The dead mouse, frog juice and other kindergarden tales.......

"Working with children is good for the soul" a friend once uttered those words to me and it's a mantra I often repeat and believe. They are natural, they speak the truth and most importantly they are not yet corrupted.

Kids on the revolution

Directly after the revolution we had a circle to discuss matters with the older children (the 4 and 5 yr olds). It had, had a big effect on them, school had been closed for 2 weeks and a lot of their friends had left the country, a lot of them had heard gun shots at night and all of them had sensed their parent's fear and worry. They had grown used to having the news play in the background and many had not left the house due to the curfew and the security situation outside.
So what did the children have to say about things???.......
Well all of them were familiar with the name "Mubarak" and that he was somehow "bad". One Egyptian boy  put his hand up and told us all about the looting of a local shopping center; "The people went and took things from Carrefour, they broke everything and took everything without paying"
A German boy  interjected; "Yes because Mubarak stole all the money so they couldn't pay"
The first boy, who I assume has pro Mubarak parents said; "No,No!! it's all Omama, Omama is taking the money!!" With Omama he meant Obama.....
The discussion session ended soon after and the children enjoyed the running around outside which they had so missed during the revolution's darkest days. In the following weeks the pro regime boy taught the other children pro Mubarak chants which was bloody hilarious as we often had a big group of European blond kids swinging on the swing and chanting at the top of their lungs, very surreal indeed. Over time the chants changed and became pro military "The people and the army are hand in hand" this was a very popular one and still rings in my head 2 years later. When the Egyptian people grew tired of Military rule the chants changed yet again, now the children were shouting "Down with military rule". The school year came to an end, the original "revolution" children moved on to different schools and the chanting in the Garden stopped.
The events in Egypt still touched the children though, I once caught a boy throwing stones so I called him over to discuss this, I told him that it's very dangerous and not at all acceptable behavior..... he looked at me confused and said "But Bryony, in Tahrir the good people are throwing stones at the bad people"  hmmmm I was speechless, what could I say to that? His observation was spot on, I took the easy way out and said "Indeed they are but we are not in Tahrir".
Recently the power cuts have been unbearable and this too has left an impression on the children; a few weeks ago I overheard two 3 year old boys discussing the matter: Boy 1 "Morsi is taking the electric" boy 2 "Yes, Morsi needs to leave" adding a kicking movement to strengthen his point.
Children really do absorb what's going on and they cope with this through role play, reenactment and discussion.

 

Animals, reptiles and insects.....

I always adored watching the different interactions with the different insects and animals they came across in the garden, those interactions ranged from very funny to downright disturbing.....

Frogs, frogs, frogs...

We had a lot of frogs in the garden and the kids were of course always fascinated by them, they followed them, observed them, built habitats for them and caught them.
One boy liked them so much that he placed them in his pockets and forgot about them... this was only discovered when his poor mother was sorting out his jeans for washing and found his pockets were full of dead frogs! After hearing this we installed a no touching rule and were quite strict with it, of course rules are made to be broken.....
We had an old fashioned water pump in the back of the garden and the children were always very creative in their use of it; they put leaves inside and made "leaf juice", they put toot (mulberries) inside and made "toot juice" some even tried to make "stone juice" and we teachers marveled at their creativity and encouraged them to try out different materials.... this was all well and good until 1 boy (the frogs in the pocket boy) decided to make frog juice!! I wont go into details but it was certainly a big mess and we were more careful with the juicing activities from then on.

Lizards, "snakes" and the dead mouse

 We also had a lot of small lizards, the children didn't catch them as they were very fast but they enjoyed observing them, one boy recently screamed "look, look a dinosaur" upon seeing one. Oh to see the world through such innocent eyes.....
Once a group of children approached me saying that they had found a snake, at first I thought they had found something snake shaped, I mean they were always stumbling upon monsters and things like this, but they had a serious look in their eyes so I followed them to investigate. "The snake" was in fact another lizard type thing that had tiny, tiny legs and a snake like body, I didnt see the legs at first so freaked out a bit but what really impressed me was that the children's natural instincts had told them not to touch or catch "the snake" but rather to stay far away and get a teacher.
The same instincts were present when they stumbled upon a dead mouse in the bushes, they were not interested in touching it, just very interested in knowing why it was dead and why it was in the garden, we asked them what they thought and they decided that it was either a cat or that the mouse had eaten something bad. The mouses cause of death remains a mystery to this day.

The unfortunate beetle

We had plenty of bugs, beetles and flies, well it was a garden after all. We always told the children that outdoors was their environment and that there was no need to kill any insect they found outside. Once we were observing a big beetle, the children were very interested and discussed where the beetle might be going and how long it would take him to reach his destination. It was a group of around 8 children and a nice informative activity, well it was nice until a very boisterous 2 year old came over with a big plastic shovel and crashed it down on the beetle so hard that it splat all over the pathway. It happened so fast that there was no chance of stopping him and the boy was very proud of himself indeed.In his eyes he had done something good he had witnessed adults killing cockroaches at home so he felt he had done the right thing and rescued us from the evil beetle :).

Cats, dogs and a monkey.... yep a monkey 

we sometimes end up with stray abandoned kittens which the children adore feeding and nursing back to health. The neighbors have a dog which they observe but most interesting was the monkey we found staring at us from the papaya tree. The teachers were as thrilled as the children at the sight of this. He must have grown tired of papayas though though or maybe he just didn't like children as he stopped visiting and now gets his breakfast from one of the teachers who lives a few houses away.

This past 4 years spent working with children has certainly been an enlightening time for me. I never would have thought it would be my thing but they are so natural, so real and so funny. I got to observe true human nature before the outside world corrupted them and I think through them I learned things about myself that I never would have otherwise.
It's time for me to move on with my life now but I will never forget this 4 year stint as a kindergarten teacher and I will never forget the lessons these little humans have taught me.

Siwa... the place that time forgot

Far away on the edge of the Western desert in Egypt, and closer to Libya than Cairo, is a magical place called Siwa, this place has remained virtually unchanged and was cut off from the rest of the world until very recently. I visited last April with my Mother and I know I have taken my sweet ass time to write about it but well I am not always in a writing mood, life sometimes takes over... but don't worry people I am back in my thoroughly creative flow. (Feel free to sing in the style of eminem.... 'Bryony's back, back again, Bryony's back tell a friend.....) Ya anyway back to lovely Siwa. So as you can imagine the journey there is quiet a mission, its a mega long bus ride that took us up to the North coast and then back down through the desert. It took 11 hours and it gave us very sore bums...
But upon arriving the long journey just melted away and the fresh country air filled our lungs and we were happy :) Siwa is a desert oasis, a big one. Its very green and very peaceful, there are no cars in Siwa, just jeeps for the desert safaris and tuk tuks for public transportation. The people wear traditional clothes, the men in long dusty galabayas and the women in black, totally covered up to the point where you can't even see their eyes, the Siwis are traditional people, they are nice people  sincere people, good people and calming people. The ones I talked to couldn't understand how I could live in cairo, they had all been there to finish paperwork and they all hated it and thought that life was too fast there, too fast, too polluted and too populated. The men mostly went to Alexandria to study but even Alex was not to their taste, they were country people through and through.
Now I have left it too long to give you a day by day account and well that might have been boring for you anyway so here are the highlights instead.
If you go there you simply have to do a desert safari in a jeep over the great sand sea, its a really duney part of the western desert and sliding down really steep dues in the the jeep was much more thrilling than any roller-coaster I have ever been on, it was soooooo scary and so much fun. Wooshing down huge sand dunes is something I will never forget. The more sporty ones in our group tried their hand at sand boarding which also looked great fun, but the idea of getting back up to the top of the dune put me off (yes yes I know I am lazy). Then the next thing you have to do is to camp in the desert, the Siwi people are experts in this and set up a little camp with a constant flow of sweet sticky bedouin tea and a substantial breakfast in the morning.
You should also of course take a wander around the town of siwa and adventure around the old city walls, its all open and very easy to explore.
One thing we didnt do but a lot of people recommended, was to rent a bike and go for a relaxing ride around the luscious green olive groves, as I said we missed that one but its a reason to return. I loved Siwa, I know I sound a bit like the Egyptian tourist board but the place is bloody amazing and it is good for the soul. Peace xx
Below are some pics and a video of us going down the dune its the wrong way around so if anyone knows how to fix that pls tell me :)

Bedouin Kidnappers

This past weekend was very tense, the football tragedy happened on Wednesday and people were already out protesting about it on Thursday afternoon, they were marching towards the interior ministry which is where loads of people got killed in November so it was obvious that shit was going to kick off.  On top of that 2 kids got kidnapped on their way to school, they were from a super rich family and went to the German school in Dokki, this was scary as we also have a lot of super rich kids and well we are an international KG too, so everyone was on edge, then there were reports of more robbery's and it was all a bit scary and reminiscent of the revolution's darkest days. I spent Friday watching the news and at some point I read about 2 Americans being kidnapped in Sinai by armed Bedouin guys, my initial thought was wow way to go, another nail in the coffin for the tourism industry, as if the protests, crazy shit going on downtown and the Salafis weren't enough now we have kidnapped Americans woo hoo!! So I followed the news for the entire weekend and the next day the Americans were released and it actually made my day to read what they had said about the incident; the kidnappers were kind! they made tea and lit a fire and then served them bread and dates... they even told  one of the kidnappers that his smoking disturbed them so he went ahead and put out his cigarette! They were constantly told not to worry and to look at it as a special tour of the desert. It was strange, I was surrounded by dark, gloomy, serious and depressing stuff yet reading this made me remember how much I love Egypt and the Egyptians. This is not the place that they show on the news, it's not 24 hour fighting and there is no civil war, the people are warm and kind and are always willing to help. It's so easy to get swept up in the media storm and to believe that nothing is safe anymore, and yes the crime rate has risen but it is nothing compared to other huge cities around the world. there is some horrible stuff happening in certain areas and we should be aware and more cautious  but we should never ever forget the Egyptian people's hearts. I get very frustrated here at times but deep down when I look at the Egyptian people, I just know this country is going to be fine.

There is always a reason to celebrate....

The holidays never seem to end, once one thing is finished another thing starts which means a lot of eating sweet stuff and a lot of days off :) let's start with western Xmas you all know what that's all about and you know it's followed by more celebrations on new years eve, but that's it right? Holiday season over ... Well not if you are in Egypt the next one up is coptic Christmas on the 6th Jan, more cakes and more meat yaaaay then it's a few weeks at work until we have the 25th Jan which means a long weekend to celebrate the revolution so we then go back to work all refreshed to work another week which is followed by another long weekend because of the profits Birthday on the 5th of feb, this is another one that involves lots of eating, oriental sweets are the fare and they are simply delicious. Then we have western Easter in April, followed by Coptic Easter and then the Egyptian spring festival ( this always happens a day after Coptic easter and is a big family day) then at some point Ramadan happens which means finishing work early everyday and feasting every-night Ramadan is of course followed by eid which means a week off and lots of fun :) (the beer shop opens again so I normally celebrate this all week). Then it's the slaughter festival or as we call it at school "the sheep festival" this is a bit of a gruesome one as people sacrifice cows and sheep out on the street and well if you are not into gore it can be a bit much... On the plus side it means a week off. Then we role up to Xmas again ohhhh and of course I have a month in the summer too. He he he love Egypt and love my job xxxx

Am I allowed an opinion??

I had a successful start back at work..... I went in on Sunday morning with a positive attitude and swore to myself that I would be calm and serene and avoid any quarrels that might cone my way.... Did I manage?? did I hell!
we had training and the day started off quiet well, lots of cheek kissing and happy new year wishes, normally I hate all of this but for the first time ever I walked around the room greeting people and being nice ( I can do it if I really try) it was a jovial few minutes which was then followed by the Indian (or should I say native American?) " heeya heeeeeyaaa heeyaaa heeeyaaa" song, I even managed to smile through this and actually sung along to some of the heeeeyaaas.... so far so good. I behaved well throughout the day and even managed to keep quiet when the training lady stuck her middle finger up at everyone whilst trying to explain some sign language concept (she also did a thumbs up and a point but the middle finger was the one she put up for longest). Later our boss offered around a huge box of chocolates and everyone was happy and gobbled them down a few minutes later on of the veiled girls looked at the box and discovered they were champagne truffles!!! delicious for some but haram for most, this caused quiet a stir and the day went on. Now the training lady isn't a native English speaker but she normally does really well anyway I guess she was having an off day as she kept on saying "shit" of paper as in "if you need a shit then take a shit" and "simply write it on the shit" and "be sure to pass the shit on" it really was too funny but I managed to hold myself together and refrain from laughing unlike the girl sitting to my left who was in fits of giggles. The training lady got pissed off and turned to me and ordered me to take over the training!! I was actually speechless at this suggestion but the giggling girl informed her it wasn't me doing the laughing and I thought that would clear things up...... but it didn't!! she absolutely insisted that I continue the course and the whole room was looking at me, I could feel the anger swelling inside me and I kinda sorta flipped out...... I refused to say a word and told her she was trying to make an example of me which was just wrong as it wasn't even me laughing! Somehow the situation calmed itself and she resumed her training after a few minutes she told us we would finish an hour earlier and everyone was relieved. As we finished we entered a discussion about our next training day and decided to take a vote, the people who lost the vote got very upset and started to sway the others to their course, this was way too much for me and I shouted out "but we had a vote and they lost!!" this might have been ok but I followed it up with a very sarcastic "yeh well we are in Egypt where a vote doesn't count anyway!" there was a collective sigh and I sensed I had pissed the whole room off, we voted again, they lost again and we all went home, well actually me and giggling girl went to the flower shop to buy flowers for our friend who just gave birth. Whilst picking flowers my bag started to vibrate so I dug into the bottom of it and pulled out my phone aggggghhhh 3 missed calls from my boss and an angry text telling me I had to do a public apology the next morning! No bloody way!! so here it was from this comical day it wasn't the training lady who stuck her finger up at us and singled me out who had to say sorry, and the feeding muslims alcohol didn't seem to merit an apology either! but stating the fact (and yes I mean fact) that a vote counts for shit in Egypt means I now have to say sorry??? NO WAY. Anyway I didn't do the public thing but I talked to the people who were most offended and what I learned from that was that they agreed with me! but as I am not Egyptian I have no right to say something like that. This got me thinking, so am I not allowed to say that Cairo is dirty? am I not allowed to say that when I blow my nose the snot is black? am I not allowed to have an opinion on the sexual harassment? am I not allowed to say the truth about something happening where I live just because of the passport I hold? and the sad truth is no, Egyptians would rather you didn't and if you do then you are met with the phrase " if you don't like it then go home!" I want to scream "but you don't like it either!!" but it doesn't work. maybe it's because I have lived in different countries and maybe it's because I look at my own country through a strangers eyes but I really think I come from the world and I should be able to speak up about things I see in the world, there are things I hate about England and things I hate about Germany and I never ever become offended when a foreigner says something about the UK number one it is their opinion and number two they are mostly right!
And I think the reason I find all of this frustrating is that I am not trying to change the world, I am not Naive enough to think that I can but I like to observe and I like to make comparisons, I will write soon about my recent trip back to the UK but as a preview I will tell you I was absolutely disgusted by the lack of morals and the lack of clothing on the women. I think I feel for the first time what it is like to live without freedom of speech... it sucks! but I guess if I don't like it I can just leave.....
That was my first week back at work anyway people.....

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]

Downtown

I adore Cairo's downtown. Yes it is polluted and dirty and crowded and full of traffic and yes since the revolution even more rules have been thrown out of the window and it becomes genuinely dangerous some days, and yep when you walk the streets you can't help but think of all the blood that has been shed in the past months But oh how I love it. It's so full of eastern promise, the hustle the bustle, the unavoidable signs of poverty, this is a place where the poorest of the poor have smiles on their faces and spend their days working hard, chain smoking Cleopatra cigarettes and joking with passers by. There is the Tahrir area which is the center of the craziness, crossing the road is at its most daunting here... the buildings are huge and the entire square is over looked by the massive Mogamma (register office type building). Then you walk down some side streets and you enter the world of the street cafe's, the air is thick with the smell of shisha and the almost musical sound of the backgammon pieces being shifted around the boards. Old men sit next to young students, foreigners sit next to devout Muslims, artists and poets sit chewing the cud with political activists and AUC students, A tea costs a few pounds and the atmosphere is priceless, it is the perfect place to sit and people watch and allow the mind to wander. Street vendors pass by selling a wide range of products, tissues, watches, shiny Chinese gadgets, nuts, telephone cards, you name it they sell it.
The further you delve the more you discover, on the other side of Tahrir is Garden City, which boasts leafy green streets and beautiful architecture, it;s easy to imagine Cairo as it was in the first half of the last century here and it's just pleasing to see greenery so close to the concrete jungle just a short walk away, life seems slower in garden city and the apartments are just Devine. If you cross the main road you will find yourself in mounira, mounira is not green but it still has it's charm (I used to live there so I am biased), it's a little poorer then Garden City and the buildings are run down but there are the most quaint narrow ally's that have so much character, It is also home of the French culture center which in my opinion is the best culture center ever, they throw amazing parties and have a cute little cafe that sells all of the things normally forbidden (beer and pork of course)
Yup so that was my quick tour of downtown Cairo, it's a lovely place :)

El Tur a weird place....

At the beginning of Ramadan (Early August) I met a guy in Dahab who knew a place that issued 1 year visas rather then the measly 1 month the Mogamma in Cairo were currently offering. I took him up on the offer and the next day we drove to El Tur, El Tur is the administrative capital of South Sinai, I didn't see much of it in the few hours we were there, but I remember thinking it would be interesting to see more of the city.
A month later I got that chance, more friends needed visas (it is really becoming a big problem in Cairo) so we decided to go on a mission to El Tur, we found a hotel that said it was on the beach and we envisioned a few hours doing passport stuff and the rest of the day at the beach.......
So the journey started at 8am, we rented a minibus and were all at the arranged meeting point early and excited. The actual trip there was uneventful, we sang along to the spice girls and ate lots of chipsy (why does traveling make you want to eat so much?) We stopped at a place called Moon beach, most normal people had a coffee, Me and another girl decided to have a beer which was a terrible decision as it meant we needed to pee 10 minutes after getting back into the bus. Anyway we finally got to El Tur and drove directly to our hotel... ha ha ha on the beach? It was situated next to a drainage pipe and the beach was nowhere to be seen, hmm great maybe we could relax at the drainage pipe, set up a few chairs and drink a pinacolada whilst dipping our feet in the waste.... we thought about finding another hotel and drove around the city for a while, the other hotels were shockingly expensive (why? who comes here?) so we ended up back at the original one which was really dismal, full of cockroaches, no toilet paper in the bathrooms and damp all over the walls.
We then decided to go on a bit of an adventure and looked for somewhere to have dinner, we drove around for what seemed like forever and finally found a meat place, wow and there was a real clash of cultures as we walked in, there we were a group of mainly blonde girls/women (do I have to call myself a women?), inside was a table of fully covered women wearing the niquab (burka), their bearded husbands sat a table away, they looked at us and we looked at them, a cross cultural staring contest ensued. We ate our meal and were overcharged (I assume) and then vacated the place pretty fast. We then decided to find beer, one women with us decided she wanted to go back to the hotel to relax and made her way back, on the way children begged her for money and when she declined they threw stones at her... (what a lovely place this was).
So back to the mission of finding beer, we asked around for a beer shop and kept on hearing the name Fawzy, we assumed that Fawzy would be a "Drinkies" style shop and not too hard to find I mean liberal Sharm el Sheik was only an hours drive away so there had to be some form of alcohol here?? We searched and we searched and we almost gave up hope when we got right to the edge of town and still hadnt found the elusive Fawzy, but then one of the girls spotted a tiny handmade sign with a bottle of wine on it attached to a hut. Stooooooooooooooooop we all yelled in unison and we hoped out to take a closer look. We knocked on the door and an old toothless women opened the door, "Fawzy" we asked "Yeeeeeeeeeeeees" she replied and ushered us in. The room consisted of a big freezer, a bed, an oven and her son sat eating his dinner at a tiny table, they obviously lived here, we took in the surroundings as she threw open the freezer; it was full to the brim of all sorts of beer and alchopops. We went for the super strength lager, this place was strange and we thought we might well need it.
Next stop was a beach... well we all had the idea that we would relax on a beach somewhere and watch the sunset, everyone had their bikinis/swimsuits on under their clothes and were ready for an early evening dip in the sea. We finally found a place but there was no way we could strip down as it was very conservative and all of the women were veiled if not totally covered. The strange thing was it seemed totally fine that we were drinking beer, some of the girls ordered shisha (water pipe) from the beach sales guy (nice title ha) and we sat until late eating more chipsy, infact I should probably rename this post "the chipsy weekend" or something.
The next day everyone got their visas and then we set back to Cairo... leaving the strangeness of El Tur far behind us.
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