Letter from AELF

6 Abdul Latif Fathi #5

Al-Manial, Cairo 11451

Egypt

maldon225@yahoo.com

December 26, 2008

Happy New Year! May 2009 be full of happiness, good health, freedom from worries, and closeness to God!

This year began and ended with cuts in the cables that serve the Internet in Egypt. We are still waiting for full service to be restored, so I did not even try to phone the family on Christmas. I have enough trouble with Skype when the Internet is working properly. I just hope this message (e-mail or snail-mail) reaches you all. You might drop me a line to say it arrived and give me your news.

This picture of us was taken at the uncle’s house on Eid Al-Adha, which we celebrated just a few weeks ago on December 8. This coming week we’ll have off on Monday for the Hijri New Year and on Thursday for the Gregorian New Year, which only last year became a national holiday here. I will especially enjoy the time off on Thursday because I normally have only Friday off each week.

Husband Mohamed is still unemployed. For a while in August it looked like he was going to have a new job, but it fell through.

In the spring Mohamed was able to make umrah (minor pilgrimage) to Makkah (Mecca) and Madinah. It was a great spiritual journey for him and I’m glad he was able to go.

In October Mohamed and I visited my family in New York State. It was the first time for many family members to meet him, and his first time back to the States since he left Los Angeles in December 1993! We had a great time. The kids were busy with their university studies, but they survived without us--meaning they managed to eat and have clean clothes for themselves, if nothing else!

Mustafa turned 23 in May. He’s studying communications engineering at Modern Sciences and Arts University and should finish in 2010. He will actually earn a degree from both MSA and Greenwich University, and he’s trying hard to get straight A’s because the top student gets a scholarship to do a master’s degree at GU. I sure hope he gets it, or else another scholarship so that he can study abroad.

In July Mustafa had lasik surgery to correct his vision. His eyes were so weak that he had to have special compressed lenses that cost a fortune. Now he doesn’t need glasses and he’s very happy about that.

Best of all, Mustafa has been making a real effort to lose weight. He was at one time up to 130 kilos (290 lb) but is now down to about 112 k (250 lb) and hopes to graduate at 95 k (214 lb) or less.

Khadijah turned 20 in June. She’s studying Mandarin Chinese at Ein Shams University here. She was hoping to transfer into Japanese, but they wouldn’t let her, but she studies it from books and the Internet for fun. She should graduate in 2010 also. She says she wants to get out of Egypt and that she still wants a Japanese husband (Muslim, of course). Hard to please! I’ve suggested that she get into teaching English as a foreign language or copyediting -- a big market for the former, and the latter she can do from home anywhere she goes. Over the summer she did some freelancing testing a CD for my company. She has a good eye for detail.

I’m still with the Egyptian International Publishing Co.-Longman (EIPL). I’m in the department that publishes English textbooks for the Egyptian public schools. In June I was given a lot more responsibility as the editor of the multimedia materials. I’m really more of a project manager without the title (and salary). Writing materials or commissioning freelancers, editing materials, then coordinating between the programmers and designers. I enjoy the work, but it has been a lot more stressful for me since June.

Ramadan was in September this year. Mohamed’s mother (who passed away in December 2007) used to have her children and brother over for dinner once in Ramadan, and I’ve decided to keep the custom. It was a lot of work--I think I made ten dishes--but then I had enough leftover so I didn’t have to cook for the rest of the week!

In October and November I took an online course in teaching English as a second language online. It was the foundation course for a certificate in online-TESL, which I hope to continue this year. For my final project I made a small website (which is not online) that supported the materials in one of EIPL’s books and in which I incorporated a lot of the photos I took at home in October. It was quite fun to do once I finally got the hang of the software. I’ll have to bring it on a CD to show the family next year.

Early in the year my eczema got really bad and spread up my arms. The doctor ordered me to stay out of the kitchen for two weeks! The eczema did clear up for several months -- the first time in years! -- but now that winter is here it’s coming back although I still wear disposable nylon gloves when I cook, and cotton gloves under rubber gloves to wash dishes (I’m allergic to latex now). Mohamed does most of the dishes, but sometimes I have to do some.

Now in the final weeks of the year I’m developing a problem with my upper back. I had X-rays of the neck last week and will see the doctor this week. X-rays show some bone spurs and decreased disks. Looks like some nerves are getting pinched.

We don’t do much outside of school or work, but life goes on and things are not too bad here, praise God. Hope all is well with you and yours!

Again, I hope you all have a happy 2009!

Ælfwine