School has begun back after the winter holiday break. All of our staff made it back safely to Alexandria although a few did encounter some travel problems (flight delays, cancellations, lost luggage) which is fairly typical. It is fun to see everyone and share travel adventures (Spain, Turkey, Greece, Jordan, Tanzania, England, the States, and Canada). The first day back to school is a time to catch up with the local staff and students as well. Everyone wants to find out how your holiday was and what sights you saw. I don’t know if it is a phenomenon of Egyptian culture or teaching internationally or perhaps a combination of both but everyone is so excited to hear about your holiday and welcome you back very warmly. Our local working staff react the same, they are so happy to see us come back and welcome us with open arms and friendly smiles.
The last few days of the break, we completed a major networking job that we have been working on for nearly a year. We replaced our network switches in each of our buildings which connect back via fiber optics to a new core switch. This has been quite an ordeal to get the switches, converters and fiber patch cables and then to get the technicians from Cisco lined up to do the job. Our network will now be able to keep up with the increasing demands that we place on it. The next few days will be critical as we test it out with all of out staff and students here.
We are reviewing our academic calendar for next year. This is quite different from the state side schools as we have to build around the Muslim calendar and that is all determined in Saudi Arabia (the location of Mecca). The Muslim calendar is based on the moon and holidays will vary from year to year. In addition, we have to consider the culture and traditions of Alexandria. Most people in Alex would prefer to start school in mid to late September as August and early September is a major holiday/vacation time for the people of Alex. So if they have children attending our school and children attending another school (as if often the case), they won’t be able to travel if we start in Mid-August. But with an American curriculum and an emphasis on AP classes, we need to start in August in order to cover the entire curriculum prior to the AP exams. So it can be quite a task to come up with a calendar that everyone is happy with.
