Friday, February 09

On Thursday evening we had a “Grill Club” outing to a local Egyptian/Syrian restaurant located in Green Plaza. The elementary library associate, Nadia, has been organizing these outings for several years as a way to bring the staff together and treat the foreign hires to authentic cuisine. Nadia is a delightful cheerful person who always manages a smile and kind word for all. She is also a cancer survivor who has remained very positive throughout the long treatment process. The restaurant she selected specialized in “sharmwa’s” -- (chicken or beef) cooked over a grill and sliced very thin. We had a very nice evening of good food and fellowship. We took a van for twelve of us and had quite an ordeal just getting out of the parking space – it took nearly 15 minutes of up and back movement before we finally got out. The ride back was bumper to bumper most of the way until we got to Schutz Street. Egyptians are very nocturnal. Most establishments (including shopping centers) are open well past midnight. It is not unusual for us to hear children’s voices out in the streets near our apartment when we go to bed around 11 PM.

One of our staff who has been here over 12 years and is married to a local told us that there are 14,000 black and yellow taxi cabs and she had taken one nearly every day to school and has never had the same driver! I guess the government has put a moratorium on the number of taxis in the city. As we drove back to the school last evening, many people looked to flag us down for a ride – guess we looked like one of the common van taxis that travel throughout the city. We joked that some evening we could supplement our salaries by driving up and down Horeya or the Cornich and pick up passengers!

Tonight we went to “Snakes on a Plane” – sure glad we didn’t see that last summer when it first came out before we flew over here. It is nice to get out and off campus. On the way home, we saw three of our favorite locals – the traffic officer who always stops traffic for us to cross Horeya – the pharmacist a couple of blocks from the school and a little shop where we go for water (at 17 cents per bottle!!). The shopkeeper introduced his wife to us as she was working with him this evening. It is so refreshing to get to know the people and experience their friendliness and hospitality.