Friday, April 27

Last weekend the PTA sponsored a “Mini-Marathon” fundraising activity for children at one of the member’s “farm.” This farm was located about 12 km out of Alex on the Desert Road towards Cairo. It took us nearly an hour to get to the farm because of the traffic. The main highways in Egypt are given names – rather than numbers as in the states. The Desert Road is a 4 lane divided highway – with concrete barricades separating the directions. These were put in so drivers wouldn’t make U turns to change directions. Instead there are roundabouts located at various points. Divided highways aren’t really divided as we may think. It is not uncommon to have oncoming traffic coming on your side – cars, motorbikes, bicycles, donkey carts, etc. – so you have to really stay on your toes. Traffic is pretty busy as one might expect between two major cities that are only 120 miles apart.

The farm we visited is not typical of Egyptian farms nor would it be like the farms Pat and I grew up on. There is a large stone wall around the farm – entrance is through a guarded security gate. There are fields along the lane leading up to the villa. Currently there is a soccer field on one side of the lane and just a large open area on the other. We were told they want to make that area into a little 3 to 4 hole golf course. The family has apricot trees, grape vines and other areas for vegetables. In addition, they have pigeon houses as they raise over 6,000 pigeons. Between the pigeon houses there are areas for chickens. They also have a little stable for horses and donkeys. Around the villa are several soccer fields, open lawn areas, two clay tennis courts and a clay basketball court. In one area is a large three story gazebo with a little moat around it. One of the family members was married there and the area was large enough for over 2,000 guests. Of course the family has a large staff that oversees and maintains the farm.

Our friend Denny visited the dentist a few days ago. He took a taxi from the school to her office. The driver didn’t speak English and really didn’t know where to go so he would stop along the street and ask pedestrians if they spoke English in order to have Denny tell them in English and then they could translate to Arabic. It took 3 or 4 stops before he found someone. We’ve had this happen as well – the first time we thought the driver was just stopping to say hi to someone he knew.

One of my students came to school last Sunday and was “scarved” for the first time. This is an individual decision for each girl. I asked her about it and she told me she has been preparing for this for several months. She has been praying and reading the Koran and felt the time was right for her. Her parents were not in favor of it at this time because she will be traveling to the US (to New York) for a week-long leadership conference in July and they are fearful of the reaction and possible threats and harassment she might encounter. She is comfortable with it and her family will accept it and support her. We have probably 30 to 40 girls in secondary school and now three are scarved – none are veiled. This seems to be something is done when they are older. On the street we see much higher percentage of teen age girls who are scarved than are on our campus. When a girl is scarved, all that shows that is not covered are the hands and face. When they are veiled, only the eyes are uncovered and at times they may be covered as well with a mesh or nylon type material. Veiled females are usually dressed all in black while scarved females wear many different types of outfits and often very decorative scarves. Outfits must cover all areas except the hands and face. Some veiled women will also wear gloves so nothing is revealed other than the eyes.