number two

So, third day here and I'm getting along pretty well. My days still mainly consist of sleep, but we have ventured out a few times to check things out.

So, if you look at a map of our area, Ma’adi, we live on the southeast corner, and if we took a long walk west, we would eventually hit the Nile. The river is the western border of the town. I thought that was pretty cool. We haven’t been out there yet, but plan to soon and will have many pictures.

Our neighborhood is a little shabby, a lot of loose trash, but if you take the street right next to ours and go a little north, the roads become clean and you see a lot more green. There are so many plant and flower shops around, and some of them are quite beautiful. We found a small coffee shop/bakery right by our building that has wifi, as we do not have it in our apartment.

Everywhere here delivers apparently. You can get a pair of shoes delivered to your house from the store if you want. Its weird, but will probably come in handy. We met another teacher today who spent the last few months in Alexandria and she said she would take us up there and show us around. It’s only about a 2 and ½ hour train from Cairo to Alexandria, and about an hour less to the Red Sea, which we will be visiting soon. The train costs about $8. Things are pretty cheap here, as earlier today we had a lunch for 4 people for 86 LE (about $14). But, you know, its all relative to wages and such.

I am going to be teaching second graders, which makes me happy. I’ve already met my supervisor and she is great. I get my material tomorrow and the kids come back next Sunday.

I guess all of the teachers have expressed interest in learning Arabic. So what I think we are going to do is split off into two groups. The people who have never studied Egyptian Arabic before will take proper classes and for the people who have, like me, I believe we all want to start some sort of group for Egyptians who wish to learn English and English-speakers who want to learn Arabic. I think that will be the best way for me to learn, I don’t think a classroom setting will do me much good at this point when I’m right in Cairo.

Ramadan begins, I believe, next Thursday, and the Muslims here fast from Sunrise (around 4am) until sundown (about 6:30 pm). They can’t even drink water but they break the fast every night with a huge feast to which everyone is invited. I’m really looking forward to going to a few of these, they sound really fun…a lot of celebrating, dancing and music.

Sorry for the general lack of pictures, I could take pictures of my neighborhood, but they would all look pretty much the same and aren’t very exciting. We all want to go into Cairo this weekend and do some tourist-y stuff, i.e. pyramids, sphinx, etc. So you can bet I will be taking many many pictures. I miss you all and I hope you are doing well.

Talk to you all soon.