Mailing Address

The mailing system in Egypt is apparently pretty sketchy. But if you feel like giving it a try I would love to get some snail mail!

Work:

Kailey Boutand

c/o Heritage International School

P.O. Box: 38 - 12568 6th of October City
Giza, Egypt 

Home:

Ms. Kailey Boutang

road 258, building 10, apt 1

Maadi - Helwan

EGYPT

I'm giving you both, you decide which one you think will work. I really am not sure!

The School

I`ve added a few photos to the end of the album on facebook. Here is the link:
More Photos
Today we were at the school and had some official meetings. Everything seems to take quite a long time. There is a lot of hurry up and wait. I`m hoping that once we get into the swing of things this changes.
We got the keys to our classrooms and tomorrow have some time to set them up. The other grade 2 teachers and I have decided to work together to set up our classrooms. I`m looking forward to working with them!
I`m disappointed in the size of the library. In the next little while we are going to go to the public library in Maadi ans hopefully they have some English books because a very big party of teaching early years is reading picture books!

Felucia Ride

I posted some photos on facebook of the first few weeks I've spent here.
Photos
It was wonderful to feel the breeze on my face again. We sailed down the Nile on a Felucia tonight. It was wonderful. It was almost surreal thinking about the history that the Nile holds. It brought me back to grade four, when one of my favourite teachers, Mr. Bell taught us about Egypt and let us draw the Nile on the floor. I never thought I would actually sail down it.

Learning, Learning, Learning.

I saw my first camel on the way from the airport. It was in some sort of yard.

and there are cats everywhere. But not your average cute house cat... nope, gross skinny wild city cats. and they hang out outside of apartments and on top of garbage piles. There are also dogs everywhere. Makes me sort of wish I got my rabies shot... but really they haven't come up to me, so far so good.

There are also many donkeys. They look like they are dead on their feet.

As for being a teacher I'm very interested to see how it goes. Maadi has roundabouts at every intersection. The streets here don't cross, in the middle of the main roundabouts there "parks" or "meeting places". But the interesting thing is they are called Squares, even though they are definitely circles. And the children here live a completely different life style. Earlier today we saw a man (probably the father) run for a taxi away from his kids. They were running after him, and his five(ish) year old son was running after him in the middle of the fairly busy street (comparable to Meadowood drive if you know where that is... but actually it really isn't comparable because if Meadowood drive has three lanes, one for parking and two for driving, this street had one of those lanes and it was used for parking and two way driving).

Ya know how in Winnipeg when you start the taps the cold water is warm for a second then turns cold? In egypt it is cold for a second then turns warm. When I have a shower I use only the cold tap but wish my shower could be colder.

It is Ramadan which means Muslims fast during sunlight hours and pray more often. They prayer often startles me and sounds a little bit scary. i know this is only because I am not used to it so with time it will become "normal".

Speaking if eating (dad, tell grandma) I didn't eat breakfast today. They put a little bit of food in our fridge but the milk comes in what looks like a sunrype juice container and its basically half and half which is sooo thick and gross, and the bread just didn't look that appatizing at all. but i had forgotten about ramadan so then i was starved by lunch. we went to the mall and i ate at Chili's with a girl named Erika who will teach grade nine and ten. She lives quite close and is really nice. At the mall we had about an hour and a half and by the time we finished eating We only had about half an hour. Oh by the way I had chicken tacos which came with rice and black beans. It was great. Anyway so we only had about half an hour left to shop which was definitely not enough time. Carrefour is like walmart there was so much stuff and we definitely still have to convert the money to canadian so we know how much things cost. it is very shocking at first to see the price of thngs. for example my chicken tacos cost 29.99 pounds plus I got a drink so my meal cost about 35 with tip... but really that isn't bad at all because you divide all amounts by five so it was only 7 bucks!
For dinner went to Lucille's turns out they have the "best burger in the world" according to a writer at Time magazine.  I think I agree it was SO delicious and giant... and The restaurant was opened by and owned by a women!
Oh and I learned how to say left, right and straight in arabic which will be VERY helpful for taxis when i finally learn where I am going!

I'm looking forward to posting pictures so you can actually get an idea of all the thing I am talking about!

<3

First Update!

Hi Friends,

I am settling into my apartment in Maadi. It is different than I expected as I only live with one other person in the same building and most people live on their own. My apartment is Huge! The ceilings are high there are doors everywhere and most of the doors lock using old locks and skeleton keys!!

I live further away from where most teachers live which is too bad, but I have a feeling that when I get to know the area it won’t feel as far. I took my first crazy cab ride last night. The man driving spoke no English and had no idea where to go even once I showed him the map. I’ve also notice that even though all the roads are numbered that no one uses them, not taxis or locals... makes things a little difficult. I am going to explore a little later and try and gain a snese of direction (not always my strongest point) so that at least I know what general direct I need to head... eventually I will know where I am going! The streets here really are nuts... but crossing them isn’t as difficult as I pictured. We’ve mastered a technique of sticking our hand out and crossing... basically most aggressive move wins.... however basically every single car is smashed up a little bit!

People here are so friendly they smile and if we ask for help they try usually to no avail however.

It is a learning experience to say the least and the other teachers I have hung out with so far all seem nice and easy going which seems to be a good attitude to have around here!

Oh and its HOT. And humid for all of you who asked I said no... well it is. Apparently for a couple of weeks in august its humid... it was about 40 degrees here today. But its bearable and the ac in my room works so thats great!

I bought a few cleaning products but I need so much more stuff. Oh and the streets are so dirty. My feet are SO DIRTY all the time. Even after walking in my apartment they are gross... the streets are littered with garbage but also just from the sand. And there are uncovered man holes randomly and when they no longer want a sign posted the cut it off so there is 3 inches of metal sticking out of the side walk randomly, the pay phones are in the middle of the sidewalk as well.

Another interesting thing is the construction. It is just EVERYWHERE. They expect the population of Maadi to go up by a million in the next couple of years so apartment blocks are going up everywhere. I haven’t seen any houses at all.

Tomorrow we will go to the school in 6^th of October City to see the building where we will be teaching and talk with the principal.

That’s all for now, hope you are all doing well!

Kailey