The first of many as we wait!

The whirlwind that was my summer - getting married, a honeymoon, watching my brother get married, packing, cutting my hair (!?!) and then lifting off to Cairo - has slowed considerably since arriving in Egypt. Which is probably a good thing, actually it is definitely a good thing, as we adjust to life in an ancient culture very different from ours at home.

The big slowdown has been as a result of Ramadan - a very important time in the lives of Muslims around the world as they fast from sun-up to sun-down and reflect on a year that has passed. We were originally supposed to start August 29 and then take a short break around now, as the end of Ramadan approached - a time of feasting and celebrating, as I am sure you could imagine after a month without food or water during daylight hours!! However, the Education ministry decided that school should not take place during Ramadan, and therefore pushed the start date back to the 13th. But again, the ministry thought about it, and has now decided that the date for school to begin should be the 19th of September to allow families adequate time to return from holidays and prepare for the start of a new school year.

I wonder how that would go over in Canada?

To those of you who are so inclined, you may notice the start dates I mentioned are Sundays - the work week in most of the Muslim world is Sunday to Thursday, with Friday and Saturday serving as the weekend. It is something all the new folks are still trying to figure out, and we've been told that as soon as we start refering to the days correctly, we are finally at home in our new country - it is a strange thing to wake up on a Tuesday, think it is Wednesday, find out it is Tuesday, and then realise, no big deal, still only two days of work left!!

The time so far has included a lot of rest, a lot of water (it is hot here even apparently by Egyptian standards) and a couple of adventures. One of the first things we did was take a fellucca (an ancient sailboat) ride on the Nile for a sunset cruise. It was really quite something to be on the historical waters of the Nile - so much of life in Egypt is determined by the Nile and here we are, a group of Canadian teachers just cruising along as if it was anywhere in the world. But it wasn't anywhere, it was the Nile! And it was pretty awe-inspiring. For the next adventure we headed out on was a diving expedition to the Red Sea. A truly remarkable experience where we got to swim with so many sea creatures and even down to a couple of sunken ships. Awesome! Pictures just could never do justice to the experience.

Speaking of pictures....

As this is my first post from Egypt, it is rather bare, but I hope to spruce things up as the days and weeks go by with pictures (inlcuding that awesome wedding!!) and more stories from my time here. Thanks for reading and following along, I hope it is something you enjoy reading as much as I enjoy writing about!

Until next time - PEACE.