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"