Cairo rooftops

© Maria Lobo, 2009

Three usual things you find on Cairo rooftops.. satellite dishes, pigeon coops and clothes lines. Quite a colorful treat!

Birthday and sickness

These days are a bit trying for us. Li'l Ruffin is sick. She has fever for days and is in bed most of the time. She was throwing up but that stopped thankfully. Now, she has difficulty passing on urine. It dampened her appetite. She is literally just taking water for three days. I am worried. I know it doesn't help to have so little faith. We have been praying for her. Li'l also prays with me when I ask her if she wants to. We had sleepless nights taking turns in watching and caring for her needs. I feel so tired that we have to ease some of our lessons by listening to audio cds of Classical Kids and Diana Waring's history CDs.  I have to leave Vibrant Bea and Fuzzy on their own in their Africa unit study. I am thankful they know what to do and are quite focused on their study.

The doctor visited the other day, prescribed some medicines and tests. So, Li'l went through laboratory tests (ultrasound, urinalysis and stool exam) and results showed nothing is wrong with her. We are still baffled how her fever peaked to almost 42C on the first night she got sick. The fever goes off and on, her appetite hasn't improved yet, her weight lost drastically. Last night, we prayed together. This morning, the fever came back.  She has been wanting to continue her "projects" as she calls her activities, but she went back to bed.  Please include her in your prayers.

The 4th of July is not only very significant to our American friends. It is also my husband's birthday.  We have set aside any celebration yet we are thankful  for the 44 wonderful years the Lord has bestowed to my husband, the father of my children and a wonderful spiritual head of our family. He is actually taking care of Li'l, skipping sleep and all on his birthday. He took Sunday off (which is a work day here) to accompany us to the medical lab for the tests. Oh, how we all would love to go out and celebrate but we have to set that aside for now.

Well, I am off to check Li'l Ruffin.

A Silent Maadi Summer

We felt the heat rising as summer takes over Cairo. Recently, the temperature reached 40C. As we went out the other day a blast of hot air hit our faces, much like when you walk behind an aircon exhaust on a hot sunny day. Whew!

But it was good to be out. We have been staying indoors most of the week daring to hide from the heat of the sun, which shows it 's face as early as 5 am and sets at 8 at night. Unfortunately, indoors could get even hotter if all the windows are closed. Opening them wide could help in early mornings, but as midday approaches, the hot air gets in, including the dust. All windows and doors to verandas have to be shut. Shuts out the droning noise of airconditioners, the neighbor's and ours, too, much to the delight of my kids since it can better help them study on.

Yes, we are studying still... it can get tedious now as we have reduced outdoor activities and nature study seemed to be next to impossible. Although, we have the pleasure of having trees around us in Maadi and a canal garden behind our building is a wonderful treat, we had to literally drag our feet outside while the sun is still hot. Afternoons are better, but VB starts her online Logic class by then. Fuzzy and our Principal played paddle ball on the garden lawn downstairs the other day. Lil Ruffin loves to walk outside, too. Principal and I have enjoyed several walks around Maadi after the sunset. Well, some little activities around the neighborhood which we enjoy.

Silent Maadi! I have never seen it empty like this. I have been told it could get so silent in summer. Tis true! Since many of it's residents are expats, then it might have shrank it's transient population to half, I guess. I do not have the stats to back up that claim, but with the less traffic of big cars on the streets, less alien-sounding people walking about, less shoppers, too... hmmm. Our building itself has the water pipes whistling with high pressure since a lot of tenants are not around. Maybe, it is quite safe for me to say that we just had a significant expat summer exodus. Families have flown out on home leaves and to escape the sweltering heat of Egypt.

As for us, we have to stay since we have not a year spent here yet, a policy of my hubby's employer. Many of our new friends and acquaintances are away for a month or two. So there is no Contact youth meeting for Fuzzy and VB, their youth pastors have flown home as new ones hopefully take over. But swimming lessons are coming up, piano lessons intensify, family worship nights get more frequent, a reading contest to join, museums to tour, downtown Cairo to see, some out of town trips are planned in July and the coming months. Little breaks, as usual, to keep the summer drone from getting to us... but I kinda like Maadi these days.. a little empty. Yet, a little too sad. But I sure do not want it to be for long.

Our 5 C's on organizing those books

If there is one thing that challenges me most, it is this nifty thing which to many moms is such as cinch. It is called organizing.  I never had a blog entry tagged under this topic. Which tells a lot about me =) This will be my very first. I am not a organizing guru, but perhaps you can glean from how we do things here at home.

For now, let me start with books, since these are the foremost things I can claim a little, or perhaps some, success dealing with.

1. Choose living books over twaddle. What has this got to do with organizing? You will see the connection if you read on. Have you this constant itch of buying books, new or seconds? We do. And a lot of these books were read once, placed back on the shelf, piled up, gathering dust and totally forgotten. Many are just "twaddle", which means "dumbed-down and senseless literature devoid of rich meaning, thought and relation." Charlotte Mason and Sonlight opened our eyes to the world of "living books" on our earlier homeschool years.  Now, as we invest more on twaddle-free books, we realized that there are many children who didn't even have access to books, twaddle-free or not. We found that the better way to relieve spaces on our shelves, is not to throw away the books but pass them on, give them to libraries or children's homes.

2. Copy a good booklist in buying or borrowing books. So there, now you have extra spaces on your shelves. What you need next is a good booklist. I have shared some of our fave booklist lately and there are more out there. Key in "living books" or "twaddle-free" on your search box and you will have an endless list of sites. Browse and choose ones that suit you. I also recommend spending time gathering reviews for the books you are interested in. Aside from your curriculum, following a good booklist spares you from unnecessary spending and your children from wasting time reading low-quality literature. A good resource of annotated lists of books for kids ages 0-14 is Honey For a Child’s Heart, by Gladys Hunt.

3. Classify or sort books by subject and theme. It is easier for children to look for certain titles if the books are sorted and placed in specific shelves. Arranged in 7 bookshelves (and still counting), we have shelves for various subjects or topics. We have Preschool and Kindergarten (mainly for Lil Ruffin), References, Bible and Bible Study Helps, Science, Creation Science, Math and Living Math, History and Geography, Missions and Biographies, Current School Year, Newbery and Awarded Books with Historical Fiction, Classics and Great Books, Parenting and Homeschool Helps, Teacher's Manuals and Answer Keys. Current School Year books get re-classified in one of the other categories after the year ends.

It may sound too formal or structured enough to discourage reading. I had that in mind so I adapted a few tricks. The younger or preschool titles occupy the lower shelves for a gainful and easy access. I also believe in strewing books around to lure younger readers. So I have magazine racks, boxes and trays to do that. With my older children, they have passed that line and do not need further urging but I still do read aloud to them. I might have even overdone it, they just love to read - even while shopping. One mom utilizes a wonderful technique in advertising books to children while keeping organized.

4. Color code! Now if your books always end up lying around after much use, thus, messing up the place. Take heart! This means your kids are enjoying them. The burden lies on reorganizing them again and placing them back in the shelves. I know it is back breaking as I have picked up books from under beds, in the toilet, even on the stairs.. Here is one project we have started this year. We color code! For every subject we put a code sticker on the spine so the kids can easily return them on their respective shelves. It develops good habits. It is fun for them, too, and for Lil Ruffin who loves that her books have dots.

5. Catalog offline, catalog online. Manage your library manually or online. Though  some would prefer to use a spreadsheets like MS Excel (which I used many years ago). There are applications software available for download like eLibPro 1.3.    As the home librarian, life has become easier for me when I started using an online management system. Of the many sites out there,  my personal preference is GoodReads.  Oh, yes it is a social network cum book club-online of over 2 million members. "A place for casual readers and bona-fide bookworms alike, Goodreads members recommend books, compare what they are reading, keep track of what they've read and would like to read, form book clubs and much more. Goodreads was launched in December 2006" - Goodreads. Goodreads has become an important tool in our homeschool. The kids have their own account samutsari. After reading a book, they get to rate it and I encourage them to type in their reviews. VB has taken up into managing her own account under my supervision.And they are not allowed friends I do not approve.

Another useful site I stumbled upon recently is GuruLib which I am contemplating on using soon. It doesn't only help you manage and catalog books but movies, music, games and software too. So any material that is not classified as a book on our shelves will definitely be added here pretty soon.

For e-books, My eBook Library sounds promising. I had it installed but haven't used it yet. I should be starting on it since my e-books are piling up at an alarming rate!


So there,  I hope somehow you get a glimpse of how organizing goes in our abode =)... book-wise.

Finally, we got it!

Expect great things from God. We did, and He met our need, even beyond what we imagined!

Today, a colleague from the office went to follow up our package at the airport. And without saying much, the customs personnel released it, including the CD. We paid LE 400 (US$70 approx), just that. The $250 was never mention again from their end. Well, not as cheap but agreeably better than giving in to a $250 shady expense. And they issued a receipt for the exact amount we paid. Finally, 2 days short of a month since it left  Pennsylvania, this box  is finally in our hands!

If you are new to the postal system in Cairo. It is quite unreliable. I had two bookcrossing books which got lost since we came here in January. Yet, I had two other packages which went through unscathed. I got Sonlight Curriculum boxes delivered quickly via FedEx (but that is a private courier and very expensive). An earlier box from Veritas Press via EMS came safely. This last one was a real test. If you care to know the background of this story. Check my previous posts.

We are grateful to friends and Gloria of Veritas Press who prayed with us, our employer who provided us customs papers, and local friends who helped bridge the language barrier. We are so amazed despite the difficult hurdle we went through the past weeks regarding this case, it was so easily solved in the end without compromising our values and convictions. God showed us that He upholds His people in righteousness amidst a corrupt practice. We learned a good and lasting lesson from this.