April 28 - International School of Egypt

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.... or at least in a country far, far away was a dynamic High School French teacher that offered students the opportunity to take a two-week summer trip to Egypt. My sister, Sarah, was lucky enough to visit Egypt in 1993 or was it 1994 with Madame Amiry. Sarah's photos and stories from her travels were so vivid and amazing that Egypt popped to the top of my "Goals for the next 10 years" list that I created circa 1996. Greg and I were dating at the time and the good suitor he was he duly noted my priorities and over the years has supported me in checking the items off of the list. {My cousin Monique was thrilled when Greg proposed, as she knew that I was able to check off "Get hitched to Greg!"}

When we were dreaming of where our next big trip after Turkey (2007) would be, Greg said "We've got to do Egypt, it's still on the list!" As we were planning our trip, I remembered that I had heard that Mme Amiry was back in Egypt. So I tracked her down and we were fortunate enough to be able to visit her.

Well, she's been busy, busy, busy working to establish a top notch international school: The International School of Egypt. She's worked tirelessly to bring this school to life, shaping the school's philosophy and hand selecting the teachers for their first school year, underway now.  If you know of an elementary school teacher ready for adventure and international living - send 'em her way!

It was really great to see her, meet her daughter and grandson, and see the school that they are building from the ground up.  She toured us around taking us into the classrooms to meet teachers and students.  We enjoyed hearing about the 5th grade field trip, which was scuba diving in the red sea!!  I think Gavin impressed Mme Amiry when we checked out the room for Arabic lessons and Greg prompted Gavin to identify a few letters and spell a word in Arabic!

The tour included her pointing out her house, conveniently located just across the street from the school.  We smiled to ourselves when we heard her living situation is similar to ours - where she lives in a house with a unit for herself and then one for her daughter's family.

Following the tour, she treated us to a really lovely buffet at a hotel nearby.  We talked about language education, the movie Avatar (Gav thought she was soooo cool because she had watched it), raising kids, and old friends.  Finally, she needed to return to the school.  Her driver headed all of us back to drop her, then he was to drop us off downtown.  After all of the excitement during the ride back Connor fell asleep standing up in her embrace in the back of the car!  It was really sweet.