Tag Archives: Education

Rubies in the Rubbish – Day Eleven

04 Wednesday Dec 2013

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This morning I wake up refreshed, having slept comparatively well last night.  The extra blanket the sisters gave me really helped.

On the way to and from school I notice parents touching their children lovingly.  Here, mothers always carry their babies in their arms.  The roads are probably too bumpy anyway to push a stroller.  I see a father with his arm wrapped around the shoulder of his son, about twelve.  The son appears to have been crying.  I love how these people are so open with their emotions!  When they are sad, they cry.  When they are angry, they also let that out.  I’m not used to that, and when I see anger or irritation, I feel afraid.  But what tenderness there is here!  I love the way these children smile at me, looking long and warmly into my eyes.  I feel almost washed away by this tenderness.  Josuf, one of my sixth-graders, comes to me so eagerly when I ask him to come to the front of the classroom.  Every time I praise him for a correct answer, his entire face lights up.  It melts my heart.  I see some of the girls looking at me with open adoration when I try and explain something.  It embarrasses me, but also moves me profoundly.  I’m sometimes overwhelmed by the number of kids who crowd around me, wanting to shake my hand and say hello.  But I’m also deeply touched.

This morning we do our usual “ABC” song, “Head and Shoulders”, and “Jesus Loves Me”, plus writing the alphabet.  Some of the kids are up to “W” by now.  Kindergarten kids.

While Mariem waits for her mother and I wait for my driver, I help her with her English.  She also looks at me adoringly after I praise her for her perfect rendition of, “Mona baked a cake”.

I ask Marleen, the school director, about the life of the garbage pickers.  They have certain customers they travel to by donkey and pick up their garbage.  It has to be in the area – they are not allowed to travel long distances with their donkeys, or they’ll get picked up by the police.  They get paid to pick up the garbage.  Once they’ve collected all the garbage, they bring it to the garbage area, where they sort it.  Apparently the glass area is next to the school, because I always hear glass being sorted.  Marleen says they sort it by color.

A father and son, presumably, sorting glass across the street from the school

A father and son, presumably, sorting glass across the street from the school

They separate paper and cardboard, and also plastic.  They also collect food waste.  In the past, pigs that lived in the area ate the food waste, but the government has made raising pigs illegal, so I don’t know what happens to the food waste now.  Does it go to the chickens?  To the dogs running around loose in the streets?  The zebaleen (garbage pickers) are able to sell some of what they collect, for a little money.

According to the British newspaper, the Guardian, the zebaleen do raise at least some pigs in the back of their houses.  The article goes on to say, however, that with the swine flu scare in 2009, all the pigs in Cairo were killed.  More than 300,000 pigs were killed in one day, reducing the income of the zebaleen, who raised these pigs to be sold, in half.  In all the days I’ve been working in the school, I have never heard a sound from a pig, although I’ve heard plenty of chickens.  My school is in the second largest garbage area of Cairo.  I guess I’d have to get invited to a few homes to find out for sure.  One thing I do know – these garbage pickers are really poor.

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Rubies in the Rubbish – At the Salam Center

24 Sunday Nov 2013

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Life has fallen into a sort of rhythm by now.  I set my alarm for 6:15 every morning.  If I’ve slept poorly the night before, I need the alarm.  If I’ve slept well, I wake up just before the alarm goes off.  For the past couple of nights, I haven’t been sleeping so well.  It’s getting colder at night, and my one sheet-blanket isn’t enough anymore.  There is another blanket I’ve tried to use, but it stinks of ancient dust and dirt.  I have to do something about that.

When I’ve had my morning coffee, had my time with God, done my exercises and gotten washed and dress, I head down for breakfast.  Officially, breakfast is served at 8 am, but the time people actually eat varies some.  We eat at a long table, which is covered with a plastic tablecloth.  Sister Maria sits at the far end of the table, since she has the most seniority.  I, the guest, in a position of honor, I suppose, sit across from her.  The sisters seem to sit in rows according to their seniority.  Those with the least seniority sit at the bottom end of the table, nearest the kitchen.

convent dining room

Convent dining room

A normal breakfast is pita bread, a flat bread slightly different from what they sell in Europe and the States, and more tasty, two kinds of cheese, both something like feta, rucola leaves, boiled eggs, and sometimes foul (sounds like fool when you say it), a delicious fava bean stew.  The sisters only drink black tea, which I also drink down in the dining room, but I’m very grateful for my daily cup of coffee in my room.

Then I go off, usually with Rohmy, to the school next to the garbage dump, where I teach my kindergarten group.  Later in the morning I return with Rohmy, whenever he manages to come and pick me up, and I buy water to drink, and then go to my room and write about the morning or the previous day.

Lunch is served at 2 pm in the convent dining room.  We often have chicken for lunch, unless it is a Wednesday or Friday.  These are fast days, and there is no meat.  Most of the sisters fast from breakfast as well on these days.

We’ve had stewed beef once for lunch.  Normally there is some sort of soup with the meat, either the slimy spinachy molokhia, or some sort of vegetable soup like green beans with homemade tomato broth.  There is always delicious rice mixed with vermicelli, and always the flat bread.  Dessert is always fruit – fresh guavas, pomegranates or bananas.

Then I’m free in the afternoon until 5 pm, when I go to teach again.  I usually spend this time in the convent dining room, where there is wifi.  I check and write emails and hang out with whichever sisters happen to be there.  A couple of times they’ve asked to hear the CD I have downloaded into my laptop from the Egyptian Christian group “Better Life”.  I love it when the sisters translate these lyrics for me, and we sometimes have good talks.  Then I go back to my room and prepare my lesson.

At five o’clock I begin teaching with Reda – first the fourth graders for an hour, then the fifth graders and finally the sixth graders.

Sixth graders at the Salam Center.

One of my evening classes. These are the sixth graders.

At the very beginning of the evening, we always pray in the classroom.  Reda has taught me to stand facing east with the students, and we make the sign of the cross as we say “In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  One God, Amen.”  The same thing happens with the sixth graders at the end of the evening, at 8 pm.  Then I pray in English, saying whatever I feel like saying, and the children recite after me.  Then Reda and the children recite blessings together.

When the students write from the blackboard, it’s a lot quieter.  But when the fifth graders are there, it is bedlam!  I’ve been wondering why that is.  For one thing, they shout every time you ask them to repeat something.  I’ve started asking them to speak in a normal voice so I can understand what they’re saying, and also to protect my nerves.  One day both Reda and I are tired.  I, because I didn’t sleep well the night before.  This weather change means my body is having to adapt, and that makes me tired.  Reda is tired because he’s come down with a cold.  He wasn’t dressed for the cooler weather.

We pretend to sleep at our desks, showing the students that both teachers are tired.  I count the number of kids in class today – fifteen!  No wonder it’s so noisy in there.  There are only about nine fourth graders who come, and about five sixth graders.

The afternoon program, I learn, isn’t really a school.  The kids all go to some school or other during the day, and come here in the evening for extra help.

Every evening after all the kids have left, Reda and I sit on a bench in the now-school, ex-hospital courtyard and talk about the lessons, or about our lives.  He is such a gentleman, and wants to take care of his “mother”, Noreen.  Every evening he buys me a juice, like mango or guava, and we sit on a bench, drink our juice, and talk.  One evening I ask about the stream of people coming and going from the room next to the courtyard.  The old, worn-out sign says “dental clinic”, but it is obviously no longer a dental clinic.  I see computers in the room – and a constant flow of people.  I also notice that some of those waiting to go into this room listen to us talk.  They seem to understand at least some of what we are talking about.  I ask him what this room is all about.

“These people want to go to America,” he says.  “They’re getting help filling in the required emigration forms.”  So many people want to leave Egypt!  One man, sitting there with his entire family, tells me he has a degree in hotel management and tourism, but he can’t find a job anywhere – there are no tourists.  He thinks he can find work – any work will be fine – in the United States.

I always leave Reda at 8:30 pm to go back to the convent for supper.  There, we normally eat more bread and cheese, and often homemade yoghurt that Sister Ologaya has made.  Once we had a hard macaroni dish, sort of like a pizza.

During one evening at supper, I ask Sr. Maria about those wanting to emigrate.  She says there are large Coptic communities in the States, in New Jersey and California, for instance, that will help these people if they manage to emigrate.

We talk about Coptic lifestyle values.  Reda has told me, for instance, that Copts don’t date.  There is no premarital sex with either the Copts or the Muslims.  Divorce is frowned upon.  Egyptian society is conservative and strict.  I tell her about the mores in Germany and in the States.  This is what these Egyptians will encounter when they land in the States or in Europe somewhere.  “I know, she says.  It will be hard for the children.”

She tells me that among the Muslims, many are turning away from any faith at all.  They had put their hopes in the Muslim Brotherhood, and found through the one-year experience with the Brotherhood that the Muslim Brotherhood were not interested in the common good of all.  They have found the Brotherhoold to be just another corrupt political party.

Somehow the sisters find out that I’ve been cold, ever since the weather changed.  Sister Monika finds a nice warm, clean blanket for me, and I walk back with my blanket to the hospital.  Before I enter the building, however, I am always stopped by a loud “Hello!”  It is Romero, one of the handicapped young men.  As far as I can tell, he is only physicall handicapped, but quite intelligent.  He sells cookies and chips outside to people going into the hospital to visit patients.  He wants me to buy something.  I don’t mind.  I find the suppers boring, and I wouldn’t mind something sweet to eat before I go to bed.  Sometimes I buy an Egyptian form of Oreo cookies.  Or perhaps Twinkies.  I haven’t had Twinkies since I was a kid!  I find that I enjoy this bit of sweetness before I fall into bed.  The night I carry the heavy blanket, I  buy a Twinkie and then go to bed.  I read from a Kindle book in my cell phone until my eyes droop.  I sleep a deep, peaceful sleep.

Rubies in the Rubbish – Day Eight

20 Wednesday Nov 2013

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It’s 8:30 on a Saturday morning – time to go to school!  I sit inside the passenger seat.  There is no seatbelt for me to fasten.  I’m lucky that the car starts.  Sometimes it seems sluggish.  But it’s always clean.  Rohmy washes all the cars every day.  He sits in the driver’s seat, slams the door shut and hands me the window crank.

Rohmy

Rohmy, my usual driver, and just about everyone else’s.

There’s only one window crank for the whole car, so we have to share it.  I roll down the window and desperately try to see everything there is to see.  There’s so much happening, I feel anxious about missing or forgetting important things.  Oh, well, I’ll just let the impressions simply drop into my mind.  The drive is becoming routine.

I wonder if I could find my way there alone if I ever had to walk.  No, it’s too complicated, despite the grid pattern.  Today another road is blocked off with a huge piece of canvas about three meters high.  A wedding?  Rohmy says they sometimes block the road for special occasions like weddings, so he has to drive around the block.  Even if I could walk to school, I am told it would not be safe for me, a Westerner, to walk alone.  Theresa, the woman who translated for me when I spoke to the ladies last week, walks alone every day to work.  It takes her about an hour each way, when she factors in taking the children to school and picking them up in the afternoon.  She tells me she lives near the closest metro stop, which is about thirty minutes’ walk from here.

Theresa

Theresa, who heads the social work program

I see a giant poster with a photo of Morsi hanging from the wall of an apartment building.  I’ve noticed this poster before, but today I notice that it is only a couple of blocks from the Salam Center.  Copts are telling me that the Muslim Brotherhood are terrorists.  They compare them to Al Qaida.  Since my arrival, I’ve experienced Egypt’s first drive-by shooting that targeted Christians.  I’ve been told that the Muslim Brotherhood condemns this killing.  And yet, this poster makes me a little nervous.  Just what are the intentions of the Muslim Brotherhood?

I see posters of other politicians, presumably, hanging from walls.  I have no idea who these people are, or why their pictures are hanging, but I assume they’re various politicians.

Hanging across many of the streets are giant posters with photos of Shenouda, the late Coptic pope.  I assume these placards identify the neighborhood or street as being Coptic.

I see men in clean, pressed shirts and trousers walking along the dirt roads.  They must be on their way to work.  At shortly before 9 am, I don’t see many men in gallibayas (long robes).  Most of the women, however, whether Copt or Muslim, are dressed in gallibayas.  I think I’m learning to tell the difference in appearance between a Coptic and a Muslim woman when both are in gallibayas.  Their heads may both be covered, but the Coptic woman wears a scarf that may expose some hair, and her gallibaya looks more like a decorative long tunic.  It may be made of cotton or velveteen, and may be brightly colored or with trimming or embroidery.  A Muslim woman, at least in this neighborhood, is dressed in a plain, dark-colored gallibaya, with her head entirely covered.

The Coptic children are dressed western-style.  Many of them are wearing brown/beige uniforms.

There really isn’t that much trash on the roads.  I see someone sweeping bits of paper into a little pile.  Somewhere else a little pile is burning.  Most of the roads are actually pretty trash-free.  I realize that the path I take in Cologne, Germany, when I walk to the supermarket, has more trash strewn along the way than I see on these streets.

I see chickens running freely in the road.  With this number of chickens running around free, it’s no wonder the nights are so noisy!

I arrive at the school.  I don’t notice the smell of garbage anymore.  I’ve had these kids for almost a full week now.  My students, age five, have learned to say the entire Lord’s Prayer in English.  Today they’ve also learned to sing all of “Jesus Loves Me”, and the “ABC song”.

I notice that the classroom is almost twice as full of kids today as it was in previous days.  I ask why.  Because today, Saturday, the public schools are closed, so Marleen, the principal, has invited them to come to the Coptic school on Saturdays.  Imagine kids from Europe or America choosing to go to school on a Saturday!

As far as I can understand it, most Egyptians have Friday, the Muslim Sabbath, and Sunday, the Christian Sabbath, off.  They work Saturdays.  But not those with government jobs.  They have Fridays and Saturdays off.  I wonder what they do on Sundays.

In front of the school

In front of the school

My lesson is finished at 10:30 am.  As I wait for Rohmy to pick me up, a boy, about twelve, walks up to me with a bag of corn puffs and offers me one.  I say “Thank you” in English and eat it.  He responds, “I love you!” and runs back, giggling, to his friends, who all yell at me from back in the corner, “I love you.”  Who wouldn’t want to come back to a country where people tell you every day, “You’re nice,” “I like you,” “You’re beautiful,” “I love you”?

It’s a madhouse when school lets out and everybody, parents and kids alike, are waiting for each other and it’s packed like a school of minnows.  But I love it.  This is when I get to do my informal teaching.  Some days I have the kids write their names, or I show them illustations from magazines and we talk about the words, or I go over an English lesson with someone.  There’s always someone eager to interact with me.  Today my entertainment is filming them interacting!

The other day I was showing Marleen some of the photos in my smartphone, and she came upon one with me playing my piano.  “You play the piano?” she asked me.  Now Marleen has asked me to give the children piano lessons next time I come.  I ask Marleen if there is a piano here in the school.  I can’t imagine there being one.  She says no. Assuming I come again, I’ll have to bring my keyboard.

Others are talking about what I can do next time I come, or telling me that I should stay longer.  I’m having the same thoughts.  In Germany I wouldn’t normally volunteer to teach kindergarten kids English, and giving piano lessons is sometimes tedious.  It’s not a skill I usually offer to teach others.  But here, it is entirely different.  Here, where children volunteer to come to school on Saturdays, I find myself wanting to teach them everything I know.

I’m sitting in my room now, after having taught my morning lesson.  Rohmy has delivered me safely back to the convent.  I’m drinking a lovely cup of black tea with mint from the convent garden, reflecting on my morning.  I, the teacher, have learned a whole sentence today in Arabic:  Ana ashram kubay chai. “I’m drinking a cup of tea.”  I’m so proud of myself!

I find that I’m teaching some of the same kids in the evening program at the convent as I encounter mornings at the school next to the garbage dump.  They too are opting for more lessons.  My heart aches for them to succeed in life.  I’d love to be able to help.  Here, it feels like the work I do is more important than what I do in Germany.

I do wonder about the future of these kids.  Will they spend their adult lives sorting through garbage, like their parents?  There’s one girl I’ve been thinking about – Marina.  She’s very shy, not very good in English, and she’s young – only about nine years old.  She comes to school in a training suit and stiletto half-boots she must have inherited from someone.  They’re way too big for her little feet.  What will happen to her?  Will she ever find a good job?  And then there’s Rosaria, in the sixth grade.  She’s really good, and she always does her homework.  But her pronunciation is terrible!  Sister Maria has told me that Marleen wants to get her best students into the elite private “language” schools, where lessons are taught in English or German.  Sister Maria tells her, forget it.  They’ll never get accepted because they’re from poor families.  This mirrors exactly the fate of one of the characters I read about in The Yacoubian Building, a novel by Alaa Al-Aswany.  In this novel, a boy from a poor family is consistently rejected, even from the police academy, when he’s successfully finished school, because of his background.  He ends up becoming an Islamist terrorist.

Rubies in the Rubbish – Day Six

17 Sunday Nov 2013

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Time is flying and, as the McDonald’s ad says, I’m lovin‘ it!  I am so happy here.  Everywhere I go, people greet me with a smile, and I have to smile.  Maybe I smile first and they smile back.  I don’t know, but I end up smiling all day, and then the people here think I always smile.  It’s not true, sadly.  But inside of me there is a joyful woman, and she comes out here; full of life, love and joy.  She is in love with these people.  I’m not sure I would want to live forever under these material conditions, but for now, I can’t imagine a place I would rather be.  These are the people I want to be with, at least for now.

Today I am bold – I wear my black flowered flip-flop sandals to the garbage dump.  Everybody else wears sandals; I want to risk it too.  The only problem is, just before the school, the road is blocked because of a building under construction, so Rohmy and I have to walk over a pile of gravel and another sand pile.  My sandals and feet are full of sand by the time I reach the school.

I go back to the same kindergarten class I had two days ago.  The same child is sleeping, but he wakes up for the lesson today.  Marleen, the school principal, wants me to teach these children to say the Lord’s Prayer in English.  Five-year-old children who don’t speak any English.  I look at her for a second, doubtfully, but she assures me that these kids know it in Arabic and that it will be good for them to know this prayer in King James English.  Okay…

“Our Father”…I interrupt myself.  “That means ‘Papa”.  They all know the word “Papa”.  “Our Father”…and they all repeat after me a few times.  “Who art”… They repeat this.  “In Heaven.”  They repeat.  How to explain what Heaven is?  I point to the sky and all around me.  We get as far as “Hallowed be Thy Name”, repeating many times, when I decide that’s enough for today.  We have several more days to learn this prayer.

Marleen comes back into the classroom and says to the children, “I love Jesus!”  They all repeat after her, making motions for each word.   This reminds me of the song I learned in Sunday school, decades ago, “Jesus loves me.”  I once heard a sermon about this song that I will never forget.  The preacher said that this song contains some of the best theology in existence, and it says it all.  He said it is a song that says all we need to know.  I would agree, except my prayer for myself is that I will love Jesus more and more, with all the love I have.

I ask Marleen if she knows this song.  No, she’s never heard it.  I sing it to her, and she is amazed.  She finds this song incredibly beautiful.  So I begin to teach it to the children, using the same motions she used, but in reverse, and adding a few others.  Then we continue to the lesson we had two days ago, writing the letters of the alphabet.

Suddenly I am called out of the classroom.  Sister Maria has called the school and told them that I am to visit another school.  She has already told me she wants me to have a look at all the programs this center provides, so I’m not surprised by this sudden change of schedule.

Another woman and I walk a block or two, past people sorting through garbage, past shops, past donkeys carting garbage and goods for sale, to another school.

rubbish processing center

a rubbish processing center

As soon as I enter the school, I see that someone has taken pains to beautify it.  The walls are clean and freshly painted in lovely contrasting shades of pink and maroon.  I glimpse a sign in English, “Literacy Program”, and we enter a classroom with children about eleven years of age.  The teacher, Mariem, invites me to sit down.  I wonder what I am supposed to do here.  She seems to have no idea, so I ask if I can see what the children are doing.  Yes, certainly.  These kids are writing words like “dog”, “cat”, “fish” and “apple” over and over again, each word on one page of a notebook.  Sometimes their method is unorthodox.  Some of the children start from the right side of the page, or the word, and work left, or write only the “a” of apple, for example, all down the page, then get to “p” and so on.  I try and help them see that they need to go from left to right.  They already know this, at least in theory.  And then I help them write an entire word before going on to the next.  I am impressed that these children haven’t given up.  They are proud that they can write these words.

kids in the literacy program

kids in the literacy program

There is also a computer in the classroom.

computer in the literacy program classrom

computer in the literacy program classroom

One of the girls in the class gets to play a computer game when she’s finished writing her words.  Mariem comes every day to teach these children math, Arabic and English.  Perhaps more too.  Her English isn’t very good, but it is adequate to teach these children all they need to know.  Some of my students in Germany could come here and teach these kids to speak English.  Mariem is living out a principle I started learning a few years ago.  Give back what you have received.  Don’t wait for it to be perfect.  It is good enough if you know just a little more than your students.  And this applies to anything in life.  Give back what you know.  Don’t wait to be perfect.

Mariem

Mariem, the teacher in the literacy program

It’s time to leave.  As my escort walks me down the stairs, I look out the window.  Just behind the school walls, I see the garbage dump.  But the courtyard before it is magnificent!  Someone has made a basketball court/soccer field, and painted the walls sky blue with pictures of people playing sports.  As yesterday, I am struck by how much love, care and attention is given to these children, most of whom are garbage pickers themselves.

beautiful gym behind garbage dump

A beautiful gym right behind the garbage dump

On the ride back, as we pass shop after shop, I look – just for fun – to see how many apples I can find.  Usually I see oranges, guavas, bananas, pomegranates, peppers, even potatoes for sale, but rarely apples.  Finally, we pass a shop that sells both golden and red delicious apples.  Now I know these kids aren’t writing “apple” in vain.  They do eat apples in Egypt.

Rubies in the Rubbish – Day Five

15 Friday Nov 2013

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Isn’t day five the day you always get frustrated?  I remember this from my zen days, doing week-long meditations.  Day five was always the day when I was in a bad mood.  Day five, when you’re on vacation, and everything starts to become routine, and you notice the things that aren’t right.

The first thing I notice today is that Sr. Maria is nowhere to be seen, and I need a driver to take me to the school.  There is nobody today in the convent dining room who speaks English.  Marsa has her few words, like “I like you”, and “You are beautiful,” and “We are happy to meet you.”  But I want to know where Sister Maria is, and whether I can get a ride to the madrassa.  They’re waiting for me, after all.  Marleen said I could come every day.  They’ll be asking what happened to me.

I reach into my pocket for the phrases I’ve written down on a piece of paper.  Ah, yes, there it is.  “Where is…”  Where is Sr. Maria? I ask Nagette.  She points upstairs and mimics “sleeping” with her hands.  Sr. Maria asleep at 8:30 am?  I can’t believe it.  I decide to go outside and look for Rohmy.  I just saw him on my way to the convent!  But now he is nowhere to be seen.

I walk into the ornamental garden, looking for Rohmy.  From my room, looking down, the garden looks beautiful.  From inside, it is a mess.  There is dirt and dust everywhere, the fountain seems to be broken, and there are little bits of garbage lying around.  There is only one chair in the garden, and it appears to be filthy – and broken.  There is an abandoned washing machine in the middle of the path.  Why doesn’t anybody maintain or fix the things that are broken?

I ask Magdy, the elevator operator, “Feyn Tesoni Maria?”  Today my new word seems to be “where is…?”  He rattles off something in Arabic, and says something in English about two o’clock.  When I ask about Sr. Maria, he says, “Nine or ten o’clock.”  I don’t know how to ask politely in simple English, so I ask, sounding like a commander, “Could you tell Sr. Maria that I would like to see her?”

One of the things I notice here is that there is a lot of sitting around.  Women sit on benches outside the hospital and wait for someone.  The steps of each floor of the hospital are so crowded with people sitting, sometimes I can hardly wriggle through them to walk downstairs.  Why don’t they sit on the chairs in the waiting room?

And it’s not that much different with the workers.  They seem to have plenty of time on their hands.  The other day, a doctor in the ER had enough time to show me the entire complex.  Yesterday, Aowny told me that life is hard in Egypt; people have to work twenty-hour days to support their families.  He told me he has to work from 9 am until 10 pm every day.  Yes, he was on duty.  But he also had a few hours to sit and chat with Sr. Elleria and me.

On my second day here, the lock on the door to my floor of the hospital broke completely.  The door is metal, and the lock as well.  Some of the metal on both the door and the lock appears to be rusty, and screws are loose on both sides of the lock.  I was unable to lock the door.  Behind the door there are offices with valuable office equipment.  It took me two days of asking Sr. Maria before someone actually repaired the lock, and then only from one side.  I have found that if I use the key to pull on the door, I can get in and out once I’ve unlocked it.  But why doesn’t someone repair the entire lock?

I know that new stairs for the convent are being built, but why is there sand everywhere?  Why don’t they pave the parking lot instead of leaving the sand there and letting it blow over everything?

On my floor I can’t turn on the light in the bathroom that doesn’t stink because the light bulb is broken.  There are chairs in the lobby of my dormitory with broken rungs on the back rests or missing seats.  The convent kitchen has cupboard doors missing and knobs broken off.  The knobs on one of the stoves are missing.  But people make do.  As Dr. Boussar said, “You see, it works!”

This morning, since neither Sr. Maria nor Rohmy is anywhere to be found, I have plenty of time on my hands.  How to fill this time?  I decide to clean my room.   But I don’t know how.  There are no buckets anywhere, no mops, no dustpans, although I have found a broom.  I don’t know how they clean rugs here, and my rug is full of sand.  The floor is coated with a film of sandy dust after having lived here for five days.  I ask a girl in the office for someone to help me clean my room.  I find a girl in one of the offices.  It turns out we have already met.  I should remember her, because her name is similar to mine – Shereen.  Almost sounds like Noreen.  But I have met so many people, I can’t remember her well.  Marleen, Sabreen, now Shereen.  I apologize.  She smiles and says it’s okay, and that she will send the cleaning lady in a few minutes.

Soon the cleaning lady arrives.  I show her the bathroom with the broken light bulb.  I tell her the other bathroom stinks, but even I can’t smell it any more.  Have I gotten accustomed to the smell, or is it truly better, after I have poured at least two liters of water down the drain?  I don’t know.  But the cleaning lady won’t let me do a thing.  I learn that there is no vacuum cleaner here, so the cleaning lady simply replaces my rug with one in another room.  She cleans the floor, the toilet, the shower, the sinks.  There are two things that will not happen.  She will not let me clean my room myself, and the light bulb will almost certainly not be replaced.

As I stand around, watching her work, I feel like a bossy colonialist.  I am embarrassed.  But after decades of sacrificing my needs to others, and years of working on myself, I have learned that I need to take care of myself and my needs, and that self-consciousness will lead to only more inhibition.

As I write, I think I sound like a spoiled, petulant Westerner who thinks her culture is superior to this one.  True, there is a strong perfectionist streak in me.  One thing about learning to express my wishes and needs is that I think I have gotten bossier and more dominant than I was when I was compliant and submissive.  So be it.  I have also learned that God loves me as I am, and that I am allowed to be a bit bossy if that is the only way I can find to have my needs met.  As long as I think I’m being reasonable, it should be fine.  I wish the Egyptians would let me clean my room myself.  I wish they could see and wish to replace broken light bulbs and fix smelly drains.  I think they see, and yet they don’t see.  Germans love the friendliness of Americans, but I doubt Germans will ever be known for their friendliness.  I know the Egyptians long for a country that works better, but they don’t seem to know that they have be on the look-out for what needs fixing, and then somehow get working on it.  But maybe this is too much to expect in a country, in a continent, that is known for being laid back.

On my way to lunch, I pass a truck with two very old, dilapidated wheelchairs on a sort of platform in the back of the truck.  A man sitting on a wheelchair is sitting inside the belly of the truck, and two men are trying to repair two wheelchairs that look beyond repair.  I remember something Mohammed, Peter’s and my tour guide on our last trips to Egypt, said:  “Egyptians will salvage anything.”  Maybe the washing machine in the garden is also awaiting repair.  Who am I to judge?

I also learn that Sister Maria was indeed not sleeping.  She left the convent at 6 am today, and was relying on another sister to bring me to my work.  The other sister and I never met up.  No matter, Sister Maria has found work for me in the school here in the compound for this afternoon and evening.

*

I’ve just spent three hours working with the children, and it is wonderful!  They are so friendly, so eager, so polite.  Their teacher, Reda, allows me to do most of the work teaching the class.  He’s unbelievably humble, asking me how he’s doing as a teacher.  What I see is a really loving man who loves his kids.  Love is what comes across to me the most in this entire center.  I see love wherever I go, whether in the hospital, the schools, or in the convent itself.

I find myself standing in the same classrooms that looked so incredibly filthy and decrepit on Sunday.  Filled with kids, they are filled to the brim with life and joy.  In Reda’s class, every time a student gets an answer right, everyone claps.  Reda tells me that these kids are weak students.  Their books are meant for private school students at the same level, with role plays like someone calling the operator at the Egyptian Museum, asking when the opening hours are.  These kids will probably never know enough English to be able to call the Egyptian Museum.  I wonder if they’ve ever been to that part of Cairo and seen the mummies.  I live in Germany, but I’ve seen the mummies in the Egyptian Museum.  (They have been there, I later learn.)Image

I teach one of the classes the present continuous form of the verb “to drive”.  I’m driving a car.  This is supposed to be review.  Then we get to the past tense.  I start asking the children, “Did your father drive the car yesterday?”  Child after child answers, “No, he didn’t.”  I look at Reda.  He tells me, “These kids are poor.  They don’t have cars.”    So he and I adapt the question to, “Did your father sit in a bus yesterday?”

Reda tells me that even though these kids are weak, he doesn’t hit or punch them.  The fact that he is telling me this makes me wonder how many teachers in this country hit their pupils.  “These kids are my brothers and sisters,” he says.  I never had a teacher who called us students his or her brothers and sisters.

Reda's (and my) fifth graders

Reda’s (and my) fifth graders

I have to revise what I said about Egyptians not working very hard.  It is nearly 8 pm and Reda is still teaching.  He got up at 4 am today to teach in another school, taught there all day and then came to this school to teach in the evening program.  He’s there every evening, five days a week.  He has to take three buses to get to this school, and he often gives private lessons as well.  Sometimes he only gets four or five hours of sleep because he has to work so hard.  “I’d come here, though, even if they didn’t pay me.”  What would make a person miss out on three hours of sleep, just to be able to work there?  This must be a very special place.

Rubies in the Rubbish – Day Four

14 Thursday Nov 2013

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Rohmy picks me up at 8:30 to drive me to the garbage dump.  Today I will be working in a Coptic mission school a block away from the garbage dump closest to the Salam Center.  He walks me up some dark stairs to the school director.  “Nice, isn’t it?” he says.  It is nicer than the abandoned hospital/school I saw on Sunday.  Actually, I’m getting used to this.  It’s not bad at all.  The walls are straight, the floors are smooth, there are functioning fluorescent lights along the corridor, and the usual sparkly garlands decorate various areas.  Today I see a sparkly crepe paper cross in the entrance to the school.  I meet Marleen, the school director, who takes me to the classroom where I’ll be working today.

Marleen

Marleen

From my experience of schools, I expect Marleen to be authoritarian, and she does look serious, but she’s not strict at all!  I’m going to love it here.  I have a group of adorable kindergarten kids, and their beautiful teacher, Bosma.

Bosma and her kindergarten class

Bosma and her kindergarten class

Bosma tells me she doesn’t speak any English, but she knows enough to get these kids started.  I’ve had images of helping them to identify objects, but I quickly learn they aren’t nearly far enough.  They stand up and yell, “Good morning!” in unison when I enter the classroom.  And suddenly, they are very shy.  I know enough Arabic by now to say to them in Arabic, “My name is Noreen.  What’s your name?”  But they won’t answer me.  One little boy is sitting at his desk, fast asleep.  Gradually, I learn each child’s name and then try and get them to say, “My name is….”  It sort of works.

Then I learn that they have already been working a little on English, learning to print the letters of the alphabet.  They know the words, “capital letter” and “small letter”.  Some have only gotten to “A”, while others are already as far as “I”.  And I thought they could learn to write their names.  Perhaps in two weeks they’ll be this far.  Some can’t even hold a pencil, while others are very quick.  Some write neatly on the page, while others have their letters willy-nilly, all over the page, with huge small e’s, for example, rivaling the capital E’s in size.  It is difficult teaching them words like “small” and “large” when I don’t know any Arabic.  But fortunately, yesterday at lunch one of the sisters taught me “little spoon” and “big spoon”.  So I say something like “kebir” for “big” and “sua’aya” for small.  I have great difficulty trying to show one girl how the small “f” is different from the capital “F”.  She has huge angular lines for both, or she puts the curve at the bottom of the letter, like a backwards “j”.

Gradually, as the hour passes, the children warm up to me, looking into my eyes with long smiles.  I adore them!  We review the sound of the letters they’ve just written, and say our names once more.  I teach them a few words I’ve either just learned in Arabic myself, like “water” or “bread”, “table” and “chair”.  I think I’m finished with the lesson, when another teacher walks into the classroom to observe and says something in Arabic about something we’ve forgotten to do.  But she acts so reverent, I figure it must have to do with praying, when she turns off the light and the children stand up, hushed.  I somehow surmise that we’re going to do the sign of the cross.  I learned that yesterday too at lunch.  It’s amazing – each day I’m being prepared ahead of time for what is to follow.  I don’t know how to do it in Arabic, but I say the words in English, and the children follow me.  Apparently I’m doing it right!  “In the name of the Father”, and I touch my head with my right fingers, “and the son”, and I touch my belly, “and the Holy Spirit”; I touch the left shoulder and then the right; “in me”; I touch my heart; “amen”; I fold my hands over my heart in a praying motion.  I don’t feel like an imposter, even though Protestants don’t cross themselves. I think this is a very good idea.

Apparently there is no more time for me to teach a lesson today.  At 10:30 the children from every grade go home for the day, all of them crammed into the lobby as they wait for their parents to arrive.  kids waiting to be picked up.

kids waiting to be picked up.

kids waiting to be picked up.

The little boy who was sleeping now wants a hug.  I pick him up and he kisses my cheek.  I’m in love!  Some of the older students smile at me, and we converse in English.  They’re doing pretty well!  One of the teachers, or assistants, or parents, I’m not sure what she is, but her name is Sabreen, motions to me that she will be walking me back to the convent.

Wow!  Now I am in a real Cairo neighborhood, outside the locked gates of the convent and hospital.  It is an amazing walk.  I see the garbage dump, walled in, with trucks and donkeys in the streets, carrying garbage.

Donkeys carrying the rubbish

Donkeys carrying the rubbish

I see a few people picking through the garbage to sort it.  The roads are dirt, uneven, with little hillocks and gullies.  Now I see that they are actually in a grid pattern.  This must be what New York City looked like 150 years ago.  Every now and then there is an indentation with a tire covering it.  I ask Sabreen what that is.

Sabreen

Sabreen

She holds her fingers over her nose.  Sewer.  I wonder if it’s in use any more.  On the sides of the street, we see normal Cairo business.  We walk past a butcher, coffee shops, stands where they sell falafel or bread or other baked goods, and little grocery stores with fruit and vegetables or staples such as rice.

a butcher

a butcher

When we walk along what is a bit broader, like a main road, I see that underneath all the dirt, the road is paved.  The unpaved roads are part of the attraction of this city, however.  And I am also an attraction to them.  Sabrine keeps greeting people, and I smile and say “Good morning” in Arabic.

What an adventure this is!  And I get to go back to the school tomorrow.  Maybe I’ll get to teach two classes.  Won’t that be exciting!

*

 I have an infected finger.  The infection began back in Germany, when a nail split and I pulled at the hang nail.  I’ve been trying to treat it myself, but it’s gotten worse.  I show it to a couple of sisters, and Sister Elleria, who works in the lab at the hospital, offers to help me.  She treats my wound herself, telling me she’s watched so many doctors do this, she knows exactly how it’s done.  And then she, who has no more training than as a lab assistant,  proceeds to write me a prescription for antibiotics and an anti-inflammatory tablet! “No problem,” she says.  “I’ve seen this done a thousand times.”

Sister Elleria's blood lab

Sister Elleria’s blood lab

I really like Sr. Elleria.  If my heart were more open than it is, I could even say I love her.  She tells me that talking to me is like talking to an old friend.  And I feel the same with her.  I like all the sisters very much, but she actually makes the effort to speak English with me.  She wants to improve her English.  She tells me the convent has a vision, she has a vision too, to receive more foreign visitors like me, and the sisters will have to learn to speak better English.  We sit in her lab and chat and chat about so many things.

Sister Elleria

Sister Elleria

A young man, Aowny, her colleague, comes and joins us.  We talk a lot about matters of faith.  I can see in his eyes and expression that Owny is also a devout Christian.   Elleria’s eyes simply radiate Jesus.  They are amazing eyes!  They are so full of love and joy.  She is also self-confident.  Was she always so positive?  I wonder how she can work there with Aowny day after day and not fall in love with him.  But then, she is called to be a nun and I am not.  But I would love to know Jesus’ love deeply, to drink deeply of Jesus, to breathe Jesus.  She shows me a music video she has, an American worship song, showing Jesus standing by, walking with people in all their activities, crying with them, rejoicing with them.  He looks so beautiful in that video.  I’ll have to ask her to send it to my email address.

She and Aowny are so incredibly suspicious of Obama.  Their suspicion makes me doubt.  Does he mean well for Egypt?  For this continent?  For Israel?  Or is he really supporting the Muslim Brotherhood, as they say?  I can’t imagine him choosing to do such a thing.  They both see a dark future for Egypt.  I think Aowny would love to leave Egypt, if only he could.  But Elleria has chosen to stay here, in Egypt, with her sisters.