6th May
Ismalia, Suez Canal, Egypt.
Yesterday we travelled half way up the canal with our very amenable ships pilot, Ahmed.
He has three children of his own and enjoyed watching ours playing and generally mucking about.
Ush, as always, steered us to the anchorage in Ismalia, and at first Ahmed was nervous watching him, but ended up calling him Mr Captain.
Today we organised our first ever parent’s meeting for our school. Three families attended which wasn’t bad considering the school is in Australia and this meeting was held in Egypt.
We have been in email contact with a girl called Rosie, who is in Ush’s class in his Australian correspondence school. She lives about 100kms away from Ismalia with her family and sister who is also enrolled in the school.
I emailed them to say that we would be nearby today and was really pleased when they were so enthuastic about coming to meet us. We set up a lovely breakfast on the dock in the marina and went out to meet them at the security gate. Half an hour of good natured wangling followed as the guards went through the usual endless checking of papers and passports, and seemingly pointless waiting for some mystery phone call to allow them through. They have lived in Egypt for a couple of years so took all this completely in their stride and just laughed it off. I know we had nothing more important than a delicious breakfast waiting, if you need something in a hurry it can drive you mad, but it was fun to just enjoy the wait together, just knowing that this is the way it is. No one getting impatient or muttering rude things.
The lovely red haired Sydney family joined us too. The 8 home schooler kids sat on a huge swing for ages and swung and chatted….about everything but school….kids don’t talk about school, Mum, that’s so boring. Then they rowed out to our boat, Kari, at anchor and played Cluedo.
The parents sat in the shade, chatting about school and myriad other things. Very liberating to let off steam with a group of parents who home school. We all face the same difficulties with the postal system , and the huge amount of work that is given to us for each child.
The day got hotter. We swopped books, had lunch and took to the wine. The kids ran around, chasing and playing a mad catching game. A very successful Parent’s assoc meeting!
