We occasionally worship at St. Andrew’s United Church of Cairo. It was built by the Church of Scotland back in 1909, but Cairo has grown around it.
Take a look in the upper left hand corner of that photo again. That is a bus driving along the flyover while everyone is trickling out of the church to shake the pastors’ hands.
The community here is tight, with 10-20 regular worshipers. Every service is followed by about an hour of tea time, where everyone chats and new people are introduced.
Worship happens on Fridays and Sundays, but Friday is the big one. Since Egypt is an Islamic country, Friday is the “day off,” when most Egyptians go to the mosque for the noon prayer. St. Andrew’s describes itself as “international, interdenominational” which is pretty accurate. The pastor & pastoral intern are Lutheran. The hymnal is Presbyterian. “Sharing the peace” isn’t the 2-minutes of standing still and shaking hands with your immediate neighbors, though, that I’m used to from Lutheran churches back in the states. No, its a 15 minute affair, as everyone stands up and walks around to share the peace with everyone else.
There is a wonderful organist and and awesome pianist (subject to availability).
This is Tim, the Intern Pastor and his girlfriend, Rachel. Rachel is also a pastor-in-training, but she was just out here to visit.
I also volunteer at St. Andrews twice a week, as the church hosts a school for refugees. I’m teaching 4 refugee students chemistry and physics, trying to get them ready for the IGCSE exams. You see, refugees in Cairo are not allowed in the public school system past the age of 12 or so. They learn English at St. Andrews and take other classes. Unfortunately, though, St. Andrews isn’t accredited, so the ones who do well and “graduate” don’t get a diploma that any university will recognize. Most universities will accept an international exam as evidence of a student’s academic proficiency in lieu of a diploma, though, so I am trying to help these four pass their exams.
Here are some of the “caravans” used as classrooms. During the week, in between classes, there are scores of kids running around.
“Built from Funds Raised by the Woman’s Guild”
I wonder of those Scottish ladies ever expected their guild hall to be used as classrooms for Sudanese kids?
No doubt, this is a very different environment from my other teaching gig in Cairo, where one student asked me, “I forgot my homework… Can I call my driver and have him come bring it to me?” None of the student here have drivers. I have to hunt each week for a “classroom” to teach in. This has varied from a conference room to a classroom in the “German church” up the road to a corner in the basement to taking over Tim’s closet office.
Here is the church’s website, which I helped Tim get off the ground with a new design and setup this week:
I went around a few weeks ago and took a bunch of pics of the various plaques around the sanctuary. They reflect a time past in Cairo.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
TO THE GLORY OF GOD
AND
IN COMMEMORATION OF THE ERECTION AND OPENING OF
ST. ANDREWS CHURCH, CAIRO.
THIS STONE WAS LAID
BY
SIR ELDON GORST K.C.B.
H.B.M. MINISTER PLENIPOTENTIARY AGENT AND CONSUL GENERAL
IN EGYPT
ON THE 2ND DAY OF JANUARY, A.D. MCMIX
—–
THE VERY REVEREND J. MITFORD MITCHELL D.D.
CONVENER OF THE COLONIAL COMMITTEE OF THE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND
—–
“PRAISE GOD IN HIS SANCTUARY” Ps. 150.1
—–
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
TO THE GLORY OF GOD
AND IN GRATEFUL MEMORY OF
MARIA COLLINS.
EDINBURGH
DEACONESS OF THE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND
BORN 1830, DIED 1910
WHO SPENT MANY WINTERS OF THE LATER
YEARS OF AN ACTIVE LIFE IN THIS CITY
AND DEVOTED MUCH TIME AND ENERGY
TO THE FORMATION AND DEVELOPMENT OF
THIS CHURCH.
“Lord, I have loved the habitation of Thy
house and the place where Thine honour
dwelleth.”
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
IN LOVING MEMORY OF
HELEN MARGARET ABEL
DIED IN CAIRO 12TH FEB 1924
I THANK MY GOD UPON
EVERY REMEMBRANCE
OF YOU
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
IN MEMORY OF
ALEXANDER R FERGUSON O B E M D
BORN 23RD JUNE 1870
DIED 21ST FEBRUARY 1920
PROFESSOR OF PATHOLOGY MEDICAL SCHOOL CAIRO
AN ELDER OF THIS CHURCH
—–
A MAN GREATLY BELOVED
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
In loving memory of
THOMAS MATHESON, ESQ.
OF LIVERPOOL
Born in Edinburgh, February 11th 1823
Dies suddenly at the Barrage near Cairo, January 16th, 1901
“Thou has made him exceedingly glad with Thy countenance”
“They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of
the Lamb” therefor are they before the Throne
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
TO THE GLORY OF GOD
AND TO COMMEMORATE THE ASSOCIATION
WITH THIS CHURCH OF THE SECOND
NEW ZEALAND EXPEDITIONARY FORCE
MANY MEMBERS OF WHICH WORSHIPPED
HERE FROM 1940 TO 1940
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
IN MEMORY OF
JOHN ALEXANDER CRAWFORD, O.B.E.
BORN 6TH SEPTEMBER 1878
DIED 27TH JANUARY 1953
SUB-GOVERNOR OF THE NATIONAL BANK OF EGYPT
FROM 1925 TO 1938
ELDER, SESSION CLERK AND FOR 49 YEARS
HONORARY TREASURER OF THIS CHURCH
“a good man and a just”
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
In loving memory of
Neva I. Vogelaar
Feb 1, 1931 – May 18, 1998
With love and thanks to God for the gifts of
music, laughter, prayer, and service that she
shared with the St. Andrew’s community
from 1972-1988.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
We take a back street, walking from our local metro station to our flat. A quiet street that parallels the VERY busy Sharia Tahrir.
Justin and I were coming home one Friday afernoon, walking our regular walk from the metro station to our apartment. There was a man leading a donkey cart coming towards us. I’m reminded of how linked Cairo-city is with the rural areas when I hear hooves clip-cloppin down the street outside our bedroom window, hooves threading through car-traffic and meandering between middle-class apartment buildings. The fruit and vegetable (and meat and bread and anything else you could want) street I have mentioned a few times, a few blocks away, is filled with donkey and horse drawn carts that have come in from the countryside or up from Giza. I think Cairo is just…connected. People are connected, although admittedly that connection at times seems purely nosy to my American sensibilities.
Anyways, here’s a poor quality (discreetly taken) picture of a man leading a donkey cart down the street I walk nearly every day on my way home. The man to his left, walking in the opposite direction, is holding prayer beads and is most likely headed to the mosque a block away from our house for the Jomaa, Friday noon, Prayer.
A fellow Fulbrighter, Nicole, took in a pregnant stray cat, cleaned her up, fattended her up, and helped her have her babies. We went to visit the six little 10-week-old munchkins and playing with those Egyptian street cat kittens was a blast! Five boys and one girl.
Three napping on Justin’s lap
We had a terrible time deciding between the black & white with spot on nose, and grey & white tabby one, both sleeping on my lap!
Meet Magnoun. This little guy ended up coming home with us.
His life has great rhythm, with about six successions of the following daily: play, eat, poop/pee, sleep – play, eat, poop/pee, sleep – and etc.
He is such a cuddly kitten.
Although he’s pretty funny whenever something is new to him. Curiosity and jumpiness in equal parts.
But most of all he wants to cuddle.
He’s sacked out having a twitchy dream on my lap as I type this.
Yes, he’s coming back to the States with us, insha’allah. We simply pay a vet to create a certificate saying he’s up to date on his shots (which he will be, but it’s Egypt, so bakshish means it doesn’t have to be true). And a reservation on our flight ensures he can come on board with us. We may need to look into sedatives for the 30 hour trip, however.
Lastly, great news, he’s totally litter box trained! Nicole did a great job with these guys. Many, many, many more pictures to come. He cracks us up all day long. I can’t wait until we get to introduce him to our other cat Emma, at home in a few months.
Yesterday was my birthday! We decided to keep my actual bithDAY simple — just dinner for two at Kandahar, my favorite Indian restaurant near our apartment. Next weekend a friend from my CMRS program whose birthday is close to mine, Carl, and I will be having a joint birthday celebration at a local restaurant/bar on the Nile. Justin made me banana pancakes for breakfast (ok, we slept in, more like lunch) and baked me a chocolate cake. Alfa Market has the best imported baked goods section and Betty Crocker chocolate cake mix was available! We also walked to Baskin Robbins after dinner for some ice cream to go with our cake. Yummy! FYI a ‘pint’ of ice cream in Egypt is actually only four scoops. Oh well, that’s better for the waist line anyways!
Some pictures … and then a post about my birthday present: Magnoun!
Portrait in our dining room before dinner.
I wish you couldn't see the fact that I wore TENNIS SHOES out to a nice dinner. Sigh. I was on automatic leaving the house, I totally meant to wear my nice shoes!
really excited about baskin robbins ice cream
Yesterday was my Dad’s birthday, mine too, actually. I was born on my Dad’s birthday. More on my birthday later.
I just wanted to wish my Dad a “public” happy birthday! I seem to have mostly selected photos of my Dad in camping/UV protective/dork gear, so I promise he does dress like a normal person occasionally.
annual Bear Canyon camping trip with my sister and me
teaching his daughter how to replace a tire on long cycling rides
showing off his UV protective fashion at the Valley of the Kings, Egypt
San Juan Wilderness
With my Mom at the bottom of the Grand Canyon, Phantom Ranch campground
Diamandbacks Game
We're happy he's tearing down the wierd teepee thing people had built right where we usually put our tent
grabbing some shut eye on a three-night (rainy) backpacking trip in the San Juan wilderness with Justin and Matt
with my Grandpa, his Dad, at a 4th of July family get-together
Love you Dad and Happy Birthday!
Road 9 Bicycle
Today was a work day for me.
Sunday is the first day of the week in Cairo. This totally threw me off this week because we went out last night for dinner with some friends. It wasn’t until 12:30am that I realized that I needed to get up to substitute teach today.
I substitute teach at Cairo American College in Maadi. Here is a breakdown of the name of the school:
- Cairo. Because it is in a suburb of Cairo.
- American. Because courses are in English and it follows the American educational system. AP tests, PSAT prep, etc. Don’t underestimate this part of the name because it extends to other aspects of the school too. For example, there are a couple of American style electrical outlets in the chemistry labs. And there is student council, chess club, a track, a gym, bake sales, the works.
- College. K-12. I don’t understand either.
Anyhoo, here is was today, roughly:
12:25am – Realize I need to teach in 7.5 hours
1:04am - Finally in bed, after setting out clothes, etc.
6:00am – Alarm goes off & I get in the shower
6:25am – Boil water for coffee (NesCafe)
6:42am – Head for closest metro stop. Metro is mostly empty! Woohoo! Half of the men have scarves wrapped over their ears because it was a cold night. It must have gotten down to 45 degrees F or something. “Colder than a witch’s ___” as my grandpa would say
6:53am – Transfer to other metro line. Too crowded! I can’t fit. I’ll wait for the next one. Surely it’ll be here in 5 minutes, as usual
7:15am – Next train finally arrives. Its crowded too, but I push my way on this time because I am late
7:40am – Get off metro and grab taxi
7:47am - Give the taxi driver 3LE and walk the rest of the way because there are WAY too many SUVs dropping off kids
7:49am – Give the security guard my AZ driver’s license and get a “high school substitute” badge
7:53am – Get to math office. First class is a study hall. Mrs. L’s instructions say “Do not let them leave for any reason unless they have a note from Mr. Pleasants”
8:03am – 3 of the 5 students show up. 2 say they need to leave for PSAT counseling. I tell them they can go but need to bring me a note.
8:45am – I dismiss the (one student) study hall & spend the next 55 minutes trying to find something worthwhile to do on my computer that doesn’t require internet because the non-faculty wifi isn’t working. I give up and open up Music, Language, and the Brain but I keep falling asleep.
9:50am – The first real class starts: Functions, Statistics, and Trigonometry. Easy class. They have busy work. And the wifi is working on this side of the building. I check my email and Facebook. I edit a video from frisbee on Saturday.
10:17am - Student A says “The area of a circle is ’2 pi R squared’, right?” Eeg! Area of a circle? How long has it been? I can determine the velocity profile of blood in an artery, but the area of a circle? “Yeah, that sounds right.” Student B says, “No it’s not, its ‘pi R squared’” Oops. “Right,” I say, “because ’2 pi R’ is the circumference. I always get those two mixed up.”
11:14am – The class is dismissed one minute early for lunch. I realize that I forgot to get money when I left this morning. I only have 7LE on me and the closest place with cheap street food is a 30 minute walk away. I decide to wait until after school, when I get paid.
12:00pm – My last class starts. This is “IB HL” which means “International Baccalaureate, Higher Level” These are the smarty pants kids. They have an exam the next class so this class is just reviewing on their own, but I tell them I can probably help them with whatever they are working on.
12:12pm - I take a look at what they are working on. Infinite series. I hated infinite series in AP Calc. So boring. One student says, “This stuff is useless. Its just monotonous and a lot of work. We’ll never use it again.” These were my thoughts exactly back then. “No, it’s not,” I reply, “It sucks now, but what you learn with this will be really useful when you get to more advanced calculus and you need to get a computer to do the work for you.” “Then I’ll just use the computer,” a second student says. “But you have to understand the logic behind these if you want to program the computer to do the math for you.” One student’s eyes light up. I recognize him because I had him in a Chemistry class I subbed for. He had hooked his laptop up to a mic and a amplifier and had figured out how to capture the resonant frequency of a wine glass and play it back in order to get it to vibrate and sing. If he had had a bigger amplifier (and some ear protection), he could have shattered it opera-style.
12:23pm – My stomach is growling. I check my email and upload video featuring a sweet frisbee catch during the call to prayer onto Youtube. I chat with Cara online and she scolds me for not using my 7LE to buy some chips for lunch.
1:30pm – Class is dismissed. I am technically “off” but need to stick around in Maadi until 3pm in case I am needed to substitute for another teacher in an emergency situation.
1:37pm – I go to pick up my pay slip. No pay slip. “The woman who signs them is absent today.” Sigh. This is the “Cairo” part of the school’s name.
2:03pm – I finally get to the street food place by the main metro stop. One fuul, two taamiya, 3.75LE. The taamiya at this place has a slice of bell pepper in it. But, for some reason, they have no tables, so I join the Egyptians lined up on the curb in from of the place. I don’t have enough money to sit in a coffee shop with wireless, so I wander down Road 9 (the main commercial drag in Maadi), looking for our local bank’s ATM.
2:07pm – Walking along Road 9, I resume my latest project: a photographic catalog of Cairo’s bicycles. I’ll post on that later.
2:25pm - No ATMs. I sit outside of a snack stand and enjoy a locally bottled Coca-Cola in the shade.
2:50pm - I reach the next metro stop and decide to head on home. When I transfer trains, a woman forgets a bag on the train, so the other on the train try passing it through the window after the doors are closed. It won’t fit all the way through the bars, despite their pulling on it as the train starts pulling away. She starts screaming and her husband starts yelling as her 7 year old daughter holds on to the bag and starts getting pulled by the train. She lets go and falls. Luckily, not between the platform and the train.
3:50pm – Walking home from the metro. I grab a photo of a Dokki bicycle.
4:15pm – Tim is supposed to be coming over Roasted Eggplant Tomato soup, then shisha before heading to Cliff’s house for the Superbowl at midnight. So, Cara and I walk over to Alfa Market to get some food for dinner and to get her a desk so she can have a “study zone” in our sunshine filled spare room.
4:45pm - Desk is assembled. Woohoo!
5:00pm – I gotta take a nap.
5:30pm – Cara rouses me. Tim says Cliff has a cold, so no Super Bowl party in Dokki. We’ll have to do soup some other time.
5:37pm – More water for NesCafe. I get to work on website stuff I am behind schedule on.
7:45pm – Mmm. I can smell the warm tortillas Cara is making fresh.
8:35pm – Dinner in honor of the Cardinals: Bean burritos with fresh tortillas. We’ll check the score in the morning cause I can’t do a no-sleep night this week.
9:05pm - Back to work on websites.
11:00pm - Chat with Cara’s family for a few minutes. Dale is excited about my potential hiking trip in Sinai.
11:45pm - Start on a blog post about my day.
Good night!!
We had grabbed a taxi leaving a friend’s birthday dinner in Zamalek. Having our camera on hand I snapped some random photos and video from the back seat as we zoomed along the Nile on our way home. Justin made it into a video.
Justin and I have only been married two years. Insha’allah, in 23 years, we can go to where Justin proposed to celebrate our anniversary, like my parents just celebrated their 25th anniversary where my Dad proposed.
25 ish years ago parents took a trip to the Grand Canyon. My Dad was planning to “pop the question” at some point during the trip as they visited various viewpoints. Well, he was so nervous that he proposed at the first overlook they came to, Mather Point.
Tracy and Dale 1983
At Plateau Point after riding the mules down
Dale and Tracy 1983 - In San Diego the same trip, after getting engaged at the Grand Canyon
This January, for their 25th Anniversary, my Dad surprised my Mom by announcing he had made reservations at El Tovar Hotel, a beautiful lodge on the South Rim of the Grand Canyon. A nice layer of snow made the Grand Canyon and Mather Point particularly beautiful for their visit.
Standing at the spot where my Dad proposed
On this 25th Anniversary trip they also stopped at a Pizza joint in Flagstaff where they ate pizza and carved their names into the wall on their proposal trip. They couldn’t find their names on the wall 25 years later, but they ate pizza there just the same!
At the Pizza place in Flagstaff
So, here is the deal:
I gave up on our old blog software in favor of something simpler and more suitable for a casual blog like we are tryign to run here. Something with good-looking themes, an easy interface, and better support for inserting photos.
So here we are!
We’ll start blogging again about our adventures here in Cairo soon, I promise. And, insha’allah, the new software will help us to post more often, too, since it is so much easier.
If you want to see the old stuff, you can now find it at http://archive.caraandjustin.com
-Justin