And Then....There Are Palm Trees

These are just ordinary palm trees that line the streets of Cairo. Cairo has several kinds of palm trees. I only point this out because there is another kind of palm tree that took me a while to figure out. The fronds never moved and the tree was almost too perfect.

After looking at it for a while I realized I was looking at a cell phone tower. Yes--a cell phone tower, disguised as a palm tree. What will they think of next? I must admit that this tower is far more pleasing to look at than the usual cell phone towers I see at home.

If you look closely you will see that all the fronds are perfect. There is some electrical aparatus near the top of the trunk, and you can just barely see the antennas in the fronds.

Once I noticed this, I began to see them all over. Where once I thought I saw a lone palm tree, I now realized I was looking at a cell phone tower. Soon enough I saw lots of them around town. What fun. I wonder if they can camoflage cell phone towers to look like Michigan White Pines, or a copse of Northern Michigan Cedars?

The Gas Man

This is the gas man--the bottled gas man. He comes riding along on his motorcycle, which has been modified to carry all those cans of bottled gas. He can carry 7 cans. You can count 6 cans in the picture ; two on each side and the 2 on top but he can carry one more on top of the two horizontal ones. It seems a little ungainly to me, but this fellow manages.

He stops at the corner, near his customers. and begins banging on the gas can with a wrench to get their attention. He waits patiently for people signal him from their balconies, that they either need more gas or not, as the case may be. He then parks his cycle, unloads a can, hoists it on his back and carries it up to the apartment and brings down the empty. He saw me taking his picture and kindly stopped so I could get a really good view of him.

Lots of goods are sold and delivered this way. It seems simple enough.

I have natural gas piped into my apartment. Natural gas is incredibly inexpensive here. The only thing that uses gas is the stove. It costs me about 5LE a month. That converts to a little under a dollar for my cooking gas. Cheap enough. I wish the hot water heaters were gas as well. Mine are electric and electricity is expensive here. But that is another story.

Caught

The trap went off about 11:00 in the evening. I was in bed but I heard it. In the morning I found this little fellow caught on the sticky paper after springing the trap set with tempting peanut butter spread on bread, hanging from the center of the trap.

Poor fellow. All he wanted was a good meal, I almost--I say almost--felt sorry for him. But not sorry enough. He now has a new home. The building boap (caretaker) disposed of him--I know not how, nor do I care to know. He is out of my apartment and I am happy.

I reset the trap just in case he has relatives.

Taxi Cabs

When I first came to Cairo about a year ago, these black-and-white taxis were the only taxis cabs available. Some were so old and used up that they barely ran. Often they broke down en route. I have been in cabs that got flat tires, overheated, broke some major engine component and stopped abruptly. When that happens you just get out, pay a few pounds for the distance you did travel and hail another cab. Most of the old cabs were very inefficient and spewed out whatever it is that cars spew out. None of them had meters, or if they did ther meters did not work. The avrage cab fare for a short trip was 5LE. You had to negotiate the fare for a longer ride--say to downtown, Zamalek or Giza. None had air conditioning. Most were rickety.

Recently the government offered cab owners the opportunity to turn in their old cabs for new cabs at a very reasonable pay back rate. The old black and white could be used as a down payment and a 5 year pay-back schedule set up. Owners had a choice of 5 different manufacturers, Lada, Puegot, Kia, Hyundi, Daewoo.


Now we see more and more of these new whites on the road. They are clean, efficient, and have meters that actually work. It turns out that they are cheaper than the old black and whites. So the newer, black and whites still on the road have had to adjust what they charge. Everyday more and more of the new whites, as they are now affectionately called, show up, really giving the older cars a run for their money. They are equipped to run on compressed natural gas so they are not as polluting to the environment, AND they are air conditioned!

Many of us prefer the new whites and pass up the older taxis for these newer ones.

Houseguests

I have houseguests.

Jim and Inge Ledahl arrived over a week ago from home--that being our dear little ville of Horton Bay, Michigan. Here they are at the Egyptian Museum, where we spent the better part of a day wandering the halls and exploring the King Tut exhibits. I am so glad they decided to accept my hospitality and visit Egypt. They have been fun to have around and we have explored a good bit of Cairo.

I also discovered that in addition to the two legged variety of houseguest; fun to have around and do things with, I have another smaller houseguest--a four-legged one.

I went into the kitchen one morning at my usual time of about 6:30 am to make some coffee, and found this fellow, or one of his relatives. He/she--can't tell which when they are scampering away at a good clip--decided to make a hasty retreat, running around the entire perimeter of the kitchen counter to the refridgerator and then disappeared. I have no idea where. This is a most unwelcome houseguest. I searched for "leavings" and found none, so it was a clean houseguest at least.

My apartment building is not new, but it is n0t old, in the ancient Egyptian sense, either. It is holy, though. Because there is no rain here and the temperature is mild all year round, workmen just drill holes through the walls for cables, electric lines , antennas, plumbing or anything that needs to come into the apartment from the outside that was not built in originally. One example is the plumbing and evaporators for the air conditioning systems. These buildings were built before air conditioning was commonplace. The condensers sit outside suspended on the side of the building with the electrical and plumbing connections coming through the walls. Same for cable T.V. So there are lots of holes that mice can surely fit through.

Then there is the door wall that I leave open to let fresh air blow through the apartment when I am home. I suppose a little house-visitor---isn't a guest here really, although it did take advantage of my hospitality, could come in.

This little visitor shall be discouraged once I fnd the proper traps to set around. I will let you know how it goes. Jim and Inge have yet to see this little fellow. I hope it is gone by the time they get back from their cruise.

Time and Numbers

This clock is on the subway platform where you wait for the train. It is a great way to learn the numbers---at least what they look like. I especially like the 7 and 8. The 6 looks like a 7 to me and the 5 looks like a 0. The 2 looks like a backwards 7 and the 3 and 4 are strange enough that I remember them. Actually I think the three should be the four and the four should be a three, because it looks like a backwards 3 to me. But that is just my humble opinion.

For those of you interested in such things here are the numbers. You can see what they look like on the clock. Pronounce the capital letters with a heavier sound for the letter. Here goes: 0= sefr, 1= waaHed, 2=ethayn, 3=thlaathah, 4=arbaAh, 5=khamsah (you don't really pronounce the k at the beginning--sort of give it breath only), 6=settah, 7=sabAh, 8= thamaaneeyah, 9= tesAh, 10= Ashsrah, 11= Hedaash and 12=etnaash. There you go, Now you try to say them.

According to this clock it is just about 10 minutes before 5:00 PM. The subway was crowded with people going home from work.

My view

As I sit at my desk at school and look out my window, this is what I see. You may think it looks rather shabby, but the reality is that what you see is actually new construction. Cairo is expanding. This new construction is out on the desert, in an area called New Cairo, near Katameya--if you are looking on a map. Katameya is a purpose built community, with golf, shopping, restaurants, villas, and apartments. Our school is in the 5th settlement. I am not quite sure what that means. My guess is that it is the fifth area outside of Cairo proper to be developed. We are across from the Mubarak Police Academy, which is a major landmark in the area, and we are not far from the Cairo airport--for those of you looking on a map.

This entire area is being developed as a very upscale community. These are villas, meant for families, albeit exteded families. When you walk over to the window you get a little better picture of the houses--pardon me--villas, being built across the street.

These are huge places--mansions to us. Some of our students live in villas much like these close by. Slowly these villas are being completed and landscaped. The compounds typically have a park in the central area, with garden areas, sidewalks and running through the community. Because this community is still being developed, the streets are not yet paved sending up clouds of sand and dust as construction vehicles rumble by. One day, though, this will be a beautiful area, full of families.

Air Conditioning

Yes, this is an air conditioner. You might wonder why I have posted such a thing. Well.......it is because ours at school have been turned off. Yes, sir-ey, Bob, turned off, as in OFF. We have been told by the Ministry of Health and Ministry of Education that we must open our doors and windows and let the breeze blow through so as to keep our rooms aired out. This is the Ministries concept of fighting the swine flu problem in schools. Now, no where can any of the staff who are researching this, find that the swine flu is an airborne contagion, but you must remember that this is the country, that killed all the pigs, contrary to the recommendations of the World Health Organization. What can I say. This is Egypt. If this is incorrect, I shall stand corrected but those who seem to know about these things wonder.

Of course there are other measures taken in school as well. Most of them make good sense, like having hand sanitizers in all the rooms for kids to use as they enter, disinfecting the railings and hand holds, setting up a quarantine room, reminding the kids to refrain from shaking hands or hugging and kissing on cheeks in greetings, because the swine flu is passed in droplets from person to person. All sneezing and nose blowing needs to be with tissues immediately disposed of in baskets, set up all over the school. We have an excellent doctor on our staff who is taking all this in stride and doing an excellent job of keeping up with the decisions of the various ministries, doing her level best to keep the staff and students healthy.

The air conditioning, though, has everyone baffled. Our school is on the edge of the desert. The air is hot and dry. Luckily we are going into autumn, and the 100 degree days are now past. But temperatures in the building still build to the high 80's in the afternoon, and both teachers and students find concentrating on work a difficult task when it is so hot, and the air is not moving as anticipated.

There are places in the building that are air conditioned; that need to be. But the rest of us suffer, often not so silently.

So far as I know now, none of our staff or students have the flu. Let us hope this good health continues. I will keep you posted.

These are the logos for the school that are embroidered on the school uniforms. Kids can wear an official white crew-neck t-shirt with this logo, or the polo shirt with this logo, and navy trousers, skirts, or shorts. There are other official clothes students can wear as well, like sweaters, and jackets. But all must conform to the uniform policy which is strictly enforced.

Well, it looks like we are going to start school tomorrow.

Because of H1N1 (Swine flu) concerns we are gathering all students outside on the school grounds and playing fields. This is to minimize having large groups of parents, drivers, grandparents, etc., congregating in the hallways of the school, especially in the elementary section.

Kids will meet their teachers / homeroom teachers for middle school, on the field and be taken into school. Only students and teachers will be allowed into the school. Parents will go to the bleacher area for a welcome address from the elementary principal who will outline for the parents some of the changes that are taking place to minimize problems with the swine flu; changes to the calendar, and various other parental concerns about this late starting school year. I am sure parents will have lots of questions, and hopefully, the principal will be able to answer them, or at least put parents' minds at ease.

Once we get our students inside our homerooms, we will go over some of the same information. One thing that the students will find especially difficult is the request that they not touch eachother, shake hands, kiss cheeks, or be physical with eachother. Middle school boys are especially physical so it will be interesting to see how they adapt.

The school has turned off the air conditioning and wants us to open up our doors and windows to get air moving through the building. We wonder how long that will last. The first really hot day, may doom the open window policy. They have also installed hand sanitizers in each classroom and are asking kids to use them before and after each class. Lining up to get to the hand sanitizer may prove to be problematic. We shall see.

It is going to be an interesting school year. This swine flu business has everyone on tenderhooks just waiting for the first few cases to surface to see how the school will handle it.

I will post more as time passes and things develop. For now wish us well as we finally begin a new school year.