Egypt: Recovering
Egypt 2006 June 24th, 2006 by GraceI think I am finally over whatever was ailing my stomach the past couple of days. Thank goodness for that. I was starting to feel like a weakling, not really able to fully participate in anything.
Today the girls and I woke early to catch the metro down to Helwan where they had a review session with their Arabic teacher. Helwan is a very different area of Cairo from Maadi. Maadi seems quiet, even suburban in comparison. Helwan is a poorer area, complete with crowds, shoeshiners lining the sidewalk, and the sounds of ongoing construction. It was very hot and quite the journey to the home of Marta, Rocio and Mary Carmen’s Arabic teacher, who also happens to speak Spanish. This made me resolve to speak more English with the girls as it is clear that they speak way too much Spanish with each other, their friends, and even their teacher as they learn another language.
Anyway I spent the morning reading and catching up in my journal while the girls went over their Level One material. They have a test coming up to see if they are ready to move on to Level Two. The class lasted about two hours and soon we were on our way back to Maadi. Today was my turn to cook lunch so we stopped at a grocery store and purchased some pasta, olives, and cheese, among other things. Once home I set about cooking grilled cheese sandwiches and pasta salad. It wasn’t half bad, but I sure am glad I only have to cook twice a week. After, I was tired so I laid down and took a lengthy nap. I’m not sure how hot it was today but it was hot enough that I took a shower around 8 this evening, which was cool and refreshing.
I have spent the rest of the evening preparing some material for my classes and helping Rocio with the program for the Sudanese hadana. We also listened to the Argentina-Mexico game on online radio and I’m pretty sure Mexico lost 2-1. Sorry Mary Carmen. Anyway, that’s about all I have to report.