beach Resort (http://www.iberotel-eg.com/almaza/index.htm) just outside of Maras Matruh on the Mediterranean. The resort is called an ‘Italian” resort with nearly 400 rooms. It is 5 star facility with restaurants, lounges, swimming pools, health facilities, sauna, etc., along the most beautiful white sand virgin beach we have ever seen.



What made this so special was that we were the only guests in the resort! This is the off-season so the Egyptians were not there and there were no European charter groups in. We had a fantastic time. The staff pampered us and we had full run of everything. We walked the beaches, swam in the Med, and enjoyed the sauna.



Our stay was half board so we enjoyed breakfast and supper in one of the restaurants. It was first class all the way. During the evening, we ventured to the lounge for two nights of fun. The first night I put together a Quiz Night with 10 questions in: History, Sport, Music, Movies, Broadway and of course Thanksgiving. On the second night, another staff member had prepared a similar activity using pictures. The resort staff thought we were quite loud and competitive!!

On Friday, we took a day trip into Marsa Matruh – a resort city with over 100,000 people (during the busy season). Of course since it was the off season, it was like a scene out of the Twilight Zone where it seemed we were the only people around.



Just outside of Marsa Matruh we visited “Cleopatra’s Bath” a natural bath area on the Med where Cleopatra came to bathe and Ageeba, a unique cliff area on the sea. All of the areas have security and shortly after we arrived at Ageeba, a security escort was called by the security at Ageeba to escort us back to Marsa Matruh when we were ready to leave.

One of the members of our staff is married to an Egyptian professor at the university in Cairo. He joined us for the holiday and told us that the reason they were called was because there was a group of young Libyian boys at Ageeba and with Libya only 2 and a half hours away the security thought it would be best to provide security for the Americans. It was so nice having him along with us as he was able to translate a lot for us and help us in many ways.

All in all, we had a great time. The scenery was so beautiful and our staff is much fun to be around. The only thing that could have made this better for us would have been to have our families share the holiday weekend with us.

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving to each of you. We hope this day is filled with much happiness as well as good food. Enjoy the time you have together. We are headed to Iberotel Almaza Matrouh for a three day weekend along with 5 other couples from the school. All we know is that it is a sea side resort about 3 hours from Alex. Somewhere between here and there is El Alamien (site of the famous WW II battle between the Allies and the Germans which proved to be the turning point of the war in North Africa). We plan to stop there and visit the museum.



Yesterday, the elementary staff put on a little Thanksgiving play to show the students why Americans celebrate Thanksgiving. It was such a cute little play – Pat worked very hard on the costumes and the cast practiced diligently to do a great job. After the play, the PTA organized a traditional Thanksgiving feast for the children.

Since our school is an American school, we are one of only a handful in the city not having classes today. This morning Pat and I went out for a walk between 6:30 and 7:30. The streets were filled with children walking to school, taxis, vans, and little buses filled with school kids. A taxi that usually holds at most 4 passengers might have 8 to 9 children in. We have two schools nearby but one would not know they were schools unless you saw the kids going through the gates. Most just look like regular buildings with no playgrounds or any other appearances of a school. It is quite a contrast to our school. We have a campus, with a grassy field, tennis court, volleyball court, basketball court, swimming pool. Our children come to school in private cars with their own drivers – most of the cars are luxury sedans like BMW’s. High school students who drive will often be accompanied by a driver who will then drive the student’s car back home.

On our walk, we saw a young disabled boy riding a half bike-half cart looking for anything in the trash dumpsters that might be of value. The bike’s wheel frame was bent and the pedals were just rods. In Egypt, things are rarely thrown away unless they are of little value – so it is unlikely he was able to find much. At this time of Thanksgiving when we sit down and enjoy a wonderful holiday meal and family and friends – think about how fortunate we are. For many of the people here, this is just another day in a never-ending struggle to get by.

Monday, November 20

We are busy with strategic planning – this is my fourth time going through this process and it never does get any easier. Pat is experiencing it from a school perspective after having gone through it in a hospital setting. There are many similarities.

Outside of school, we have not done much except walk a lot. It is such an experience. Pat spoke with one of the PTA members last week who told her that Alex is the most unique city she has ever lived in. Each time we go out we see something new. We walked in one area the other night that reminded us of the movie setting at Old Tucson. There was a blacksmith making shoes for a nearby horse. Several of the little buildings looked like ones from an old western town.

Traffic continues to amaze us. Last night as we were walking along a busy 4 lane street, a wedding car pulled out from behind a line of cars and raced the wrong way in the adjoining lane in an attempt to get to an intersection and turn off before the oncoming traffic came. We saw this type of action several times last night. It doesn’t make hardly any difference what time it is, traffic on the main streets is very heavy. We saw an ambulance with its lights flashing, sirens on and horn honking trying to get through traffic. Most drivers paid little notice to it. And of course there is the constant honking of horns – to warn other drivers; to gain the attention of pedestrians; to alert possible fares who might be standing on the streets. Most people walk in the streets because the sidewalks are often very uneven, narrow or non-existent. Yet in spite of all of this, we see very few accidents and the system seems to work quite well.

Tonight was the annual Schutz Thanksgiving dinner. Our food service staff prepared a traditional Thanksgiving holiday feast. We had turkey, ham, dressing, mashed potatoes and gravy, peas, string beans, sweet potatoes, asparagus, three types of salads, homemade rolls, pumpkin pie (with loads of whipped cream David), pecan pie, ice cream, wine, coffee, tea and various soft drinks.



Notice the picture of Pat’s 2nd helping!! (We needed extra help carrying her first serving!!) Our food service staff has to be the finest that any school such as ours has. They prepare excellent meals and their service is like a 5 star restaurant. We are so thankful for them.




It was very nice to have all of the resident staff together for this meal. Ours is a very close knit family as we share the joys and sometimes the frustrations of our jobs here. It was a very special evening for all of us

Friday, November 10

Another full week here at school with many activities going on. Pictures (both individual and group) were taken this week. Pat was in charge of getting all of the PreK-6 graders organized and taken to the photographers. School pictures are a three day event here with Elementary individuals one day, class and group pictures the next day and MS-HS individuals the 3rd day. Thursday night a group of us went out to eat at a Chinese restaurant on the top of the Cecil Hotel. During WWII, the Cecil was the headquarters for the British High Command in Africa when they were fighting the Germans. It is a very stylish old hotel that is across the Cornish from the Mediterranean Sea. It was nice to get out away from school for a while.

Tonight we celebrated the annual Fall Festival at school from 6:00 PM to 8:00 PM. The weather was excellent and a good time was had by all. The Fall Festival is like a school carnival. Each class from 5th up through 12th has a stand or booth where they have set up games, skills, and stunts (wet sponge throw, pool dunk, soccer ball kick, pie in the face, etc) It is aimed at younger students but there are activities for all. At 8:30 there was a dance for the older students. Nearly all of the school community comes (students, staff, parents, relatives).



It is a big fund raiser for each class. The cafeteria staff prepares burgers, hot dogs, chicken sandwiches, donuts, popcorn, etc to eat. Both Pat and I took our turn serving hot dogs. It was a beautiful night and a large crowd turned out. This is also the time that we celebrate Halloween. Kids are in costumes and have a chance to win candy and other prizes. Several craft and jewelry vendors set up stands as well to sell to the crowd.

Saturday evening several of the staff will be headed to the Portuguese Club for Quiz Night. This is a quiz game played by ex-pat teachers in our school, the British School and the German School. We will be in teams of 4. It should be a fun night

Friday, November 3rd

It has been a busy week here in paradise. We say paradise because our neighbor, Denny, across the hall calls Alex “paradise.” The weather here sure makes it seem that way. Here it is early November and we are still are in short sleeves. It is the end of the quarter and grades are due on Sunday. Everyone was hurrying around grading tests and projects. To make it more hectic for me, the electricity decided to play games on us and one day it went out six times in a 30 minute period. This caused some corruption on our file server and it took two long days to get it straightened out. Fortunately we have a company where several parents and key ex-pats work at that have close ties to Schutz and they sent over some IT experts to help me out. We have been having problems with our switches as well – they are older ones and aren’t able to handle the load that we now are placing on them – the company is going to bring in some more updated ones for us to try. Hopefully this will solve the problems we have been having.

On Thursday, the 3rd grade presented a play to the elementary school on respect. Pat was the chief costume designer and was very busy making costumes for all of the students. She is finding new found skills in a variety of areas that she didn’t know she had. Tuesday was Halloween but the kids and school really didn’t observe it until the 1st and 2nd of November. Decorations weren’t put up until Wednesday and the students had their party on Thursday. It certainly is a new chapter in Pat’s life.

On a very sad note, one of our local teachers (and a good friend of ours) lost her husband this week. He was a very prominent physician, not only in Alex, but Egypt as well. Pat and I, along with several other staff, attended a memorial service on Tuesday evening. The service was held at a well-known mosque in Alex. Services are a bit different here. The women gather in one area and the men in the other. The males in our group did go over to briefly pay our respects to the wife and her daughters and then went across the street to pay our respects to the male members of the family. The female members of our group were only able to pay their respects to the female family members. The Koran is read throughout the services. Typically people stay 15 to 30 minutes and then leave in order to give room for more. It is very sad for the family as he was a very charismatic and generous man.

Today we went out to Carrefour on a little shopping excursion. Carrefour is a major shopping center on the southeastern edge of Alex on the way to Cairo. We took a taxi out and back. The rides were very different. Our first driver took us at a leisurely pace – maybe because he knew the stores didn’t open until 1:00 pm and we left at 11:00 am for a 20 minute ride! The second driver was auditioning for the Daytona 500. He was weaving in and out of traffic – often straddling two lanes in case he saw an opening. He loved to use his horn, as most drivers do. A car may be stopped waiting to make a turn and ten cars behind will all start honking as if that is going to cause the on-coming traffic to stop to left him turn. Well over 1/3 of the cars on the streets are taxis and they all look the same – black and yellow little jobs that look 20 to 40 years old with various dents and dings and personalized for the drivers (some with fleece dashboards, objects hanging from the mirror, many mirrors, stickers, decals, red and blues lights, and hopefully a backseat and doors with working handles) It is no doubt where many drivers spend most of their time so they want to be comfortable.

Carrefour is a nice modern mall with a large food court (including a “Cinnebon” which Pat just adores). We’ve been there two times now and when we went today, the manager (who had come out when we came the first time) came out again today to greet us. That is the way so many of the store personnel and local shop keepers are – if you buy there once, they will remember you and give you the royal treatment every time you come back. We have a little shop across from the school that we now buy our water at because of the excellent service they provide for us. The major store at the mall is also called Carrefour. It is the equivalent of a Super WalMart. All of the clerks wear a blue “May I Help You?” vest. It is a very busy store. We noticed some bedspreads for kids with a Sesame Street theme only Sesame Street was spelled teertS emaseS, because in Arabic people read from right to left!