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.

Something I wrote during the revolution...

To say that the past days have been unprecedented is an understatement.
Most people know me as being adventurous and a bit of a thrill seeker, but this? Well its fair to say, this has pushed me to my limits.
It started on Cairo scholars when someone asked about the ATMs being out of order in Maadi, he suggested it may be because people have emptied them in a panic, preparing for the results of the 25th January protests. It seemednobody took this mail serous and a few people even mocked him.
Then came Tuesday, on Tuesday I was restless and followed the news all day ( I am a news junkie anyway). I had vowed to be sensible and stay home but the second twitter got cut I felt the biggest urge to be there... nothing like censorship to make one more curious!!.
I called my roommate and admittedly at this point I could have been persuaded against going, but it turned out she was as eager as I was. We arranged to meet at the Maadi metro station and I had to smile to myself as she showed up in full demonstration mode; Pepper spray at hand and money stuffed in her bra in case we needed to pay bribes. We assumed Sadat metro station would be closed so departed the metro at Saad Zagoul. It was the quietest I have ever seen downtown and to tell the truth it was a bit of a anti climax, yes it was eerie and felt a bit  like the calm before the storm but I wanted the bloody storm! Had they cut off twitter for this??? We wandered towards Tahrir square and eventually came across a load of people praying in front of lines and lines of police. This seemed quite interesting so we hovered and gawped at that for a minute or two. The roads were blocked so we had to enter Tahrir from the Cornish (road next to the Nile) We followed a group of Chinese men who looked like they knew what they were doing. No one stopped us I don't even recall any strange looks. Upon arriving at Tahrir we scouted the area for a women friendly view point and decided on the big plant pot outside the Mogamma. We stayed on this plant pot for about an hour, taking in the buzzing atmosphere around us. After a while my feet started to hurt so we packed up and took a taxi home... That was it, protest over. Never in my life did I expect the following events.
The next day I bragged about my Tahrir trip to everyone who I came across. Some thought I was brave, some thought I was stupid. The protests went on and the Egyptians who lived downtown left work early. By Thursday it seemed the situation was becoming serious, work was normal, fewer children maybe ahh and 2 teachers didn't make it in as there were problems with the metro. After work the internet was sketchy and there were talks of massive protests... a few hours later Facebook went down, I turned on a proxy and congratulated myself for being so clever, posted a status saying Facebook, twitter and sms is down what is next?? They turned out to be my famous last words as just minutes later the internet went down and suddenly everything seemed very serious indeed. We didnt believe it at first, it had to be T data or something, surely its not possible to pull the plug on the internet? A few calls later and it was confirmed; Egypt was officially internetless. We made the best of the evening by watching movies but I think everyone went to bed that night with a heavy heart. The next morning we awoke before the prayer, tried to make a call and discovered that now the phones were down too.... The outside world was getting further and further away. We sat at home and watched Al Jazeera English all day, they had by now, given up on the Palestine papers and started some pretty impressive coverage of the protests. Things were getting crazy. Police stations had been burnt as had the government's head office. By Saturday morning the police had vanished, I decided to go with my friend to his families house as they had been worrying about him. We arrived at his place in Shoubra shortly before curfew and not long after we got there the gun shots started. The looting had begun. Places that had made me forget I was in a developing country were being destroyed one after another, my sense of security was slipping away. The shots outside were loud now. My friend stated to assemble an arsenal of home made weapons. Bats, metal bars, Tequila Molotov things (I wanted him to use cooking oil and save the tequila). I contributed by taping a knife to the end of a stick and spent the next few minutes waving it around menacingly. We pushed the fridge freezer against the front door and spent the night barricaded in the house. Seriously, it was frightening and I don't think anyone got much sleep.
Everyone handles stress like this in a different way. My friend's Mother and Sister were crying, I was jumpy and asking questions like a crazy person, and my friend was silent. The atmosphere was heavy and what made it worse for me was not being able to talk to anyone about it. The next day was just as bad, constant shots outside and reports on state tv about all the areas in Cairo that had been looted. It felt like the world was falling apart and my friends were starting to flee the country. The internet was still down and I felt totally isolated. I was getting on every ones nerves by constantly asking for the international news and translations of the state news. At some point during day two of what I will call the Shouba siege I actually got my stuff and tried to leave my friends house. I wanted to be in Maadi, I wanted foreigners, I wanted to talk....This of course was a stupid thing to do as it was dangerous as hell outside. I spent the afternoon sleeping and  playing angry birds then came nightfall and with it more shots. My friend decided to join the men who were protecting the neighborhood. I spent some time looking down at the street and couldn't help thinking that they seemed to be enjoying themselves. They lit fires to stay warm, drank tea and watched the teenagers play football. State Tv was driving me crazy, I couldn't understand but just the visual was enough for me to know it was propaganda. I spent the night calling friends in Maadi. The next day the shots died down. I longed to go outside and was starting to feel like Anne Frank!. Spent the day mooching around feeling sorry for myself. I had now given up on getting translations for the news and shut myself in a room with the house phone and my I phone... yep more angry birds.. oh how I missed the internet. I think my friend saw how unhappy I was and how much I longed to be in Maadi, he offered to escort me back in the morning.There were less shots that night (Monday). On Tuesday I woke up bright and early eager to get back.
We walked to the metro station, every one on the street seemed to be on edge. There were no police although it had been reported on State TV that they had been redeployed all over the city. People were paying even less attention to the rules then they normally do. The woman's cart on the metro was full of men and when one brave woman screamed at them to piss off (or the Arabic equivalent) they stayed were they where and laughed. I don't think I have ever felt so tense on the metro. We got to Maadi and looked for a working ATM which, we of course didn't find. I headed towards the shop to pick up some pasta, my answer to all of this has been pasta. If in doubt, stock up on pasta!
On the way to the shop I heard someone shout my name, it was a girl from work and boy it felt good to see someone I knew. At this point my friend figured I would be safe alone and headed off back to Shoubra. I got my Pasta and toddled of on my way. Before reaching home I bumped into another friend yippee I was feeling normal again.
That night we went to a friends house in Degla, it was so nice to be with people again. All of them foreign and all of them understanding the thoughts and concerns I had. This by the way is no disrespect to my friend, he had enough to worry about himself.
When we got back to our flat, we decided to make arty farty things to kill the time, whilst doing this I painted my cat pink, one of many curfew killers I have had to come up with.
The protests that day had been massive and Mubarak was to make a speech. We were convinced he was going to step down. As we now know, he didn't step down, his big speech was to tell us that he wouldn't stand again for the next elections.
The next morning was amazing.... the internet was back yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay and things seemed calm, brilliant, dare I say, over?
I spent some time reading the messages my friends had left me, all of them very touching. Googled all of the things I had written down for future googleing. Google was the thing I missed most
Then I went to meet friends for a coffee at Villa 55. It was a beautiful sunny day, the internet was back, I was sitting with my friends, it felt normal, it felt over, it felt like we were survivors.
When I got home and turned on the news my heart sunk.
Pro Mubarak protesters had suddenly appeared out of nowhere and attacked the peaceful protesters. This was awful, horrid. It looked and felt like civil war, this beautiful day had turned into a sad, sad day of dread, unspeakable things had happened. It was a disgrace to humanity.
On Thursday the fighting went on. State Tv started blaming "foreign influences" so people began to turn on foreigners.On Friday I was afraid to leave the house. Cairo scholars were reporting foreigners being picked up all over the place and being taken for interrogation. The protests were huge but thank god they were peaceful.
Now its Saturday, well to be fair its early Sunday morning. Things were quiet today and I am told that normality shall return on Sunday. People are going to work and the banks will be open.
So do I feel its over? Let me get through Sunday then I will make a prediction......