back to "normalcy"

Since Italy, life has gotten back to “normal.” I am definitely earning my keep doing this teaching business though. I leave at 6:30, get back at 4, and am usually putting in a good three hours of prep a night. It is exhausting; as a teacher you get no second chances, lots of the time I have no idea whether what I am going to do is going to work, and my class’ behavior depends on the day, not on how many grueling hours I put in the night before lesson planning. I still enjoy coming to work though.

The school gives a lot of emphasis to teachers being doing things outside of the class room, which demands more, but at least gives good variety. This week I was running a football match during the second break between primary six houses (there are four), but I made the mistake today of forgetting about the final today between the Green Pharaohs, and the Blue Vikings. I was ten minutes late, and even though I let them play extra and be late to class, everything is always unfair for this age, there was one boy in tears, and they wanted my head. There are a number of field trips that classes take (all the other classes have taken one, so I think I will get one soon), and there are a bunch of optional socially conscious trips in the near future which I will definitely go on –the politically tame ones of course, like fighting against poverty, or a food drive for charity. It should be another good way to see Egypt. We also have clubs once every other week, and I am in charge of “drumming club.” Today was our first day (because we didn’t start clubs until after Ramadan), and after talking about rhythm with the 8 kids who signed up and teaching them a couple of rhythms on the tambourines the school has, I got to rock the school’s drum set much to the kids’ (and even more so my) enjoyment. I can’t explain how good it felt, it spoke to a part of my soul that will always be soothed by playing music. Gravitating towards the things you love also just sort of makes things work out, because after speaking with the school music teacher, I found out that there is a demand at her music school for an English speaking drum teacher. So I found myself a new job for the weekends, and a new exposure to Egyptian life.



I still get time to go horseback riding, at least once every full moon. The flame from the bedouin pitstop where you can get pepsi, cigarettes and tea, the glow from Cairo, and the full moon add to the surrealness of it all. To the left imagine three pyramids lit up in green and purple by the nightly "sound and light show"

La vita e bella

So my first vacation (and round trip ticket in a while, up to now there has been Rochester -> Boston, New York -> London, London -> Geneva, Geneva -> Cairo) took from Cairo on the red eye land landed me bright and early in Roma Fumacino for an unforgettable week with my family. It was four days in the Italian countryside in Umbria in a house which my dad had rented, and two days in Rome. Michaela, who I hadn’t seen since June and is now working in Dublin, was able to find cheap flights to Perugia. I also found out a week before that I got an extra day of vacation, because eid el-fetr, which was the holiday to celebrate the end of Ramadan depended on the lunar schedule on when to start, and the flight was easily changeable. It was one of those vacations that was almost too good to be true, and I had to keep pinching myself to know that I really had escaped the smog and squalor of Cairo. It really took a parents meeting, and a sleepless night of preparation for talking about children and lesson planning to bring me back to earth.

In Umbria, as a family plus two “appendages” we spent lots of time walking through old medieval Italian towns and villages, exploring large churches, making amazing dinners with the fresh food from the market and pluckable herbs from the garden, biking, walking, sampling cheese, salami and wine, and having many gelatos. It was a breath of fresh air, and walking through the charming towns of antiquity.
On a walk up from the house to the town of Aqualoreto, Michaela and I bumped into the same lady that I had seen with my family on our bike ride when we got off to explore the town on foot the day before. She greeted us in Italian with the same question as yesterday. “Are you Christian?” Yes. “Catholic?” Well, she is. She then went on to talk about a bunch of things that I couldn’t really understand, although very enthusiastic about talking. At least I found out that her name is Ada and she is 90 years old, and it’s Ok if you are protestant because you still believe in God and you will still go to heaven. Like the day before, she gave us a benediction, but this day she wished us “Siempre amore como oggi.”
Rome was equally amazing, but in a different way. It was so cool to see all of these old ruins, and try to imagine what they looked like 2000 years ago. It was also nice that our hotel was located with a view of the Colosseum about 300 yards away. It isn’t every day that you get a text from your dad saying “meet for lunch at the Pantheon.” It was also nice because my grandfather, uncle and aunt, all came from London to come celebrate my Uncle’s birthday with us in Rome. They were all doing really well, and I am all about family reunions.
Some more highlights include:
Dancing in the square of Saint Peter to Mambo Italiano on the iPod, and then watching Roger do the same dance.
Lying down like Romans on the Colosseum and feeding grapes to ourselves that we had bought on the way there to the laughter and jealousy of tourists who wished they had come up with such a brilliant idea.
Walking through Rome at 2 in the morning and enjoyably getting lost in the heart of it, and then finding our way to some outlook where you could see the Colosseum, the forum, and many old churches, all illuminated.

All told, I am incredible appreciative when the order of the universe works out like that.