Maddy is putting together a project for science that involves dinosaur bones. Plan A is she buries them in mud and lets other students dig them out.
This proved to be too much messy so plan B is now sitting in the freezer. I hope we can find a freezer at school to put them in!
Liz had planned to have a Royal Wedding tea party with red, white and blue cup cakes but life conspired against us and it never quite happened. So instead I offered to host a St Helena Day celebration pot luck lunch! Each guest picked a St. Helena recipe kindly scanned, typed and emailed by my friends on the island and in the UK and then brought that dish with them. Those who preferred not to cook brought juice or cake from the shop. Maddison’s friend Louisa even made a St Helena flag badge.
There was tuna fishcakes, bbq chicken legs, chicken curry but no plo! Melinda had taken the plo recipe but didn’t make it! For desert we had impossible pudding, chocolate fridge cake, sherry trifle, lemon mouse and some Egyptian treats. All very delicious!!
To entertain I printed off this weeks Independent and some articles from our time on the Island. I had a map from school to let people know where the Island is and printed off some of the maps on the internet. We also put out the 2011 diary Peter Johnson put together . In the background we listened to St FM and on the television there was a slide show of some of the photos I had taken.
What a lovely trip to school today. Usually we can do the door to door collection of the kids and get to school in under an hour, so we get there about 10 to eight. Today was special! Due to traffic along the Nile Corniche it took one hour and forty five minutes door to door. Finally arriving at 8:45 am forty five minutes late. Fortunately I wasn’t teaching first thing, in fact now year 11 and 13 have left I am down to 2 lessons teaching a day (max).
The boys (Aly and AbdelRahman) took pictures of the traffic on the way back as it was still there.
So we have decided what we are doing!. Lynn read the blog last week and came back with a resounding vote for plan A, so in an ‘OK lets just do it moment’ we booked! We shall be spending 3 amazing weeks with them in July once we have spent 2 days travelling to get there!
I am sooooooo excited!
We come back for a week in Cairo and then leave to spend 2 weeks in the UK. The school pays for these flights as part of my contract which is just as well as we will be stony broke by then. It is Ramadan in August so the whole day is upside down. Shops don’t open until 4pm and stay open very late as the shop keepers spend most of the fasting (daylight) hours asleep. Iftar (breakfast) is around 6:30 pm and then people treat the night as day! We will be back for the last week or so as Geoff has an induction week to do even though he will have been here a year.
The silliness over our travelling continued as I suggested going to wherever the international dialling code is 007 (we have been watching James Bond recently), ironically this turns out to be Russia. So maybe next year we will go there.
The year 12 and 13 students left school on Thursday and as part of their leaving ‘high jinks’ dressed in black robes with full face veils and soaked students in the playground with an egg and water mix using water bombs and super soakers. I found the whole thing, what with the loud chanting, slightly disturbing. My Egyptian colleague didn’t, she found the male and female student walking round the playground with their arms round each other offensive and hoped her daughter never did anything like that! Isn’t it strange what we find aceptable.
with the rest of year 9 to a rug makers just down the road from school and took some photos. Here are my favourite ones.
Easter Day was spent eating! We had an invitation for roast chicken dinner at Liz’s on the Sunday lunch time In the evening we were invited to Pilar’s for a meal after the service of stuffed peppers, a mexican rice and chocolate cake to follow. We were stuffed!
I wore my new green shoes, even though they look a little turquoise in the picture.
Monday was a holiday here and then Geoff had to go back to school while Maddy and I had another week off! We are all at school tomorrow (Monday) but only for 7 or so weeks before the holidays start. Then we shall start globe hopping again. At the moment we have two plans. Plan A is to go see Lynn and Nick but the flights are very expensive and I’m not sure there’s any room in the garage! Plan B is to go back to the UK and stay in self catering cottages in a variety of locations. We don’t have to decide yet, so we will think about it some more.
