The Beginning of the End

Christopher is looking forward to the Spring Play

Hello everyone!  Happy Wednesday.  First I want to say sorry because I forgot to tell about Earth Day in my last post.  Well, I didn’t really forget.  Mommy was sick so I don’t know anything about how Earth Day went at the school.  Mommy is finally feeling better though, and we are back at school bright and early each morning.

This week we have been mostly working on two things:  making science fair posters, and props for the school play!  The posters are really swell.  The second graders did them all by themselves.  The older kids made posters, too.  But they can type and stuff, so they look neater than ours :(.   Look at these things!   It’s lucky for us that the second graders will only be judged against each other.  They made some great projects, including floating eggs, and discovering the best way to make tasty yogurt!  I’ll tell you a secret, though- the yogurt scared Mommy, just a little.  She doesn’t like milk a whole lot.

The props for the play are looking really good.  Ms. K. works very hard getting them ready.  The kids do part of it, but she’s the one who puts them all together.  If you see your art teacher today, you should thank him or her for all the work they do.  Here are some of the props:

Lastly, I wanted to post about Mrs. M.  She is heading back to the States soon.  We will all miss her here.  She’s an awesome reading teacher, but she’s going to work for a library!  I love libraries!

Saturday will be the day after the Science Fair.  I will try and post some pictures from the day for you guys.

Until then,

Chris

Three Day Weekend

Christopher is going to party every night!

Sunday this week is an Egyptian national holiday- Sinai Liberation Day.  It is the day that Egyptians celebrate when the last of the armies from other countries left the Sinai Peninsula and it was recognized all over as being part of Egypt.  What it means for us today, though, is that there is no school. 

Our whole house is empty.  K had visitors.  Mr. D’s brothers came too.  A went on a field trip with the fifth graders.  Mommy and M had big plans, too, but at the last moment, they both decided to stay home and take it easy.  It’s been a nice couple of days.  It’s even nicer because there’s no school tomorrow. 

Shadow week ended and  we are very glad.  Everything goes back to normal, except that it’s a short week.  But play practice is going to start taking over our lives very soon. 

There will be a boring post for Tuesday, probably.  I’ll try and take pictures of something cool to make up for it, okay?

‘Til then,

Chris

Shadow Week

Christopher is pretending you aren’t here.

Our second week back from break is Shadow week.  It’s a whole week where parents can come in and act like shadows, following their children around the school.  We’ve had parents in the classroom pretty much every day.  It’s really hard to find someplace to put them, though, since our classroom is so small.  Mommy was kind of hoping the kids would be nicer to each other when their parents were in the room, but it’s not happening. 

On the other hand, we’re getting ready for the Science Fair at the end of the week.  All the second graders have projects to show.  And Thursday before that is Earth Day.  The kindergarteners are going to come and sing a recycling song for us and then we are going to do some street cleaning.  I’ll tell you how it went on Saturday.

See you then!

Chris

Back to school

Christopher needs a vacation from our vacation.

We had the best time over the break.  Mommy and I and our new friends went just about everywhere in Egypt that there is to go on a week’s vacation.  We’ve all got to come back and do the Luxor/Aswan tour some time in the future.  But that’s for another day.

After our day in Ma’adi, we went to the museum in Cairo and took a tour of Coptic Cairo.  Unfortunately, it was a holiday, so they closed up the sanctuary where it is said that the holy family hid in Egypt from the Romans.  We were very sad about that.  But since our tour ended early, we got to go the the bazaar!  A bazaar is a really big outdoor market with lots of neat stuff for sale. 

The next day we went to see the Pyramids.  I’ll write more about them in another post.  They are huge!  We rode on camels in the desert.  Then we went to see the papyrus museum, where they showed us how ancient Egyptians made paper from the papyrus plant.  Mommy bought some for us to make paintings on.  While I type, Mommy is thinking of ways to put a plant like papyrus into the book she’s writing.   

That very same night, we got on the public bus to go to Dahab.  Dahab is on the Sinai Peninsula and it is a nine hour drive from Cairo, where we live.  We all got squeezed into the last seats at the very back of the bus.  Mommy was still a bit sick so she slept the entire drive.  I looked out the window, but we didn’t leave the station until after midnight so there wasn’t much to see.

When we got to Dahab, it was a sunny new day.  Everyone was really tired, but we were so excited that nobody wanted to go to sleep.  We had breakfast and looked into the shops all day long.  Every morning and every night we would eat at Bedouin-style restaurants, which mainly meant that we sat on the floor on pillows.  It was very relaxing.  One day we went scuba-diving and snorkeling, too.  That was very exciting, though I didn’t get to go since I don’t have a swim suit and they don’t make oxygen tanks in my size.

Then we came back to Cairo and it was time for everybody to pack up.  Mommy and I were all by ourselves again on Saturday.  It was sad not to have six other people in the house anymore, even if it was much less crowded.  We are glad to have met our new friends and we are looking forward to meeting up with them again.

Day Late. Oops.

Christopher walked all over Ma’adi today. 

Sorry I’m a day late with my update.  Mommy caught a cold from the kids at her school and spent all day in bed.  I had to take care of her. 

It is officially spring break.  Zach and his friends from Bulgaria have come to spend it with us.  Mommy and I are trying to give them the full Cairo experience.  We went to the City Stars Mall first, so they could see how many stores can be stuffed into one building.  Dinner was at Fuddrucker’s.  The day Mommy was sick, Zach and Company went to Alexandria on a tour.  They had a great time.  They got to see the library and the Roman Amphitheatre and eat an awesome fish lunch.  Mommy felt better enough by the evening  to make dinner so they didn’t go to bed hungry afterwards. 

Today we met up with Zoe on Road 9 in Ma’adi and went out to lunch at a place called Gad.  It was very tasty.  Then we got to ride the metro to Zamelek.  It was the first time Mommy and I had ridden the train.  We had a good time.  There was a really neat  bookstore that we are going to go back to soon. 

We ate dinner at Mommy’s favorite Thai restaurant.  And on the way home we had a really nice cab driver who drove very safely.  Now we’re all going to sleep safe and sound.

OH!  I almost forgot.  Happy Easter to everyone who celebrates it!  Cairo is so busy all the time, it is easy to forget when it is a holiday, especially when not everyone is celebrating that holiday. 

Something seems to have happened to my punctuation.  Periods are appearing at the beginning of lines.  I am not sure at all why.  Maybe I’m just too tired.  I guess I’ll go to bed now.  It is way late here in Cairo.  It is 11 o’clock. 

Sleep tight.

Chris