Egypt by Patti Wheeler

Author:Patti Wheeler
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781626340008
Publisher: Greenleaf Book Group Press
Published: 2014-08-28T04:00:00+00:00

“What does that say?” I asked my mom.

“School,” my mom said.

“Can you spell it phonetically?”

“M-A-D-R-A-S-S-A-H.”

When my mom walked in, the kids went wild, jumping up and down and clapping their hands and pulling on her dress. I wondered if teachers were always greeted like this, or maybe it was just that she was so different, tall and blonde and blue-eyed, a rare thing to see in the Arab world. Either way, I’ve never seen kids so excited to begin a day of school.

“Sabah el kheer,” I said to the kids as they gathered around me. That means, “Good morning.” I sat on the edge of the table and a boy climbed right up on my lap.

“Kaifa haloka?” I asked him. This translates to: “How are you?” when speaking to a male. When speaking to a female, it’s “Kaifa haloki?”

Instead of answering, the kids would just smile and giggle and talk to one another, looking at me like I was the most curious thing they’d ever seen.

Their teacher was a young Egyptian woman who looked like she had just graduated from college. She came over and introduced herself.

“You must be Gannon,” she said in perfect English. “I’m Mandisa Mahfouz.”

“Pleasure to meet you,” I said and we shook hands.

“Your mom has been a tremendous help. The kids are making great progress. As you can tell, they are thrilled to be learning how to read and write. Most of them will be the first in their family to do so.”

The room was pretty simple with low ceilings and long cracks that ran all the way up the walls, most likely caused by the earthquakes that are common in Egypt. The windows along the far wall were open and you could hear the sound of the traffic below, only at a slightly lower volume because of the fourth-floor location.

None of these distractions mattered to the kids. They were there to learn. Ms. Mahfouz spoke to the class in Arabic and pointed to the blackboard where she had sketched the Arabic alphabet in bright white chalk. It looked like this:

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