The Tortilla Experiment

Sometimes when we're isolated in the far reaches of the world we get hankering for food that is just hard to find. Sometimes it's too expensive and sometimes it just can't be found.

Well, folks, desperate times call for desperate measures and since we finally have internet at home, I looked up a tortilla recipe. A package of tortillas here, if you can find them, costs around 20 LE. That's like $4!

I've always been a little intimidated by tortillas. I don't know why because I made pizza dough every week when we lived in America and that didn't kill me. Shoot, I even made my own pita bread--because that's like $4 for a package in America, which is a ridiculous price (and we were isolated in the far reaches of the world, away from pita bread!). I can make pancakes. I can make cakes and cookies and biscuits....So I really should be able to make tortillas, right?

I think I was so afraid to try because I tried making tortillas once. At my very first YW camp, actually. We had tacos for dinner, which included making our own tortilla shells and cooking them over the open fire. Keep in mind that we were a bunch of Canadians--Mexican food isn't all over the place up there--and that this the same camp that we made strawberry shortcake, dutch-oven style, and burned through the pot. We were hungry during this camp. A lot.

From what I remembered, making tortillas was really hard.

But I convinced myself to try again since it's been 11 years since that fateful camp and I've since cooked a lot of things rather successfully. Oh, and because we are isolated in the far reaches of the world where one package of tortillas costs like $4!

So, even though it was 11 PM, Andrew and I headed into the kitchen to experiment.

It was so easy! It helped that I searched for "easiest best tortilla recipe" because this certainly was the easiest, best tortilla recipe out there. All the other ones that I looked at sounded much too involved and confusing. This one was simple: mix, roll, cook, eat. I can handle that.

We had fun taking turns rolling out the dough and flipping the tortillas in the pan. Andrew was much better at flipping them than I was. He was doing 360s and things while I was flipping them out of the pan and across the room.


We may very well be switching our traditional homemade pizza night to homemade tortilla night. Mexican food might be hard to find, but not as hard as finding the ingredients for good pizza; pepperoni is absolutely impossible! We'll have to stick to delivery for that...

Flashback Friday: He peed on my boot

One thing that I like about living in the Middle East is the profound respect that men have for women, especially mothers. I've had a few bad experiences with Arab men, but only a few. Mostly I've found them to be quite courteous.

Perhaps that's because I've never been single in the Middle East and have been able to avoid confrontations and marriage proposals by pointing to my ring and announcing that I'm already taken. Perhaps it's because I usually go out with Rachel and blame her for all the extra whistles and attention we get on the street.

I can deal with looks, and whistles, and cat calls, and kissy noises. None of that really bothers me because I've never really been harassed. They call out their silly little names, "Hello, beautiful!" and then leave me alone. Really, who can complain about being called beautiful and then being left alone.

Maybe I'm just a good scowler, but I've rarely actually been pursued. Women are, gratefully, an untouchable commodity here. I did not find that to be the case in Russia.

Russia is much more hands-on, in general. Take the metro, for example. It gets crowded here in Cairo, but I rarely bump shoulders with anyone. In Moscow there are times when you actually can lift your feet off the ground and remain standing. The busses in Russia also seem to be more crowded than they are here, although I've never ridden a bus here more people seem to be sitting than standing. In Russia the reverse would probably be true.

Back in Voronezh, Staci and I were crammed onto a little mashrutka--one of those sardine-can busses--on our way to the missionaries' apartment so that Staci could give Elder Romney a haircut. I'm not sure why he wanted a haircut because, from what I can remember, he wasn't exactly in desperate need of one. He could have used implants before he could have used a haircut.

But we were going to give him a haircut anyway because we liked to hang out in the missionaries' apartment.

That might sound scandalous, but it's not. Elder Romney lived with Sister Romney and they were one of the sweetest couple missionaries ever.

The bus was already crowded when it pulled up and we fought our way through the crowd to get on, leaving several tens of people to wait for the next bus. We had an appointment to keep, afterall, and it was towards the end of my Russia experience and I was getting really good at pushing.

At each stop the bus seemed to get fuller and fuller. We were all smashed up against the windows and each other. The door could only close if we all stepped in unison to one side and allowed it to slide shut before exhaling and shuffling around, completely rendering the door useless once more. We rearranged ourselves at each stop, inching our way closer to the door as our stop arrived, but moving away from it to let more people on.

It's kind of like fighting the tide at the ocean. You just can't win.

Just before our stop, a man ended up very close to me, which isn't exactly uncommon. He was unnecessarily drunk, which also isn't exactly uncommon. And he touched me, which was unavoidable given our present poximity. How he touched, though, was a little innappropriate.

He put his arm around my shoulder.

I glared at him and pushed his hand off.

He slid it down my back and then goosed me.

Staci and I both glared at him this time and I muttered something that I hoped sounded threatening.

Apparently it didn't sound threatening enough because he followed us off the bus and stood at the bus stop with us. We were supposed to be waiting for Elder Romney to pick us up. I'm not sure what the Gooser thought he was supposed to be doing.

Staci and I moved to stand behind the bus stop to give us some physical separation from the Gooser. This was one of the fancier, more official bus stops in Voronezh and actually had a little roof and some thin sheet metal walls, standing a few inches off the ground (for an idea of what I'm talking about, see here). Thin metal isn't much of a physical barrier, but at least it offered some isolation. Isolation from the wind howling off the river, and isolation from creepy Russian men.

So, there we were, waiting for Elder Romney to come for us, hoping that he would be on time and trying to figure out if either of us remembered how to get to his apartment building so that we could get away from the Gooser, who apparently was going no where.

And that's when it happened.

We heard a hissing sound and looked around to see what it was. It seemed to be coming from the ground. Yes, yes...right about where our feet were. We looked down in time to see a stream of urine hitting my boot, leaving a steaming puddle at my feet.

It was quite shocking. We stood there with our mouths agape, staring at my boot, for several minutes before either of us could speak.

"Did he just...?" I stammered.

"I think he did..." Staci answered.

The Gooser somehow managed to pee under the bus stop wall and directly onto my boot. How he managed to do this will forever remain a mystery. It had to have been carefully aimed because it was quite a tricky shot, really. I mean, how did he avoid hitting the bench?

He must have felt that peeing on me leveled the playing field--I'd shunned him and he peed on me, so we're even, right?--because after he was finished he snickered and swaggered drunkenly down the street.

Elder Romney came for us soon after the drunken, nonparuretic Gooser had disappeared from sight.

Staci cut his hair while I chatted with Sister Romney and then we went home. Only this time we faced the cold and walked. We weren't ready to deal with any more Russian men at the moment. Besides, my boot barely had time to dry off.

We're following the leader, whoever it may be

At 15 months, Rachel is quite the leader. She gets to go into nursery for the last block of church because I go into nursery the last block of church so it just makes sense. She really pulls her own weight in there, even though Lu'ai insists that she is still a baby. He should talk. He's only two (and-a-half).

Today we were coloring pictures and Rachel started banging her crayon on the paper to make little dots. It's one of her artistic trademarks. She thinks it's great fun because it's noisy and it makes little dots.

Slowly the other children started joining in. First Sam and then Lu'ai. Their racket even got Robby interested in colouring--and he never colours. It took me quite a while to convince them that they should all colour softly at church.

I thought it was funny that all these "big" boys were following the lead of "baby" Rachel.

Earlier, though, the tables were turned and it was Rachel who was following the example of the older boys.

Sam had agreed to say the prayer for us and everyone got ready for prayer (except for Robby--he spends most of his time rolling around on the floor). I started saying the prayer slowly for him to repeat, but he was too embarassed to say anything until the very end.

"In the name of Jesus Christ," I said.

"Amen!" Sam yelled.

Not to be outdone, Lu'ai screamed even louder, "Ameeeen!!!"

Rachel looked at Sam. She looked at Lu'ai. She looked at me. She took a deep breath.

"Aaaahhhhhhhh!" she hollered, pounding on the table.

She can't really talk yet but she was definitely loudest of all.

Reverence is obviously very often the topic of our nursery lessons.

Belly dancing post-pyramid

My legs are almost normal now, but yesterday…oh, boy! I could hardly move. It’s not like going up and down that tunnel was really all that rigorous, but it sure did a number on my stair-climbing muscles. I repeat: I could hardly move. I’m not sure if I’m really that much of a wimp or if it was that carrying Rachel was too much of a strain.

Either way I spent most of the day sitting on the couch. Rachel, of course, wanted me to play with her so I would make her run off to grab a toy or a book and bring it to me. And then we would play with it/read it on the couch so that I wouldn’t have to move.

Soon it was time for me to get ready to go to belly dancing class. I was still in agony but I chased Rachel around the house anyway, trying to get her dressed, and managed to get out the door on time. I hobbled down the street to the Sharp’s house to drop Rachel off. They only live on the second floor, but I called the elevator anyway. There was no way I was hauling Rachel up the stairs!

She went inside willingly. Lora and Tanner were eating dinner, and although Rachel had already eaten dinner she is an excellent mooch and is always willing to eat more. I left and called the elevator again.

Elevators are such a luxury. Our apartment building doesn’t have one and usually it’s okay, but sometimes it would just be really nice to not have to use the stairs. Like days when my legs just don’t work. Like today.

Riding the elevator down was such a treat. Walking to the CSA was not. I feel like a complete idiot when I walk. I’m not sure if my legs are actually doing what my brain thinks they are. I really hope they aren’t because my brain thinks they’re all over the place. My shadow looked fairly normal, so I can only assume I didn’t look like a moron. I just felt like I looked like one.

My dance class is on the second floor of the CSA , but since they count the first floor as the “ground floor” and the second floor as the “first floor” my class is technically on the third floor. And there is no elevator. I climbed the stairs as fast as I could, which wasn’t very fast and got dressed for my class.

Don’t worry, although we do wear a jingly scarf around our waists, we don't wear the full belly dancing costumes for our class. Truthfully, I'm not sure I would ever be caught dead in a belly dancing outfit. I dress in yoga pants, a t-shirt, and bare feet.

I stood on the floor with Lydia, waiting for our instructor, Anki, to show up. Anki is from Finland, but has studied belly dancing for about 17 years. She's been living in Cairo, teaching, performing, and studying dance for the past 5 or 6 years. And she's really good...just a little bit late sometimes, which is fine because she often has us dancing 10 minutes after class ends, so that makes up for starting late.

After doing some warmups, which actually felt really good on my stiff legs, Anki announced that we'd be focusing on our arms and torso today. I was really happy to hear that! Although my working my legs a little bit felt good, I was sure I would collapse if we had another 10 minute shimmy session for our legs. Instead we were shimmying our shoulders, which I found difficult beyond belief.

Belly dancing, in general, is difficult. Everytime she introduces a new step, it takes me several days of practicing before I can do it right. But I think I'm making progress because I find it relieving to go back to old steps--steps that I previously thought I'd never be able to do but after doing them for several weeks in a row now feel pretty comfortable.

Not a whole lot was feeling comfortable today, though. Everytime I tried to move my legs was torture. And all my arm movements are choppy. You might think that a shimmy is just a shimmy, but it's really quite technical.

After practicing our shimmies for like 15 minutes, we spent the last few minutes of class following Anki while she did a "teacher improv." We tried to mimic her dance but ended up absolutely slaughtering it. It was quite sad, really. I guess that's why we're the beginner class...

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!