Current Favorite Song

I heard about this song from a friend's blog (I've never actually met her irl, but I'm always inspired by her blog) and I listened to it about 15 times in a row that night.

I don't like his line: "Well, I do are the most famous last words, the beginning of the end." I understand where he is going with the statement, so it is still my current favorite song. But I have never felt that saying "I do" was the beginning of the end. When I said "I do" seven years ago, it was the beginning of the best years and the happiest times of my life.

"Because we bear the light of the Son of Man, so there's nothing left to fear.
So I'll walk with you in the shadow-lands, until the shadows disappear.
Cause He promised not to leave us, and His promises are true.
So in the face of all this chaos, baby, I can dance with you."

Homeschooling: the second week

We are on day 2 of our second week of preschool and 1st grade. (Yes, we started a little late because we were waiting on books to arrive. Its ok. I'm confident it will all work out.) We are using Veritas Press curriculum, for two reasons: one, Brian wanted to pursue classical education for the girls and two, they had lesson plans.

Really awesome lesson plans. Everything I need to do with Emily for one week is on one page with a box for the date of completion.We have Math, English, Literature, Geography, and Bible included in the program. They also have detailed lesson plans for each subject including an overview, list of materials I need for each day, and when needed, heads-up on preparation for the next day. Usually, all I have to do is to look at a particular subject and follow the instructions. No guesswork for lesson planning involved, I love it!

I had originally fallen in love with the Tapestry of Grace curriculum, and at some point I may still use it. But every review I read and every time I looked at their program, I just got overwhelmed by the amount of planning the teacher was required to do. Particularly since the teacher was me! And I am learning a foreign language and living in a new culture, don't forget that!

For Emily I also have two small supplementary workbooks that I brought over with me for Logic and Map Skills. Savannah is working through the Sing, Spell, Read and Write Preschool program and a small stack of extra preschool-type books. Her look of focus with the tip of her tongue sticking out as she writes her letters is one of the cutest things I've ever seen.

The girls absolutely love doing school work. One night, after bath, I told Savannah to hurry and get her pajamas on so we could read a story before bed and she asked: "Can we do some school to?" Both of them enjoy the new books we are working through.

This morning though, was a little different. Emily only had two worksheets left and Savannah only one, when both girls staged a mutiny... they dropped their pencils, they scribbled, one got too close to the other, they whined and complained about work that just yesterday was "so fun." I talked about whining... about sisters getting along... about how school was important... I threatened a little... then actually carried out the threats. Twice. Still, no change in their behavior.

I would love to tell you that I spontaneously came up with creative activity that distracted the girls from their whiny little funk and that we finished the morning happily... but what I actually did was to run to Brian (oh, the joys of a husband who is typically around the house), explain to him what was happening, and I tucked myself in bed for a nap. So, basically, I ran away. Mommy style.

Maybe tomorrow will be better.

Garbage City: Part 2

The behavior of women is one of the most important aspects of Arab culture. In our wanderings about the city there are several things I have noted about the habits of the women.

Of all the noises on the street, women’s voices are seldom heard. One of my friends recounted a story where she was hushed for fear of her laugh being viewed as flirtation by a man in a separate room.

Arab women cover their hair and, to varying degrees, their bodies. They save their beauty for their husbands, they do not share it with every man who crosses their paths.

Respectable Arab women do not loiter about the streets and are never seen on the street alone. They are always with a female friend, a husband, a father, or their children.

Women hold the family honor in their fingers and they are to be protected.

Traditionally, only the men, boys and young children go out onto the streets with their carts and later, their trucks to gather garbage. Girls above the age of puberty were not allowed to go out in order not to put the family honor in jeopardy. Women had the job of manually sorting through the collected garbage for the recyclable items and then cleaning them.

To send a woman onto the street to collect garbage demonstrates an act of absolute desperation.

In 1988 a project was begun by the Association for the Protection of the Environment to teach women and girls to weave rugs and create patchwork items out of the recyclable rags. The “admissions test” included the following questions: have you ever gone to school? Do you still go out on the garbage route? Do you sort garbage manually? Is your father alive? And, do you still go out on the streets, on foot, with a sack, to forage for plastic in the big municipal bins? 

one of the girls working the weaving loom

 Women and girls who were accepted into the program were trained to work looms, to do patchwork quilting, and to create paper products from recycled paper. They were paid wages and given incentives like prizes, field trips and summer camps. During the summer camps things were taught like how to flush a toilet, washing hands before meal times, hair hygiene, and how to be on time for a meal. They were taught numbers and literacy as it pertained to their wages and the price lists of their products. 

one of the ladies creating recycled paper

 After graduation they are given the option to have a loom installed in their home. This was a risk that involved cleanliness inspections and developed critical thinking, analytic skills and problem solving. Older women and mothers were given an option to learn needlework in order to have something to do while at home with the children. 

Isn't this baby quilt precious?

It was a joy to walk through the Rug Weaving Center last weekend and see that basic needs are being met and that women and young girls who would other wise have no honorable source of income are given a chance to build a community and learn valuable life skills in a clean, pleasant environment. 

The girls with their rug-woven purses

 ~information taken from Mokattam Garbage Village by Laila R. Iskandar Kamel

 ~photos courtesy of Brian Hebert

Garbage City: Part 1

Last weekend we visited Garbage City.

We drove through narrow alleyways lined with trash. The bottoms of buildings were filled with trash in the various stages of recycling. Women were squatting on piles, sorting through massive amounts of garbage by hand. Men and boys drove trucks or donkeys pulling heavy loads of garbage or pull overflowing hand carts.

The Zabbaleen are garbage collectors, but many of them were farmers who came from villages and farms in Upper Egypt after a bad crop season many years ago. When they first came to Cairo, they collected trash in carts drawn by donkeys, until the 1990’s when they began using trucks.

Tons of garbage are collected, sorted, reused, recycled and resold. Each family specializes in a particular recyclable item of garbage, particularly plastics, cloth, paper and cardboard, aluminum, tin, animal bones, and glass. These must be cleaned and broken down to accommodate the buyer. This work is typically done by hand while the more privileged workers have a small machine. 

Consider my average bag of trash: plastic water bottles, egg shells, used Kleenexes, scrapings of dinner, plastic bags, dirty diapers, bits of cardboard. I cram it in, shove it down and tie the top closed, then I set it outside my front door. At some point during the day, a member of our boab family picks it up and carries it down to the rusted trash barrel on the curb. Two days ago we watched the trash truck come by, a narrow, flat bed truck with wooden rails built up the sides. A team of four managed this one: one driver, one man who collected the garbage and threw it in the truck and two who sat in the back on the piles of trash, already beginning the sorting process.

During our visit I saw a depth of poverty I may not even have the capacity to understand. To realize that my most basic “necessities” in life are luxuries to them is very humbling. They live in a world filled with, surrounded by, and completely made of trash. They live among trash, their work involves trash, their money comes from trash, the whole of their life revolves around what I put in my trash can. 

Yet, amid the rubbish, I also saw life. I saw people smiling as they worked in their trash piles. I saw fancy dresses hanging outside of a shop. I saw babies being held by their mother and grandmothers. I saw children playing. I saw friends, heads bent toward each other, chattering away.  

 

Laila R. Iskandar Kamel, in her book Mokattam Garbage Village says this about the Zabbaleen: “… their comprehension of life and the world was formed around an entire labyrinth of kinship ties through which they perceived themselves, their relationships with people, their work and in fact, the whole of life. And from that perspective and the orientation of sharing a common destiny of oppression, the strongest feelings of belonging, solidarity and community sprung.” 

--photo's courtesy of Brian Hebert

Green Eggs and Ham!

This is a video of the children's book, Green Eggs and Ham. I am reading in English and my friend is translating it into Arabic! Enjoy!

Sweet Baby Cheeks

Sufi Dancer

Brian and I recently got to watch a Sufi dancer perform. This man spun in circles for at least 20  minutes without pausing. It was incredible to watch, but it made me a little dizzy.

I kept expecting him to fall down or to stagger around like the girls do when they have been "dancing". But nope. And when he was finished spinning, I was very disappointed that he just walked off stage as if he had been standing still telling a story, instead of spinning in circles for 20 minutes. I really wanted to see him fall down... or something!

Sweet Girls

This is SO Savannah

My little girl is hanging out the window shouting greetings at people.... I think it is hilarious!

Veggies

Beggars

We encounter beggars every day on the street here in Egypt. Women holding children asking for food or shoes or money. Men with canes or that are blind. Children who ask repeatedly for food or money.

As Americans, we've struggled with feeling "panhandled" based on our experience with beggars who live in the States. And it is sometimes hard to separate our feelings about the ones back home and the true life beggars who stand in front of us every day in Egypt. Someone who has been here for about a year reminded us that it wasn't as if our money would go for drugs or alcohol... these are people with genuine needs who stand before us.

It feels awkward though. Someone shuffles up to you and starts mumbling in a foreign language and won't stop and won't go away. I feel guilty, because I have so much and they have so little. I feel embarrassed, because I feel that attention is drawn to me and everyone is watching to see how I, the foreigner, will respond. I feel frustrated, because I am typically out with Brian and don't carry cash on me, so I can't just slip them a few coins and move on. I feel inadequate, because their need is so much greater than what I can provide. I feel sad, because I don't know how to fix it and I don't have the resources to do so, even if I had the perfect plan.

And honestly, I don't like any of these feelings. And it isn't about me or how I feel anyway... A great Prophet once said, "Give to the one who begs from you... " But sometimes it is hard to know what to appropriately give in each situation. 

Tonight Emily and I passed the beggar lady who sits in front of our local market. She asked us for money, but I had no small change in my pocket. While we were in the store we picked up 2 apples and small bottle of juice for 7 pounds (about $1.25). Emily asked if she could give it to her. As we left, the lady again asked us for money, and Emily went to her with a smile and gave her the apples and the juice.

I have never heard such a stream of blessings that poured from the lady's mouth! She called Emily back to her and kissed her hand with the biggest smile I have ever seen on a beggar's face. To her, giving her apples and juice was so much more than just handing her a few pounds and walking on.

Perhaps because it was a little more personal to her. Perhaps because if we had given her a few pounds she would have bought street bread. Again. But the apples and the juice were a treat. I don't know what made the difference between the food and the pounds. But Emily and I both want to do it again. Giving food was much more rewarding for us and for her.

I can't give apples and juice to all the needy people in Egypt... but I can to a few and make a difference to those few on that day.

Fresh Tomato Sauce

Have you ever seen anything so pretty? 

Upon arriving here, we discovered that tomato sauce is much more expensive than in the States, but that tomatoes are much cheaper. For example, there are 66 pounds of tomato in those boxes up there and that cost us $37.Yes, you read that right. Please wipe the drool before preceding... its only getting better, friends!

My husband has always wanted to try making his own tomato sauce... and now he had his chance. 

His recipe used lots of tomatoes, mixed with olive oil, fresh thyme, fresh basil, fresh parsley, garlic, salt, pepper and balsamic vinegar.

Brian did the measuring and the blending... I chopped tomatoes and poured the finished product into clean water bottles. That we then stacked in the freezer.

We made 20.5 jars of fresh tomato sauce, using mostly all fresh ingredients with just a couple of dried herbs. And they are all stacked in our freezer waiting for dinners! We like it for pizza, spaghetti, lasagna... just about anything you use spaghetti sauce to create. And it is yummy!

Sophie's Sweet Laugh

My Emily Can Read!

Today Emily successfully completed the Sing Spell, Read, and Write program. I'm so proud of everything she has accomplished.

We started this program about a year and a half ago because she was begging me to teach her to read. And we have really enjoyed it. There are songs, worksheets, readers, games and Emily has excelled at it. She has impressed her daddy and me over and over again with her sharp little mind.

Before we left the States I purchased the preschool program for Savannah, but we haven't been very dedicated to it. However, that changed the day I found her weeping and wailing on the floor of the kitchen because she couldn't write her letters. So now Savannah has joined us in our scholastic endeavors.

And with the completion of the program for Emily, we now look forward to 1st grade. Emily is ecstatically awaiting our box of school supplies and is thrilled to be in 1st grade now. We also ordered some preschool books for Savannah, but she keeps asking me when she can be in 1st grade like Emily. Everyone wants to grow up too fast!