Month: April 2012

the boys had a rugby tournament. And I posted video from it, but not many photos. And then they had another tournament — which I didn’t take many pictures of, but it reminded me to go back and dig up the photos from the first tournament that I never got around to posting. So here they are. But first, girly from tournament II. Josh dressed her. I thought it was fantastic that he thought to put her tutu skirt on under her dress. I’ve always said he’s better at this fashion thing than I am. 

A few weeks ago the boys’ school sponsored a duathlon — a swim/run for all ages. Each of the boys and Josh participated in their own age bracket. Camille and I were cheerleader and sports photographers for the day. 

After Josh’s swim we followed him out to the transition area to see him off on the run portion, not realizing that as soon as the adults finished swimming they moved right into the next age bracket. So I missed Calvin’s swim, but I caught him on the run. 

Calvin finished second in his age group (it may not have been a competition, but they were keeping track!)

I made it back to the pool in time to catch Carter’s swim (by the end of it all I felt like I’d run my own race, especially trying to get from one place to the next with Camille on my hip!)

I followed Caleb out to try to get a photo of him at the transition area and I was looking all around the tent to see where he was putting his shoes on. Nope, no need to waste time putting on shoes! The kid bypassed the transition area entirely and went right to the run. 

One of my favorite photos from the day

We saw hundreds of dolphins — swimming, jumping, splashing

 

 

 

Win. Win. Win.

We ate, played in the water, the kids all had mini water guns that shot surprisingly far (you never know how well things will work when you buy them here)

As we packed up to leave the boys were having fun hanging off the bow of the boat and dropping into the water. 

 

I have no idea how many sodas Carter drank that day and I didn’t notice it at the time, but he has a Coke in hand in almost every photo. (The boat came with a cooler full of sodas and water). That kid. 

 

The first time I heard about Garbage City was from a friend who was trying to encourage me as I lamented about the trash that we walked through, around, and by as we walked the neighborhoods in Maadi. I told her there was nothing that made me want to reduce my personal waste and recycle as much as possible as seeing the mountains of trash on the street. She told me that she had been to Garbage City (a neighborhood on the outskirts of Cairo) which handles much of the city’s trash and although it looks like a lot of trash, about 80% is recycled. In comparison, the US has recycling rate of only 30%. She said we could go and see mountains of shampoo bottles, piles of glass and mounds of scrap metal as big as my living room. Anything useable is saved or repurposed, such as melting down plastic to make the soles of shoes. They also make handicrafts and sell them (like quilts from material picked from the trash). They are fastidious about salvaging useful materials because their livelihood depends upon it. 

The residents are all Coptic Christians. I’m not sure which came first in this symbiotic relationship, the pigs or the Christians, but in Egypt the Christians handle the trash because pigs are a huge asset in disposing of garbage and waste. Muslims won’t have anything to do with pigs because they are considered unclean. In 2009, during the world-wide outbreak of “swine flu” the Egyptian government killed all the pigs that were owned by the Christians in Garbage City. Some say the decision was based on ignorance (since you can’t catch swine flu from pigs), others claim it was intentional religious persecution, but either way, everyone suffered in the months following the pig slaughter as piles of rotting garbage sat with no way to dispose of it. 

The members of the community drive around the city and pick up trash — it is brought back here and sorted by the families. 

The women and children sit in the piles of trash and sort all day — paper, cardboard, plastic, cans, glass, etc.

Inside every open doorway was more garbage, either sorted or waiting to be sorted. We could barely get down this street. I wanted to go to the store where they sell the handicrafts, but the local guy who was leading us in the front car didn’t know where it was. Next time. 

*If you’re interested in learning more about this community, there’s a documentary called Garbage Dreams that was made in 2009. I haven’t figured out a way to view it yet (not on Netflix), but this is the website: Garbage Dreams

**Update: I found another documentary called Zabaleen (Arabic for “Garbage People”). More info about Garbage City and a promo for the movie can be found here: Zabaleen movie

I loaded the last of the Egypt photos, but I’m too tired to put words to them so they’ll have to wait a little longer. We’ve been busy with paperwork and appointments — for new passports (we have special ones for here that expire in the fall), overseas medical clearance (yes, we have to do it again, even though we’re moving from a medically remote area to a base with Navy medical doctors. I’ve learned it’s better not to ask “Why?” because no one has an answer and it wouldn’t make sense even if they did), school registrations for next year, dental clearances for everyone . . . 

On the bright side, (for me), our printer is broken so Josh has had to bear the brunt of most of the paperwork, since he’s the one that has been going to the embassy to print it all out. I told him I’d be happy to help him fill it out (it’s a lot of work when you have to do each form x6 — we really should have thought this through before we had all these kids), but he’s been doing it all on the spot (at the medical clinic, in the consular’s office, etc). Win. Win. Win. (for me.)

The bright spot in my week for the past month has been this class that I’ve been taking where they teach you to make Omani people. It’s 3 hours of fabric scraps, glue guns, ribbon, felt, yarn and beads — heaven on earth. You start with cereal box cardboard that has been glued to a thin layer of foam that has been cut out into standard forms of man, woman, girl, camel, etc. Or you can get adventurous and cut your own. You cover the pieces with fabric, decorate them, and then they are mounted on foam board to be framed.  

Our unnamed camel pet — the camel was especially fun to make. The “rug” is a piece of upholstery fabric that I rolled up and tied the ends with yarn and the burlap sack is filled with fabric scraps to fill it out. 

It was so much fun that when the class was over, I signed up to do it again. I’m not sure what sort of picture I’ll be making this time, but I made 3 goats (the long haired scraggly kind like they have here — yarn makes perfect goat hair) and a camel already. There’s something very relaxing about sitting on the floor surrounded by a mountain of fabric scraps. If only my mom were here — we’d be in crazy quilt heaven.