No Water Day

I saw on Facebook last night that a huge part of Cairo today would be without water for 24 hours and that the area included our flat, starting from 10am. My flatmate and I filled up a bucket of water each for our respective bathrooms and we knew we had enough bottled water to see us through. The disruption is because of major works to the metro system.

When I arrived at school and went for my usual coffee at 8.15 I was told 'No water, no coffee' by the server in Beano's. No water?! The BC here is 2nd biggest in the world, with hundreds of students attending classes every day and no water meant no toilet flushes, no hand washing facilities and a potential health hazard and pretty unpleasant place to be. By 9.30 it had been confirmed that the centre would be closing and by 10.30 we were told the building had to be emptied within an hour. Teachers were being phoned and told the (good!) news not to come in and students all called too.

For us it's a logistical nightmare!! I managed to squeeze in our 2nd input session this morning as the security guards were chucking people out. We now have 6 teachers who were meant to each teach a 40 min class this afternoon and we need to arrange an alternative time for these classes. It will probably mean doing it on a weekend day at the end of week 2 so long as there's room availability in the school and if our special practice students will agree to attend an extra 2 hr class. The school is full at the weekend with young learner classes. It will become a full working day for us. Many of these students (and our trainees) travel 1hr 30' to get to school...such is the size and traffic of Cairo. Our trainees were also scheduled to observe experienced BC teachers teach for 2hrs tonight, and that will have to be rescheduled too! None of this is needed on an already intensive course with no leeway.

On the brighter side, after a sandwich lunch with my training colleagues in Cilantro's cafe, I popped into my favourite shop just round from the flat and was delighted to see there was a sale on. An hour later I left with 4 pieces I'm really happy with and even happier with the price! Every cloud....!

Fingers crossed that the water will be reconnected tomorrow at 10am!

My blip's a little detail in my room on a shelf.