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.