Saturday, December 15th

We are all getting ready and are excited for our holiday vacation. It's hard to keep track of where everyone is going over vacation. We have 3 people going back to the states to be with their families for Christmas and New Year. Others are going other places in the world (Spain, Morocco, England, France, etc). The fun part is to hear about everyone's adventures when we all return.

There are still many activities taking place. Thursday, our soccer teams went to Cairo for the ISAC soccer tournament and will return Sunday. Other team's families house our students just the way we did here with the volley ball tournament.

Today we have our PTA Christmas Play day. The teachers and parents set up booths with games and the elementary children go around and play any games they like. After the Play day activity we are going to a jewelry party in the city with Debbie (the 4^th grade teacher). A lady makes her own jewelry and it is quite beautiful. After that we are heading to the Coffee Roastery for dinner.

Tomorrow night we have our Christmas Art and Music Production. Monday we have an Author's Tea that the 3rd Graders are putting on. Monday night is the resident’s Christmas Dinner – it will be very similar to our Thanksgiving Dinner with Turkey and all the trimmings – the kitchen crew takes great pride in preparing a wonderful feast for us. Tuesday is our last day of school for the year. Also on Tuesday, Santa will be making a surprise visit to the PreK 3, PreK 4 and Kindergarten students. Wonder who Santa will be?? (see picture). The children go home at 13:35 and the staff head to our headmaster's apartment for our Christmas Party. We exchange gifts and eat. Most people leave Tuesday night for vacation. We are going out for dinner with Tony and Dellaine (headmaster), they have visitors from Iowa staying with them. It will be good to hear about what's going back home in the Hawkeye state.

Wednesday we leave for Rome and will meet our son Aaron for 10 days of R & R in the eternal city, Naples and Sicily. We are really looking forward to the trip.

Today, I paid our cable television bill for the next three months. The charge is 560 LE (approximately $100). As with most services, everything is in cash and the company will send over a messenger to pick up the payment. No bills are sent through the mail, companies prefer to operate in person and in cash.

The Eid El Adha starts this coming week. We hear it might be Tuesday or Wednesday. We never know until the day or two before, and it is hard to tell you why because we don't understand it. We took the following off the Internet:

“Eid El-Adha or Feast of Sacrifice is the most important feast of the Muslim calendar. It concludes the Pilgrimage to Mecca. Eid El-Adha lasts for three days and commemorates Ibraham's (Abraham) willingness to obey God by sacrificing his son. Muslims believe the son to be Ishmael rather than Isaac as told in the Old Testament. Ishmael is considered the forefather of the Arabs. According to the Koran, Ibrahim was about to sacrifice his son when a voice from heaven stopped him and allowed him to sacrifice a ram instead. The feast re-enacts Ibrahim's obedience by sacrificing a cow or ram. The family eats about a third of the meal and donates the rest to the poor.”

We see sheep and cattle in pens along the streets. When we walked on Thursday night we did see men killing and skinning some sheep right on the street then they would hang the carcass above the sidewalk. We are not sure if we will be here when Eid El Adha starts. Last year we were in Jordan when this occurred and we did see the blood from the slaughter running down the streets. Sometimes you will see hand prints from the blood on the walls of buildings. They tell us this is not part of the religion ceremony but people who are superstitious.

Hope you all have a very Merry Christmas and if we see the Pope we will say Hi to him for you.