Teaching in Cairo

I had the most incredible teacher moment today. The thorn-in-my-side student in my 9th grade class came up to me after class today and thanked me for the last few weeks. He said my class has been fun lately and that he felt like now I was truly listening to the students.  It was one of those moments you cherish as a teacher. One, because it so rarely happens and Two, because you realize how close you came to losing an entire group of kids for the year.

I had been feeling pretty horrible about being a teacher for a bit there...waiting for each day to be over as quickly as possible, being overly sarcastic and biting to the students, just throwing work at them to shut them up. I was doing it mostly in defiance. Defiance in the face of a system that has taught their kids how to memorize and regurgitate information, but not think creatively or as an individual. A system that has taught the students to interrupt and be aggressive and argue every point (which, by the way, are actually good traits in moderation). Instead of working with what I was given and adding my own personality and voice, I rebelled and became a bad teacher. And I hated it.

And, thank God, I finally reached my limit and gave up, so to speak. Gave up trying to get into a battle of the wills every day with my students, of fighting a system that I cannot change. I finally decided that I can't change the system, but I can definitely work with it.

And it feels good. I'm finally becoming an internationally minded teacher. This job is incredibly difficult, but I'd be bored if it wasn't!! And who wants to be a teacher and not make a positive impact?
 

Sharm update

Pics from this past weekend in Sharm el Sheikh:

The pre-game huddle

After the win! The two women are from Australia and tagged along on this trip. They had a good time!

Hanging with Anne and Kim, two rugby wives.

At the beach

We were stuck on the side of the road for a couple of hours waiting for enough buses for a convoy and a military escort through Sinai (not our choice!).

So...this weekend was a lot of fun, but getting there and back was a pain in the butt!! We left Maadi at 6 on Thursday evening and did not check into the hotel until after 5 a.m. the next morning. What is supposed to be a 6 hour drive took us almost 12 hours!! There were two factors leading to this: The Egyptian military trying to look out for us foreigners and the fact that we had an idiot driver.

Factor 1: To get to Sharm El Sheikh, you drive under the Suez Canal (kinda cool) and through the Sinai Peninsula Region. I think this is correct. My geography is horrible. All I truly know for sure is it's the Sinai region and it's supposedly where the Bedouins sometimes take foreign and/or tourist hostages. Because of this, the military makes any buses carrying foreigners stop and wait for a military escort and enough buses to create a convoy. At several checkpoints we had to go through this ridiculous system. The Egyptian buses and individual cars could drive on through with no problem. I guess this makes sense if the Bedouins only stop foreign or tourist buses, but it was very, very frustrating to be parked on the side of the road for up to an hour at a time. I mean, how safe can THAT be? Not only that, but most of the guys on the bus were Egyptian. Go figure.

Factor 2: The driver ran out of gas. Even with that stupid convoy in action. We ended up having to wait about 2 hours for him to flag someone down, ride with them to the nearest petrol station, then come back with the gas. Guess who was stuck on the side of the road with no gas without a driver? In Sinai? At 2 a.m.? Talk about unsafe. And ironic. Needless to say, the driver was replaced for the way home and our bus trip that way was refunded. This was after he threw a hissy fit when one of the guys had the nerve to call him while he was out getting the gas and asked him to hurry up a bit. Such a rude guy. But I've noticed this about the Egyptian culture. They do not like to admit mistakes. Even if it's super obvious. They will argue with you and argue with you and argue with you...I see this at school and it's very frustrating. (I'm talking about at the student and adult level!!).

Since I can never get much sleep on a trip, whether it's a train or a bus or an airplane, I was pretty pooped by the time we got to the hotel. I crashed immediately, set my alarm for 9:30 to get the free breakfast (I will do anything for free food!) and then headed to the beach.It was an awesome day, just laying around watching the mostly European crowd at the beach and the rugby guys throw the ball around. I saw some risque bathing suits, including a girl wearing a thong!, a lot of Speedos, and on top of it all, I got a tan. Good day all in all.

After lazing around all day, we took a bus to the game, with the intention of going straight to the dinner and party after the game was over. The game itself started at around 7 p.m. Chloe stayed in the hotel with my computer to watch one of the many movies I've made sure to have on there. I love having movies and shows from home to go to sleep to at night. The game went by quickly as it usually does, with the Cairo Rugby team securing a win (woo hoo!). Then we all headed out to a local pub for a buffet, informal awards ceremony, and drinking games. The guys love their drinking. I believe the Cairo guys came out ahead in these games, too! 

After deciding that we had better leave or get kicked out, we headed back to our area of Sharm (called Naama Bay) and went to a club that was playing mostly Gulf music, which is like Arabic Techno. It was very unusual and hard to dance to. A couple of the Egyptians were saying how much they hated the music and wanted to go back to a club in the area near the stadium. I was considering that option when my knee blew out again. Ugh. This knee is never going to heal. No more dancing for me for awhile. I had to be practically carried off to sit down and wait for the pain to go away (which it didn't that night, by the way). It was weird how much pain I was in compared to when I first injured it. When it originally happened, there was no pain. I don't know if that's good or bad. I will try to play it safer from now on and not do anymore dancing for awhile (this is my second dancing incident since I hurt it!!)

The return trip to Maadi took about 9 hours, which was pretty bad, but not as horrible as the way up (since the second driver had a can of gas on hand!). I can tell you this, though. The next day, the very next day, I booked a flight to Sharm for our Christmas holiday! There is absolutely no way I will ever take a bus again to Sharm.

On a side note, I also paid for the flights to Johannesburg for our African Safari. I am so excited!! I absolutely cannot wait till April. We are starting in Johannesburg and driving through to Kruger Park and ending in Victoria Falls. It's all camping at lodges, including a night camping at the edge of a river. In two man tents. I cannot wait to see how Chloe does on this trip. This is a link to the itinerary:

www.africanbudgetsafaris.com/budget-camping-safaris/7-day-kruger-vic-falls-camping-safari/

The cost is not exorbinant compared to all of the other trips I saw through other companies. It's still a lot of money. The most I've ever spent on a trip. EVER. But a safari!! An authentic camping safari. It is going to be the trip of a lifetime.