A R C H I V E 
Current location: Assiut, Egypt
Current project: Summer teacher training workshops: English conversation
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Come Join us in Egypt
MCC is currently looking to fill 6-9 positions in Egypt. If you're interested or know someone who should be, look at these job descriptions.
Mailing List Information
If you would like to receive email updates, please email us with the form above.
NEW Regular Mail Address
Barrette and Sandy W. Plett
El Salam El Haditha School
Om El Batell Sq.
70 El Gomhoria St.,
Assiut, Egypt
*Delivery time varies
There are momentous events happening all around the world that would be much more worthy of space on my web page. But, today, I am being selfish. It's May, and I'm 6000 km from CBC and Hockey Night in Canada. And I miss my hockey. But, you can help!
The terrorist attack in Dahab last night is a reminder that although we generally feel (and are) quite safe in Egypt, it is a country where political tension and frustration can be manifest in extreme ways. Please be assured that we are safe, and remember our country in your prayers for peace. There are so many people in Egypt who want peace, and yet it only takes a few people who do not care about peace to bring fear and violence upon the rest. As we grieve for Egypt, we also realize that other places in the world are less stable and more violent than here. For example, we have friends in Sri Lanka, where a bomb went off today, too. We need to keep working for justice and peace. For your information, Dahab is about 350km from Assiut, but to travel there would take us about 10 hours because of the layout of infrastructure.
In North America, I was (I now realize) rather ignorant about the events in the world. Maybe it's better to not overwhelm ourselves with the predominantly bad news from around the world, but here in Egypt, we've become aware of a lot more. We have BBC News on our satellite, which has pretty objective news about all parts of the world. I also subscribe to a few RSS news feeds; if you use RSS, you can check out these two links: BBC's world news, Yahoo's Africa news feed which I filter for the word, "Egypt."
It's been a busy 3 weeks since our last update!
From April 6-9, we visited the southern city of Aswan. Enjoy our trip vicariously, by playing the Aswan Game.
Next was Barrette's birthday on April 12 (with video footage to document that a party was had).
We also visited two monasteries, an orphanage, attended a school graduation party, visited a small farming village, wore a disguise, and endured 40+ temperatures for the first prolonged period (and it's only April!), celebrated Palm Sunday, were doused with water, and attended a 3-hour long Good Friday service! We need a vacation…
On April 12 we celebrated Barrette's birthday with friends. Heidi (MCC 3-year termer, just like us) was with us to celebrate, as well as our good friends from Assiut, Nader (Beto) Joseph (Kiki) and Kariem. It was quite a party! Happy Birthday Barrette! Barrette received an indoor/outdoor thermometer for his birthday, so now he can know for sure that it really is 41 degrees outside, 27 degrees in our flat and 5 degrees in the fridge.
We returned to Beni Suef on April 15 for a Palm Sunday celebration.
Well, we've made a few minor updates to the site, and are also putting up a few more pictures. Although work continues to be good, the highlights of our life often come with our friends, just like at home.
These pictures are of a few of our friends. Two pictures are from a visit to one teacher's house to see his new baby. We were also treated to Mark and bis brother singing some Arabic songs for us. The ladies in red are some of the teachers I work with at one of the schools; they came over for tea after school. There are also a few pictures of some of the food we eat; I still feel a great sense of joy that I can eat the food here! Find out how we get some of our food on the brand new "How To" page.
We visited Beni Suef this weekend for a short MCC meeting. There are 3 pictures from this trip.
April 2, a children's story video we made will be shown at Bethel Mennonite Church. A low-resolution copy of the video can be found from the Kids' Page!
In addition to playing the guitar and meeting lots of great people, we actually are starting to do some work here! It's certainly challenging to work in a different culture and there are lots of ups and downs, but we are feeling like we're settling into our roles here, and slowly learning about how to work as English Teacher Trainers in Upper Egypt.
As well, our social life is still good. We spend time with Nader and his friends, Kiki & Karim, and have enjoyed supper with the principal of our school, Nadra. Sandy also went on a "rehla" (field trip) with the KG classes to a club along the Nile. Sandy has become friends with many of the KG teachers, including Ameny.
MCC's website has some neat new items including some Lent materials and reflections and a photo gallery from Syria, a Middle Eastern country with many similarities to Egypt -- especially in its indigenous church.
Our first months in Assiut.
Celebrating our first Christmas (and other things).
Our first 2 months in Egypt.
