Christmas in Cairo

Now Christmas Day is done and dusted it's nice to just blob around. I have to admit there was no mad last minute rush to the stores for presents or food this year. It was strange not being able to find much in the way of Christmas Decorations until the actual week of Christmas though.

outside a local daycare centre

Garden centre Xmas trees for sale

Decorations for sale

snowman at school

                           





Christmas dinner was ROAST PORK, kumara, potatoes and very fresh beans with lashings of gravy and apple sauce. Mmmm. Roast pork you ask? We managed to buy one from the caterer at our local expat club :-) We only managed to eat half of it so it will be roast pork sammies for lunch today for Tony and I.
Bruce and Margo are well established in our Cairo lifestyle. Today they are off to the Coptic area of Cairo so should have some stories to tell us when they return. They will be doing a self guided tour so their perspective will be very different to ours.

Tahrir Square

If you Google Tahrir Square, Cairo you would  expect it to look like a demolition site from all the demonstrations and violent clashes between protesters and police. 

On the 23rd we decided to catch the Metro train into Tahrir and have a look for ourselves. Last time Tony tried to see it the street was blocked with tanks and razor wire but this time it was a totally different story.

The square, which is actually a circle, was typical of Downtown Cairo - bumper to bumper traffic, the odd policeman on each "corner" to direct traffic, store owners milling around outside their stores trying to draw passersby in, a line of tanks stationed outside the museum which was about 100 metres along the road, and the few tourists. The monument in the photos was opened by Government Ministers about 3 weeks ago. Sadly, the day after, demonstrators sprayed all over it with graffiti and tried to tear it apart. You can see some of the damage the steps in the photos. The eagle eyes amongst you would have spotted KFC in the background too.

While we were there hawkers approached us selling Egyptian flags, photos of General Sisi and face painting of Egyptian flags. They were not impressed with our "La Shukran" (no thank you) responses. No point getting mixed up in the politics of Egypt when you're standing across the road from a gathering of about 200 people waving flags and chanting, very peacefully though I might add.
How would I describe Tahrir Square? An important landmark in Cairo's journey towards democracy. After Googling it yourself you will probably have your own definition.

Build Up Before Christmas

Can't believe I haven't posted anything since mid November. The main reason - there hasn't been anything to write about except work.
Where to begin? As you know Tony has been substitute teaching at the Canadian International School, 1 - 2 times per week. His stories from school are far more interesting than mine, eg. the day he subbed in a grade 1 class and they were fascinated by his bald head. He knelt down to talk to one of the little girls and all of a sudden there was another 5 year old's hand rubbing his head. It was the same class where he was wearing his reading glasses and would then rest them on top of his head. Funnily one of the little boys thought that was a great idea and copied Tony. Problem was the boy was as blind as a bat while he had them on top of his head. 5 year olds - who'd teach them? Anyway to get you up to speed Tony has accepted a full time position at our school for 3 months in the New Year as a substitute teacher and working with the special programs if he's not subbing. Doesn't pay anywhere as good as the Canadian school and it means I'll have to help with the housework. Not sure he'll last 3 months, maybe 3 weeks. Interferes with the lifestyle.
In the meantime ...
we have moved house. Living on a busy street had some good points, close to shops, taxis, etc BUT the noise got to us in the end. We moved 15 minutes walk from where we were, to a 3 bedroom apartment on the 7th floor.
Bruce and Margo have arrived and are keeping us amused. Margo is such an amazing chef and has contributed to us putting on more weight. We even have a bar set up on the kitchen counter. The Lockie influence,  ha ha! Let's hope they don't drink all the duty free before I finish my antibiotics next week.
Finally, I spent a few days in hospital (women's issues so don't ask if you don't want the details). Now I'm home while Tony plays Super Sub in my class. The kids are loving him but he's told me they miss me so I don't feel so useless after all :-)
I'm hoping to have one more entry before Christmas Day - need to drag Margo and Bruce out of the house this weekend. They're actually enjoying living in a house and doing nothing. Maybe Tony can take us all into Tahrir Square now the tanks have gone ...

View of Road 199 from our verandah

Hallway to the bedrooms

Margo and Bruce in the lounge

The bar

A much bigger kitchen than the last

Our bedroom, ensuite behind me.

The new Lockie suite.

The third bedroom.

Not Much Happening

I've been reminded by a couple of people that I haven't written on the blog for a while and I guess it's because not much as been happening. But after talking with Jim and Josie this morning I suppose there are a few things worth mentioning since my last post.

• Mum and Dad have Skype :-) It was a struggle but they've finally moved onto Broadband thanks to Susan and Phil. It was so nice to actually talk to them face to face after being away for 3 months.
• Tony has worked as a substitute teacher 4 times at the Canadian International School. The first three were a breeze (because they were middle and high school classes) but I think yesterday gave him a bit of a fright. He had Grade 3 (Year 4) and they were "the worst behaved kids I have ever come across"(unquote). Maybe Justin, Chubb and Paul could given him some advice on how to deal with unruly 8 year olds. Working, even if it is on the odd occasion, has been really good for him.

Iti outside Canadian International School

• Tuesday was an easy day at work. Most of the kids took the day off due to planned disruption ie protests to commemorate some protest last year or the year before where people were killed, and Egypt was playing Ghana. I had 10 kids out of the 15 turn up for school which makes it difficult to teach anything new - yeah right.
• Wednesday Tony and Bill headed into Zamalek via the Metro train. It was Bill's first time so it was a bit of an experience for him to be crammed into the train carriage with 100 other people. Bill had to return to Maadi at 12 so Tony continued into Tahrir Square on his own. Tahrir Square is where all the protest marches and killings have been happening over the past few years. What he didn't know was that the army had barricaded the square so no one could get near it (even though the locals did manage to get past them on Tuesday and damage the new monument the government had just opened in commemoration of the dead from past protests.) To cut a long story short, after leaving the square he wandered back towards the shopping area and found a leather goods shop that sold the elusive leather jacket he's been looking for. After a bit of bartering he managed to buy it for 650LE ($(115).

The road to Tahrir Square. The museum is on the right.

• Thursday was the last day of Book Week. It's not like Book Week at Gladstone. We started the week with the kids bringing in posters and models for the competition, which they made at home. The rest of the week there was nothing until Thursday. Everyone was supposed to dress up as a book character but because we had just had Halloween the enthusiasm wasn't there. Only one teacher looked any different than normal - ME :-) The kids weren't much different either, only 3 in my class wore different clothes and when I asked the others who were in street clothes who they were they didn't know.  The book fair was interesting - it went over 2 days and each class had a time scheduled. The local book store set up and gave 20% discount on their regular prices. I was impressed at the number of kids that brought in 200LE and 300LE to spend on books. Unfortunately the book sellers had more "activity and colouring in" books on display than the decent books but being the teacher I am I pushed my kids towards the chapter books and non fiction.
  

• Finished the working week off with a nice Chinese / Thai meal with Bill and Bonnie. The restaurant sold alcohol so that made it even better. I guess the most memorable part of the evening was when the cab dropped us at home. Bill and Bonnie decided to walk home from our place and about three minutes after we walked in the door we heard the Brotherhood protest marchers approach from 218 street which is exactly where they had walked to get home. Couldn't help but wonder what bush or shop door Bill ducked behind.
• Today is blob out day. Skype catch ups with people and then lie on the sofa and watch movies. Love days like this! Tomorrow we will head to the ACE Club to watch the Kiwis play England in the World Cup semis, hopefully ending our week on a high note.

Other than that ... not much has happened this week :-)

Anyone for Desert?

It's always easy to find something to do on your day off - sleep, watch videos, read a book, do housework ... not even! The travel agent sent a specials flier through last Thursday and we booked the same day. The minimum numbers for the trip to go ahead was 15 and by the time we picked up the last group there were 63 people (including the drivers). The convoy was made up of 15 4WD and we were lucky enough to jump in the tour leader's car so we got to do everything first - no dust in our faces.
Highlights included:

• Being told we were standing on the seabed, dating back a few million years ago.
• Looking out across 100 km of desert, from the top of a plateau we had just driven up, standing next to a 75m drop
• Seeing such a massive man-made lake built in the 70s to store excess water from the Nile. sadly the levels are dropping because the farmers are using more water and it's not reaching the lake.
• Egyptian lunch, Egyptian style.
• Sitting at a 45 degree angle on a dune while we waited for our driver to attach a tow rope to another 4WD who was stuck
• Thinking we were driving on a flat area of sand and the next minute we are heading downhill.

Lowlights:

• 1 "chemical" toilet for 63 people. Not good! Luckily we found another one further up by another group who had only about 10 people :-)
• Being stopped at a checkpoint and having to produce our passports. They were checking for over stayers. Lucky our tourist visas don't run out until December

Recommendation:
If you're coming to Egypt - just do it!

Little Iti in the big desert

A bit of advertising



View from the rear window

Nothing but desert for miles



Top of the plateau

    

Evidence of seabed molluscs

Monastery in the middle of nowhere.
The brick fence went on and on and on.

               

Heading down to our campsite for lunch.

The tent beside the lake.

Post lunch nap for some

A couple of locals came to visit

Desert dunny

Iti had a long day and was first in the car

Ended the day with another perfect sunset.

A Day of Firsts

Last Friday 1st of November was our first excursion out of Cairo, our first camel ride (and donkey ride for Tony) and our first entry into the depths of the pyramids. Memo picked us up at 8.15am and after collecting a hungover friend we headed south to Sakkara & Dahshur. The Ring Road was pretty clear of traffic so it didn't take long to clear the city. Sakkara is known for its few million date palms and vast farmlands. It has a canal tributary from the Nile running through the middle and the irrigation systems are probably the same as they've used for the past few thousand years, except for the odd diesel pump. It's distinct greenness was a stiff contrast to the desert right at its border.
First stop was Zoser's funerary complex built about 5000 years ago. Except for the Step Pyramid the rest of the complex was only exposed in 1924 and they have been restoring it ever since. The colonnaded corridor is the entrance to the complex and has been partially restored. The wall which surrounded the complex was originally 1645m long. Once through the corridor we entered a huge courtyard. On the opposite side of the courtyard from the pyramid are two deep wells. One was where the workers were entombed and the other was for the pharaoh's canopic jars. There was also a temple on the site and other smaller pyramids that looked like piles of rubble. Inside one of them, the pyramid of Unas, are the oldest known hieroglyphs.
The camels and donkeys were a real highlight of the trip. 10LE each was really cheap for such an experience! Tony looked even more like a local once they plonked the headgear on him :-) Whoever it was that described camels as ships of the desert was dead right - the smooth rocking motion made for a comfortable ride unlike the donkey's bouncing trot. I wish I'd videoed Tony on the donkey.

Entering the colonnaded corridor

The South Courtyard and Step Pyramid

Camel for the sheik.

Rather camels than horses

Tony sits better on a donkey than me

The well which contained the canopic jars



The step pyramid and temple



From Zoser's Funerary Complex we headed down the road to Teti's pyramid and the mastaba (tomb) of his chief justice Kagemni, built around 2300 BC. The pyramid was literally a pile of rubble but once we had clambered down into it, this was our first entry into a pyramid, it was like going back in time. The stone walls were made of grey granite and the two chambers within were covered in hieroglyphic spells. Unfortunately cameras were off limits for both the pyramid and the mastaba which housed beautiful bas reliefs of life in Egypt. There was even colour on the figures and animals in the reliefs which made them even more special.

Teti's pyramid

Next stop before leaving Sakkara was a quick visit to the museum built in honour of Imhotep, the great architect of the Step Pyramid. Filled with artefacts from throughout the Sakkara area it was well worth the visit.
 

Dahshur was another 20 minutes south of Sakkara and the Red Pyramid was our biggest challenge of the whole trip. The pyramid was built by Sneferu, father of Cheops and founder of the 4th dynasty. He had built the Bent Pyramid first then followed up with the Red Pyramid once he'd figured out what went wrong with the Bent Pyramid's angles. The Bent Pyramid is off limits so we got as close as we could for photo opportunities.

The Red Pyramid was a different story. The 125 steps up to the entrance didn't look too bad until we had to actually climb them. The guide who sat at the entrance let us rest for a few minutes before we started the climb down the 63 metre tunnel into the pyramid. No one told me there would be mice so when one came charging past me I couldn't help but squeal, to the delight of everyone else. After a few breathers we finally got to the bottom of the tunnel and entered one of the 3 chambers. The ceilings must have been 3 storeys high and the size of the stonework was incredible. The only complaint was the disgusting smell of ammonia which is apparently caused by bats according to the guide. Tony was delegated to climb the wooden stairs into the actual chamber where the sarcophagus would have been. The smell was even worse up there! After Tony made his way back to us we decided we'd had enough of the smell (and lack of oxygen) and headed back to the tunnel. 63 metres back up to the opening was hard slog so we were pleased to get out into the open air again. It always amazes me how the workers 5000 years ago were able to build the pyramids and work in such confined spaces.

   

The Bent Pyramid



Memo pointing out the entrance to the Red Pyramid

Top of the tunnel

Maybe halfway down



The red Pyramid, the first true pyramid. Photo taken from the Bent Pyramid



Stopped by the canal to pick up some fruit on the way home and look what we saw

Both Tony and I agree that seeing the pyramids at Giza before this excursion was the best way to understand the development of these wonders. The sphinx and the 3 pyramids were built well after those at Sakkara and Dahshur and yet they used the same design as the Red Pyramid to build them. Incredible!