Underwear Girl

Two successful days into Rachel's underwear career gave way to her first official wedgie.


Megan was trying to pick Rachel up, which she is discouraged from doing for obvious reasons, and she dropped her (that's the obvious reason in case you didn't figure it out) but kept her grip on Rachel's pyjama bottoms and rubber pants. Perhaps it isn't an official wedgie since Megan totally missed grabbing her underwear, too, but I think it was pretty good for her first one.

Sorry the picture isn't that great. I was trying to get a shot of the girls in their coordinated pj's (because what would a sleepover be without matching pyjamas?) when Megan picked Rachel up. I hesitated while I struggled internally over whether to rescue Rachel or take a picture. I ended up snapping the picture while reaching for Rachel and this is the result.

If the pollution don't get you...

...the sodium will!

When we lived in Jordan we ate a lot of pasta. It's quick, it's easy, it's almost healthy. Furthermore we were dirt poor and used some of our precious money to buy some really disgusting and highly concentrated tomato paste that we felt obligated to use. This stuff was so strong! We had to mix in fresh tomatoes, regular sauce, and water to make it edible and even then it wasn't great.

We were really excited when we moved here to find that they had regular tomato sauce all ready to eat. Just heat, spice, serve.

It was good until we'd slowed down enough to actually taste it. It tasted like salt and tomatoes. Not tomatoes and salt, mind you, but salt and tomatoes.

"Did you put salt in this?" I asked Andrew.

"Yeah, but I didn't think I put in this much. I dunno. We don't have a salt shaker so I just poured it in from the bag..."

The next time we made spaghetti we measured the salt with a spoon and were very careful to put in only a little. It was still too salty so we started tasting different components of our meal: the Parmesan cheese and noodles were fine. The sauce was salty enough to kill a chicken.

After much experimentation, I finally examined the label.

Ingredients: tomatoes 22%, salt 2%...

That could be our problem right there. In the nutrition information it says that a single serving of this fabulous sauce gives you 83% of your daily sodium requirements. 83 percent, people!

I checked all the different brands we had purchased--because we'd tried almost every available brand during our experimental stage--all of them had the same 22% tomatoes, 2% salt deal going on. There was no way we were going to be able to disguise the salt so we started making all our tomato sauces from scratch (which isn't really that hard; we're just lazy and prefer to just open a can).

We go shopping fairly regularly here (like every few days) because things just don't keep as well as they do other places. I appreciate the effort of the Egyptian food packaging companies. I suppose they were just trying to make their tomato sauce have a longer shelf life. That said, someone needs to inform them that "canning" and "salt curing" are two different methods of preservation and needn't be combined. Ever.

Our frequent shopping trips have allowed me to examine the labels of more types of tomato sauce than I'd care to admit, but I think we finally found a sauce that won't give us a heart attack. It's Heinz Pasta Sauce--made in Egypt, sold for Egyptian prices. I think it's like 4.85 LE a bottle, which is only like 75 piasters more than the plain 2% salt kind. It's kind of like Egyptian Ragu and salt comes after onion powder, so that says something about the salt content. Still a little too salty, but good enough, I suppose.

We bought a jar of Heinz Pizza Sauce last time we went shopping (yesterday, I think) and we've yet to try it. They admit that their recipe contains 1% salt, so we'll have to see how that tastes.

Canned beans are also rather salty. I may have to start buying dried beans and boiling them myself but, as I mentioned, we are a little lazy and prefer to just open a can than to go to all the work of boiling water. At least with the beans we can drain out the briney water and eat our slightly pickled beans without the extra sodium.

Oh, and we picked up a big bag of MSG at Seoudi's the other day. That's right. We picked it up, snapped a picture, and put it right back. I'm pretty sure that stuff is lethal, although I do know a certain someone who would make MSG sandwiches (you may choose to come out of anonymity if you wish).


In addition to an effective anti-smoking campaign, Egypt could really use an anti-sodium movement. Really this can't be good for anyone unless there's some magical property of nicotine that blocks out sodium. Perhaps that's the trick.

Because, really, who needs pants?

When you’ve got a big, floppy hat and golden slippers nobody’s going to be checking for pants.


Plus it’s a lot easier to make it to the potty on time if there’s only one layer to take off. We recently traded in our prefolds for underwear and Rachel’s been doing a great job of making it to the potty! She was so excited when we brought them home from the Bio Shop (Road 231 in Degla). We had to put a pair on right away. But then she didn’t want to take them off to do her business and ended up having an accident in the hallway.

I ran her to the bathroom and made her take off her underwear. It was soaking wet, so I put them in the diaper pail to be washed. She growled, stood up from her potty, marched to the diaper pail and retrieved her underwear. I told her that the underwear had to stay there because she peed in it, but we could put another pair on and if she didn’t pee in that pair she could wear it for as long as she wanted or until bedtime, whichever came first.

Two days and two accidents later brought us to yesterday, which was an amazing day, potty-wise. Rachel woke up shortly before 9:30 AM, wet already. She did her morning BM and was in underwear until 1:15 without an accident. I changed her back into a diaper so that she could have a nap, and she woke up, wet again. We put her underwear back on and she went through the rest of the afternoon accident free. She went potty right before I put her in a diaper to take her over Lora’s and asked her to just hold “it” until I picked her up, which she did. I put her on the potty when we got home she did her business and went straight to bed.

It was awesome. I hope this is a new trend.

Update: This appears to be a new trend. Perhaps I’m crazy, but I took Rachel out and about wearing underwear (covered up this time with rubber pants and brown gauchos). She stayed dry all during playgroup (although I think she might have peed in the pool (but honestly, what kid hasn’t done that?)) and she spent the afternoon and evening running around wild with all the Lewis children. I think it’s safe to say we're well on our way to being potty trained!

Rachel the Cheeser

I sat Rachel on a stool while I made birthday cake #2. It was basically a re-do of the actual birthday cake, with more sugar. We took it over to the Lewises and it did much better there, thank goodness. Sara makes such wonderful desserts that I would have been mortified if my cake failed there. We’d never be able to go over ever again and that would be a real shame.

Anyway, Rachel was driving me crazy so I sat her on a stool to keep her from putting random things (ie: food, books, toys) into the washing machine, playing with the knobs on the stove, taking things out of the garbage can, holding onto my legs so that I can’t walk, touching the greasy rack that we took out of our oven so that we could fit a cake pan inside, or getting into mischief in general.

I gave her the lemons after I was done squeezing them and she had a good time sucking the juice out and watching me cook. She was being such a goof that I couldn’t resist taking a few pictures.

 

Whoa! Potent! 

  

Lemon drop girl

 

  

 I like to eat, eat, eat

 
Ahhhhh!

 
Cheeeeese!

Egyptian UNO

While scanning through the shelves of games at Moudy’s Rachel and I happened upon a game of UNO. We forgot to bring our UNO cards and Andrew had mentioned that he would like to get in a few good rounds of Cutthroat UNO while we were out here, so it kind of jumped out at me. It jumped out at Rachel as well. She picked it up and wouldn’t put it down, causing a wonderful temper tantrum at the time. I made her put it back because I’m a mean mom.

A few days ago, though, we went back to Moudy’s to see if they still had a game of UNO for us to buy. Rachel was the one who spotted it and embraced it with relish. She had a very difficult time parting with it when I told her we were going to put it in a bag to give to Daddy. She was under the impression that anything cool we purchase belongs to her.

She forgot about it soon enough and was just when Andrew opened it as he was. Probably more excited, actually. You see, this is no ordinary game of UNO. It came in a big, red box shaped like a hexagon prism. Inside that box is a black box and inside that box are the cards. Rachel is much more interested in the box than the cards. I can hardly blame her. The box really is pretty cool.

Egyptian UNO cards

The cards are alright, I guess. They’re pretty flimsy but they serve their purpose. They are made in A.R.E.—the Arab Republic of Egypt—under the brand name FUN, which apparently is "America’s #1 Brand of Family Games!" It’s a “high quality products original,” which we’re guessing means a rip off, unless Mattel knows about this company.

Andrew and I played a few rounds of regular UNO while we were waiting for our landlord to leave last night. We were too tired to even consider playing Cut Throat (which is more fun with more than 2 people, anyway). I’m not sure that we’ve played a lot of 2 player UNO. We kept running into problems and even had to refer to the rules a few times.

We learned that if you play a reverse the order with only 2 players, it works the same as a “skip a turn” card, which actually makes a lot of sense.

There were a few rules that we didn’t remember at all and were wondering if the rules in the Mattel version of UNO include any of these:

1) Players who make card-play suggestions to the other players must draw 2 cards from the draw pile.
2) If a player plays a wrong card and it is noticed by any of the other players, h/she must take the card back and take 2 extra cards from the draw pile. Their turn is then skipped.
3) If a “draw 4” card is played, the person who would have to draw 4 can challenge the person that played it by asking them to show them their hand. If the “draw 4” was played illegally, the person who played it has to draw 6 cards (4 + a 2 card penalty), but if they played it legally the challenger has to draw 6 (the original 4 + a 2 card penalty).

I don’t ever remember any of those rules from my UNO playing days. Does anyone out there know the truth? I suppose I could look it up online, but I’m sitting at home right now and we still don’t have internet, so…

We’re also interested in the description of the “action cards” because our rules get pretty biased. The first sentence under the “Wild Draw Four Card” states that “this is the best card to have.” Do the real rules really rate the cards as good, better, best? I don’t remember. We haven’t played UNO for a while and I can’t remember the last time I read the rules.

Any of our friends around here up for a wild round of Cut Throat?

Happy birthday, Andrew!

It was Andrew’s birthday on Friday. He’s the big 24 now. Time flies. We had a little party with some of our “small family” friends, the Schillings, Sharps, and Masons. After we chatted for a while I brought out the cake, which was a complete flop.

Andrew’s favorite cake is “Jell-o Cake,” a recipe that his mom would make. I’d never had it before he introduced it to me a few months after we were married. He likes it a lot, so I tried to make something similar here.

We used an Egyptian cake mix. I saw it in the store and had to get it because they voweled the English vowels, which I think is hilarious since English already has vowels. But just in case we forgot where the vowels were or what sound the vowels make, they put the Arabic vowels on to help us out.

Package from the cake

I made a lemon glaze to pour on the cake while Andrew entertained the Schillings in the front room. I thought the lemon glaze was good. The problem with my assessment, however, was that I happen to think lemons taste good. Rachel does, too. She and I can suck on a lemon and not pull a face. Apparently not everyone can.

I brought out the cake, we sang, Andrew blew out the candles, and then we served the cake.

Rachel joining in...

Hardly anyone finished their piece and those that did didn’t ask for seconds. Rachel and I were going to town though.

I was a little disappointed and mentioned this to Andrew after everyone had left. He said that it was just a little too bitter and needed a lot more sugar. To make myself feel better I ate the rest of the cake. I still thought it was good.

Besides the cake, the rest of the evening was great. We talked about the upcoming vacation, played Fluxx (because Andrew wanted to use the “Today’s Special!” card since it was his birthday), and watched Rachel try to interact with Finn. Her personality is a little too potent for him right now.

Playing nice...

Is she hugging him or strangling him?

In addition to it being Andrew’s birthday it was also International Landlord Day. Our guests started filtering out shortly after the cake was served. First the Sharps left to meet with their landlord, then our landlord came by, and then the Schillings left to meet with their real estate agent who wanted to show their apartment to someone else (since they’ll be leaving in a few months).

Our landlord almost stayed the night. He came to fix our fridge, finally. I’m not sure that he knew it was Andrew’s birthday, but as practical gifts go, it was a good gift. Almost as good as the time Andrew got some fans for my birthday when the air conditioner went out and I was a million months pregnant. Practical gifts are always good gifts.

Our fridge has been rather dreadful. I’m sure you’re all aware of our cockroach problem. That’s improved some, but they haven’t quite been abolished yet. I think part of the reason they keep coming back is because our fridge doesn’t seal all the way so they can get in whenever they like, which I don’t like. In fact, it has been one of the main reasons I’ve been avoiding the kitchen. Every time I’d open the door to root around a cockroach would fall right in front of my face, or run out of the door by my feet, or land on my head, or be on whatever it was I was after.

The fridge is supposed to be a safe haven from cockroaches, or so I thought. We didn’t have that luxury…until the wee early hours of Saturday morning.

The landlord, who has a few antisocial tendencies, was a little miffed that we had company but he decided to follow through with his plans to fix our fridge anyway. He showed up around 9 o’clock and started banging things around in the kitchen. A while later he came into the dining room where we were all seated around the table playing Fluxx. He came over to an empty chair and pulled it out slowly. So slowly, in fact, that we all started wondering if he was going to join us.

“Good luck teaching him this game in Arabic,” Patrick quipped.

Fluxx has no set rules, so it would be impossible to teach someone how to play in Arabic. It’s quite difficult to do so in English…

As it turns out he just wanted the chair. He took it into the kitchen and banged around for a little while longer. Then he came out and took the little table from Rachel’s play area.

“I’m going to go check on him,” Andrew excused himself from the table. When he came back he informed us that Hatim had taken the door off the fridge and had taken the old seal off the door. While Andrew was back there he asked Andrew if he could boil a pot of water.

Our doorless fridge

Hooray! Rotting food!

We finished the round of Fluxx and then called it a night. Patrick is allergic to cigarette smoke and we were all getting headaches from it. Hatim has a problem and hasn’t quite grasped the concept that we have a problem with his problem. When we ask him to not smoke in our apartment he stops puffing on the cigarette but never puts it out. We even threw away the ashtray that was left in our apartment…which he somehow dug out of the trashcan and asked if, since we don’t smoke, he could have it.

So, the Masons left and we sat around waiting for our landlord to leave. Eventually he did, but he said he’d be back. He left our fridge all torn apart and I was hoping that he’d be back shortly. Instead he was gone for a few hours before he returned with the bowab from next door (since we don’t have one…still). They took the fridge door outside and were gone for a long time.

There was a knock on the door at 1:30 AM. Hatim was back, with the door. The old seal was back on the door and the whole door was greasy and rather banged up. He put it back on the fridge and then boiled the water on the stove and showed us how to melt the plastic seal with the scalding hot water so that we could stretch it out.

I was skeptical, but it worked. Hatim was able to stretch out the seal enough that it now suctions closed. Our food keeps a lot cooler now and it seems to be pretty airtight. Perhaps now we’ll be able to avoid both the cockroaches and the moldy Gouda. I’m glad that our fridge is fixed, really I am. Ecstatic, actually. I haven’t had a cockroach land on my head for like two whole days now. But really, did we have to stay up until 2 AM just so that our landlord could melt the seal on our fridge? Was that necessary?

He was laughing at us because we were both dog-tired.

“You want to go to bed?” he laughed.

“Yes, we do.” said Andrew.

“I’m not even tired yet,” said Hatim.

“What time do you usually go to bed?” asked Andrew.

“It’s Ramadan, so usually 4 or 5. I’ll still be up for a few hours.”

Thanks for fixing our fridge (in a temporary fashion), Hatim, and thanks for leaving before 4 AM. I don’t think I could have stayed up any later. Sorry we didn’t invite you to our party.

The bawwab conspiracy: the conclusion

As you all (should) remember, we had quite a conspiracy brewing about the nature, identity, and whereabouts of our shifty bawwab who stole 50 LE from us when we moved in to our apartment. We've finally tied up all the loose ends of the story and know what really happened.

Unfortunately it kind of has a boring ending. If only it was a joint Mossad/CIA plan.

Ibrahim, the younger bawwab, is actually the bawwab for the building next door and has nothing to do with the story.

After we told our landlord of the dastardly robbery, he immediately fired Khaled, who was the actual bawwab.

Since then the building hasn't had a bawwab. The gardener has been stepping in occasionally to take out the trash and clean the stairwell.

We didn't want Khaled to get fired; we just wanted our money back. Who knows what fate he suffered...

ArkhuS gouda

A few weeks ago we were craving a Mexican feast for dinner and rather than take a taxi all the way out to City Stars in Heliopolis, we tried our hand at making our own Egyptian-Mexican meal. Fortunately we brought a ton of Western Family fajita and enchilada seasoning packets with us, so we had the right spices. We had to improvise with the beans and tortillas, resorting to unseasoned fuul and the thinnest pita bread we could find (although we've since found flour tortillas at Seoudi and cheapo corn tortillas at Kimo's). Unfortunately we were completely missing sour cream and salsa (although I got my enchisagne fix at the Lewises a few days later). The only other thing we needed was some cheddar cheese.

Unfortunately, cheese is one of the more difficult foods to stomach here. It's mostly made from super salty goat milk and is generally pretty gross. However, as I learned in Italy and we relearned in Jordan, European cheese is great. Laughing Cow cheese is super cheap here and is one of our staples. Our other main cheese is gouda, which is vaguely like cheddar. So we headed down to Metro Market to find some great gouda for our meal.

When I got up to the cheese counter I carefully looked at all the different types of gouda, trying to find the cheapest one; some were stratospherically expensive! After I made my choice I asked the cheese cutter to get me half a kilo of the "cheapest gouda" (arkhuS gouda). He stared at me, waiting for me to continue with my sentence, and when I didn't continue he asked me what kind of cheese I wanted.

I repeated my request for the cheapest gouda, adding that I was a poor student. Again, he asked me what kind of cheese I wanted. Frustrated, I resorted to pointing and grunting, repeating "cheapest gouda, right there, the cheapest gouda."

He finally nodded his head and grabbed a cheese wheel to chop a chunk off of it. However, instead of grabbing the wheel I wanted, he dug under the other wheels of cheese to find some older, less pretty one - one that didn't deserve to be on display anymore.

I figured he was just trying to get rid of his old inventory, took the cheese from him, and went happily on my way. We had our Mexican meal and were content.

The next morning the cheese already had mold growing on it.

We figured the Egyptian heat, combined with our lame fridge that didn't close all the way, was the main factor for this quick destruction of cheese. A few days later, though, I figure out it wasn't. Heat wasn't to blame; the Egyptian Arabic dialect was.

In Egypt, though, all [dʒ] (j) sounds are pronouced as [g], so the Arabic name Jamal become Gamal, the word for beautiful, "jamiila," becomes "gamiila," and so on.

The word for "quality" in normal Arabic is جودة, or jouda. In Egypt that changes to "gouda." I was asking the cheeseman for the "cheapest quality," (arkhuS gouda) which is why he kept waiting for me to finish the sentence with the type of cheese I wanted. Eventually he just gave me the cheapest quality of gouda, or "arkhuS gouda gouda," which explains why he had to dig out the old gouda wheel for me.

I wonder what he was thinking... "This poor American student wants moldy cheese? Weird... Oh well..."

Voting from Egypt

Since November 4 is only 43 days away, getting an absentee ballot has been pretty high on our priority list. I tried voting absentee in 2004 on my mission but didn't get the ballot until mid December with a Christmas package, so we're really hoping to get the ballots moving our way sooner than that this time around.

NPR had a story last week that made it to their "Most e-mailed stories" podcast about all the problems with overseas voting in the past, slow postal service and impossible registration forms being the main complaints. They mentioned a new organization, the Overseas Vote Foundation, that finally went through all the voting requirements and made a website that fills out the needed forms for you. They're a non partisan organization, but the Obama-Biden camp has made some cool deal with them that lets them use their own custom campaign branding, CSS, and HTML layout at a special subdomain of their site. McCain hasn't, since he's apparently not pushing voter registration like Obama is.

So now we have both of our forms filled out and just need to get them sent out. Hopefully Utah e-mails empty ballots for absentee voters; if not, we can use ex-pat mail privileges here to get them faster (thanks Lewiseses!)

So, yeah. If you're trying to vote from Egypt (or anywhere else in the world), head on over to their site and fill out your registration form.

UPDATE: McCain is kind of working on his own version now, but it's not entirely working right now. These computers and internets are kinda tricky...

Water(melon) woes

It seems like our water has been turned off just about every other day this week. I’m always a little disappointed when I go to turn on the tap and nothing comes out, but I can deal with it. Usually. The water outages are pretty consistent—the water turns off around 9 AM and then comes back on around 5 or 6 PM (or later). Rachel and I have taken to doing full-day outings in order to avoid being home.

Being home is depressing; we’re constantly reminded, by the lack of dripping water, that we have no water. I never thought that I’d be happy about having a leaky faucet, but since it does leak and I know that it leaks I’ve come to accept the constant drip as a comfort of sorts. If it’s dripping we have water, and that makes me happy.

Yesterday (Wednesday) was one of those non-water days. Rachel and I woke up around 9 in the morning and went into the bathroom. No water. Again.

I texted Andrew to complain…er, inform him…about the situation, “Ma fii maya…again.”

He called back a few minutes later and suggested I go out and see if I could find the gardener.

“Just say, ‘Ma feesh maya fii shu’utna.’” He coached me.

Our gardener is acting as our bowab for now since we don’t have one. More on that later.

I got Rachel dressed while I practiced saying ‘Ma feesh maya fii shu’utna,’ aloud. I always get flustered when I try to actually speak Arabic to anyone so I find it helpful to practice scenarios before I encounter them. Unfortunately I had no idea what I would say to the gardener if he happened to respond. I couldn’t even think of how he would respond, so instead of thinking about what I would say next I just mumbled ‘Ma feesh maya fii shu’utna’ to Rachel.

When I found myself saying “Ma feesh shu’utna fii maya,” I began to feel a bit like Tom Hanks in the movie “The Terminal.” I knew that, even though I knew the phrase “There’s no water in our apartment” forwards and back, I’d end up walking up to the gardener and telling him “Our apartment is not in the water.”

Unfortunately we didn’t find the gardener outside, so I was left to wonder what to do next instead of what to say next. I’m not sure what I was thinking, but I decided to ask our next-door neighbours if they had water. Big mistake.

We try to avoid our neighbours at all cost. They are an older couple; the woman is Polish and the man is English. We first met the woman, Anna, while her husband was out of town. She was completely intoxicated (she could hardly stand up) and had come to ask for some matches. She took Andrew into her apartment, gave him a tour (and one of her paintings).

“I am…eccentric, crazy lady. I paint. I listen loud music. I drink.”

That’s what she told him. All we can do is believe her. We thought perhaps her husband would be a proper English gentleman (I have no idea why we would think this, given her state), but he’s not. He reminds me much more of the thugs on 101 Dalmatians, if anything else. They both kind of scare me.

But I didn’t think of that until I rang the doorbell. And then it was everlastingly too late. I could already hear Anna coming. I suppose I could have run and hid, but I didn’t.

“Kheellloooo, my sweeetiesssh!” she spat at us. The smell of liquor on her breath was almost too much to bear. And it was only 9 o’clock in the morning.

“I was just wondering,” I stammered (I’m not used to working with drunken people), “We don’t have water…do you have water…?”

“Ahhh, da! Ze water ish bik problem. Bik, bik, problem. I maybe khelpju!”

She thrust some water bottles into my arms and turned around, shaking her derrière.

“You khan wasssh her…” she told me, indicating her rear end, “Babiessh always messhing zher.”

Again, the pointing and shaking of her backside.

“Khom innnn!” she sang, grabbing my arm and pulling me inside.

“Actually, I have company coming soon and I need to clean up my…”

“I don’t sink so!” she interrupted. But no matter what she thought, it was true. My visiting teachers were due at 11 o’clock and I did have to clean up my…apartment.

“You will have tea!” she commanded.

“Oh, I don’t drink tea,” I said. Always a touchy subject with Russians and Arabs, apparently beverages are a touchy subject with Poles as well. I suppose that can be expected since Poland was part of the USSR—their cultures are sure to have assimilated a little.

“No tea?” she asked, gravely offended.

“Uh, no. Spasiba. We don’t drink tea in my religion, but thanks.”

“Coffee then!”

“Uh, no, I don’t drink that either. Eto nilzya v moem tzirkye.” I tried Russian, hoping that she spoke it, again banking on the fact that she was already a grown woman when the USSR was alive and well. Besides, Polish is similar to Russian, so surely she’d understand part of it.

She sighed, slurred something in Russian. And after offering me both coffee and tea several other times, showing me her extensive collection of teas, and even offering me some liquor, we settled on a glass of water.

Anna was still not satisfied, however, and wanted to give me more. She brought out some watermelon, precut, from her kitchen. Rachel dug in. Juice was flying all over the place, drenching Rachel’s shirt and dying it pink, falling on the carpet, spilling on the couch, dripping on the tile.

“I’m sorry,” I said, “Rachel, do be careful…”

“It’s alright!” Anna sang, now thoroughly mixing Russian and English, “You will have some.”

She thrust the bowl in my face. I took a piece and ate it, noticing an obtusely odd flavor that screamed, “I’ve been sitting out all night! Don’t eat me!” After that I tried to discourage Rachel from eating anymore, but with Anna and her husband “Uncle” encouraging Rachel, it was a losing battle. Rachel ate about half the bowl of watermelon.

And then they brought out the chocolates.

“IshSwissh shocolate! Cannot buy in shtore!” Anna informed me. “Have, have!”

“I, uh, don’t eat chocolate either,” I told her, “I’m allergic…”

She studied my face for a moment and then pulled one arm in front of her face while contorting the other arm behind her back. “I know!” she exclaimed, “You yoga!?”

“Yes,” I said tentatively, “I do yoga…”

Not that I’ve actually done it much here. I need to get back into it, but that involves figuring out how to work the portable DVD player and I don’t have a mat to put on the wood floor and doing yoga on a wood floor just sounds ouchy.

“Me, too!” said Anna. She ran over to her (rather extensive) DVD collection and brought me an armful of yoga DVDs, “See?”

Yes, indeed I did see.

“Yoga means no tea, no coffee, no drinks, no candy. That’s why we’re healthy!” she slurred.

Uh-huh.

Rachel was sifting through the pile of imported Swiss chocolates on the table.

“Eat, eat!” Anna urged.

I helped Rachel sift through the chocolates, avoiding all cappuccino flavored ones, until we found a nice, plain milk chocolate. After Rachel had stuffed herself full of chocolate and claimed a little stuffed Eyore as her own (“Take, take! She likes it, take!”), and laden down with bottles of water, we left Anna’s apartment. Finally. I had 6 minutes until my visiting teachers arrived.

At least we found out from Anna’s husband (Uncle, we’re to call him) that there’s a pump broken somewhere between the Nile and Road 84 or something, and they turn it off and reroute the water so that they can work on it. It should be fixed soon (insha’allah). That’s about all he said to us before he disappeared somewhere in the house. He was about as drunk as Anna. Almost, but not quite.

Rachel was bouncing off the walls while my visiting teachers, Sister Lindsey and Sister Hall, were here. I suppose she had too much watermelon and chocolate. As soon as they left I fed Rachel lunch and put her down for a nap. She, uncharacteristically, calmed down immediately and fell asleep within five minutes of being put down.

I ate some breakfast, finally, and started cleaning up a bit. Then I read, took a nap, read some more, cleaned some more…and Rachel still hadn’t stirred. I went in to wake her up. She was very groggy and clingy and wanted to nurse right away.

I tried to make her stand up while I got ready to nurse, but she fell over and started crying and writhing on the floor. I picked her back up and she nursed for about two minutes. Then she looked at me and started gagging.

“What’s wrong, baby?” I asked. “Are you choking on something? Let me see in your…oh…gross…”

Rachel threw up all over me. I had a big puddle of throw up on my lap, which was quickly running down my leg and onto the floor. Rachel started gagging again. I didn’t want to be her throw up bowl again, so I quickly put her on the floor to finish throwing up while I tried to think about what to do.

She was holding my hands and shaking, puking her guts out every few minutes. We were both covered in throw up, and still the half-digested watermelon just kept on coming. Finally, Rachel let go of my hands, sat down (yes, in the throw up), and sighed a big sigh.

“Feel better?” I asked. She nodded and then, believe it or not, asked if she could keep nursing.

She threw a fit when I told her she’d have to wait while I cleaned up a bit, but there was no way I was nursing her in this condition. I peeled off her stinky, wet clothes, and then took off my own throw-up covered clothes, and we ran into the bathroom. I put her in the sink and turned on the tap. Nothing. Came. Out.

I had totally forgotten that we had no running water. Luckily we believe in baby wipes. Rachel and I got a baby wipe sponge bath, which was sufficient, but not perfect. I threw a towel over her throw up and sopped it up the best I could. We put some clothes on and then we sat down to nurse until Andrew got home.

“I feel so gross!” I told him, “But the water won’t turn on for a few hours!”. I still had bits of watermelon between my toes and Rachel smelled sour—I’m sure I did, too.

He called the Lewises who said we could come over and use their shower (bless them), which we did, and then they fed us dinner (bless them again). It felt so nice to be clean and de-throw-up-ified, surrounded by happy people who’d had water all day long, and full of, you guessed it, hamburgers (this time from Maadi House)!