We are just 43 days away from flying home for the Summer. School finishes June 16th and we fly out on June 18th. We are sopping in Iceland for a week on our way home and should arrive in Utah on June 26th. We will drive out to Yuba City the second week of July for a week and then back to Utah until late July. From Utah we head out to Virginia until August 12th when we fly back to Cairo for year 2.
Sites visited:
Luxor
Petrified Forest
Saqqara Step Pyramid Complex
Il Campo on the Nile
Giza Pyramid Complex - camel ride
Egyptian Museum in downtown Cairo
Alexandria
Hurghada
Al Azhar Park and Khan Al Khalili Ramdan Style
Visitors: we had our first set of visitors come out. It was so nice to have our friends the Shedd's come out to visit from Charlottesville. Chris was Mark's favorite coworker at Burley. He and his wife Sarah have 2 kids, Asher and Autumn who are the same age as Jared and Lydia. These kids really bonded while they were here. I think having them here felt so familiar and comfortable for Jared and Lydia and made them really happy. They brought us some of our favorites from home and it was really nice to have a taste of home. They are just a really nice, easy going family and we all loved having them here. We loved seeing their excitement and wonder at all you can find in Egypt.
Ramadan: we made it through our first Ramadan. All of the Ramadan decorations (streamers, crescent moons, lanterns, bright fabrics and lights) made me so happy. Cairo is a pretty brown, dusty place so seeing all these splashes of color was so fun. It felt so festive, like the month of December back home. For Ramadan school was shortened 1 hour which we all loved. The first week of school was really rough. All the students were exhausted and hungry and grumpy. They got more used to their flipped Ramadan routine as the weeks went on. Jared got invited to a friends house for Iftar, the meal to break their fast and it was so nice to be included. Mark and I drove him over there and stayed to visit with the host (Menna, Yassin's mom) who is such a nice inclusive person. We definitely had some annoyances with Ramadan, food and groceries being incredibly delayed and things being closed but overall our lives were not that interrupted.
Transportation: Since moving here we have gone back and forth about getting a vehicle. We knew we did not want to rent a car as its 400$ a month but if you buy a car you mostly have to pay cash upfront and we did not think we could swing that. It turns out Mark's proposed budget was pretty accurate and we can save a lot of money here! Some teacher friends (Garrett - (he teaches SS same as Mark) and Kaylee Hayes (Permanent Substitute like me)) happened to have 2 cars and wanted to go down to 1 so they offered to let us rent their second car for a month to see if we wanted to drive around here. We tried it out and it did improve our quality of life enough we decided to go ahead and buy it. It helps knowing they were the only previous owners. We were not looking forward to another hot summer of Uber rides having Jared, Lydia and myself crammed in the back seat and it is so nice to be able to make multiple stops when were out and just keep stuff in our car. Mark does most of the driving but I have done the drive back to out house from church in Maadi (its 30 minutes) and it went really well.
School: I have almost finished a long term sub job for a teacher who is out on maternity leave. I started covering her class around March 20th and will finish up My 22nd. Overall its gone really well, she teaches English Applications and has only 4 classes plus homeroom and her English classes are 6 or less students so its been pretty nice. It's felt good to get back in the swing of planning lessons and I now know how to use Powerschool. I think it will be a bit of a shock when I go back to teaching random classes each day and full classes of 20+ students.
Lydia still hates school. There is really nothing she likes about it except maybe that she is a teacher kid so she feels kind of special. Other than that she thinks its a horrible place. We talk a lot about resilient she has been and how much she has learned about what NOT to do at school (or rather had reinforced from home). It's really sad and discouraging that it has been such a hard year for her. I hope so much that 5th grade will be better for her. At least she will go into it knowing what to expect. She does have a few nice friends now after a lot of friend drama late last fall/winter. I think she is feeling more settled but she cannot wait for 4th grade to be over.
Jared has a really strong group of friends which has been such a blessing. AFL is still his favorite class. It's small with just 6 students which I think helps a lot and it feels new and interesting since he came in knowing nothing. We have been very disappointed with his lack of ability to self regulate using his device. He gets to class and immediately opens his laptop to watch Youtube. We are still really strict at home on devices so he sees school as his place to use his device for "free time". He is doing very well in his classes, it is not keeping him from his work but we feel he rushes through it and does the minimum amount required so he can watch Youtube. Classes are 80 minutes long which is a lot of time to fill, I wish they would shorten classes by 15 minutes. I even went so far as to meet with the Principal to ask about schedule changes first as a parent, and then as an employee. I don't feel 80 minute classes are developmentally appropriate. He has watched so much Youtube the last 8 months in school, it is ridiculous. Part of it is just having access to the Internet and him not choosing to do something else but another part is that he is smart and a native English speaker so he does have an advantage over other students that he can do the work quickly. It drives Mark and I crazy. If I was paying for this school I would be irritated. I can't quite explain why, he is not missing assignments or interrupting classes (which is probably why teachers let him do it-they are glad he is quiet and easy) I just don't think its appropriate for a class setting. It is not every class but enough to bother me. If they can't fill instruction time with meaningful work then classes should not be 80 minutes long. We will see if anything changes for 7th grade. Lydia does not watch nearly as much as Jared but still watches way more than necessary. When I talk to other teachers at other international schools I realize our school is truly one of the best options here but our public schools at home were much better which is a hard pill to swallow since not everyone has that and we willingly left. Overall school is fine but it has been disappointing as well.
We feel pretty comfortable living here. The ability to save money is by far the best thing about living in Egypt. We do not love our apartment but love where it is located. We have looked at a few apartments in our neighborhood but so far our place is still the best option. Most of the time living here is good, not quite as fulfilling as I thought it would be having planned on doing this for so long but still a good thing. With Covid restrictions lifting we hope to get to know more branch members and teachers. Quite a few branch members are moving this Summer so we will see who is here when we come back in August. We have gotten to know a couple from the branch, Jeff and Crystal Zaugg who are here teaching at the Canadian School and it has been really nice. They are only 6-7 years older than Mark and I but their children are all in college and they are kind of pseduo grandparents for Jared and Lydia and its really nice to have other adults they feel close to and enjoy being around.
We are proud of how we have adjusted to living here and grateful to feel as settled as we do. Lots of prayers have been answered and its crazy to look back on that first month here/the last month in Charlottesville and see where we are now.
Maroon 5 at the Pyramids. Mark attended with a friend. I think I would have enjoyed it but still feel it was the right choice to skip this one.
May the 4th and Cinco De Mayo - Jared was at a friends house for both these "holidays" having a pool party (both days oddly enough) but Lydia really wanted to celebrate them so we did our best. It was weird to not have him around for these traditions. Signs of him getting older. They also both happened to fall during the end of Ramadan break when we were out of school.
Boba Fetticine with bow TIE fighter noodles, lightsaber grapes and X wing breadsticks. We also made pretzel lightsabers. We watched the Phineas and Ferb Star wars episode which was perfect.
Homemade tortillas and salsa and strawberry daiquiris. We also made churros but they didn't turn out that well. We watched Encanto as we ate.
So much fun having the Shedd's here
Spring Break in Turkey: It was very nice to get out of Egypt.
Not a good road to attempt to drive down
Still can't believe Jared and Lydia opted to not come on hot air balloon ride. We have to readjust our vacation plans to suit all of our wants its hard.
