31st March Carnival!

 

For the fist time in 2 years the school held it’s annual carnival. Each member of staff had a job at a specific outlet, the maths department had the privilege of running the pony and camel ride. Big smiles all round. Rides were purchased using the ticket based system that is so common here in Egypt. You take your money buy tickets and then exchange these tickets for rides, food, the hena lady . . . We all did 1 hour of taking tickets from 12 until 5pm and could leave after our shift was over, Maddy and I left about 2pm after getting hena tattoos on our legs. We called a taxi that turned up at 2:50pm and were home within 30 mins where Geoff, who had stayed at home, made us fried egg sandwiches for lunch.

Baby donkey and Maddy with Louisa on a camel

Nour and her ‘supportive friends’

23rd March Honoured Guests

 

Yesterday one of the two maths matrons Shehira invited Amira, Maddy and me to the signing of her wedding contract! Muslim weddings are completely different to UK weddings. Today was the signing of the wedding contract but it will be another 2 weeks before they move in together.

Our first adventure was getting there (and I’m still not sure where there was). Tara, the other maths matron, came and collected us and took us to the metro. Now you need to understand that Tara speaks as much English as I do Arabic so when she called to say she was on her way I phoned Amira to get her to phone Tara to get a translation and then call me back to tell me what she had said! We managed the metro and a change at Saadat, catching a train towards Giza. and getting off at Boohoth. We walked down a street, over a railway bride and then caught a tut-tut to the top of Shehira’s street.

 

There was a giant inflatable clown at the top of the street and some more inflatables as we walked down. Then we came across the mattresses with the bedding on top. As I understand it they were stuffed with cotton this morning and are part of what we would call the trousseau. Shehira provides this as her part of the contract along with crockery, pots and pans, bins, . . and the husband provides the wooden furniture. We saw everything on tables waiting to be taken into her apartment lining one part of the street, with the blankets hanging between the houses.

Shehira met us and was so pleased to see us even though there must have been over 100 people sat in the street. She took us on a tour of her new apartment. It is on the top floor and has 2 bedrooms,

 

Tara, me, Maddy, Shehira and Malak at the bottom. Tara is Malak’s aunt but her brother died and the mother left Malak to be raised with her.

Then it was time to go downstairs and up into a flat on the other side for some food it seemed had been prepared especially for us. Lamb, rice and various vegetable dishes very on the table for us. It was wonderful to eat Egyptian food, everything was so tasty.

 

Then there was a bit of sitting around, women sat at one end and men at the other,  and taking pictures of the children until it was time to go to the mosque and see Shehira’s signing of the contract, As we sat a gun kept going off to herald each stage, prayers, his signing of the contract,  . . . .

Shehira changed outfits for this bit.

Shoes off and hair modestly covered we went in to see what happened. Finger prints go on each page on top of a passport photo as well as a signature . He had already signed so we just got to see Shehira. Then it was back out into the sunshine for congratulations to the now married couple and pictures.

After this the bride and groom danced together and they were joined by 2 men with big sticks and what can only be described as a pantomime horse. The pictures were taken into the sun so were pretty dreadful. I had said I needed to be at church by 5 so we left everyone to the partying. Maddison had found the music too loud, they did have a lot of speakers in the street. Our reverse journey followed the same path, tut-tut, walk down the alley,  metro. This time we bought some strawberries as the season is coming to an end, the street vendor is cheaper the Carrefour. 5LE a kilo, this is 50 pence a kilo in UK terms (1 New Zealand dollar, a bargain?). 

We didn’t get to church in time, in fact we didn’t get home until 6pm and then it was McDonalds and strawberries for tea.

I shall take the photos to the shop tomorrow and get some prints to give Shehira, I can’t decide whether to scrap them or not, I’ll wait and see it there is a book to put then in first before I decide.

The next celebration is the actual wedding, but I think there is a girls night on the 5th April first that involves henna . . . . . we have been invited so I shall pass on the information.

Sports day 14th March

 

The venue was the Olympic stadium in Maadi so Maddy and I walked across at 8am for an 8:15 start. Of course it didn’t start on time in fact I think we waited over an hour for the festivities to begin. I had been given the job of ‘Finishing Line Official’ and was responsible for making decisions on the final position of the runners. There was a team of timers supporting me and sitting the runners in the final places and mostly things went ok. There were a couple of occasions where the stop watches let us down and at one point it was hard to hear the starter’s air horn. He didn’t get a gun because ‘they’ thought people would be unsettled with it . All in all it was a busy day and I was relieved to be working rather than being on crowd control.

Maddy ran in the 800m, for Thebes, there were 2 competitors and she managed a valiant second.

 

Karnock was the winning house at the end of the day with over 1000 points

my only action snaps of the day.

the hurdles, Mr Brian (head of English department), Mr Jamie announcer and winner of the dreadful shirt competition

28th Onesie

 

I am soo behind the times! I have just been talking to Alison on skype and she said she wanted to show me her ‘onesie’. Well not knowing what one was and expecting a piece of underwear on a hanger I was amazed to see the screen rotate to focus on another part of the room. Alison then leapt in front of the screen and wiggled her tail at me! Imagine my surprise to find her onesie was a monkey suit with a hood with ears on it and feet with ‘Cheeky’ on one foot and ‘Monkey’ on the other. After googling I discovered they were invented in Norway in 2007 and come in a variety of shapes and sizes. http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_nkw=primark+onesie

Alison tells me people have onesie parties and wander the streets of Leeds in these outfits! I can hardly wait to get back to the UK and photograph this!

There is also a thing called a morph suit! I am so behind the times . 

26th February Mosquito Madness

 

It may only be February but with Geoff away for the past few days the mozzies thought they would have a free meal! Technically there is/was only one of them but the wee beastie was either particularly hungry or I am especially delicious. From beneath my two duvets I don’t offer much of a target so he creatively sucked from all the fingers on my left hand and three spots on my left arm working up towards my elbow, with desert from my face. None of the attacks lasted very long but each was designed to disrupt my sleep and left me itchy and scratching.

In retaliation I have extracted the mosquito net we bought in New Zealand (at The Warehouse - where everyone gets a bargain) and hung it from the light fitting. It is attached to the bedposts with 2 elastic bands and will stay there until Geoff returns to do his manly duty and kills the offending creature. This is a strange and somewhat tiresome process potentially lasting all night. Geoff will lie in bed in his not moving but not falling to sleep position waiting to hear the warning buzz of an incoming attack. This makes it difficult, but not impossible, for anyone else in the bed, namely me, to fall asleep. As the attack commences Geoff will leap out of bed to see where the somewhat frightened creature has gone, with the whipping of a towel or slapping of a shoe the mozzie is spread across  the wall or ceiling. If I am lucky this will happen at the first attack but there have been occasions where the mozzie and Geoff have competed for supremacy all night. Geoff always wins and we have a battle scared bedroom wall to testify to this, if only the mozzies recognised their fallen compatriots and took the hint we would be safe. Fortunately I am now adequately guarded and Geoff will return soon.

22nd Feb News update

 

Geoff has flown to Barcelona, via Istanbul, with his school for the week. He managed to skype us last night but today there is no wireless signal so all we had was a brief text. Apparently Barcelona is very like York full of specialist shops so he has found a model shop and bought a plane already! Maddy and I are coping although after 1 day she has already offered to cook rather than do the dishes . It must have been all the pans last night for pancake day! We had Yorkshire puddings instead of pancakes with mash, beans, gravy and beef sausages, so quite a few dishes for someone who never does them.

Geoff returns next Tuesday at 2.05 am hopefully he will creep into the house without waking anyone as Maddy and I will be going to school later. Geoff has his half term when he gets back so he can stay at home and catch up with his washing!

2nd February A day of Civil Unrest

 

Today was a strike of civil entities across the country but from reading the news it was not as well supported as it might have been. When we walked back from church last night there was an armoured personal carrier at the mall so we got up late and stayed in watching NCIS and Harry Potter. Maddison got out one of her Christmas presents and sat and made herself some friends.

 

Maddy and I are on half term this week, Geoff will be off in 2 weeks time and has a school trip to Barcelona!

We will be staying at home most of the time I expect.