We're still having fun

Not to be undone by our horrendous day yesterday, we were determined to do something really fun today. We finally woke up just before 11:00—Rachel was a hyper and grumpy at the same time, about the complete opposite that she was yesterday.

She was amazing yesterday! She was quiet and calm in the car. She sat down in her own seat and didn’t fight against her seatbelt at all. She read books to herself, more specifically, she read her animals book to herself. Each page has a question that goes something like, “What does this animal say?” and then you lift the flap and it says what the animal says. She can’t read yet, but she was turning the page, putting her hands in her question position, lifting the flap, and then making the appropriate animal noise. It was the cutest thing I’d ever seen in my whole life…until I saw her doodle herself to sleep. She was drawing on her MagnaDoodle and kept drifting off so I invited her to put her head in my lap. She snuggled down in my lap and kept drawing until she had completely fallen asleep. And she was like that the whole day. She didn’t whine about anything, napped when she was supposed to, and was quite the perfect child.



She didn’t even go in her diaper that often. We couldn’t have her in underwear because there’s really no where to stop for bathroom breaks and she doesn’t really like grown-up potties, but she only went pee once the entire day and it was at the monastery so I was able to change her. Other than that she held her business until late, late into the night when she finally pooped, while crying, in her diaper. It was just a little bitty accidental bit that she let out and she was quite upset about it, so we changed her right away and then she settled down for the night.

This morning she got up and did the biggest poopie in the whole world—because she had held yesterday’s in all day. That’s not all she was holding in yesterday. She was also holding in all her naughtiness, and boy did she let that out when she woke up. She ended up in timeout far more than any child should in just a couple of hours, in addition to wetting in her underwear three times. I was about ready to pull my hair out.

So Andrew called the Lewises and asked if they wouldn’t mind letting us into Maadi House so that we could go swimming. Rachel and I were still grumping at each other when we left the house; I’m pretty sure he feeling outnumbered and wishing for more testosterone in the family. We were making him miserable, but after we got in the pool we all cheered up some.





Not as good as snorkeling in the Red Sea, but still cool and refreshing. Besides, who doesn’t have a good time with the Lewises? Kevan and the girls stayed to go swimming with us; it was nice to have Emma, Megan, and Jessica to help entertain Rachel. We stayed for an hour or so after they left and it got too cold to stay in the pool. After we were dried off we let Rachel play on the playground for a while.



It actually ended up being a nice day, even for one that started out so horribly.

Notel Hurghada

Our plans for Eid al Fitr, the 3 day vacation after Ramadan, included heading out to the once-fishing-village-gone-resort town of Hurghada, which lies along the Red Sea coastline. We were looking forward to getting out of the business of Cairo, resting on the beach and snorkeling.

We booked our trip 10 days ago, the van through Ali—a local travel agent, the hotel through Agoda—a rip-off online booking agency. We noticed that our vouchers said only 1 adult had booked the room and talked to Agoda about it. They said we could talk to the hotel about it or that they could fix it for $80. We talked to the hotel about it and they said that they would fix the problem for free. We talked to Agoda again and they said that if we had any problems checking in when we got there to give them a call. We thought we were in pretty good hands, having the promise of the hotel that they’d fix the problem. Clearly we had wanted a room for two people, not one.

So we got up on Tuesday in good faith, and joined the Masons and Sharps in our rented van. It was supposed to be an eleven-seater, which I suppose it was, but when I first looked inside all I counted in the back was 6. They had installed the backseat in the trunk of the van and were putting our luggage on top of it. We convinced them to put the luggage on top of the van—since we needed all nine seats for our group of nine, go figure—and they did so, although grudgingly.

When we had seen to it that the luggage was tied down securely enough we filed into the van and were off across the desert.

Our first stop was at St. Anthony’s monastery. That was definitely the highlight of our vacation, which isn’t saying much since our vacation was, as Sara put it, crap-tastic. As far as monasteries go, though, St. Anthony’s is pretty cool, but we’ll talk about that later… After touring the monastery with an overly-friendly monk named Ruwis and getting some pita burgers at the Canteen we were on the road again.

The Red Sea from our van

Pita burger

Shortly before sunset, we arrived in Hurghada tired, cramped, and in need of a soft bed. After driving around for a half hour or so trying to find our hotel, our drivers dropped us off at the curb and zoomed off into the sunset. We bustled in to check in to our rooms.

The kids had all had it, so Andrew, Patrick, and Tanner went up to the checkout desk while Melissa, Lora, and I tended to Finn, Abby, and Rachel. Finn was fussy, Rachel kept running around and touching everything breakable, and Abby wanted to eat. We were all pretty frazzled and were really looking forward to those nice, soft beds I referred to earlier.

And then the bad news came. The hotel would not allow us to check in to our rooms because we had only reserved the room for one person. Even though there were two beds in each room. Even though we had talked to them on the phone and emailed them about our situation and they promised it would be taken care of…they said we were out of luck.

We could, however, tack on 80 euro a night and they would allow us to stay. Since we paid $94 per night an extra 80 euro a night didn’t sound like a good deal to us.

We called Agoda and they said there was nothing they could do because any changes to the itinerary had to be completed at least 10 days before arrival. Never mind the fact that we had booked our rooms 10 days before arrival. Never mind the fact that we had talked with Agoda agents more than once in the week before we departed trying to sort out this mess. Never mind the fact that we were told that if we had a problem checking in we could call them. They were completely unwilling to help out.

We talked with management again. The manager said that there were no open rooms in the whole city so our only choice was to pay the extra 80 euro a night or leave.

So we left.

Patrick called Ali and he was able to get a hold of the drivers before they were too far away. Luckily the van was only about 100 km away and they were able to turn around to pick us up. Unfortunately in order to cross the desert back into Cairo you need security clearance. Ours was not due until Friday, but since we no longer had a place to stay we were left with no choice but to head out illegally across the desert.

Fairly miserable, we sat outside of the hotel with our luggage, waiting for the van, and eating bread and jam we had purchased for dinner at a little market.

The van arrived at around 7:30 and we piled in, once more, for our 5 hour trek across the desert. Rachel was a gem once again and fell asleep soon after we got settled—in the front seats this time; much more leg room. We all joked with bated breath about how we’d get through the first checkpoint.

“How do you even go about bribing someone?” Melissa wondered aloud while Tanner suggested that we hold a cell phone flashlight up to our faces and tell scary stories. “Have you heard the one about the one-eyed police officer?” he began.

All too soon we arrived at the first checkpoint. We pulled over. The police asked for ID from our drivers and then for our passports. They talked back and forth and then Andrew started talking with them as well. The drivers went into the office and talked with the guards and then came back out and got Andrew.

Waiting outside our van at the checkpoint

Nervously, he followed the guard back to the office. We could see him through the window. He was talking. Then he was listening. Then he was talking. Then he was listening again.

Back in the van, we were speculating about what was going on. Was he attempting that bribe we had discussed? Was he succeeding? Was he going to be arrested?

He was in there for a long, long time. Finally we decided that we should send someone else in so that Andrew didn’t have to take the heat alone. Tanner was kind enough to volunteer. He walked into the office and joined Andrew. They were both in there for quite a while longer until they rushed out, both looking a little embarrassed.

They came back to the van, talked to the drivers, and then came back to fill in the details for the rest of us.

Turns out, while we were worrying about torture and other things, Andrew and Tanner were having a great time joking around with the police, especially Andrew. He had already told the guards all about our dilemma and why we had tourist visas instead of student visas and what we were doing in the country and why and everything else when Tanner walked in.

“Oh, he’s with us,” Andrew told the guards, “He doesn’t speak very much Arabic. We can say whatever we want about him.”

The guards thought that was pretty funny and they all started joking around again until they remembered that they had been watching a movie, a fact that they pointed out to Tanner and Andrew.

“Have you ever seen this movie?” they asked, “It’s an American one!”

At that point, the gun scene led into a rather indecent sex-filled scene.

“I have never seen such a film in all my life!” Andrew managed to squeak out in nervous fusHa.

The guards busted up laughing and Andrew and Tanner hightailed it out of there. We were informed that we would need a police escort to Cairo and were detained at the checkpoint for what seemed like forever (but was probably only an hour and a half or so) until our escort vehicle arrived. Then we drove 55 stinking kilometers an hour behind police trucks, stopping every half hour or so to change escorts. The ride was tedious and all the stopping disturbed our sleeping babies—we had to quiet them down every time we stopped. Finally, we got behind an escort that drove 90 km/hr, but that only lasted for about 10 minutes. Then we were brought to a grinding halt and a police officer got out of the truck and talked with our driver behind the van. He then hopped in the van with us and we dropped him off at the next town and were free of our police escorts.

I don’t know what went on behind the van, but I have a feeling it was more than a friendly cigarette break.

I don’t know that I care what happened back there because we were off like a rocket after that. We arrived in Cairo around 3:30 in the morning, completely exhausted and utterly disappointed, our crap-tastic vacation drawn to an anticlimactic close. We saw nothing, did nothing, and didn’t even get a t-shirt!

St. Anthony's Monastery

I wish that I could have visited the monastery 100 years ago—before they made an entrance in the wall. It would have been so much more interesting to enter the monastery through a basket pulled up over the wall instead of through a doorway. At least, I think so. Instead we just got to look at the big pulley system they had rigged up to take people in and out of the monastery. They seriously built a wall, without an entrance, all around the monastery.

Nancy and Rachel in front of the monastery

Rachel reeling in the goods

As boring as it was, we went in through the door like any normal person would, and were greeted by a very friendly monk who took us to the bookstore. We had to wait for a tour group to leave before we could go into the monastery. He explained to us about his hat and the jobs they do in the monastery. They provide free help to anyone who needs it. They grow their own food. They make their own clothes. They do everything. Then he took pictures with all of our families, and St. Anthony, of course. The poor man was so confused and just couldn’t keep our families straight. He kept confusing couples and children and who belonged to whom. It didn’t really help that we kept switching kids on him. Rachel was having an independent day and didn’t want me to hold her hand, although she was fine with holding anyone else’s hand.

Tanner and Rachel

He was a little disappointed that we didn’t buy anything from the bookstore, but there wasn’t anything that we really wanted. We weren’t exactly in the niche of customers they were after. He still took us on a tour, anyway.

The monastery was really quite interesting. They got attacked a lot back in the day so they had, not only the doorless wall to protect them, but a building accessible only through a drawbridge on the fourth floor that they would retreat into when under attack.

Draw bridge



The chapel was probably my favorite part. At one point in time the monastery had been besieged and all the monks were killed. Whoever had defeated the monastery (pretty easy and cowardly to defeat unarmed monks, I think) went into the chapel and covered up all the artwork…I’m not sure exactly the medium…perhaps it was fresco…

A group of Italian restorers spent four years uncovering the original paint. One of the last pictures of Mary nursing the baby Jesus is in this chapel, along with some other interesting artwork.

The monk, Ruis, had us take off our shoes and join him in a moment of “silence and meditation” when we entered the chapel. Somehow all our babies started protesting the silence at the same time. I don’t know how they know but they know. It was kind of embarrassing. Tanner had to take Abby out and I almost had to leave with Rachel.

After the chapel we went to the spring that the monks use for water and were even brave enough to try some and then decided to call it good. We were all hot and tired and wanted to get to Hurghada (I’m not sure why), but before we left we decided to use the WC. There are two toilets for public use in the monastery and we went in shifts. After everyone else had been, I ended up holding Abby and waiting outside the restrooms for Tanner and Lora while Rachel ran around the courtyard.

Rachel ran off to find Andrew and I followed her until he knew that she was now his responsibility and then went to wait over by the restrooms again. A big tour had just arrived and they were being rather noisy—I wanted Abby to stay asleep. So I ended up being quite far away from everyone else. I watched the tour pass through, and noticed that Patrick, Melissa, Finn, Andrew, and Rachel followed them.

I started to follow them, but they had gone out of view and by the time I caught up to the tour, they were nowhere in sight so I just went back to wait for the Sharps. After all, I had their baby.

They came out of the restroom and we discussed where everyone else would have disappeared off to. We looked around for a bit; Tanner went off to the van and Lora and I looked around the entrance. They really were nowhere.

Finally Andrew appeared saying that they were in the clinic taking advantage of the free medical help.

First aid sign

Melissa had a bit of heat exhaustion and had nearly fainted. The monk taking care of her was very excited to have a patient (he doesn’t get out much) and gave her some anti-diarrheatic pills (I don’t know why) and some juice and water to help get her hydrated. She choked on the water and started coughing, which made him even more concerned. It was kind of neat, though. I’ve never been in a monastery clinic before. It was…quaint. I’m just happy that Melissa was only having heat stroke and not a real stroke! They did take good care of her, really, although they wouldn’t let her use Lora’s rehydration packet.

The monastery medical center

It’s too bad we were in a rush to get away from the monastery and off to Hurghada. There was so much to still to see at the monastery and Hurghada was such a waste. If you ever get the chance, I’d highly recommend a visit.

Miracle of Miracles

There has to be a reason we weren’t able to stay in Hurghada. Kind of like the time we weren’t able to get our plane tickets with a layover in Lebanon…and then the airport was bombed a few days before we would have been due to arrive there. I don’t know that we’ll ever know the reason for the Hurghada mishap, but I’m sure there is one. For now I’ll share a few miracles that we’ve recognized recently in our life.

First, our car. Our sad, sad little car. It was having some serious problems starting, running, and stopping the last few months we were in Utah. Everything seemed to be problematic but we really didn’t want to have to buy a new car or fix it when we’d be leaving in such a short time. So we just let it suffer. Besides when we went into the auto shop for an estimate the mechanic asked us the make and model of our car and then said, “Was it you that I heard drive up? Just junk it.” It was that bad.

We couldn’t junk it quite yet though, so we kept using it. In the beginning of July we were getting ready for a family vacation and packed up our car to head to Grover with the rest of Andrew’s family. When we had family prayer that morning we prayed that our car would make it there and back safely (and without completely breaking down). We drove to Andrew’s parents’ house to pick up some more gear/people and when we parked in the driveway there was a loud bang and a hiss. Andrew leapt out of the car to see what had happened…a river of fluid was running down the driveway.

So our prayers hadn’t been answered exactly as we’d specified—since we weren’t able to actually take our car to Grover—but at least it had broken down before we left. We were able to pack our stuff into Karen’s car and take that instead.

Our next little miracle happened on the way over to Egypt. We had packed a number of liquids in our checked luggage. I’m always a little nervous about doing this because I’m afraid the bottle or container will break and leak all over everything we own, so I always pack liquids in ziplock bags. We brought along some vanilla and maple flavoring this trip because that kind of thing is hard to come by out here. I, of course, sealed them in ziplock bags and we stuffed them in one of our suitcases, not really paying attention where since we were up packing and repacking until all hours of the morning the night before we left.

When we arrived one of our suitcases smelled really, really good. Maple syrup good.

“Oh, no!” I moaned when we’d figured out that the maple smell really was maple, “It’s probably leaked all over everything!”

Maple flavoring is dark as sin and, although I wasn’t worried about it getting on our white clothes (there’s always bleach, right?), I was worried about it getting on other things. We opened the suitcase and started pulling things out to inspect them.

Indeed, the maple flavoring had leaked, but the damage was minimal. We had packed some of Rachel’s prefolds around it and only one of those suffered any seepage. What a wonderful blessing—I couldn’t care less about what gets spilled on Rachel’s prefolds. I didn’t even bother bleaching it because it’s already stained with stuff far worse than maple flavoring. Besides, Rachel smelled good enough to eat for a whole month before the smell finished washing out!

And that brings us to today when Andrew’s computer mysteriously connected to the internet. We’ve only been able to get onto wireless internet once before and it was only if you sat in one corner of the house with the computer tilted a certain way and it only lasted for like 5 minutes. Other than that we’ve been in an internet black hole.

Andrew opened his computer when we got home from Maadi House, though, and email alerts stared popping up on his screen. Rachel came over and started banging on the keyboard and ended up opening a chat window with Richard. He didn’t answer her \\\\|||||lkjpppjupol;;;lpoe,jLKADFGP message, but we noticed that Reid was also online, so we let Rachel type a new w3(7^R*&^ksfohpaj [[[[[[[[[[[ls;;; message to him. He, of course, responded.

Who can resist a grandchild?

He was able to fill us in on the condition of Grandpa Frank, who was due for open heart surgery #2 in just an hour. He hasn’t been doing well since his first open heart surgery a few weeks ago and they recently found a growth the size of his heart sitting behind his heart so they have to crack his ribs open (again) and remove it.

Reid said that he had to get off to the hospital and said goodbye to us. We were just typing our farewell response when the internet kicked out again. So, unfortunately, we won’t know how Grandpa Frank’s surgery went for a while, but it was nice to be able to know about the situation so that we could pray more specifically for him as a family. I can only imagine how miserable he’s feeling. (My dad was in the hospital for like 5 days after his open heart surgery and on Sunday last week Grandpa Frank had already been in for like 16 or 18 days. Yuck.)

With all those miracles happening in our life, I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a big reason we weren’t supposed to go snorkeling in Hurghada this weekend. Maybe we would have been eaten by sharks or gotten lice from the sheets or been kidnapped by terrorists or worse. We may never know the exact reason our vacation went awry, but I do know that the Lord is control of every detail of our life and that He works miracles every day.

And no one spoke English

It’s no secret that my Arabic is less than phenomenal, especially to me. And to anyone who talks to me.

So when I have to go out and run errands on my own I get a little bit nervous about what I’ll encounter. Today Andrew sent Rachel and me to the downtown campus to get the reading packets for his class on Palestinian issues. He had the readings for the first two weeks but the readings for the rest of the semester weren’t in the copy center until this week.

Since we’re going out of town tomorrow and he needs to do next week’s reading while we’re on vacation he needed to get the readings today. Unfortunately he was due to be stuck on the new campus all day long, so instead Rachel and I went to pick them up for him.

First I was worried about the metro.

“Don’t worry,” said Andrew, “You don’t even have to say anything. Just hand the ticket guy a pound and he’ll give you a ticket.”

With that aside, I started worrying about what I’d do at the copy center.

“Don’t worry,” said Andrew, “The guy who works there speaks really great English. You shouldn’t have a problem.”

With that aside, I started worrying exactly about how to get out of the metro station (Sadat station is rather confusing—it took Andrew two weeks to find how to exit out by AUC campus) and from there to the copy center. Andrew drew me some fabulous maps that worked kind of like Snake. He ran out of paper so he continued at the top of the paper; it was kind of hard to follow, but really a fabulous map. I’ve never been any good at Snake, anyway.

He even wrote out his course name so that I wouldn’t forget it. Isn’t he thoughtful?

This morning Rachel woke me up bright and early and we got ready to go. I wanted to get downtown while Andrew was between classes so that I could phone him, just in case. And of course there was a just-in-case.

I survived the first just-in-case on my own but only because all it took on my part was repetitive use of the word no. I had Rachel strapped in the front carrier for ease of transportation. I can’t even begin to imagine what taking a stroller on the metro would be like. To my understanding, babies are free to take on the metro, whether they’re in a stroller or not. We’ve never paid for Rachel before and I’ve never seen anyone else pay for a baby.

I walked up to the window and handed the man a pound. He stared back at me.

“Wahid, min fudlik,” I said, “One, please.”

Again he just stared at me. So I repeated myself, “Wahid…”

This time he shook his head and held up two fingers, “Ithnein,” he said, “Two.”

“Laay?” I asked.

He caught on that I didn’t speak a lot of Arabic so he spoke simply, “Inti wa hia.” He pointed from me to Rachel.

“La,” I told him, “Wahid, bas. Hia tifla.” No. Just one. She’s a baby.

“Ithnein,” he insisted.

“La, wahid.”

We went back and forth for a while—long enough to miss a train or two—until he started laughing and handed me a ticket. I didn’t thank him and went on my way.

We got to downtown and made our way to the bookstore without a problem. When we go there, however, the man who speaks good English wasn’t in. His assistant was, though. She speaks English about as well as I speak Arabic, I think, and we struggled together.

Somehow we were able to communicate what packet I wanted to purchase but she wouldn’t sell it to me and wanted me to fill out a form…in Arabic. So I called Andrew to translate for us. It ended up happily enough. She copied it off for us right then while Rachel and I played our own little version of “I Spy.”

I had just finished pointing out everything that was blue and was in the middle of pointing out everything yellow when the non-English speaking copy center worker came up and asked me if I wanted “everything” for the semester.

“Koula haga?” she asked.

There’s no way I could have told her anything else, so I just affirmed, “Ayawa.”

In fifteen minutes, Rachel and I were out of there. I felt like I was going to fall over. I was carrying the equivalent of 3 or 4 reams of paper, the diaper bag, and Rachel, who by this time was a very sleepy baby. The walk to the metro was short but taxing. I probably looked exhausted when I stumbled onto the car because a kind, elderly man kicked his seat companion out and offered it to me. He had to shoo a few people away before I finally made it back to him and sat down, with Rachel and the diaper bag (full of paper) on my lap, and a bag of paper between my feet.

The nice old man tried to make conversation. But he didn’t speak English, so our conversation died off fairly quickly after a few niceties. Rachel fell asleep about half way home. It was quite a relaxing ride. I was surrounded by sleeping, elderly gentlemen with a sleeping baby on my lap. Probably the best metro ride I’ve had so far. Maybe, if I learned more Arabic, I could actually stand to go out and do things on my own more often.

The Citadel

Finally, after weeks of postponing and last-minute cancellations, we made it out to the Citadel. There really is a lot to see there, which surprised me because when we went with Kirk we did the Mohammed Ali mosque and then left. Who knew there was so much more?

The Mohammed Ali mosque

We left our house around noon—because we had to wait for Miss Rachel to use the potty—and caught a taxi because we didn’t feel like sitting on the Metro all day, nor did we have time to do so. When we told the driver that we wanted to go to the Citadel he told us it would be 60 LE ($12). Andrew offered him 20 LE ($4), which he refused initially but eventually (and happily) took.

He acted like Andrew’s best friend the whole ride. They chatted it up and the taxi driver was amiable the whole time. That is an interesting aspect of Egyptian culture to me. We cut the driver’s fare in thirds and no one got upset. We were able to forget that he had tried to rip us off and he wasn’t bothered that we hadn’t paid him what he wanted. Obviously he was trying to overcharge us since he so willingly went with 20 LE, but still, I imagined that he’d be a little miffed that Andrew wouldn’t budge up from 20 LE to 30 or 40.

It was a nice ride out there—definitely nice to arrive and not feel tired from standing in the metro. We walked up to the first entrance to go through the first set of metal detectors. There was a policeman loading his lovely semi-automatic/machine/really big gun (not the regular kind you see on the street). I watched him do it while we walked up. Then he started twirling it around and pointing it at things. When we got up to him he stuck out his hand and started flirting with Rachel—tapping her cheeks and pulling her hair—all the while waving that gun, which he had just loaded, around in the air.

I was holding my breath the whole time, but we managed to make it through the first wave of security without blowing Rachel’s head off.

We then made our way to the ticket booth and purchased our tickets, both at the student rate. When we got to the gate, however, we ran into some problems. They have x-ray machines and metal detectors everywhere that you have to walk through/send stuff through before you can go into any major attraction.

“Put your bags through x-ray,” the guard instructed Andrew.

“Don’t put baby through x-ray,” the guard instructed me.

Thanks, Mr. Guard, because I was just about to, but then I didn’t. Phew!

We breezed through security, even though we set off the metal detectors, and then presented our tickets to the guard at the gate. He asked for student ID cards, which wouldn’t be a problem except that I don’t have a student ID card. Andrew showed his and explained that I was his wife.

The tourist policeman said that in that case, we were okay to go through. The guard did not agree. He wanted me to go back and pay regular fare because I didn’t have ID.

Andrew told him that I left my ID card at home, which was a lie…unless he’s referring to my BYU ID card, in which case that is very much at home, and rather inaccessible since it’s at home in America. But Andrew assured him I’m a student, which was a lie…unless he’s referring to the fact that I, like he, am on a student visa and therefore officially only have to pay the student price at tourist attractions.

The tourist policeman and the guard bickered back and forth for a while. Eventually the policeman won and we got to go in. I’m guessing he won because he had a gun and the guard only had a wimpy little stick thing.

I was only too happy to be done with security for the day. Men waving weapons around and yelling at each other tends to make me a little jumpy. I don’t know why…

Our first stop was Mohammed Ali’s mosque. We started walking over the threshold, completely forgetting to remove our shoes, and were already well on our way into the courtyard when the fashion police stopped us. The fashion police are women who sit outside the mosque and hand out scarves and robes to immodestly dressed women.

I’m always a little wary around them because last time I came to this particular mosque they made me tie a scarf around my waist because they insisted that they could see my “underwear.” I was a little miffed because I was in long pants and long sleeves in the middle of July and they made me wear a scarf around my waist just because I was wearing a layered shirt…and they were letting women in shorts and t-shirts go in the mosque just fine. I looked down at my outfit to make sure I was modest. I was pretty sure I was and didn’t really want to walk around with a nasty been-used-on-a-million-other-people-before-you scarf wrapped around some part of my body again.

“Please remove your shoes,” they said.

I’m so glad that they waited until we’d walked past them and were already inside to tell us this when they could have told us that at the threshold when we were right in front of their face. Oh, well. At least I passed their fashion requirements with flying colours this time around…except for the shoes, of course. How did we forget out about our shoes?

We let Rachel out to run amuck in the courtyard while we composed some [of what we hope are] artistic shots. We’ve been trying to learn more about photography and have been fiddling with all the numbers on our camera but we really have no clue what we’re doing (F-stop, huh?) so if you have any tips, feel free to send them our way.

In the courtyard...

Artistic shots of the courtyard

When we had been standing on the sun beaten marble floor so long that we couldn’t stand it, we went inside the mosque. There were a ton of people inside so Rachel stuck pretty close by, although she did run around a little bit…in circles…around me. I remember doing that to my mom and she’d say, “Stop it! You’re making me dizzy!” and I’d be like, “Stop what, mom?” as I ran around her 20 more times.

Now I kind of see my mom’s point. Rachel wasn’t really making me dizzy but I could hardly walk anywhere because she’d be behind me one minute and in front of me the next, pulling my hand around behind my back so that I’d have to spin around as well, and just being underfoot in general. I don’t think she realized how difficult she was being, just as I didn’t notice it when I was in her shoes. Kids just have a lot of energy and less ability to contain it.

Inside the mosque

It was nice to be back outside. Rachel has noticed that if she yells in a large room she can make her voice carry and she was just starting to experiment with happy little shrieks when Andrew said it was time to go. We went outside and put our shoes back on and then looked out over the city. It was a pretty clear day and we were able to see out to the pyramids. Rachel was snatched away by a guard whose job it was to keep people away from the wall…he took her right to the edge of the wall, of course, and showed her how far down it was. I’m glad he was doing his job of protecting people from approaching the perilous wall (that actually looks pretty sturdy), although I can’t understand why he’d take a squirmy 1 year old right to the edge. I suppose I don’t have to understand everything, though.

Putting shoes back on

View of Cairo and the Pyramids from the Citadel

Rachel and the guard

We let Rachel play for a while after she got away from the guard. She was terrified of him and kept trying to run away, which made him quite upset.

“Laaaaaaay?” he moaned melodramatically while wringing his hands at the heavens, “Why?”

Because you’re “stranger danger.” Pure and simple. As a general rule little children don’t like being snatched away from their parents. That’s why.

What's this?

Rachel, just say no!

She needed some time to unwind from her traumatic guard experience, but when she started playing with discarded cigarette butts, we decided it was time to find a better activity. So we headed over to the Military Museum.

Outside the National War Museum

It looked pretty interesting at first. Rachel loved the statues of the horses out front. We let her sit on one and she pulled the same pose that Ibrahim Pasha was in on his bronze horse. I don’t know what it is with her and mimicking statues, but it’s a rather endearing trait.

Ibrahim Pasha...

...and Rachel Pasha

The museum looked pretty promising, too, until we realized that they had already closed and locked all of the exhibit rooms—it’s Ramadan so they close at 2 PM—and we could only see the exhibits in the hallway. There wasn’t anything to harm by touching, as far as I could tell, since everything was in glass cases or up on ledges higher than Rachel’s head, but the guards kept telling her not to touch anything. To keep her from being yelled at I told her to fold her arms and look with her eyes, which she did for a very long time until she couldn’t contain her energy any longer and had a complete meltdown in some random hallway.

Meltdown

Two guards rushed into the hall from somewhere to see what all the screaming was about.

Since there really was nothing to touch in that hall—there were a few paintings on the wall and some busts of some generals—they didn’t mind too much that she was wailing and banging her head on the floor. We left as fast as we could, but not without noting some wonderful signs that were lost in translation and some exhibits that didn’t even make it into the museum. All in all, it wasn’t very interesting and we were happy to leave. I wonder if it would have been more interesting if we had been able to actually see any of the exhibits…

Pretty girl on fake horse

Walking around the museum

Rejected exhibit?

Social contrast from the Citadel - Al Azhar park (green) in the middle of the City of the Dead (tomb squatters)

In the open display, just outside the museum exit, we sat in the shade of a Soviet fighter jet while I nursed Rachel until she calmed down.

Eating in the comfortable shade of a Soviet MIG fighter that managed to not get destroyed in by Israel in 1967

After calming down and relaxing, we packed up and went to catch a cab, which was a joke. The first guy we came across was sitting in front of the entrance to the Citadel. Usually we ignore those guys, but he approached us, so we told him we wanted to go to Maadi and that’s we’d already pay 20 LE.

“That’s a fair price,” he told us, “You can catch a cab on the street for that, I’m sure, but I am going to wait here for some rich tourists.” He rubbed his fingers together to gesture to us that he was after a lot more money than our measly, but fair, 20 LE.

That’s why we ignore the cab drivers right outside touristy places. It’s much better to just catch a taxi on the street. And we did soon after our run-in with Mr. Rip-off.

Our taxi driver said 20 LE was fine. He was an interesting driver—we had to wait in the cab while he filled up his natural gas tank. A lot of the taxis here have been retrofitted with tanks that use natural gas. His used both natural gas and regular gas. I’m not sure how that works, but it’s kind of interesting.

My favorite (read: least favorite) part of the whole ride was when he drove off the freeway in reverse down a one-way entrance ramp. I just about peed my pants, and here I was all worried about Rachel peeing hers! And then, just to top things off, our taxi driver said that 20 LE was a fair price but he wanted baksheesh. I can’t believe he wanted us to tip him after he almost killed us all.

But we did make it home safe and sound. No one peed their pants. No one got in a car crash. No one died of having to not touch things. No one fell off a cliff. No one got shot in the head with a sub-machine gun. No one got ripped off. It was a pretty good day.

The Potty Diary

On Friday Rachel woke up at 7:30 AM and went potty. She went all through church without an accident. Then we stayed after church to be home taught. Then we stayed even later so that Andrew could do his home teaching. Rachel finally went pee (in the potty) while Andrew was home teaching with Girgis and Joseph.

Then Andrew had to home teach the Lewises, so we went over to their house and Rachel stayed dry the whole time. We then had a lunch appointment for a lunch/dinner at the Barton’s and Rachel managed to stay dry until around 3:30…when she peed her pants…but she was standing up when she peed and her rubber pants contained the whole mess. Amazing! I was really happy about that because the Bartons have a very nice home and I would have been forever embarrassed had she peed on their floor.

She napped for 45 minutes once we got home, woke up and went potty. Then she played with her new toys until it was time to go to the Sharp’s for dessert and games. She stayed dry there until around 9:00 PM when she peed in her pants again. She just doesn’t do well at other people’s houses, I guess, but since she should have been in bed I suppose I can’t really blame her for peeing her pants.

We were in the middle of a good game of Settlers (I won, so it must have been a good game) and Rachel just wouldn’t simmer down. She was jumping on the couch, running around the apartment, and “mopping” the floors until 11:00 PM when we left. We tried putting her down, but she was in a screaming mood and we didn’t want her to wake up Finn or Abby, so she stayed up virtually all day long from 7:30 AM until 11:00 PM with only two accidents all day long. Not bad for a 14 month baby, I think…

Today Rachel got up at 7:00 AM, but since she didn’t go to bed until 11:00 last night I just nursed her and put her right back in her crib. She fell back asleep until around 10:00, got up, and wouldn’t go potty. We bummed around the apartment, watching the Presidential Debate on CNN, while we waited for her to be ready to go. Eventually she went and then we left to go explore the Citadel. She stayed dry the entire time we were out, I was a little nervous to have her be in underwear because I was “wearing” her, but I don’t like the idea of putting her back in diapers when she’s doing so well in underwear. She did a wonderful job, though, and went potty when we got home, and then went down for a nap.

When she got up she didn’t want to go potty, so we let her play but continued to pester her about going on the potty about every 10 minutes or so. She ate dinner and still didn’t want to go on the potty, so we let her play again, still pestering her about going.

Finally, around 7:00 PM, she dropped her toys and kind of squatted. Then she stood up straight and ran over to me shaking her little fist like a wild woman. I was so happy!

We’ve been trying to teach her the sign for “potty” for a few months now. You make the letter “T” by holding your hand in a fist with your thumb between your pointer and middle fingers, then your shake it back and forth to mean “toilet.” Rachel hasn’t been able to get her thumb between her fingers yet so she usually just shakes her fist. She’s never done it to let me know that she has to go before, though; she’s only done it when she’s already sitting on the potty and we’re talking about it.

So I ran her to the potty, pulling off her undies as we went. It was a good job I did that, too, because the minute I set her down she let everything go.

We celebrated her communication with high fives all around and a standing ovation and lots of hugs and kisses.

Rachel is doing a wonderful job at going on the potty. I’m so proud of her! And I’m absolutely thrilled to announce that I can’t even remember the last time I’ve had to change or wash out a poopy diaper (of Rachel’s). It’s had to have been at least 2 weeks? I’m not sure. Let’s just say that elimination communication is the bomb. With the next one, I think we’ll start a little earlier. With Rachel, we’ll just keep on keeping on. She’s doing so well!

New Toys

When the Lewises dropped us off at our apartment on Thursday they gave us a bin of toys that they’d been borrowing from the Brunets. Their shipment arrived a while ago and so now they have their own toys. Ours are packed in boxes in Grandma and Grandpa’s basement and won’t be coming out to Egypt, so at Enrichment a few Sundays ago I asked Maria if we could borrow her toys next.

She was only too happy to let us use them. We were equally happy to receive them, although slightly puzzled about why Maria had toys in the first place.

Her kids are all grown, but neither of them are married so the prospect of grandkids is still very much in the future.

I had heard that she was running a daycare, but in fact she is working full time for USAID.

It really was a mystery to me why she’d haul a big tub of toys across the ocean…

Well, today I found out the answer. I was talking with Maria while Andrew was home teaching. As she related it to me, her husband was unpacking some things when he came across the tub.

“Maria, did you pack a tub of toys?” he asked her.

“No, why would I bring toys here?” Good question, really.

As it turns out, it was all just a big mistake. The tub of toys was supposed to be a tub of linens. It had somehow gotten mislabeled or something and the movers packed the toys in their crate instead of the sheets and things.

Kind of funny, if you think about it, but very fortunate for us. I think we have more toys here than we ever had in Orem and Rachel just loves them (perhaps because she thinks they’re Sam’s toys). She has been playing on her own so nicely since we got them on Thursday. She loves the little school bus (I think Patrick had one of those—it’s pretty fun. I remember playing with it, too) and the toolkit, especially.

And while we’re giving credit for new toys, we also got a load of toys from Lydia, who has been sorting through her children’s toys and getting rid of things in preparation for their new assignment...they’ll be moving somewhere in January.

Come with me to Primary

I’m back in primary, currently acting as the secretary, although we haven’t quite hashed out what else I’ll be doing, exactly. There was talk of my being an Activity Days leader. There was talk of my being the chorister. Today I volunteered both Andrew and myself to be nursery leaders for the last 40 minutes of church. We’ve been trying to staff the nursery for a few weeks but haven’t been able to find anyone willing to be in there…

So, I have a hodge-podge calling right now. I assign scriptures, prayers, and talks. I try to help the children sit down and behave all through Sharing Time. I make up lists and charts, take notes, and do all that other secretary stuff. Soon I’ll be sniffing diapers, handing out crackers, and trying to teach a bunch of 2 year olds about being nice.

That’s all usual stuff. Today I did something a little out of the ordinary.

Andrew was teaching Sunday School in Arabic. It was his first Friday teaching in Arabic and he was rather nervous. I, naturally, had Rachel since I can handle her and do my calling at the same time, for the most part. I was holding her and trying to convince the children to sit down and sing. She was holding a doll she borrowed from the Penrods and trying to get the kids all hyper.

I was having trouble with one particular child—a little boy from Sudan named Farayella. He’s probably 3 or 4, never says anything, and really, really wanted his mom. His mother was in the room for a while and we worked in tandem to convince him to sit in his chair. She ran out of the room and Rachel and I retreated to the back.

A few seconds later, Farayella popped out of his chair and walked out of the room. I followed him, trying to talk with him, hold his hand, and guide him back into the primary room. Nothing was really working because he doesn’t speak English and I couldn’t think of anything to say in Arabic that would convince him to go back to primary. Instead I just followed him around. I figured he was looking for his mother, so I started to look for her, too.

We peeked into every classroom upstairs, even though I knew that she wouldn’t be in any of those rooms. We walked downstairs and peeked into a few rooms down there, but we never saw his mom. Farayella opened the front door of the church villa.

“Oh, let’s stay inside, ok, buddy?” I suggested. At this point I still didn’t even know his name.

The only response I got was the screen door shutting.

I ran out after him, but he was nowhere in sight. I ran out of the yard and into the street, scanning around wildly until I spotted Farayella halfway to Boor Said.

I wouldn’t be surprised if this kid ends up in the Olympics one day!

I set off running after him, Rachel bouncing in my arms, the doll bouncing in hers. He had such a head start and was running so fast that I couldn’t catch up with him. All I knew was that I didn’t want him getting to Boor Said. That street is so busy and hard to cross. I didn’t want him to end up like a bird hitting a clean window. I started to run faster. So did he.

White girl can’t run. And she certainly was no match against the three-year old Olympian, Farayella. Running I’d never catch him, so instead I yelled as loud as I could.

“Umik houn!” I called out. That means, “Your mom’s here!” in Jordanian Arabic.

Farayella slammed on his brakes and wheeled around. “Fain!?” he demanded.

“Houn,” I assured him and pointed to the church. I couldn’t think of how to tell him that she was still at church. I was kicking around the word “kanisa” but convinced myself that was Russian for something. Kniga means book in Russian; kanisa means church in Arabic. I always get those two words confused. Even though I have the language ability to say something as simple as, “Your mom is in the church,” I was too frazzled to sort it out in my brain, so when I caught up to him I just repeated myself.

“Umik houn, umik houn,” I said as I put my arm around his shoulders and started to guide him back to the church villa. He came willingly; after all, I purportedly knew where his mother was.

When we got back to church we immediately went to find his mom. She started talking to him…and I didn’t understand a word that she said. Andrew has a theory that they speak Arabic, but only in addition to whatever their native language is. No one seems to understand what they say.

But at least Esta (the mom) also speaks a bit of English. I asked her a few questions.

“So, what language does he understand the best?”

“Arabic,” she said.

“Oh, okay,” I had already figured that out because that’s the only language he responded to me in, “And, uh, what’s his name?”

“Farayella,” she said.

I had no idea what she said, so I just tried to repeat what I thought I heard.

“Farayella?”

Apparently I said it well enough. If it’s not his name, we’ll just make a trade. I’ll call him Farayella and she can mispronounce Rachel’s name. Rasha? Raychurch? Whatever. I’m flexible.

I wonder what I’ll get to do next Friday…

Like a bird flying into a clean window

Andrew and I babysat for Sara and Kevan while they went up to Alexandria to pick up their car. They came back this afternoon and offered to take us anywhere we wanted. Andrew suggested we go to Lybia, but instead we settled for a trip to Carrefour. We still have a number of things we need to live comfortably—like more than 2 forks and enough towels to have company over. It was nice to get out there and do some one-stop shopping. Carrefour is like a French Wal-Mart; they have everything there.

While technically still in Maadi, Carrefour is really out in the boonies, involving a wild car ride. The traffic here terrifies me—it’s much like Jordan, only worse because there are so many more people here. There are few traffic lights (I’ve seen two so far) and it doesn’t matter because people don’t follow the ones they have. They use a lot of traffic circles and just push their way through.

Their rules seem to be summed up in one simple maxim: There are no rules.

Basically every intersection is an unmarked all-ways yield.

That said, they do have a few unwritten rules:
1) The first person to honk at an intersection goes first –or– the first person to stick their front end out in the intersection goes first.
2) Stop or slow down frequently for no apparent reason.
3) There are no “lanes,” just “directions” (to quote Sasha, my Russian host-father).

Other places enforce rules, but here they seem to be able to fudge whatever rules they like, even the direction of traffic on a divided highway. In the guide that AUC published for its international students it states,

“Traffic is crazy! Be extremely careful when crossing the road. It is not because a street circulates in one way, that a car will not come the other way!” [sic]

And Andrew has actually been on an AUC bus that dared to leave AUC by getting on the Autostrad via the exit, honking angrily at the rightfully oncoming traffic while it careened on down the wrong side of a major highway until it could use [what in America would be] an “emergency vehicles only” turn around place and switch back to the right side of the road.

Suffice it to say, the traffic here terrifies me. On our ride out to Carrefour, Kevan mentioned that he wouldn’t be surprised if a little delivery guy on a moped crashed into the side of his car one day *ping!* like a bird flying into a clean window.

We all laughed about it because the delivery guys are rather crazy. They zoom around, half of them without helmets, dodging trucks and buses and zipping around cars and trying to cut them off so that they can pull ahead.

I’m not laughing about it now. Instead I find myself sick to my stomach at the thought of it.

We were out walking during the Call to Prayer signaling the start of Iftar. We currently were laughing at the muezzin. Seriously, the muezzin at the police station mosque needs to go back to Call to Prayer 101. Instead of a mystical, ghostly sound, his Call to Prayer comes out a yelping mess. He’s completely tone deaf and when he tried to put some vibrato in his voice cracked, big time. It sounds awful.

His is the only call that Rachel is afraid of. She clings to me whenever she hears him starting up.

We were on our way to Metro to pick up some oatmeal (we forgot that at Carrefour and for some reason felt that we needed it) and were just coming out from behind the police station, heading up Road 81 towards Road 10.

There was a big gathering of people in the middle of the intersection, but we figured it was just some Iftar gathering since we’d passed a few places where people were gathered already, sharing juice and things. I’m not even sure why we thought that or when we realized it wasn’t a happy gathering, but things slowly started to sink in.

The black SUV with the side all smashed in.

The moped mangled and discarded off to the side.

The mob of people surrounding the victim, lying on the ground, writhing in pain, wailing for help, blood oozing from his fractured skull…like a bird flying *ping!* into a clean window.

I just about fainted, or threw up, or both.

Somehow we managed to keep walking. There was nothing we could do. I know first aid, but seriously…what was I going to do? I couldn’t think of anything to do, so I did nothing. Mob mentality had completely taken over and I rationalized that someone would have done something by now…

Solemnly we went inside the store to purchase our oatmeal. All the while I was wondering if anyone really had done anything and what I could or would do if they hadn’t.

Two minutes later we were back outside again. The crowd had dispersed some and an ambulance was just pulling away. Thank goodness someone in that thronging mob had escaped the “mob mentality” enough to make a phone call. It was probably the lady that he hit—she was in Metro on the phone with the police and talking frantically with the security guards. Poor lady…even poorer delivery guy.

I’m not sure how this is going to affect my street-crossing methods since I was too nervous about crossing the street before. I’ll have to look right and left and right again, and then left and right and left again. It was traumatizing and I didn’t even see it happen…

I think I can now add to my list of future campaigns. Already I mentioned the need for anti-smoking and anti-sodium campaigns. Now we need a stop-sign campaign. Really, if we could get Egyptian drivers to adopt a four-way stop mentality or even to install a few more traffic lights in place of their unmarked yields, I think we’d all be better off.