Sunday

Sunday is a school day (Friday and Saturday are weekend) so we headed off for a busy day. People at the school - EGC, Egyptian Girls College - are intrigued to see me in the halls and classroom. I agree with Kevin, a fellow exchange teacher, that I sometimes feel like a monkey in a zoo with people stopping to watch or taking a different route to come by my classroom. Many of the teachers are asking for me to observe their classes and the students want to know about life in America. Is it like in the movies?? I attended five classes today and shared a cultural presentation in three of them. One of my favorites was an Arabic literature class in which the class was studying an Arabic poem. With the help a student, I was able to follow the lesson and discovered that it was nearly the same as I would do in my English literature classes - understand the poem, appreciate the beauty of the language, recognize the literary devices and their purpose in the text.

Next we headed though heavy traffic to the Biblioteca Alexandrina where I conducted a workshop for over 25 employees in their continuing education department. My material was divided between lesson planning and teaching strategies and the use of technology in the classroom. None of the participants are trained as teachers, but now find themselves conducting workshops. All went well and the nonverbal feedback during the presentation and the verbal after were both very positive. Can't believe I pulled that one off!!

From the library we headed of to a cafe to join three Egyptian teachers who have been to the US on exchange programs. We had a good visit sharing impressions of each others' country and discussing common problems we all face.

I have realized that the evening is one of my favorite parts of the day. Marwa's mother greets us at the door every time. I look forward to her sister arriving home form work so that we can share the day's events. Then we relax, watch TV and have a dinner snack.

TV is broadcast in many languages; they get American TV shows in English, British TV, Bollywood movies, and Arabic channels. Each time the call to prayer is announced, it is also broadcast over the Arabic channels.