Mafeesh Fakka

A Step by step guide, for a visa renewal in mugamaa **A helpful guide a sister forwarded from her husband. It was compiled by one of the brothers in Egypt after his personal experience) I also thought I'd share it in hope that it will help someone inshallah🌸 Additional humors provided by yours truly 💋 What to Bring: 1. Yourself. 2. Your Passport. 3. A photocopy of your passport photo page. 4. A photocopy of your passport visa page–if it's not your first renewal, bring copies of your initial visa page and your most recent renewal. 5. A passport-sized photo of yourself. 6. A pen. 7. Lots of patience. Get the photocopies and passport photo done before you go there, but if you forget, you can get them done when you get to the Mogamma. A photo and copy center is located to the right of the entrance, past the ridiculously crowded staircase (I can't remember the exact price). You will likely need to use your elbows to maintain your place in line. What to Do: 1. ...

This is a video of a plumber fixing a leak in the sewage system for my neighboring apartment building. I bet you’re shocked that the pipes are run on the outside of the building, in plain sight... I was too 😅 it’s definitely not the most aesthetically pleasing plumbing job, but it’s what they do here in egypt.       I don’t know if you caught it, but what caught my attention was the bare feet and the not so harnessing harness. 😰 Nothing was holding this guy in! I mean, come on, he was climbing a knot rope. ....Not being hoisted by a lever, not being raised by a crane ... but, rather he was wrangling a knot rope with his foot and pulling himself up and down a 5 story building with his own brute strength.       Okay, so, maybe you should know that this man is your local sabbak. In Arabic that means “plumber”. Be sure to remember it too, because the need might surely arise. Plumbing in egypt is not for the faint of heart. It w...

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            Lol, why am I so tickled by my own title? No, but seriously, that is like the million dollar question. Every single person you meet wants to ask you, some do, but most won’t. Don’t worry, I’ve asked plenty of people myself just to receive painfully ambiguous responses... I might as well have not bothered. I think that’s my number one motivator in being 100 % transparent about my experience here. So much anxiety would have been lifted when making this move if people would have been equally transparent. But hey, what doesn’t kill ya’ makes ya’ stronger, right? Lol      Okaaaaay, for beginners...  I’m a visa holder, at least now anyway. 😍🙌🏽 (Alhamdulillah) I’m going to tell you how you can accomplish this in one way or another.        Back story, we came to Egypt on a decision that was little more than pondered on for three months. Our supplications and determination were our guarantees. Truth be...

We all know the task of trying to find coloring books for kids. Just finding something with suitable images and beneficial themes can be a task; add to that, the pursuit for faceless images and the task has now just become daunting!      I wanted to find something for my younger girls that could incorporate their Arabic alphabet practice and also some vocabulary words. After realizing google was not going to turn up something right for me, I set off in this pursuit to make a coloring book myself. I’m actually quite proud of it to tell you the truth. I could actually see myself doing this pretty frequently. I would even go as far as to say it was therapeutic.... Well, here goes nothing! Okay, so my target:  1. Faceless animals and insects 2. Incorporating the Arabic letters in the images 3. Translation 4. Diacritics (Vowel marks) 5.  High definition images and plenty of space for individual creativity. Here’s a PDF LINK  to my colori...

     In literature, my children have seemingly simultaneously entered into the unit on story mapping. It’s been a reoccurring topic in my 4th graders series of “ 180 Days of Reading grade 4 ” and for my 7th grader it has been a topic in “ Curtis and Hake Grammar ”. So anyway, having 8 children it is imperative that I combine what I can between my students in order to maximize the content we can cover without putting a heavy burden on our time. Literature is the perfect topic to integrate your lesson-planning because a lot of the content is covering the same topic but merely with advancements in vocabulary and depth. It leaves you some room to navigate. Because you will notice as a parent that there are some children that will absorb any content you give them, and the advanced vocabulary and deeper concepts don’t hinder them in the least. Likewise, there are students that you will see may repeatedly need revision on the same topics to build mastery. So bringing these...

     My girls, ready to go!      Since I am new to blogging I thought I would begin with keeping a journal of my day today. So I guess I should fill you in on some of the details before we start. As a family of 10, we currently live in Nasr City, Egypt. March 15th will mark our 2 year anniversary as an Expat family. My husband suggested this move after seeing a consistent decline in the moral codes and conduct of America. It became ever more apparent that the traditional ethical codes we wanted to instill and maintain in our children were not going to be supported in our community. As South Philadelphia residents, it also was becoming more and more clear, that regentrification was taking its toll on thne community and we were not keeping our heads above water easily. My husband working 12-14 hours a day and for pennies in retrospect of what he made once all expenses were accounted for. My husband has been doing 1099 independent contractor work for ...