The Egyptian Museum

The next day we woke up a little bit earlier and decided to visit the Egyptian Museum of Antiquities. This is a massive museum that displays artifacts from the Old Kingdom all the way up to the Greco-Roman Era. We took a cab there and ended up driving straight through Tehrir Square as the museum is only one or two blocks away. On that particular day nothing was going on so we weren’t in danger. (although the next day it erupted into riots and violence).

You are not allowed to take cameras in so I have no pictures. Sad. We wandered through the majority of the museum; it’s so big it’s almost impossible to visit it all in one day. Some of the highlights: Tutankhamun’s whole gallery (his throne chair, sarcophagi, golden mask, jewelry), the exhibit on Akhenaten and Nefertiti (though Nefertiti’s bust is in Berlin. I saw it there last year.) and the mummy room. It was absolutely amazing to see, upclose, Ancient Egyptians like Ramses II and one of the few female pharaohs, Hatshepsut.

The next day was a full day of shopping. I found and H&M and went crazy. I’m glad we got everything we needed because the day after that, Cairo really blew up with protests and police. We had an inside day. We slept in and laid around watching movies and using Ryan’s superfast internet.

The Giza Pyramids!

The next morning Ryan had to go back to work so Ryan’s girlfriend Sophie took me and Kelly to the mall. Retail therapy. Love it. For dinner we ordered in food and watched a few movies before crashing.

Ryan called in sick (hush hush) the next day and all four of us went to see the Giza Pyramids. Because of all the recent social unrest there was some extra security. And by extra security I mean guys with guns in armored cars right outside the entrance. What they really needed to be doing was patrolling the streets for drunks because on our way there some idiot threw himself on the hood of our cab and demanded that we ride his camels. Woah.

We bought tickets to wander in the pyramid area which cost 60LE or 10 dollars. Super cheap to see one of the Wonders of the Ancient World.

As we walked in I was snapping pictures, as usual, when this man on a camel comes up to me. Our conversation went like this:

Man on camel: You take my picture. Why you not give me money?

Me: I didn’t take your picture. I took a picture of the pyramids.

Man on Camel: You take my picture!

Me: You were not even in it! (starts to walk away)

Man on Camel: Yeah your camera only cost 10LE! (makes a grumpy sound and rides his camel away)

Me: giggling

He basically told me that my camera was worth less than two US dollars. Zing! I’m hurt.

We wandered around the three large pyramids and looked at the smaller queens pyramids. There was almost no one else around; just us, the pyramid police, and the dudes trying to sell camel rides and various trinkets. There was fog or pollution or something that clouded the sky and made the tops of the pyramids all look hazy. (Interesting effect in all the pictures I took, though I’ve heard it makes them look photoshopped. Which they are not! Now I’m actually offended…) After our wanderings, we took a bit of a trek through the desert to get a good view of all three together before heading towards the sphinx. On the way I’m pretty sure I found a fossilized nautilus shell. (Grandma, what do you think?)

We stopped for a few minutes to get some pictures of us riding camels in front of the pyramids. (Kelly did not appreciate camel riding.) They took all the pictures of us with my nice camera, which I handed to the guy with this warning, "Do not run off with this or I will vault off this camel and chase you down." No vaulting necessary. The guys did try to waaayyyyyy overcharge us though, but that didn't work out so well for them....

The sphinx is not at all like what you see in pictures. It is completely surrounded by a large metal fence and in order to see it you have to go through a gate and rock hall kinda deal before coming out on this small cliff on the right side of the sphinx. You cant really see it straight on, only from the side. It’s also dug out of the sand so its lower than the ground all around it.

After the pyramids we headed back to Ryan’s place, ran a quick trip to the store. (I bought speakers for my computer so when we have movie night I don’t have to rely on borrowing other people’s speakers to hear it) Then we hit up the duty free shop and sat around and drank before heading out to a restaurant within walking distance from Ryan’s place.

Afterwards we said goodbye to Ryan and Sophie, who were headed to Ryan’s home in Minnesota for Christmas.

*If you want to see more pictures, go check out my facebook!*

Getting to Cairo

For holiday Kelly and I decided to go to Cairo, Egypt despite the residual revolutionary unrest and upcoming elections. The trip started when we confused our flight date; only realizing the day before that we were flying out on the Monday not the Tuesday after school ended. Whoops.

So we packed that night and the next morning headed off to the shuttle stop around 7:30 in the morning. We managed to get a deal on the bus because one of the other teachers used to date someone who knows one of the drivers. (That’s how things work) The bus drove for a few hours before we reached the Tanzanian/Kenyan border. At that point we had to get out, get passports stamped and pay for visas ect. and walk across the border. (for some reason you can’t cross the border in a vehicle; you must walk it) We then got back on the bus and finished our 5 hour drive to the airport in Nairobi.

The shuttle conveniently drops you off at the airport so we hung out until it was time for us to check in at around 6pm. We get to the ticket counter and all was going well, when the airport guy realizes that Kelly doesn’t have her yellow vaccination card. End of the world. We can’t leave Kenya until she runs across the street, up some stairs, and lets some lady stab her with a syringe full of vaccination.

So Kelly wanders off to end up bribing the vaccination lady to write her the card without giving her a shot. (I mean, she already had the shot just not the card so it was not really a health hazard.) While she did that I waited around and dealt with the issues that arose from booking our tickets with a credit card.

Finally we were able to get our tickets, get through security and board the plane. The flight from Nairobi to Addis was short and uneventful. I just read my kindle the whole way.

We ended up at the good part of the Addis airport. Thank god. Last time I flew through Addis it was the crappy part that had no food no chairs and toilets that were all clogged and lacking toilet seats. Rough dude. This time we went through the bit with three story plate glass windows, cushy chairs (ok that’s a lie, they might not have been cushy but at least there were chairs) shops and food.

We got on our flight to Cairo and I think it has the smallest amount leg room of any flight I’ve ever been on. It didn’t help that it lasted from 11pm to 2am. And I do not sleep on planes. I always end up dozing off and then waking up in a panic at every little bump and jar.

We got off in Cairo and went through the visa nonsense and then expected to meet the driver that Kelly’s friend Ryan said he’s send for us. We waited, and waited, and waited for 45 minutes or an hour and then gave up and go a taxi ourselves to his apartment. Although he said he knew where the place was, he had to stop on virtually every street corner as we got closer and scream out for directions. (We’ve come to find that’s pretty common here.) The taxi driver was a smidge insane; he talked the whole time about how each building we saw, was another of Mubarak’s palaces and then pointing out various places on the road where bad guys might be lurking to make him pull over, steal his money, and hold the car hostage for lots of money, because “it’s a nice car. very expensive.”

We got to Ryan’s apartment at 4 in the morning and Kelly banged on the door until someone opened it. (She scared the shit out of Ryan’s roommate in the process.) Turns out Ryan was under the impression that we were coming the next night….whoops all around. We then settled on the couches to get some very needed sleep.

Some Highlights from Term 1

I found these pictures on my camera from the first term and thought I'd share before I started on Cairo.

Miss Fano's class goes on a field trip to the Central Market. We wanted them to experience a real market to help them get a feel for how our Egyptian Market should be.

Masks for Halloween! We created them and then wrote a story about who they were and what they did.

Reading buddies with Reception kids.

We found a whole bunch of these plants growing behind our row of houses. (If you don't know what it is, ask a friend) We're pretty sure the builders planted these during construction.

My class creating a bar graph with their bodies. The x-axis was their favorite subject. I think English won. I'm leaning out of my classroom window to take this picture.

My utterly insane class after one of the kid's birthday celebrations in class. The birthday boy is the one with the mile-wide grin.

Another whole class picture and me. This time during WackyTacky Day. My favorite is the little boy with the orange briefs on his head.

All of Year 3 at our Ancient Egyptian Market. It went over really well and the kids had a blast.

Afterwards, the headmaster sent out this email to the faculty. Score for Year 3!!

Dear St. Cons community,

I want to publicly recognize Mrs Talley, Mrs.Fano and Mr Patrick and the 3rd grade student class for the excellent themed project on Egyptian market. 3rd graders dressed in full Egyptian regalia set up a mock Egyptian market, sold more than a dozen different foods, spoke about Egyptian script, coinage, counting system, cloth, political and social organization (the speech by the Pharoah was amazing). Rich multidimensional, interdisciplinary, cooperative, project and performance based activities such as these are models for the kinds of experiences that enduringly affect the way our students understand and make sense out of knowledge. Congratulations to the 3rd graders.

As we move forward at St. Cons in continuing our innovative leadership in international education I hope to see more themed project and performance based, particularly at the primary level.

(This one's for Mom) Look a rainbow!

Get ready for Cairo!

Last Few Weeks of Term

After Thanksgiving we only had a few weeks left of school, but they were the Hell weeks. I had parent teacher conferences (which went well but I stressed about beforehand) then writing up report cars (a stressful way under-organized and busy work intensive two weeklong clusterf**k) and Year 3’s Egyptian Market Day (stressful to set up and run (especially for Lisa) but eventually really gratifying) and getting everything together for the beginning of next term (done, thank goodness.)

Friendsgiving

For Thanksgiving, a whole bunch of the American teachers decided to get together and celebrate a friendsgiving. Maureen conceived this idea and her and Juliette really pulled It together. They did most of the cooking for it but other people brought dishes or lent pans. My contribution was pumpkin placesetings with everyone’s names on them.

Ww originally set up everything outside of Juliette and Sean’s place but then it started to rain so we moved everything up onto their porch. We had a whole bunch of food and it was all great. I was really, really grateful to be spending Thanksgiving with my friends (my Tanzanian family) when I couldn’t be with my family back in Virginia.

Duty Weekend

Kelly and I switched to have duty weekend together and we decided to take over Saturday and let the other two teachers on duty take over Sunday. (Although this was not exactly kosher with upper management. It gave all four of us a day to recoup from the workweeks on either side of the weekend.)

In the morning we facilitated games in the field for the kids. Surprisingly the secondary students were super competitive and they all wanted to play. We did the three legged race, egg and spoon race, dizzy lizzy bat race, wheelbarrow race, balloon neck race (super hilarious to watch) and the overall crown pleaser was the balloon toss. The whole morning went surprisingly smooth with only a few interruptions when the secondary students stole a few eggs and smashed them on each other and when the kids went ape-shit crazy over the water balloons. At the end of thegames we had a primary team winner (they got water guns) and a secondary team winner (later that week we took them to Coffee Lodge during prep time after dinner. The group of kids we took to Coffee Lodge were utterly hilarious. I really enjoyed taking them there.)

After field games we had lunch and afterwards Kelly and I set up an ice cream bar for the kids with chocolate, vanilla and strawberry ice cream and a whole bunch of candies and chocolate syrup and cherries.

After ice cream, Kelly set up some games in the field, like baseball, football (aka soccer) and frisbee. I set up some art projects outside the hall. We made some salt playdough with colored paints, and stress balls with rice and balloons. Sports and arts and crafts lasted a long time; the kids really loved both activities.

We took a break for a bit for the kids to go the computer lab and hang out and then after dinner Kelly set u p a movie in the hall and I sat in the tv room with the secondary kids and watched a movie (I vetoed a few before they started because some of the movies were definitely not appropriate. The kids were discussing them in Kiswahili because they know I don’t speak it, but I DO know the word for prostitute. And that was definitely exchanged a few times in referenece to one movie they were discussing. That one was quickly vetoed. Buuuut then the power went out halfway through the movie and it started to rain. So we sent the kids back to the dorm and headed to bed, FINALLY.

Waterfall Hike

On Monday, we had off school so we decided to do a hike up Mt. Meru to one of the many waterfalls. I got the name of a guide from one of the other teachers and he and his friends offered to take us for 10,000 shillings or $6. So morning of, me, Victoria and Kelly woke up suuuper early, Jimmy came and picked us up to take us to Sakina Supermarket to meet with the guides. Turns out there were two guides who crammed themselves in Jimmy’s little cab. We drove through the rural towns at the foot of the mountains over ruts and up some steep inclines. We paid another 10,000 shillings to go up the mountain and then began to hike. Jimmy had never done this climb so he decided to climb too. (he looked pretty funny hiking in his dressy jeans and ducklike shoes)

As we walked through a few of the smaller towns, a pack of children took up following us giggling and laughing. I couldn’t take pictures of them because then they start to ask for money. The views are absolutely beautiful of the hills and the trees. I was surprised to find pine trees on the mountain.

I had been taking pictures up until we walked through a corn field and the guide told me to put the camera down for a few minutes. We came out of the cornfield and ran into a groupf of three men dressed in rag-tag camo clothing with guns cooking breakfast in a open space. We walked up and the guide plopped down and started chatting up the camo guides. I pulled out my camera to snap a picture and the guards told me that I was definitely not allowed to take pictures. I put away the camera without asking questions but Kelly, of course, decided to question the gun wielding dudes. They said they were guarding a water pipeline just in case, “terrorists come to poison the water line and kill all of Arusha.” Because that is the ultimate aim of all terrorists. Kill off Arusha, riiiiight. We decided they were probably guarding their pot fields. (Later we did find out that they were, in fact, guarding the waterline but I’m pretty sure the terrorist part was them glorifying themselves.)

We then headed down an extremely steep dirt ravine, almost fell a few times, and reached the rocky creek at the bottom. We then walked for a bit over the rocks, boulders and finally through a narrow rock canyon that opened up into a massively high waterfall with a pool at the bottom. We climbed up some boulders to play in the spray of the falls.

We then climbed down to scale some more boulders so we could drink our bottle of wine that we dragged all the way out there. We then headed back out the creek bed and up the ravine wall. Up was significantly harder than down and by the time we made up to the top we were all breathing heavily and basically collapsed in a heap. The hike back to the car was uneventful and we drove back home tired but happy.

Fabrics in Arusha

Being me, I've been looking around for fabrics and ultimately a sewing machine. The sewing machines are awesome here: they are all the old treadle sewing machines built into the tables. I'm dying to get one and Jimmy, our taxi cab driver, says he's going to help me out.

I haven't been to any of the fabric shops here yet, but I know they have them.

I have been to buy kanga and kitenge's though. They are the traditional types of East African fabrics and you see them mostly as dresses on the Tanzanian women.

Kangas are 1 meter long and tend to be of cheaper fabric with less design on them. I am generally unimpressed with them.

Kitenges are 6 meters long and come in absolutely beautiful patterns. I’ve bought a few kitenge and plan on making pillows and maybe a cat bed for our house. The green/brown one and the brown stump pattern are for couch cushions. (Once I manage to find the pillow guy on the street. The easiest way to buy pillows here is to spot the pillow guy, a man with a shit-ton of pillows on his back, and lean out your car and call him over. "kaka!" which means brother. You can get a pillow stuffed with foam chunks from him for 4,000 shillings. Like $2.50.)

The purple and turquoise patterns are going in my room.

And the crazy patterned one is for floor pillows for my classroom.

Tisa!

Kelly and I had been talking about getting a cat from practically day one. And a few weeks ago Becca came home from Matumba, the second hand market (this place is great; you can usually buy dresses and skirts for 2,000 or 3,000 shillings; roughly $1.50 or 2 dollars) But anyway…Becca came home from Matumba one day and said her and Juliette met a man who was selling kittens. I think it was the next day or two days later that Kelly and I made up an excuse to go to Matumba and look for the kitten man. When we found him, he had three kittens that he was selling. Two were tiny and white and grey and one was bigger with a grey almost tabby appearance. She was three months old and could go home that day while the other kittens were only a month old and had to stay with the mother cat for another month.

(I love her eyes. They change color depending on the background. The other day when I was wearing a green dress, her eyes matched exactly. And right now she's curled up beside me on the couch and they are a golden brown like the wooden furniture.)

Kelly and I talked it over and ended up taking the grey tabby kitten that day. We ran to Shoprite real quick to pick up kitty supplies and then went straight back and got her.

We named her Tatica, which in Kiswahili means to complicate or to puzzle; though for short we call her Tisa which is the number 9 in Kiswahili. Cause she’s a cat and has nine lives. Yeah, we’re clever.

She’s a bit of a spaz most of the time but also very loving. She loves to run around like a maniac and attack whatever is near; including bags, feet, chair legs, whatever. But then almost every night she sleeps curled up on top of my side inbetween my hipbone and my ribcage (though she does like to wake me up in the morning by biting my toes)

We've come to find out that she may have a bit of African wildcat in her. The African wildcat is an undomesticated species that grows a bit bigger than domesticated cats and has a rambunctious personality that almost never works out as a pet. Her coat markings match the wildcat's and she's doubled in size since we got her....

Picture of an African wildcat below:

Notice the head markings and stripes on the legs. Carbon copy.

Nairobi Fly

Every couple of years or so (it might have something to do with El Nino) there is a boom of these little beetle creatures called Nairobi flies. They look like red and black striped ants and seem too small to be dangerous, buuuut this is Africa. Nairobi flies, when squished, have acidic guts that actually burn the skin and can cause a lot of pain and make your skin blister up. Kelly accidentally smushed one on her cheek the other day though she wasn’t burned too badly. The secondary PE teacher, Will, on the other hand smushed one near his eye and couldn’t go to work for a few days it was soo bad. (These stupid creatures are really delicate you go to swipe it away and all you do is smear them) The other day Kelly and I killed three that were just hanging out in our bathroom. Not cool.