WHY DIDN'T ANYONE TELL ME??!!??

YOU PEOPLE! You've been reading this blog and you haven't told me there is strange code showing up in my posts! I use Firefox now instead of Explorer and I didn't know that when you open my blog in Explorer it has all sorts of funky jibberish every time there's a paragraph break! So I want to know why no one has pointed this out. Especially since I know there are a few faithful readers of this blog who also enjoy pointing out when I do something wrong! Scott....you there? :) What about you, Tiff? With your eye for detail and the fact that you know I am a perfectionist, are you telling me you haven't SEEN that? Thank you, Lela, for letting me know. I feel like I've been walking around with toilet paper on my shoe for the last 3 months.

Seriously, how embarrassing! I have just spent the last hour fixing it all. I should have been packing, but it would've annoyed me until I fixed it so it's done now.

Packing... Here's some big news...

We're moving! No. Not back home. We lucked into this wonderful apartment this week. We went and looked at it on Wednesday and signed the contract on Thursday. We will be living on the second floor, and Noel & Rachella took the apartment just below us. We will have a small yard for Luke to play in and an area he can ride a tricycle in. The apartment is about 3 or 4 times the size of the one we're in now, and in a much quieter location. There is some pretty hideous furniture in there, but we're learning to live with that. That's just Egypt. (See the previous pictures of our lovely blue and yellow living room furniture.) We will love being so close to the Simons, too. Anyway, we are very excited, and I am very busy packing both to move and to go home for Christmas! (And busy doing other things instead of packing. Like blogging.)

I will post pictures of the new apartment soon, but probably not till after Christmas. (There's a great big ol' King Tut rug in the front entry hall. Can't wait to show that off!)

So... Merry Christmas to all! Thanks for reading my blog and leaving comments or sending emails. Your encouragement and interest has kept me afloat these first four months as a stranger in a strange land. I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas and a happy new year!

Everyone is Doing It

Go see ourselves as Elves!

It's a little disturbing to see your 2-year old's head on what is clearly a woman's body...but funny just the same!

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Jason’s Games

Jason’s softball games are so much fun. His team is made up of teachers from his school and mine. Luke often sits in the dugout with the guys and has become buddies with most of them. You’ll have to ask me to do my imitation of Luke greeting his softball buds next time you see me. He’s so cool and grown-up when he says hi to them.

Luke and I go to probably every other game, or every third game. They’re later at night sometimes, and I like Luke to be in bed by 8:00. I took some pictures and video this week at Jason’s last game. Jason was awesome. He was five for five at bat and scored three or four runs. He had a great game. I was so proud, and it was the perfect night to film.

When I’m Found in the Desert Place

A few weeks ago I was really depressed about being here. Christmas seemed really far away. Cairo seemed ugly. I was frustrated with everything being difficult. I kept seeing the potholes and mud puddles and dust and dirt of the street. I tend to watch the road ahead of me when I walk because I usually push the stroller and I don’t want Luke to bounce out when we hit a pothole. (It happened once when I forgot to buckle him in.) Therefore I end up looking at the dirt a LOT. I found myself thinking every day, “I want OUT of here.” I prayed about my frustrations. I know we’re here for a reason. I believe God will use us while we are here, but there are times that I still question why we are here. God said to me, “Look UP. See what I’ve made.” All around me were trees in full bloom—red flowers, pink flowers, yellow flowers. It was so beautiful. I’ve never seen trees like them. Beyond the trees I saw blue sky. Immediately my spirits lifted. Sure, it’s not the wide open skies of the Texas plains or the bright bluey purple of bluebonnets, but it was lovely. I am learning to interpret that “Look UP” in other ways, too. I almost always find myself depressed and down when my focus is on ME, my circumstances, my situation. When I shift my focus to the Lord, to the things and people he’s made, and to his command that I love them, things are easier. I still search for our purpose here, but along the way I’m enjoying the scenery. Blessed be the name of the Lord.

Here’s a poinsettia tree growing outside Luke’s preschool.

Copyright

The entrance to the Bibliotheca Alexandrina children’s library is flanked by images of Disney characters. There is a Barney nursery school, a Bananas in Pajamas preschool, and this Simba Nursery on the next street over from us.

Celebrities also have their names and images used in vain over here. In Alexandria we saw a shop named Demi Moore Clothing. The gym next to our house uses Drew Barrymore’s image on their sign. Wonder if she knows.

Everyday Stuff

Koshari: This is the only Egyptian cuisine that is truly Egyptian. All their other traditional dishes have been borrowed from other cultures (at least that is what I’ve been told). It is a mixture of spaghetti noodles or some other pasta, macaroni, rice, lentils, chickpeas, and tomato sauce. Most people who try it think it is delicious. I think koshari looks like the stuff that collects in the sink when you handwash dishes after a big meal. Absolutely disgusting, therefore I refuse to try it.

Fuul is a staple of Egyptian cuisine. You can order fuul with garlic, fuul with corn oil, fuul with tahina, and probably a number of other ways. I’ve had it with garlic (which was just beans with sautéed garlic and not my favorite) and with corn oil, which tasted like refried beans. There is a guy who goes up and down our street in the mornings and at lunchtime yelling. Initially it sounded like “FORE!” or “All aboard!” to me. It drove me nuts because I knew it was the same guy every day but I couldn’t figure out what he was yelling. I decided to find out one day and sort of chased him down when I heard him. Turns out he sells fuul from a cart. He’s got this huge metal jug of it on his cart and when someone wants some he ladles it into a plastic bag and hands it to them. Probably costs 20 cents for one bag. He’s yelling “FUUL!”

The other day a friend asked if Cairo smells bad. Initially my answer is no, but I think that’s because I’m used to the smells. It smells like exhaust a lot. I don’t notice it much when I’m out walking unless a car drives by and I smell it, but when I picked Luke up the other day and smelled his hair it smelled like diesel fumes. We have some new neighbors who smell when you get close to them, too. Here they are:

Yes, there’s actually a small herd? of goats living across the street from us. I am guessing that they’re there in preparation for the big feast coming up this month.

Here are some of the people and things we see each day:

If you look back at the early pictures of our apartment you can see the big canister of gas under our sink. This is what powers my oven and stove. When it runs out (like it did while I was cooking pizza two weeks ago) you can ask the bawa’ab for a new one. He brings it in and takes the other one away. Jason hooked the new one up. The new bottle cost $1. Every morning and afternoon trucks loaded with the bottles (called “butagas”, I assume for butane gas) go up and down the street. The men riding the truck bang on the bottles with a wrench to let everyone know they’re around in case anyone needs the butagas.

Cats are everywhere, as I’ve already said in an earlier post. These were sleeping in the median on our way home today, all cuddled up and cute.

We saw this one in Alexandria. I was afraid this was going to be a very sad picture at first, but then I realized the cat was just asleep in the trash.

This is a bawa’ab who lives about three buildings down from us. He always smiles happily and speaks to Luke. He has a little daughter or granddaughter (probably daughter) who sits outside with him a lot, and who comes and kisses Luke and tries to speak to him. She’s the one on the right. Do you see the dark spot on the center of the man’s forehead? That is a callus that many Muslim men get because they pray so many times a day with their heads on their rugs.

This is another man I meet nearly every day on the street. He is very old—probably in his seventies, I’m guessing—and I think he may have Parkinson’s. He has tremors in his arm. I am not sure if he has a home, but he always asks for money. I usually turn these people away, but there is something about this man that speaks to me. I give him a little bit every now and then. I gave him a pound for letting me take his picture today, which is the equivalent to about 20 cents, but might be able to buy his fuul for the day.

Luke enjoys playing with the bawa’ab’s children. Sometimes they come in to play in our living room with Luke’s toys. I’m not sure they have any toys of their own. I know they have school books and a ball, but other than that I’ve never seen them playing with anything. I want to bring some toys back for them at Christmas. I think there are 4 girls and 2 boys in the family. Two of the younger children play with Luke. Here is a picture of Mohamed and Yasmeen keeping Luke entertained.

I used to shop for groceries once a month at home. I’d make a trip back halfway through the month for milk and fruit, but other than that I was set. Here I go at least once a week, and most weeks two or three times. This is one of our grocery stores, Miriam Market. It sells quite a few American products, but some of them are really expensive.

This is our other grocery store, Seoudi, where I do most of the shopping. They deliver my groceries within an hour. Luke calls Seoudi “the green market.” Miriam is “the blue market.”

Alexandria

After we got home Thanksgiving night and put Luke to bed, I set about packing for our trip to Alexandria with the Simons. I was so tired that I packed about halfway and then crashed. Friday morning I got up to finish the job. We got in a cab around seven and headed to the train station. We boarded the train around 7:45 and left the station around 8:00. The tickets there and back cost us about $20 each, I think. Assigned seats, non-smoking cars. Luke sat on our laps and looked at books (here we’re looking at the Sphinx) and watched Barney. This is Rachella in her neck brace pillow. We made fun of her but I actually think it looks sort of comfortable. The trip was 2 hours. We’d all heard how nice Alexandria was, but when we exited the station we were less than impressed with what we saw. It was trashy like parts of Cairo, and we couldn’t figure out exactly where we were. We crossed a big square to try to find a street sign, and there on the ground was the decaying neck and head of a goose, as if a butcher had just chopped it off and thrown it on the ground. I was thoroughly grossed out.

We spoke to a few local guys and figured out we’d gotten out at the wrong station. Luckily, we were in Alexandria, but we had gotten off one stop too early. In hindsight, I think the train attendant was trying to tell us that, but none of us understood what he meant. :\ We hopped in a cab to get to our hotel.

Our hotel, The Union Hotel, was rated one of the best budget hotels in our Lonely Planet book. It was situated near the water (Alex is on the Mediterranean), and we’d called ahead to book our rooms so that we’d be sure to get a sea view. The hotel is up on the 5^th and 6^th floors of an office-type building. The ground floor was not impressive at all. Actually it was really sketchy looking, but we knew to expect that because we’d read reviews online. Once we got up to the actual hotel we were totally satisfied with the looks of the place. It was a clean, bug-free 2-star hotel. We had a really nice view of the sea, our own bathroom, and two twin beds. (Yes—for those of you who haven’t traveled overseas the cheap way, there are hotels with shared bathrooms, and you do pay extra for having your own.) Our room rate included breakfast. We paid $20.

Oh, and just outside our hotel was a gym. Here is the sign advertising it.

“Top GUM” Funny on a few levels. Did they mean Top Gun? Or Top Gym?

The hotel didn’t have our rooms ready until noon, so we left our bags with the front desk and went off to find the tourist information center and some food. We were really adventurous. We ate McDonald’s.

After filling our tummies we returned to the hotel, got our room, and regrouped before going on a whiz-bang tour of Alexandria.

Our first matter of business was to buy our return train tickets to Cairo. We walked the mile or so from the hotel to the train station where we should have gotten off. It was really nice around the tourist train station! There were plazas and parks, and it was cleaner than pretty much anywhere I’ve seen in Cairo so far. We went in and bought the tickets for the next day. Noel and Rachella decided to leave early the next morning, and Jason and I decided to catch the 2 PM train home.

The Roman amphitheatre, called Kom el-Dikka, is just across from the train station, so we stopped by there for a look-see. We did not go in, but peered through the fence and snapped a few pictures. Here’s what our Rough Guide to Egypt says about Kom el-Dikka: “Since 1959 Polish archaeologists and staff from the Greco-Roman Museum have removed the Turkish fort and slums on Kom el-Dikka (Mound of Rubble), revealing a substratum of Roman remains beneath a Muslim cemetery….The elegant Roman Theatre has marble seating for seven to eight hundred…” So under a bunch of trash, a cemetery, and a fort lay the remains of this place. Some of it looks like it was created last year.

After the amphitheatre we caught a cab to go to the catacombs. That cab ride was the longest, yuckiest cab ride I’ve been on yet. The driver kept rolling down the window to holler at other drivers, which terrified Luke. (“He’s not going to talk anymore!” Luke kept saying.) It was hot, we were squnched all in there, and there was a mega traffic jam. We never figured out why, but we could’ve walked to the catacombs faster than we got there in the taxi. Oh well, it gave us a chance to see parts of Alexandria SLOWLY. As we drove through a souk area I watched one hawker hold up different items of clothing from his stall and advertise them to the crowd by yelling out the virtues of each piece, and then he auctioned it off. I tried too late to get Jason to video it. We saw a lot of interesting things for sale, as well as a cooking fire right in the middle of a street. It was next to these birds.

We were not supposed to take pictures in the catacombs. I rebelled. Usually I obey rules like that, and I actually do feel guilty about ignoring the rule…but I didn’t use flash (except on this first one) and I need the pictures to help me remember what I’m going to write. (Well. I wouldn’t accept those excuses from a student…what a bad example I am.) Still, here are the pictures. I thought the catacombs were pretty cool. Smaller than I remember the ones in Rome being. There are three levels of catacombs, and the lowest is flooded with water, so it’s not accessible, but we could get to the first two levels. The second one even had water down in the bottom of some of the tombs. Basically all there was to see were rectangular openings in the walls where bodies were laid, but then it was also interesting to see the different types of decoration in certain parts of the catacombs. Apparently this burial site blends Greek, Roman, and Egyptian cultural traditions. This part is called the Central Tomb, and the carvings are spectacular. You can see the Egyptian gods Sobek and Anubis wearing Roman armor. (Anubis is the jackal-headed one in the center.)

It didn’t take too long to see the catacombs, and after that we decided to walk past Pompey’s Pillar to take a picture. The pillar was erected to honor Diocletian (not sure why it’s called Pompey’s) and was originally part of a temple which served as a “daughter library” to the original library at Alexandria. Having heard the site is pretty disappointing, we paused to take this picture but did not go in.

We enjoyed the walk from the catacombs through the market streets. We thought this part of Alexandria was really neat and quite pretty.

We saw these goats eating trash. It’s unfortunate that the picture is so zoomed in, because they were basically grazing on a huge hill made all of trash. I’m talking a hill probably a story high.

There were also shops where you could purchase live chickens. Here is Luke looking at the chickens.

Next we went to the Fort Qaitbey. It looked so cool; I wanted to build it out of Legos. The fort sits on the site of the Pharos Lighthouse, one of the original Seven Wonders of the ancient world. This is what the lighthouse probably looked like: The base of the fort actually incorporates some of the red-granite pillars that were probably part of the Pharos. We were supposed to be able to get into the fort, but for whatever reason it was closed. It was really pretty outside the fort near the water. There were several vendors selling souvenirs along the walkway and lots of people enjoying the fresh air.

After the fort we went to the Bibliotheca Alexandrina. It sits near the site of the original ancient library at Alexandria. This new library was opened in 2002. The outside of the building has letters and symbols from every known alphabet carved into it. A suspended spherical planetarium (looks like the Death Star) is just outside the library. I got to tour the library with Noel and Rachella. Jason sweetly let me go in while he stayed outside with Luke, who was not allowed to go in the actual library. (Kids 6-18 can go in the children’s library, and the main reading room is only open to adults.) The library itself was really neat. There are seven levels. The bookshelves are lit from within. It has the largest reading room in the world, with desks with neat reading lights attached. There are over 300 computers there for public use. The library also houses a COMPLETE copy of the internet—every page since (I think) 1994 is on its servers, and a plasma screen in the library displays a different page every few seconds. The most amazing thing is the Espresso Book Machine, though. It can produce a complete copy of any book that has been uploaded to its memory in ten minutes. If this machine were to become widespread it would totally revolutionize the publishing industry. As of now, there is only one other in the world, in Washington DC.

We also went in the children’s library, which was really cool. It was decorated with bright colors, had books in several languages, and had lots of activities for the kids. I found an Arabic copy of A Wrinkle in Time and a Braille copy of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.

We had dinner that night at a restaurant called Mohammed Ahmed’s. We ate a delicious Egyptian meal with lots of pita bread, hummus, falafel (which tastes like hush puppies to me), and fuul (think refried beans). It was a feast, and it only cost $7. To feed five of us.

When we got back to the hotel we said goodbye to the Simons, who were leaving early the next morning. We went to bed by 8:30! It was an exhausting day. Here is the view from our hotel room. The fort is on the left side, and the library is somewhere over to the right.

The next morning we decided to skip breakfast at the hotel and go to a restaurant Noel had read about in his guidebook. After breakfast we went back to the tourist office and asked about somewhere we could go to walk along a beach. The lady told us about a park that also had beaches, so we took a cab there. The park was really nice, but we found out we couldn’t get onto the beaches without paying an access fee that was pretty high. So we enjoyed the park. I couldn’t resist climbing this tree, though when I got onto the lowest branch it felt way too scary, and I didn’t go any higher. Luke got up there with me, and then Jason showed off his climbing skills and went even higher in the tree. It was fun to share Luke’s first tree-climbing experience.

We boarded the train for our trip back to Cairo. Luke fell asleep on my lap shortly after departure and stayed asleep almost until we got to Cairo. Alexandria was a neat place—I wouldn’t mind living there (instead of Cairo)!

Thanksgiving

I’m sitting here in the dark. It’s 10 PM and the electricity has just gone out. I probably have about 10 minutes of battery power on my computer, since the battery is shot. Since I’ve lost my internet connection I figured I’d blog a bit.

We spent this Thanksgiving with Noel and Rachella. We had the day off from school, since it is an American school. We divided up the cooking tasks between the two families and made a feast. Jason, who loves Thanksgiving because it begins his favorite time of year, decided we’d begin our celebration early in the morning with breakfast at the Simons’ house. He went over there with the first load of stuff at 8:30 or so. They don’t have kids, so I was just hoping they were awake! I would’ve been really annoyed if someone as cheerful as Jason is in the morning showed up at my door at 8:30 on our day off of school! While Jason was gone, Luke and I started making my Great-grandmother Riley’s homemade rolls. Luke loves to help in the kitchen! He also loves to taste whatever we’re cooking!

Anyway, Jason made breakfast for us—eggs and biscuits (no bacon—it costs $8 a pound here) with fruit and juice. It was delicious. Then he began cooking the turkey and Noel started on the stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, and green bean casserole. Luke stayed at the Simons’ house to help.

Rachella and I came back to our house to finish making the sweet potatoes and homemade rolls. I’d made a peach cobbler for dessert (pecans for pecan pie were $10 a bag!) and Rachella ordered a pumpkin pie from a local bakery. We went back to the Simons’ house around 2:30 and started setting the food out. We sat down to our feast at 3:00. (You may notice we have tons of food, all served in whatever dishes we could find. I find it very dissatisfying that I have lovely serving dishes in storage at home. I never use them at home because I never cook large meals for many people at home. Now that we’re here and have to cater our own holiday meals I am thousands of miles away from those dishes!) Here are the boys all ready to eat.

We ate and then watched Elf to kick off the Christmas season. Rachella fell asleep about ten minutes into the movie. I lasted thirty. Finally I’ve met someone (other than Daddy) with my talent for falling asleep during movies.

We had a great day from start to finish with a few exceptions. Luke passed his tummy bug on to Jason and me. Also, Noel and Rachella have a dog, Dobby, who is absolutely the most terrifying creature you’ve ever seen. See?

Well, Luke thinks so anyway. Dobby let out one loud bark and Luke screamed bloody murder. Poor Dobby got put away in the bedroom for the rest of the day. Luke was also a little bored, even though I brought toys for him. He repeated “I don’t wanna be here!” about 20 times while we were watching Elf. I tried to tell him not to say that because it was rude, but I couldn’t help sympathizing with him. There was also some drama over finding canned onion rings… But all in all, it was a wonderful day.

Luxor

I’m way overdue in writing about our trip to Luxor back in the middle of October. We had a long weekend because of the feast at the end of Ramadan, Eid el-Fitr. We flew from Cairo to Luxor at 5:15 in the morning, which meant we had to leave our house at 2:30. That was fun! We arrived in Luxor at about 6:15, got our bags, and got a taxi to our hotel. We stayed in the Pavillion wing (yes, that’s the way they spell “Pavillion” in Egypt) of the Old Winter Palace. (The hotel is mentioned as one of the places in 1,000 Places to See Before You Die.) The hotel had a gorgeous pool and beautiful gardens. When we checked into our room, I stood on the balcony, looked out over the gardens, and thought about how I’ve taken the color green for granted all my life! It was gorgeous, and a nice change from brown sand and dirt. We headed out to find lunch and figure out what to do with our time in Luxor.

Our hotel was right near the Nile, so we crossed the street and headed down by the river. Crossing the street, we were accosted by no fewer than 10 men wanting to offer us rides in their horse carriages, others offering taxi rides, and others offering tours of all the sites. Ignoring them, we forged ahead and ate lunch near the felucca docks. Just up the river we could see the Nile cruise boats docked, puffing black diesel fumes. Tourist shops lined the walkway next to the river. As we walked, proprietors stood outside their shops and said things like, “Hey, American, I have what you need.” And “Take a look inside, lady. Fixed price.” We ignored them too, and returned to the hotel after lunch. We took a BIG nap that afternoon before getting ready to head out to the Temple of Luxor.

The Luxor Temple was literally next to our hotel. We probably had to walk 200 yards to get to the entrance. Once we’d bought our tickets we were free to explore the temple at our own pace. Very little of the site was roped off, and we were free to touch the statues and hieroglyphics as we walked through. We arrived about an hour before sundown, so the weather was cooler (Luxor was much hotter than Cairo). We were able to get the stroller through most of the temple without much problem, and we were lucky to have it since Luke fell asleep halfway through. We finished our stop at the temple just as the sun set, marking the end of Ramadan.

After that, we got adventurous and found a place to eat. Jason ordered Egyptian food, and I ordered a hamburger. This is what I got!

After dinner we explored a nearby bazaar, where I bought a beautiful peacock colored scarf and another scarf to use as a valance in our bedroom here. Luke ended up with a little wooden snake toy because Jason caved in to his “I want that snake!” cries. ;)

The next day we didn’t leave the hotel except to find meals. We spent the entire day by the pool, napping in the room, and by the pool some more. It was great. Luke got over his fear of the swimming pool (he’s been terrified of the jets all summer) and had a great time. Every other kid in the pool came to play with Luke. To our delight, he was very friendly and outgoing around them. School has done wonders for his social skills among his peers!

(Actually I did leave the hotel to go find a drugstore. I walked down by the water by myself. I had had just about enough of the hasslers asking if I wanted a taxi or a carriage, and the men who make comments or hiss at me really annoy me. Hardly ever happens in Cairo, but in Luxor it was a different story. One shop worker said to me, "Hey American lady...woo hoo...you are so sexy!" I rounded on him, stuck my finger in his face and said to him, "You show me some respect. You would NEVER speak that way to an Egyptian woman. You will NOT speak to me that way." He cowered, saying, "Sorry, madam, no...you're right...I would not...sorry...so sorry." I don't think he expected to get chewed out.

The following morning we went to the Temple of Karnak, which is enormous. It covers several football fields (in my scientific estimation) and was added onto over several centuries by various rulers. It was really hot that day, and exhausting to try to see the whole temple and appreciate it. I think we all got pretty tired of looking at hieroglyphics. Ironic, seeing as how I was so disappointed in the bare walls of the pyramids.

I was thrilled, however, to see some beautiful brightly colored pictures atop the columns of the hypostyle hall, and then crestfallen to see that some tourists, who fancied themselves modern-day scribes, had carved their names in one of the columns just below some of the hieroglyphs. As Daddy used to quote, “Fools’ names and fools’ faces often appear in public places.”

We had dinner one night at a neat little restaurant owned by an American. It was set up like a little house, with rooms off to the side of the foyer. We ate in a room with another American couple who was on a round-the-world trip. It was nice to chat with them and hear about their adventures. The owner of the restaurant also stopped by our table to talk, and he sent us on our way with some free chocolate chip cookies! Yum!

We decided to forgo the west bank of Luxor, where the Valley of the Kings and Valley of the Queens are located. Getting Luke around on those long sightseeing trips is complicated at this stage, and we figure we’ll be back. We decided to spend our last morning in Luxor by the pool before heading back to Cairo.

We had to check out of the hotel by noon, and our flight wasn’t until 10 PM or so. We spent the whole day at the pool, and thankfully, the hotel gave us a room to shower in before we headed to the airport. All in all it was a very relaxing weekend.