Egyptian Museum

We eased Karen into life in Egypt yesterday by taking a little walk around Maadi before Andrew left for school (his Arabic teacher told him he could skip class so he didn't have to go to school until the afternoon). After Andrew left us, we looked at a few souvenir shops on Road 9 and walked to the church. Rachel and Grandma were both really tired so they had to come home and take naps. They felt much better when they woke up and we were able to go to the playground at Victoria College. It was our first time going there and we actually had a very nice time, even though we had to cross Midan Victoria.

Rachel swinging at the Victoria College playground

I hate Midan Victoria, the traffic circle on Boor Said, because I hate Boor Said. It's probably one of the busiest roads in Maadi, which is otherwise a relatively quiet district of Cairo.

When we were coming home from the playground and were getting ready to cross the midan Karen got hit by a car.

How's that for easing into Egyptian life?

We were just leaving the gates of the park and a car drove by slowly. Apparently they were trying to get into the parking lot but didn't really know where they were going, so they missed the gate. I was postive they saw us walking there because they were driving so slowly...and looking our way...but apparently they didn't see us because they threw the car in reverse and started coming straight at us.

Rachel and I were able to get out of the way, but Karen was right in their path.

She just put her hand out and hit their car like she'd been dealing with Cairene traffic her whole life. It's a good thing they were going slow--they were able to stop before actually running her down!

Now that Karen has proved herself worthy to deal with the traffic here, Rachel and I took her downtown so that we could visit the Egyptian Museum today.

Rachel and Grandma in front of the Egyptian Museum

The Egyptian Museum is a very interesting place, but it kind of reminds me of a teenager's bedroom. There is just stuff. Everywhere.

Sarcophagi and statues litter the floor. Tapestries and mummy wrappings are hung on the walls. Cases and cases and cases of trinkets line the hallways.

The best part about it is that nothing is clearly labeled. There are a few labels explanations here and there. Most of them were typed up on a typewriter decades ago. Some of them are handwritten on lined paper. If you're really lucky there will be a label and an explanation and a translation all together. But only if you're really lucky.

Mostly you just wander around looking at things, guessing at what they are, and enjoying the abundance of history the Egypt holds. Because there really is a whole lot of history here--and a lot of it is remarkably well preserved.

Miraculously well preserved, really, considering the lack of conservation they have. The air is not environmentally controlled--it's so hot and steamy in there because the only room with A/C is the Tutankhamun exhibit--and the cases are all older than old. Some of the cases had packing tape sealing up the glass because the 50 year old seals no longer seal. They also have a lot of things, (sarcophogi and statues, among other things) just sitting out in the open.

We didn't see even half of the museum, I'm sure, before Rachel was ready to call it a day. She refused to use the potty at the museum (granted, it was pretty scary looking) and her "bucking bronco" tantrums were coming closer and closer together. She was so excited when we told her we were going to go outside. As soon as she saw the door she made a break for it.

She had fun chasing Grandma around the gardens.

I'm going to get you, Grandma!

We went to lunch at KFC, right by the downtown AUC campus. That was a less than pleasant experience, but at least we got to eat something...and Rachel found their WC to be much more conducive to her potty business.

She was such a trooper the whole day. She walked a lot, she didn't scream on the metro, and she did a fabulous job at not touching things in the museum.

Walking back to the metro station

Tomorrow we're heading out to another museum, so we'll see how long her good behavior holds up.

Biikyeh!

There is this guy in Maadi--probably more than one guy, actually--who pushes a cart around yelling "Biikyeh!" His cart is full of junk so we could only assume that he was a collector of stuff...or that he was selling something. Really we had no idea what he did.

I aksed Andrew what "biikyeh" meant and he had no idea. He only knew that it wasn't an Arabic word. He had looked up every possible word and there was no biikyeh to be found.

We tried to forget about it, but being the burgeoning linguist that I am I found it rather difficult. Especially because I would hear the Biikyeh Guy everyday, pushing his sqeaky old cart down the street and yelling "Biikyeh!" several times a day. I began to be a little obsessive about it, looking for clues everywhere.

When we went to Dahshur with Emad, Andrew was asking him all of these language questions, so I asked Andrew to ask him what biikyeh meant.

"Oh, I don't know," said Emad, "But you should. It's an Italian word."

Andrew gave him a look that said, "Uh, no. No, it's not."

Emad gave Andrew a look that said, "Didn't you just tell me you lived in Italy for 2 years? What are you, an idiot?"

Well, apparently.

There was silence in the taxi for a while. Then Emad continued, "The full phrase is roba biikyeh, but we just say biikyeh for short."

"Roba means stuff," said Andrew, "But biikyeh doesn't mean anything."

"It means, in English, secondhand." Emad said, impatiently.

And that was the end of that conversation. We had made some progress, but we still didn't know exactly what it meant because Andrew was positive that biikyeh wasn't a word in Italian. Which it isn't.

So it isn't a word in Italian. And it isn't a word in Arabic. And it wasn't a word in any language I could think of.

I forced it to the back of my mind again, until last night when I was doing the dishes.

Karen had brought us some American plastic spoons and spatula/flippers. We'd asked for them because they sell teflon pans here, but the only plastic spoons we could find melted at even the lowest temperature creating these horrible melty-plastic smells and we didn't want to use metal spoons on the non-stick pan.

I was washing the dishes when I came across one such melty-plastic spoon that we'd used to stir our soup that evening.

"I don't know why I'm even washing this," I commented to Andrew, "We should give it to the Biikyeh guy because it's old... Oh, oh, oh! I figured it out!"

Have you ever had a thought that is so brilliant it shocks you? This was one of those thoughts. I was so excited to have figured this out [before Andrew] that I dropped the spoon and started hopping around the kitchen.

"Figured what out?" Andrew asked.

If you know more than one language fairly fluently you sometimes have the problem of pulling up the right word in the wrong language. At least, I have that problem. My poor brain is one, big, muddled mess of words. When I think a word I have two or three counterparts flying at me and I'm never sure, really, which one is going to come out. I've been known to use three or four languages in the same sentence completely accidentally, which makes for some interesting syntax.

Last night when I said "old" I also heard "stari," and "vecchia" in my brain.

"Vecchia!" I exclaimed, "Roba vecchia! Old stuff!"

So it was an Italian word all along. It just hadn't been preserved very well in Arabic.

Now I'll be able to sleep at night, knowing that my linguistic's degree is good for something.

I'm so glad when Grandma comes over

Grandma finally got here! We've been telling Rachel about it for a few weeks now and have been amazed with how much she understands and remembers. We told her that Grandma would be coming on a plane, so every time a plane flew overhead she got really excited. We would clarify which Grandma we were talking to on Skype so that she would know which one was coming.

I told her last night that she had to go to sleep nicely so that she could be a happy girl in the morning.

That didn't really work out because she woke up grumpy and we had a horrible morning, but I was able to use Grandma's arrival as a bribe all day long and by the end of the day she was pretty happy.

Rachel and I went to enrichment meeting at the Lindsay's while Andrew went to the airport to pick Grandma up. When we got home we barely had time to use the potty before the doorbell rang. She jumped up off the potty and ran over to the door, bare bum and all.

She was so excited to see Grandma. So excited that she started running away so that she could run back to Grandma with open arms! She jumped up into Grandma's arms and gave her the biggest, longest hug ever! It lasted at least the first 10 minutes after Grandma walked in the door.

Grandma Hugs

And then there were hugs all around. Andrew got one, but I got three. One from Karen, one from my mom, and a great big hug from Josie.

It's so nice to have her here, safe and sound. We just sketched out the plans for our week and are looking forward to having a lot of fun together!

It was also nice to have all the goodies she brought for us from America (and from her layover in Austria--Swiss chocolate!). Grandma brought a cute little purse for Rachel and some new outfits. And we got some Kool Aid and instant oatmeal and cookie sheets and a lot of other wonderful things. It was like Christmas in October!

Discovering the purse with Grandma

Thanks to both our families for everything! Our pantry is stocked up! Wahoo!

Shopping Promotion

I found City Stars to be rather unimpressive. Other than it's enormity, it really was uninteresting.

First of all, its slogan is "The stars of the city...City Stars!" How lame is that?

Second of all, if you didn't get that the mall's theme is stars from a) the name of the mall and b) the slogan, the decorations will set that straight for you. There are hundreds of stars hanging in the main atrium. Too many stars if you ask me. Way, way too many stars. I'm hoping that they were just up for Ramadan and will be taken down soon because, really, it was just too over the top.


Third, it's a little too big and full of a whole lot of nothing. Most of the stores were ritzy American or European stores that I couldn't afford to buy anything from. And we kept getting lost. And there was nothing interesting (like a hijab fashion show or anything) going on. Even their ATM center was rather empty.

Hmmm...which ATM should I use?

I'm not sure how often we'll be going out there. It's quite a ways away and was, I feel, rather overrated.

We did get some good Mexican food, though. While we were on a quest to find a store that sold cheap-ish jeans, Rachel began to get rather hungry. She kept biting her lips and twisting her mouth around. It was pretty funny.


So we went to On the Border with the Schillings. They had complimentary chips and salsa and our food took so long to get to our table that we must have had 4 or 5 bowls of chips and several bowls of salsa before we even started with our dinners. Rachel devoured a whole bowl of salsa by herself.

That's my girl!

Josh's food was the first to be brought out. He was sitting across the table from me, beside Rachel. The minute his food was set on the table she reached over and plunked her messy finger right in the middle of his dipping sauce.

"It's okay," he said, "I wasn't going to use it, anyway..."

Next time we go out to eat with friends who don't also have children, we're going to have to flank Rachel instead of sitting next to each other...

The food was good, but by no means great.

Man, I sound so unimpressed with City Stars that I might just have to go again to see if it really was that horrible. I mean, I did find a pair of jeans that didn't have a million sequins on them for 70% off and there were some interesting displays and signs. My favorite was this one:


I can just imagine being stopped by a guard one day.

"Receipt, please."

"Oh, yeah. Here you go."

He'll look at my receipt for a minute and then gasp.

"Congratulation!" he'll say, because Arabs rarely remember to pluralize their English congratulations, "You've been promoted from laissez-faire shopper to super shopper! How does that make you feel?"

I'm pretty sure they didn't mean promotion. Protection, maybe...but promotion?

Update: I just had Andrew translate the sign for me and I guess they really do mean to keep the receipts for promotions. Apparently it says, in Arabic, to keep all receipts for security reasons and for entering into contests. It was much funnier before I knew what they were trying to say.

Rachel bites the dust

When we went out grocery shopping today Rachel insisted on walking, even though Andrew had already lugged her stroller down the stairs. We didn't want to put the stroller back since we knew we'd need it to wheel our groceries back home. Besides, Rachel doesn't really ever commit to walking long distances.

So, we were walking along with Daddy pushing the stroller and Rachel holding my hand. She was having a great time...until she hit that pothole.

Before I knew it she had slipped out of my grasp and was face down in the middle of the road. She took the brunt of the impact right on her face. It was a pretty sad sight when I picked her up--she had dirt and blood on her nose and mouth.

We checked her all over for scrapes. Apparently she didn't even try to catch herself with her hands because, not only were they perfectly whole, they weren't even dirty.

I had to carry her the rest of the way to the store. She hugged me the whole way there and when I would ask if she was alright she'd just sniff her nose at me to let me know that she was still a little bit sad about the whole situation.

Here she is a few hours later, ready for dinner. Her nose is just a little swollen still, but on the whole she looks much better.


She would bash up her face the day before my mother-in-law comes out.

Karen arrives tomorrow evening. I'm excited, but also rather nervous. Besides Emily, Josie, and Heather and Ryan Adams, I've never had anyone spend the night at our house before, let alone my mother-in-law.

And truthfully I don't know why I'm nervous about that at all. It isn't like Karen and I don't get along. It's just that I have this daughter-in-law complex. I somehow think that I have to prove to her that I'm a domestic goddess, which I'm not. It's funny because it's all self-imposed stress. She doesn't have any unrealistic expectations for me; I make them up for myself. She knows that I don't keep a perfect house, that I'm not a perfect wife, that I'm not a perfect mother...and yet I feel the need to make everything as perfect as possible when she comes over.

I'm not alone in the world, though, because when I mentioned this at playgroup, Melissa and Lora admitted to the same thing. They get along with their mother-in-laws royally--but still feel this need to impress them. Maybe that feeling goes away the longer you've been married. I don't know.

Coloring with Mom

Rachel can sit and draw for hours. She colored, continuously, for a half hour before bed last night. It's one of my favorite activities for her because it keeps her still and occupied for a long, long time. All I have to do is doodle along with her and that's alright with me because I still like to color.


I remember my mom coloring with me. She taught me a lot about patience that way. I'd make a few marks on the page and ask to turn it and she'd tell me that she was still working on her picture so I'd have to wait. She'd tell me to color this or draw that while I waited, so I would, and I learned that I could wait for a long time, and color every inch of a page in a coloring book.


I also remember crying to her about how David would tease me about not being able to stay in the lines and she would coach me and tell me to slow down and concentrate. I'm proud to announce that I can now stay in the lines, and that I can do almost anything I try if I just slow down and concentrate.


I learned a lot of life lessons from coloring with my mom. Perhaps I'll be able to pass those same lessons down to Rachel using the same method...


I tried using it last night to teach her about obedience.

When she was so tired that she could hardly keep her eyes open, I told her it was time to put the crayons away. Obeying was very difficult for her; she started sobbing, but put the crayons back in the box before crumpling into a heap on the ground.

I told her that we could color another day and she cheered up right away.


We'll color together lots of times on lots of different days, Rachel! I promise!

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...