Dahshur: Inside the Pyramids

This morning we headed out to Dahshur to see some pyramids. We hired Emad to take us there in his taxi—he’s probably the nicest taxi driver I’ve met so far. He called Rachel “The Little Princess” and was overall a very nice man. He asked if we wanted to go to Saqqara before heading to Dahshur, but we decided to just hit one attraction for the day. We have to do bite-sized “Rachel Trips” because she won’t go potty on a regular potty or on the ground so we have to plan the trips short enough for her to be able to “hold it.”

He took us on a big highway—four lanes in each directions—and we were really speeding along. And then I heard a high-pitched wailing. It didn’t take me long to see where it was coming from. There was a group of people huddled around a body bag. I can only assume that the woman huddled over it was the one wailing. She was making the sounds my heart would be making if I was in her position. I had to look away.

“Oh, wow, wow, wow,” said Emad. “You didn’t look?” he asked me and then looked at Andrew, “She didn’t look, did she?”

Andrew assured him that I didn’t look. But I did look, and it was horrible.

Death isn’t really something that people like to “talk” about here. It’s kind of a taboo. I suppose it’s one of those “evil eye” things. You avoid talking about it to avoid the evil eye. In this case, Emad was hoping that I wasn’t looking so that I could avoid the evil eye.

Pedestrians actually run across the highway here. I’m not very good at Frogger, so I don’t think that I will be attempting it anytime soon and really, I don’t recommend that anyone else try it, either.

Just one more thing that makes me not want to leave my house ever again.

Dahshur was neat, though. It’s the ancient city of Memphis and there used to be 11 pyramids there, but only 3 are still standing. It’s located in the village Dahshur, which is right next to Memphis. Both of these villages seem to make most of their money by farming dates…or corn. There were date palms everywhere and cornstalks galore.

And then suddenly the lush, green landscape disappeared into dust and sand. We’d reached the pyramids.

We first visited the Red Pyramid. You can actually go down inside this pyramid at no extra charge, unlike the Great Pyramids, so we, of course, had to go. Emad offered to babysit Rachel for us—he watched Finn once while Patrick and Melissa went inside…and he does seem pretty trustworthy—but Rachel wouldn’t have anything to do with him. She’s a little pickier about babysitters now than she was when she was just a few months old.

So instead I strapped her in the front carrier and away we went. I was already tired when we reached the top of the stairs leading to the entrance—carrying around that extra 20+ pounds really wears me out—and then we had to go down the 141 “steps” of the tunnel to get inside. The tunnel isn’t big enough to stand up in and it was steep and dark.

When we started going down Rachel freaked out. She grabbed my face with her hands and said, “Momma!?” as if to ask, “Why, why, WHY?”

Rachel and me in the tunnel

That was her mantra the whole way down. “Mama, mama, mama, MAMA!”

I have to say, I agree with her. The descent was grueling.

I was bent over almost to 90 degrees, holding Rachel with one hand (so that she wouldn’t fall out of her carrier) and the railing with the other (so that I wouldn’t fall down the ramp). The air was dank and rancid, smelling strongly of ammonia. Except for the occasional light bulb, it was dark in the tunnel. The floor was smooth and slippery and I had to slide my foot down until it caught on the next slat before I could continue going down, for fear that I would tumble head over heels.

The tunnel was more like a ladder than anything. It was so steep and so long. I couldn’t see the bottom from the top. I had to keep asking Andrew if we were there yet because Rachel’s face was in mine the whole way down.

Finally we made it and Rachel was able to relax a little. We explored the little area we were permitted to. It was neat to be inside, but nothing to write home about. Just kidding. Apparently it was worth writing home about…because I just did. Obviously everything cool had been removed and is probably sitting, uncatalogued, in the Egyptian Museum somewhere, but it was neat to be inside, anyway.

Inside the Red Pyramid

You would think that, being buried under the oldest pyramid in the world, we’d be relatively cool. On the contrary, however, the heat was stifling. But we persevered and looked in both the rooms we were allowed in, climbing yet more stairs to get to the upper room.

Us in the bottom chamber

My legs still hadn’t recovered from climbing down the tunnel when it was time to begin the climb back out. I was alright for the first several steps, but then my legs were really giving out. I started using my arms to haul Rachel and I up out of the pyramid.

Andrew in the tunnel

She did alright until we hit the dark part again. Then she started wailing.

“Momma! Mama! MaaaMAAA! AAAAAAHHHHH!”

There was a group of Italian tourists and they passed the word up that we had a “bimba” with us and everyone moved over to let us pass them. I’m not sure why they bothered to tell everyone that we had a baby since they could probably hear for themselves that she was having a hard time. Emad told us that he could hear her screaming while he was sitting in his cab. She screamed loud and long until we reached fresh air at which time I was pounced on by several well-meaning nonne (Italian grandmothers).

All three of us were dripping in sweat and thought the wind felt marvelously refreshing.

Alas, Rachel was not permitted to enjoy the cool air for long. A particularly kind nonna came up and yanked the panel of Rachel’s carrier up so that it covered her neck and began to explain to us, in rapid-fire Italian, that we’d be the death of our daughter. Never mind the fact that the panel she chose to pull up around Rachel’s neck was the panel that had been supporting all of Rachel’s weight and that, surely, was going to be the death of me!

“Si, si, si,” said Andrew, trying to placate her, “Ashan colpo d’aria.”

She didn’t seem to notice that he spoke a jumbled mix of Arabic and Italian to her (he said, “because” in Arabic and “hit of air” in Italian—Italians believe that you can catch your death by a cold blast of air on your neck). She just continued to speak Italian. No one seemed to notice that we were speaking Italian, actually, which we thought was kind of odd because we obviously weren’t Italian and since Italian is only spoken in Italy people usually wonder why anyone speaks it outside of Italy. Perhaps that was a compliment.

At any rate it meant that we got some family pictures taken by friendly Italians, completely baksheesh free. I just had to make sure to keep Rachel’s neck covered so that the nonne would stop accusing me of risking Rachel’s life…because, you know, climbing up a steep pyramid with my baby isn’t risking her life but exposing her to a cool summer’s breeze is.

On top of the Red Pyramid

At the base of the Red Pyramid

After our picture was taken we had to brave the stairs down from the pyramid. My knees suddenly turned to jell-o and kept buckling underneath me with every step I took. I had to hang onto the railing for dear life. I was all too happy when we got to the bottom, drove to the Bent Pyramid of Snefru and I was able to put Rachel down to travel under her own power.

Rachel and I at the Bent Pyramid

She was pretty happy about it, too…

Playing in the shadows of the pyramids

Sitting on the Bent Pyramid

Are there rocks ahead?

…Until the guards started heckling her. If there is anything in this world she doesn’t like, it’s hats. And big animals that make ugly noises. And strangers.

All of a sudden Rachel found herself confronted with all three: a strange guard wearing a hat riding on a camel.

Rachel's run-in with the guard

He parked the camel (I guess that’s what you do with camels…I don’t really know), dismounted, took his hat off and put it on Rachel’s head. I think she was more terrified at this moment than she was in the tunnel at the Red Pyramid. And then he tried to get her to meet his camel. She was less than thrilled and didn’t want anything to do with the camel until it grumbled its ugly sound. Then she growled at it and it grumble-growled back and she thought it was pretty cool.

She spent the rest of the afternoon craning her neck around while growling.

Pyramid, schmyramid...Look at my belly button!

We had a pretty good time at the Bent Pyramid, even though our legs were giving out on us. It’s a very interesting pyramid, the oldest “true” pyramid. It’s bent because they started making it at too steep of an angle and couldn’t support the weight, so mid-build decided to go with less of an incline. Interesting.

Rachel and the Bent Pyramid

It was fun to get to see the Bent Pyramid so close. Until recently it was part of the military compound and tourists were allowed to see it only from a distance. Now you can go up to it, climb on it a little, and walk around it, but the inside is still off limits. Our taxi driver hadn’t even been to it before. He was snapping more pictures than we were.

Jumping in front of the Bent Pyramid

Soon, though, it was time to go home. I was kind of dreading the ride home, remembering what I saw on the way out to the pyramids…but the ride home was blessedly uneventful.

General Conference

Please don’t judge us wrongly, but we totally forgot about Conference on Saturday. We just completely spaced it…until I magically got online and saw on Facebook that my friend Katie McCue was excited about the announcement of a temple in Calgary. I was like, “Weird that they announced that today…they usually do that during General Confer…oh…yeah…that…”

We’ll chock it up to the weekday confusion we suffer from.

So, we’re definitely excited about all the temples that were announced, but especially so for the Calgary and Rome temples. That’s about all we learned about either of the Saturday sessions. We’ll have to wait until we have internet to watch them, I guess.

But we did get to see the Sunday sessions. We went over to the Lewis’s apartment for the first session and joined them for their traditional conference breakfast, even though we had it at 6:00 PM. Orange rolls, real bacon, and eggs! So good! I tried to pay attention to conference, and I think I ended up getting about as much out of it as I get out of sacrament meeting, which is little to nothing. I was too busy worrying about Rachel peeing her pants or coloring on the wall/floor/couch or fighting with Sam and Megan to really focus on the meeting.

I guess I’ll just read the talks later…with the Saturday sessions…

It was fun, though. We always like spending time with the Lewises. They remind us what big families are like. Sometimes we forget since our family is so small. Megan pointed that out to me on Sunday, actually.

“Your family is so small you all fit on one couch,” she said.

We are a small family, it’s true. But I think we’re technically a “young” family, not a “small” family since we’re still a work in progress.

After conference we ran home to get our dessert for our late-night-conference-watching dessert-potluck. We went over rather early so that we could get Rachel settled down in Finn’s playpen before the last session of conference started. She always has a little trouble falling asleep at the Mason’s. We had a guitar hero showdown a few nights ago and she screamed forever…tonight, though, she fell asleep around 9:30, so we were able to watch conference in peace.

We found that the person giving opening prayer was a little emotional. He opened the prayer and choked out a few words and then paused. We all waited in silence for him to continue praying. After a few minutes we all started peeking through our eyes and kind of snickering.

The video wasn’t streaming right and the picture had frozen. We kind of laughed about it and decided to dig into the desserts while we waited for the video to start again. It didn’t ever start working properly again, though, so we sat through General Conference Mad Libs for the first few talks. The streaming would freeze up every few seconds and then jump ahead and then freeze and then jump.

What we heard was something like this,

“My dear brothers and…families are essential to…my own mother…with priesthood hold…in Isaiah we find…and therefore we…”

And then all of a sudden a new speaker would be on the stand and we’d have no idea what was going on.

Eventually we decided to switch to just an audio feed and found ourselves flung into the intermediate hymn. And here we thought we were just on the second talk.

So I really only listened to the last half of the last session of General Conference. I especially enjoyed Elder Cook’s talk, as well as President Monson’s, although I’d have to read them again to tell you what I liked about them. Keep in mind that we were pushing midnight by this point.

There’s something special about watching General Conference. It makes me feel like I’m really participating, even if I’m not there and I don’t get a whole lot out of it. I suppose that’s why they print it in the Ensign the next month, so that you can watch it and feel good in October and then read it in November and be like, “Oh, that’s what he was saying when the kids were screaming/the internet was blacking out/I was zoned out because it was midnight,” and actually get some spiritual substance.

Stampede

Occasionally we see this little herd of feral horses munching the weeds and grass on the “canal.” I can only assume that the “canal” once was a canal because it’s called canal, but now it is just a grassy strip that cuts through Maadi. I can also only assume that the horses were feral because no one seems to own them, but here they are living in the middle of a giant metropolis. They are as skinny as a rail, which doesn’t bode well for the horses—you can see every bone in their bodies and they certainly don’t live up to the phrase “as healthy as a horse.” They are also never tethered to anything, never have any equestrian nearby, and they are free to charge around the city at will.

Yesterday we were walking back from Road 9—we had to pick up another power strip because yesterday we had both computers and a fan plugged into a three-way splitter and just about started a fire; when Andrew unplugged the fan sparks flew out of the socket for several minutes, scaring us both half to death—we saw the horses again.

I think it was Rachel who noticed them first. She gets really excited when she sees animals, puts out her radar arm, and yells at them, so we’re pretty good at noticing animals right away. There are usually four of them grazing together, some white ones and some brown ones. We walked by slowly, talking about the horses and what they were doing. I kept my eye on them as we walked by, not because I was afraid of the horses, per se, but because I was afraid of the dog that was nipping at them. I didn’t want him to come nip at me, too, so as I walked by I craned my neck farther and farther around in order to keep the dog in sight. Pretty soon I was walking sideways, all the time watching that blasted dog.

The horses, I think, weren’t very impressed with the dog, either. They vaulted over the bushes and began galloping down the street at full speed, whinnying and whining as they went. Seriously, they would have trampled us if we had been walking a few paces slower. We were standing so close to them that I could feel their speed and probably could have touched them if I took just one little step closer.

I froze and watched in shock as they disappeared down Road 10, the sound of their feet echoing long after they had disappeared from sight. I don’t know where they thought they were going since there isn’t really anywhere to graze on Road 10, let alone anywhere big enough for a horse to stand.

What is that, like near-death experience #72 in Cairo? I think that sounds about right. We’ve only been here two months…

History in the Making

It's very well possible that we just made history. Two facts: 1) we live in Cairo and 2) we completed our to-do list today. Never before have those two facts co-existed.

When we got home from running all our errands and started checking things off on our to-do list, Andrew got very excited when we realized that we'd beaten all odds.

"I can't believe it!" he said, "We got everything done on our to-do list! I think this is the first time in Cairo's history that someone's been able to get everything done!"

I figured that we wouldn't make it into any history textbooks or into the Guinness Book or anything, so I thought I'd make it part of our family history. For the first time in Cairo we went out and ran errands and finished doing all of them in one day. I'm not sure whether to attribute that to the end of Ramadan or sheer luck...

We went grocery shopping, which included stopping at the bread store, visiting the fruit stand, and finding the Seoudi's Market that is closest to our house. We picked up some household things at the hardware store and at Moudy's. Andrew set up the internet (we should have internet officially in 3 days, الحمد لله). I made an FHE chart. And we custom-ordered shelves for the big, shelfless cabinet we have sitting in our dining room.

Our to-do list wasn't big, but we never make very big to-do lists here. We don't want to push our luck.

Flashback Friday: My Worst Bus Ride Ever

***Note: Flashback Friday is my friend Bridget's idea. I've decided to hop on the band wagon, even so far as to join in on her current theme: flashbacks from Russia.***

During the ride back to Cairo from Hurghada, I couldn’t help but reminisce on the worst bus ride I’ve ever had. Granted, this last bus ride was pretty awful, but nothing can compare with one of the bus rides I took home to Voronezh from Moscow. Both included squishiness, a lot of stopping, and late hours, but the Moscow bus ride was far, far worse.

Our visas in Russia only lasted for 90 days, so at the end of those 90 days we had to leave the country in order to renew our visas for another 90 days. Since our expiration date happily coincided with spring break we planned an extensive trip through the Baltics, hitting up Latvia, Finland, and Sweden. Perhaps that doesn’t sound very extensive, but we were poor and only had 10 days so it was as extensive as we got.

Tiffany was in charge of setting up our buses to and from Moscow. Her host family owned or co-owned a bus company and had helped us set up a trip to Moscow in the past. So we all gave Tiffany our money and she purchased our tickets for us. The rest of our trip was set up by the “cultural coordinator” in Moscow since she was helpful and Nina, our Voronezh cultural coordinator, was not. She emailed us our itinerary, complete with dates, directions, and warnings.

Everything went off without a hitch. We rode into Moscow and caught our bus to Latvia and after a pleasant ride found our way to a cute little hostel overlooking a fruit market. After we’d been dragged through more bureaucracy at the embassy than I’d care to mention, including being forced to use forged insurance cards, and had successfully renewed our visas, we spent the remainder of our time wandering around the city, enjoying the parks, and watching the changing of the guard.

From there we headed off on a cruise up to Sweden and then to Finland. We saw some sights, bought some souvenirs, and headed home. The ferry ride back was rather choppy, but overall it was a nice trip.

…Until we got back into Moscow and presented our bus tickets to the bus driver to get on the redeye bus back to Voronezh.

He refused to let us get on the bus and wasn’t able to communicate to us why. We insisted that our tickets were valid and he insisted that they were not. Finally, with a lot of help from Esther, we were able to figure out that our tickets had been valid for that same bus, only last week. Somehow our tickets had been purchased 3 days apart instead of 10 days apart—quite an impossible mistake on our part since Tiff didn’t speak Russian at the time and merely pointed to dates on the calendar when she purchased the tickets. Somewhere, though, there had been a major mix up.

Before pulling away, the bus driver helped us all get seats on another bus. A rather unfortunate looking bus, but one that would let us get home.

The bus was full of men. It was old, cramped, smelly and dirty. It was not the nice charter bus we were expecting. Most of the available seats were at the front of the bus and wouldn’t lean back no matter how hard we tried. But, as our motto went, it was all part of the experience…so we took our seats. Michelle and I shared a seat right behind the bus driver. Esther and Stephanie (I think) were sitting across the aisle from us. The rest of the girls were scattered around us. None of us were very comfortable, but at least we were on our way home.

Since our seats wouldn’t lean back, Michelle and I took turns sleeping on each other’s shoulders. Sleep was almost impossible. The bus stopped almost every half hour on the dot so that the men could all get out of the bus, relieve themselves, and have a smoke. We never stopped at a rest stop, so the 8 of us were stuck on the bus, holding our pee, and giving the men privacy. At the end of each pit stop, the men would file back on the bus dirtier, drunker, and smellier than before.

In addition to all the stops, the road was quite bumpy. It was April and the snow was just beginning to melt, revealing that the road was made up of more potholes than actual road. Furthermore, the highways there (like the highways here) are really only wide enough for one vehicle in parts so we had to keep swerving to avoid head-on collisions with other vehicles.

With all the stopping and swerving and bumping, and with our seats not leaning back, and with the smell of drunk men, sleep was really quite impossible. Many of us were beginning to wonder if they wouldn’t put in a movie if we asked them nicely.

As I mentioned, this was not a nice charter bus. So instead of having cute little TV stands every few rows we had one giant TV rigged up precariously, balancing on a board, just above where Michelle and I were seating. It was easily a 24 inch screen, perhaps even a 30 inch one (and maybe even bigger), so everyone in the bus would have been able to see the movie, at least as easily as you can see a movie in those miniature screens that nice charter busses have.

We were too afraid to ask, though, so instead we took turns napping. It so happened that it was my turn to use Michelle for a pillow and I was dozing off uncomfortably when the bus suddenly braked and swerved. There was a tremendous crash. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t breathe. Something was crushing me and everything was dark. I thought for sure that we had been in a terrible accident and that I was dying.

Esther’s screams confirmed my suspicions.

“She’s going to DIE! Someone help her! Get it off her! She’s going to DIE! She’s going to DIE! She’s going to DIE!”

I can’t remember what she was screaming, exactly, but I do remember hearing, “She’s going to DIE!” over and over again.

And then things started to settle down. The interior lights flicked on, the bus slowed down and stopped, and the assistant bus driver ran over and hauled that great-big-honkin’ television off of me. The rest of the bus ride went along as smoothly as before. We continued to stop every few minutes so that the chain-smoking men could fuel their addiction and it took us much longer to get home than we had planned.

I couldn’t laugh for weeks; not that there wasn’t anything to laugh about, but anything more than simply breathing was painful. Lucky for Michelle, I had been sitting sideways in my seat and had taken the brunt of the force on my right shoulder—the television had me absolutely pinned from my head to my waist. Lucky for me, Esther had enough wits about her to start screaming.

Even though “She’s going to DIE!” wasn’t exactly what I wanted to be hearing when I thought I was dying (just for future reference), I’m glad she was screaming, because I couldn’t. So, thanks, Es!

And that’s the story of my worst bus ride ever. I hope to never top it. In fact, I’d be fine if the rest of my bus rides were comfortable and crisis-free. I doubt that will happen, but it would be nice.

Marooned on a Felucca

A word of advice for all those of you hoping to ever do anything with us, don't. We are a disaster waiting to happen. We can't even get our backup vacations to run smoothly, let alone our real vacations. Something as simple as a felucca ride should have been relatively easy to pull off without mishap, and I suppose everything started out alright, but we're cursed.

We went out with the Masons, Sharps, and Schillings to take an hour's felucca ride down the Nile.

We met by TGIFriday's on the Corniche--there is a dock right next door and it's an easy landmark to take a cab to. We walked down the stairs, onto a boat, and were off in no time.

Our captain decided to take us to an island. This is a common thing, but usually you just drift by the island, snap a few pictures of the sunset with the reeds, and continue along your way. We didn't do that. Instead we came to a dead stop. And started leaning pretty strong on the larboard. Our captain started looking pretty stressed out.

Stuck at the island

He ran back and forth from stern to to bow, fidgeting with the sails, releasing chains, and kicking at the rudder with his feet. He went from looking pretty stressed out to really stressed out and then like he was going to faint.

It was then that we noticed that he had sliced his pinky open and was dripping blood all over the place. We offered him baby wipes and some band aides, which he gratefully used...not that they helped all that much. It was pretty much a gaping wound and the band aide wasn't doing very much. What he really needed was stitches.

Blood

So, here's our captain running up and down the ship, dripping blood here and there, muttering to himself, while we're just sitting there doing nothing. After he wasn't able to shove us off the island with an oar, we started to wonder if we'd ever make it back. We kept offering to help, not that we knew how to sail a felucca or anything, but he didn't want any assistance from us. Finally he asked if we had a cell phone he could borrow. Andrew handed him a phone and the captain called his friend who sailed over and towed us off the island.

Getting ready to be rescued

Our captain was still pretty embarassed and shaky when we docked. He jumped off our boat and started rigging another one up down the dock. Melissa had to chase after him to pay him a tip. Poor guy.

We had fun though, despite being marooned on a random island in the middle of the Nile.




After our felucca ride we went out to dinner at an awesome Thai restaurant called Bhua Kao (on road 151). Andrew ordered the beef red curry and was quite shocked with how spicy it was. His face was turning red and his eyes were watering. He was worried that his mild had gotten mixed up with Josh's medium. I decided to take a bite.

"This isn't spicy," I said after trying some.

"Yes it is," Andrew choked out.

"Maybe he did get mine," Josh suggested, "Mine isn't very spicy..."

Josh reached over and tried a spoonful of Andrew's curry. "Nope, mine's spicier. That's definitely mild."

"Well, I think it's spicy," said Andrew.

"It's not," I said.

"It is," said Andrew.

"Let's let Rachel decide," I offered.

He wasn't sure she'd be able to handle it, but I gave her a mouthful anyway. She chewed, swallowed, and then signed more! So, it's official. Andrew is a wimp when it comes to spicy.

My dish, on the other hand, wasn't spicy at all. I ordered a chicken dish so that I wouldn't have to share with Andrew, but I ended up sharing with him, anyway. I got the chicken with cashews and dried peppers--or something like that. It had a really long, descriptive title, of which it was fully deserving. It was so good! The sauce on it was kind of like orange chicken sauce (only it wasn't orange chicken) so I knew Andrew would like it, which he did.

Let's just say I wasn't disappointed with dinner and we'll be going back to Bhua Kao again, only next time Andrew will order the chicken with cashews and dried peppers while I'll probably try the sizzler platter. That looked good, too!

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.