Friday, January 26

One of our local staff members was recently married. The marriage customs here are unique. When a couple gets married, they are expected to have a fully furnished home (or in this case apartment). It s quite an undertaking for the parents of the bride and groom. Of course the groom is expected to have a good paying job that can support his bride. The families will often entirely redo the apartment and furnish it completely for the bride and groom. All this needs to be done before the ceremony takes place.

On Wednesday evening we went to San Steffano to shop and eat supper. We went to a small café (Harris Café) that we have enjoyed previously. As always the service was outstanding. After you receive the menu, the waiter will wait until you close it and put it down before he comes back to take your order. Then after serving you, he will stop back to check to see if the everything is ok, then he will not come back until you are finished with the meal to clear the table. He will wait then until you summon him for the check. They are so intent on pleasing you in any way and yet allow you all the time you want to enjoy your meal and conversation.

I had my second evening of Girls Basketball tryouts on Wednesday after school. We are a very small school and our numbers are low (there are probably 2 boys to every girl in school). I had 8 tryout (we need 8 to travel) and I am not sure if all of the girls will be eligible or not. The skill level is pretty inexperienced – they will need a lot of work on fundamentals and we have only 14 practices until we travel. On Thursday I found out that we will not have a team as three of the eight girls will be on academic probation. It is too bad because I think it would have been an interesting experience.

Thursday evening, we joined 6 other teachers for a meal at one of our student’s home. The family is here from India. They have two sons at Schutz. One is 6^th grader and the other is a junior. I have both in class – they are nice young men and excellent students. We arrived around 8:00 pm at their apartment, socialized for 90 minutes and then ate a traditional Indian meal (shrimp, rice, spinach with chick peas, a potato dish, flat bread and real crispy bread.) The food was a little spicy (although we think they toned it down a bit for us). The family was very gracious hosts and we enjoyed a good meal along with interesting conversation. It is the first year here for them and it seems that non-Egyptian students are not always accepted as easily here. The young men do quite well in school but are finding that the social part of school is a little more difficult to adjust to.

On Saturday, we reached a milestone. It has been five weeks since we got our drivers licenses and today we drove for the first time. Denny, Pat and I decided to go to Green Plaza. Another resident suggested that I drive – at first I laughed it off but we thought a little about it and decided to give it a go. We hoped into the Lada and ventured out onto Schutz Street. Within a few blocks we were dodging cars, pedestrians, donkey carts, wheelchairs, bikes, motorbikes – honking our horn and straddling traffic lanes. Surprisingly we knew the way and didn’t get lost either way. One time as I approached a red light, Pat warned me to slow down to stop while Denny said to forge ahead – after all lights are really just suggestions so that is what I did. I must say, I did have a little rush when I was finished. Fortunately traffic was not really too heavy as it was a Friday (the day of prayer here). Next up will be the Cornich!!