Cairo Update
Greetings,
We
were sad to see my Mum leave at the end of September, she had
been with us for a month and Hannah was glad to get to know her
Grandma better. During her stay we visited many of the sites that
tourists go to. For Alison and I it was the first time we've been
back to the tourist areas since we first came to Cairo 5 years
ago for a short visit. This time we went to the Egyptian museum,
tourist bazaars, pyramids and the Sound and Light show at the
pyramids at night. These places are certainly impressive but if
it is the only part of Egypt that is seen then it is only a partial
picture. We took advantage of locations to get some good family
photos for the album! We discovered that Hannah doesn't like camels
which is a bit of a same because there are loads of them at the
pyramids for the tourists to ride on. We had to continually ask
traders to leave us because the camels were upsetting Hannah!
Part
of Egypt which tourists rarely see are the poor areas of the city
which really have no comparison to anything in the West. There
is no proper road system and ideally a jeep is needed to get around
the streets. Children have few possessions so they play in the
dirt outside. There is malnutrition and psychological problems
too. Meetings in areas like this are still difficult but are becoming
increasingly rewarding.
Few
tourists experience real Egyptian food, some of which is unpalatable
for foreigners. We've recently had some Egyptians round for a
meal, they brought their own food with them (maybe because they
don't like English food?). The main course consisted of bird tongue
soup, stuffed pigeon and mulekheya. Out of the choice of the three
Alison and I preferred the soup. Mulekheya is the stuff that I've
nicked-named "mucus" in the past because that's exactly what it
looks like. On the stuffed pigeon it was difficult to find any
meat, but the Egyptians seem to enjoy nibbling between the smallest
bones to get out the tiniest morsel. The pigeons are cooked head
and all, something I didn't realise until I turned it over on
the plate! The head (with the eyes in tact but the beak graciously
removed) is actually eaten, it's put in the mouth and crunched
like a gob-stopper . . . but not by me. OK I admit it- I got squeamish,
I just couldn't cope with getting brains between my teeth.
Family
news: It's finally happened- Esther is on the move!! She can now
crawl at will to wherever she wants, so nothing is safe at floor
level. It happened about 2 weeks ago and she keeps on getting
faster. She continues to sleep well at night but hardly any sleep
during the day. Hannah is now moving her toys out of crawling
distance to stop little hands from getting to them, I seem to
remember doing the same when she started crawling in the not-so-distant
past.
Hannah
is not far from writing her own name. She can write the letters
individually but it takes a lot of concentration to write them
out one by one. She's coming out with some impressive pictures
though, some of which she has copied from by sketchboard ideas.
We've
recently taken on responsibility for a group of about 20, doing
the same type of work together. We have regular meetings to plan
and attend for the next three months while the previous couple
who did the job are out of the country. Please think of us at
this time.
That's
all for now,
Toodle
Pip,
Jason,
Alison, Hannah and Esther
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Update Index
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It's
a Fact!
Facts
about Egypt:
- Egypt's
population is 66 Million
- Egypt
is four times the size of the UK
-
Only 3% of the land can be used for arable crops
- Cairo
has 18 million people and is growing by 1 millon each year.
- Cairo
is the Largest city in Africa and the Middle East
- Official
literacy rate is only 45%
- A
total of 11 languages are spoken in Egypt
- Public
Debt per person is $790
- Average
annual income is $630
- Unemployment
is estimated to be 17%
- Religion:
Approx. 85% Muslim and 15% Christian
- Most
Christians are affiliated to the Orthodox Church, less than
1% of the population are Protestant
- There are
an estimated 100,000 street children in Egypt
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