It has been a sad week here at Schutz as family members of three local hire staff passed away. We attended the services for the father of one of the staff. In Muslim culture, burial takes place often within the same day of death. At the memorial services, the women are in one area or room and the men are in the other. In our case, the staff men who attended were permitted to go into the women’s area to pay our respects to the daughter (who was our staff person) before we went into the men’s tent. As people came, the men went to one area and greeted the male relatives while the women went to another area and greeted the female relatives. During this time, the Koran was read over a loud speaker. There were also waiters who brought around tea, coffee and water. There is no formal service for all that you would see in the states. We stayed approximately 30 minutes then left so that others who were coming would have a place to sit.
This year the elementary school is focusing on school pride. A component of school pride is keeping the campus clean. Signs and banners have been hung in various locations around the campus and new garbage containers have been distributed. In the US there are stiff penalties for littering and it seems that garbage collection and recycling has become almost second nature. But it is different here. There is a lot of trash and garbage, collections are sporadic and picking up after oneself is not commonplace. On our campus we are trying to make our students aware of keeping the school grounds and area neat and clean. On Thursday the staff presented a skit on campus cleanup. The “actors and actresses” did a wonderful job and everyone enjoyed the presentation. Now we will see if the students can follow through on what they saw.
Thursday evening, we went out to eat with another Iowa couple, Tony and Dellaine. We went to Chili’s – like most chains, this restaurant is very similar to ones in the states. The menus all almost identical although some may have an item or two unique to the Arab world (MacDonald’s for instance has a McArabia). Prices are usually less here than in the states for similar items. Unlike many local Egyptian restaurants where the serving size is smaller, Chili’s offers the same serving size as is in the states. We aren’t used the large sizes – but we managed to get it all down and even share a dessert! Service at these “American” style restaurants is Egyptian in nature. You are seated by the host or hostess (they do not ask to bring you your drinks), the waiter (usually men as few women work in these establishments) will come and take your drink and food order all at once. Once they bring you your order they will not come back unless you wave to them and will not bring you the check until you ask for it. We actually sat and played cards for probably an hour or more after we ate. As usual, Tony and I won – we smoked the ladies in Casino and 500!
The drive home was most interesting. We were unable to get onto the street we would normally take (a horse drawn cart was blocking out way) so we tried to go “around the block”. Of course in Alex we should have known better – few standard blocks exist. So we ventured out into the unknown and soon were caught in a major traffic jam on a muddy street. It hadn’t rained for several days so we are not sure of the source of the water (but could only imagine where this water came from). The street was filled with the van taxis. It must have been a major beginning or ending point for many of these vans. The streets were filled with people – little shops open, men playing games and smoking shisha, food vendors and traffic (cars, bikes, donkey and horse drawn carts, vans) and pedestrians everywhere. With all of the high rises it is difficult to tell which way you are headed but somehow we found our way back.
