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366 unusual things: days 189-193

7th July – Researching the El Gala’a Bridge in Cairo for a ‘Night’ photo challenge, I discovered it opened for feluccas by pivoting the central part around to perpendicular, making two passageways for the boats.
The first photo below is my father’s (that is, it was in his album but possibly not taken by him) which seems to have been shot from an identical position as the ‘Night’ photo.  Following this are two photos (undated but taken during WWII) in the National Library of Australia collection, by war photographer Frank Hurley, of the bridge opened for felucca traffic.  When closed, the bridge seems to have been only for pedestrians in those days.  I searched for recent images of the El Gala’a Bridge and found that it now carries heavy vehicular traffic, and during last year’s revolution was jam-packed with Egyptians heading for Tahrir Square.

“English Bridge”, Cairo (El Gala’a Bridge), 1942

Hurley, Frank, 1885-1962. Feluccas on the Nile at Cairo [with city, viewed from above] [picture] : [Cairo, Egypt, World War II]

Hurley, Frank, 1885-1962. Feluccas passing through the English Bridge, Cairo [Kobri Al Galaa or Evacuation Bridge] [picture] : [Cairo, Egypt, World War II]

8th July – Bought a green leather bag which was half-price ‘because of the colour’.

9th July – Spent hours searching the Internet for an image matching my camel bridge photo.  Finally found a postcard from the early 20th century showing the same bridge.  The Internet is an amazing resource!

10th July – Tried to get out of a 3-hour free carpark.  Put the ticket in the machine and it shot out and landed in a puddle where 6 other tickets were being rained on.  Mine was the driest, so I picked it up and put it back in.  It shot out again.  I hit the red ‘Help’ button and a muffled voice announced the free parking had been reduced to 2 hours.  The boom was generously raised anyway.

11th July – Learned that Joni Mitchell’s song ‘Both sides now’ was written as a poem.  It’s great read aloud.

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366 unusual things: days 184-188

2nd July – In an online German course, I’m learning how to say “The salt is bad”, “The man drinks oil”.  I looked at the equivalent French course where I learnt “My wheat is black”, “We eat butter”.

3rd July – On the other hand, the French course teaches:  “She has a black dress” and “I love you”;  the German, “You are a man and I am a woman”.

4th July – A Chinese student thanked me with a packet of tea from China.  I scooped some into my teapot, drank the tea, inhaled its fragrance, then tried to empty the tealeaves out.  They had morphed into life-size green leaves, like leaf-litter in the bottom of the pot.

5th July – Eating at a table beside the lake when a seagull (lake gull?) landed and walked up to my plate.  It had a black and white polka-dot tail,which is actually the white tips of black edges of white wings.

6th July – A friend told me that her husband cut her hair in the shower this morning.

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Weekly photo challenge: Movement

Movement:  each of the three creatures here is raising a foot to move forward.

My father captioned this photo “Camel Bridge”.  I’ve done some research and found it is a footbridge over a boat passageway through a dam wall on the Nile.  It’s known in English as the Great Delta Barrage.  In Arabic (from Google Maps) it’s Alkanater Kheireya.  The wooden bridge was lowered for foot traffic, and when boats needed to pass through, it was folded up against the building wall.

Camel bridge, Egypt, 1941/42
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366 unusual things: days 179 – 183

27th June – Rode my bike home in the twilight.  Have only ever ridden in daylight.

28th June – Read that looking at an old painting by candlelight shows us what the artist saw before studios were lit electrically.  I have only one real painting on the wall; I started it but never finished it, but it became something better when I held a candle to it.

Photo by Brett Worth

29th June – I have sons who wake up on one date and go to bed on the next.

30th June – Heard that J.S. Bach had 20 children to 2 wives.  Eleven of them died within his own lifetime.

1st July – This is the date when I remember meeting my husband (31 years ago), conceiving our first child (4 years later :-)), and starting this blog 6 months ago.

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Millie

MILLIE

On Saturday I posted a drawing of Millie, a little girl I’ve been tutoring for a few years.  Millie has dyslexia and has gone to Sydney for a while to learn how to read.  Her Dad, the artist behind the pencil and brush, also had dyslexia as a child.

Today, Millie’s Mum, Jackie, wrote the following piece about the learning disability, dyslexia, and about Millie’s time so far at the learning centre in Sydney.  If you’d like to contact Jackie, please click on ‘Contact Me’ at the top of the screen and I’ll pass your message on.

My daughter and dyslexia

Dyslexia is a language based disorder of neurological origin. It is completely independent of IQ. People with dyslexia have difficulties with the use and processing of linguistic and symbolic codes, alphabetic letters representing speech sounds, and numerics representing numbers or quantities. Dyslexics do not respond well to conventional instruction. It is estimated that up to 10 percent of the population have dyslexia. The impact of dyslexia on an individual’s self-esteem can be devastating – with dyslexic teens 20 times more likely to commit suicide than their non-dyslexic peers. My daughter, Millie, is 8 years old and has severe/ profound dyslexia.

As a mother, my heart aches for Millie every day. She is a sweet, compassionate, and social little girl with an IQ of 105. Unfortunately, it is often very difficult for her to demonstrate her true intelligence, due to the fact that intelligence is too often measured by the ability to read and write. As a consequence, Millie is convinced she is stupid. I believe Millie to be both smart and courageous. Can you imagine walking into a classroom every single day not understanding something and knowing that you are different to everyone else? To do that day in and day out and come home depressed, and then get up, put the boots back on and go back into that environment shows a tremendous amount of courage to me.

I guess our journey with dyslexia began some 2 years ago and it has been one filled with frustration, sadness, desperation and hopelessness. So, when I found a study which resulted in the growth of grey-matter in the left-hemisphere of the brain after 8 weeks intensive instruction at a learning centre in Sydney, I thought it was probably worth a shot.

We have been here for 2 weeks now, and progress has been solid but not remarkable. She tries so hard, but retaining the rules/exceptions of the English language has never been one of her strengths. This program is definitely not a magic bullet, but I’m hoping it gets things moving. There is no cure for dyslexia.

To date, she has learned the concept of the ‘bossy-e’ and is now familiar with ‘ea’ ‘ai’ ‘aw’ ‘ee’ ‘oo’ ‘oi’ sounds. I know that to most of you this probably sounds pretty basic and insignificant. Rules you were perhaps taught once or twice at school and were able to retain and apply. But for Millie – this is really quite an impressive step. She is still reversing her b/d’s but the learning centre expect that to stop within a week or two. I am very proud of her efforts and I have been told that she has made 4 months progress in 2 weeks??? Fingers crossed……

We are meeting up with the Director and Producer of an American documentary called “Dislecksia the Movie” either this week or next. They are in Australia at the moment, having a holiday, and are keen to meet Millie. Both of them are dyslexic and would like to share their own personal experiences with dyslexia with Millie.

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Ailsa's Travel photo challenge: Art

Ailsa from http://wheresmybackpack.com/2012/06/29/travel-theme-art/ proposed this week’s theme.  Thanks Ailsa!

This is Millie.  I’ve been tutoring her once a week for a few years and now she has travelled to Sydney to take part in a special program to learn to read.

Millie and I have something in common:  our Dads both like to draw and paint.  This week, instead of showing you my father’s art, I want to draw attention to Stewart McDonald’s art.

He draws like this:

Stewart McDonald, “Millie”, graphite on Arches paper

And he paints like this:

Stewart McDonald, “UntitledF”, ink on Fabriano paper

You can see more, and perhaps even buy originals or prints of his works, here:

http://www.redbubble.com/people/stewartmcd

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366 unusual things: days 174-178

22nd June – Saw a work of art made from an old book by detaching the pages, folding them creatively, then reattaching them to the hard cover.  The book was Moral Dilemmas.

23rd June – Borrowed the latest DVD of Alice in Wonderland.  The cover shows the Mad Hatter front and centre, with Alice peeking in from the side.  That is, it shows Johnny Depp front and centre.  Poor Mia Wasikowska who plays Alice.

24th June – Found an old pioneer house at Tidbinbilla that my husband thought was rented out.  I insisted we go and look closer anyway.  Clearly, the last tenants had moved out some time ago.

Rock Valley Homestead, Tidbinbilla Nature Reserve, built c1895.  Photo:  Brett Worth

25th June – Rang the National Archives today for advice and got a woman who was very interested in my research.  She talked to me for half an hour, asking more and more questions.  Until today, I’ve always found Archives staff officious and disinterested.

26th June – In a book about books, a word was broken at the end of the line like this:  had-.  The next line began n’t.

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Ailsa's travel photo challenge: Parks

Ailsa proposes Parks this week.  See her great park story here:  http://wheresmybackpack.com/2012/06/22/travel-theme-parks/

Here’s mine:

In the heart of Alexandria in Egypt, there is a green square running down to the esplanade along the sea.  It’s called the Midan Orabi or Orabi Square, or Place Mohamed Ali.  At the end of the square is a neo-classical monument donated by the Italian community in 1938 and originally dedicated to Khedive Ismail (‘Khedive’ is a title, like Viceroy).  He had studied in Paris and held diplomatic missions in Europe before his appointment as viceroy of Egypt from 1863 – 1879 under the Ottoman suzerainty.  He incurred massive foreign debt, borrowing from European financiers, and this mismanagement led to British intervention and the occupation of Egypt in 1882.  If this hadn’t happened, I wouldn’t have this photo.

My father had this picture in his album of photos taken in 1941/42 when he was there as an Australian defending the British Empire.

Khedive Ismail being remembered for not much more than his hateful administration and the introduction of colonialism, the monument facing the Mediterranean sea, or more specifically, facing Europe, was recycled in 1966 into a monument to an ‘Unknown Naval Soldier’.

Modern photos show Orabi Square still with tall palm trees though at ground level it is now quite cluttered and busy, not neat and open as it was in the 1940s when the area was known as Place Mohamed Ali, or the French Gardens, and it looked like this:

French Gardens and Monument to Khedive Ismail, Alexandria, Egypt, 1940s
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366 unusual things: days 169-173

17th June – A church sermon was illustrated with a Renaissance sculpture of the devil tempting Christ:  the devil is bent-nosed and bald;  Christ is straight-nosed, long-haired and bearded.  They are both white.

18th June – Out for a walk, I passed a flock of ground-feeding sulphur-crested cockatoos.  One took off and flew close to my ear, squawking.  Almost deafening.

19th June – A man and his 10 year-old daughter went past on a bike – him riding and her standing on the bag rack, her hands resting on his shoulders.

20th June – At a closing-down sale of a large store, I was sold a cardigan by a fifty-something saleswoman.
“Are you a member?” she asked.
“No.”
“Would you like to become a member?”
“Ah, no….”
She shrugged.  “We have to say it.”

21st June – On this winter solstice, the shortest day of the year, it’s very cold and blowing a gale, yet a few women are outdoors in strappy tops.