Since November 4 is only 43 days away, getting an absentee ballot has been pretty high on our priority list. I tried voting absentee in 2004 on my mission but didn't get the ballot until mid December with a Christmas package, so we're really hoping to get the ballots moving our way sooner than that this time around.
NPR had a story last week that made it to their "Most e-mailed stories" podcast about all the problems with overseas voting in the past, slow postal service and impossible registration forms being the main complaints. They mentioned a new organization, the Overseas Vote Foundation, that finally went through all the voting requirements and made a website that fills out the needed forms for you. They're a non partisan organization, but the Obama-Biden camp has made some cool deal with them that lets them use their own custom campaign branding, CSS, and HTML layout at a special subdomain of their site. McCain hasn't, since he's apparently not pushing voter registration like Obama is.
So now we have both of our forms filled out and just need to get them sent out. Hopefully Utah e-mails empty ballots for absentee voters; if not, we can use ex-pat mail privileges here to get them faster (thanks Lewiseses!)
So, yeah. If you're trying to vote from Egypt (or anywhere else in the world), head on over to their site and fill out your registration form.
UPDATE: McCain is kind of working on his own version now, but it's not entirely working right now. These computers and internets are kinda tricky...
Sunday, September 21, 2008
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Water(melon) woes
It seems like our water has been turned off just about every other day this week. I’m always a little disappointed when I go to turn on the tap and nothing comes out, but I can deal with it. Usually. The water outages are pretty consistent—the water turns off around 9 AM and then comes back on around 5 or 6 PM (or later). Rachel and I have taken to doing full-day outings in order to avoid being home.
Being home is depressing; we’re constantly reminded, by the lack of dripping water, that we have no water. I never thought that I’d be happy about having a leaky faucet, but since it does leak and I know that it leaks I’ve come to accept the constant drip as a comfort of sorts. If it’s dripping we have water, and that makes me happy.
Yesterday (Wednesday) was one of those non-water days. Rachel and I woke up around 9 in the morning and went into the bathroom. No water. Again.
I texted Andrew to complain…er, inform him…about the situation, “Ma fii maya…again.”
He called back a few minutes later and suggested I go out and see if I could find the gardener.
“Just say, ‘Ma feesh maya fii shu’utna.’” He coached me.
Our gardener is acting as our bowab for now since we don’t have one. More on that later.
I got Rachel dressed while I practiced saying ‘Ma feesh maya fii shu’utna,’ aloud. I always get flustered when I try to actually speak Arabic to anyone so I find it helpful to practice scenarios before I encounter them. Unfortunately I had no idea what I would say to the gardener if he happened to respond. I couldn’t even think of how he would respond, so instead of thinking about what I would say next I just mumbled ‘Ma feesh maya fii shu’utna’ to Rachel.
When I found myself saying “Ma feesh shu’utna fii maya,” I began to feel a bit like Tom Hanks in the movie “The Terminal.” I knew that, even though I knew the phrase “There’s no water in our apartment” forwards and back, I’d end up walking up to the gardener and telling him “Our apartment is not in the water.”
Unfortunately we didn’t find the gardener outside, so I was left to wonder what to do next instead of what to say next. I’m not sure what I was thinking, but I decided to ask our next-door neighbours if they had water. Big mistake.
We try to avoid our neighbours at all cost. They are an older couple; the woman is Polish and the man is English. We first met the woman, Anna, while her husband was out of town. She was completely intoxicated (she could hardly stand up) and had come to ask for some matches. She took Andrew into her apartment, gave him a tour (and one of her paintings).
“I am…eccentric, crazy lady. I paint. I listen loud music. I drink.”
That’s what she told him. All we can do is believe her. We thought perhaps her husband would be a proper English gentleman (I have no idea why we would think this, given her state), but he’s not. He reminds me much more of the thugs on 101 Dalmatians, if anything else. They both kind of scare me.
But I didn’t think of that until I rang the doorbell. And then it was everlastingly too late. I could already hear Anna coming. I suppose I could have run and hid, but I didn’t.
“Kheellloooo, my sweeetiesssh!” she spat at us. The smell of liquor on her breath was almost too much to bear. And it was only 9 o’clock in the morning.
“I was just wondering,” I stammered (I’m not used to working with drunken people), “We don’t have water…do you have water…?”
“Ahhh, da! Ze water ish bik problem. Bik, bik, problem. I maybe khelpju!”
She thrust some water bottles into my arms and turned around, shaking her derrière.
“You khan wasssh her…” she told me, indicating her rear end, “Babiessh always messhing zher.”
Again, the pointing and shaking of her backside.
“Khom innnn!” she sang, grabbing my arm and pulling me inside.
“Actually, I have company coming soon and I need to clean up my…”
“I don’t sink so!” she interrupted. But no matter what she thought, it was true. My visiting teachers were due at 11 o’clock and I did have to clean up my…apartment.
“You will have tea!” she commanded.
“Oh, I don’t drink tea,” I said. Always a touchy subject with Russians and Arabs, apparently beverages are a touchy subject with Poles as well. I suppose that can be expected since Poland was part of the USSR—their cultures are sure to have assimilated a little.
“No tea?” she asked, gravely offended.
“Uh, no. Spasiba. We don’t drink tea in my religion, but thanks.”
“Coffee then!”
“Uh, no, I don’t drink that either. Eto nilzya v moem tzirkye.” I tried Russian, hoping that she spoke it, again banking on the fact that she was already a grown woman when the USSR was alive and well. Besides, Polish is similar to Russian, so surely she’d understand part of it.
She sighed, slurred something in Russian. And after offering me both coffee and tea several other times, showing me her extensive collection of teas, and even offering me some liquor, we settled on a glass of water.
Anna was still not satisfied, however, and wanted to give me more. She brought out some watermelon, precut, from her kitchen. Rachel dug in. Juice was flying all over the place, drenching Rachel’s shirt and dying it pink, falling on the carpet, spilling on the couch, dripping on the tile.
“I’m sorry,” I said, “Rachel, do be careful…”
“It’s alright!” Anna sang, now thoroughly mixing Russian and English, “You will have some.”
She thrust the bowl in my face. I took a piece and ate it, noticing an obtusely odd flavor that screamed, “I’ve been sitting out all night! Don’t eat me!” After that I tried to discourage Rachel from eating anymore, but with Anna and her husband “Uncle” encouraging Rachel, it was a losing battle. Rachel ate about half the bowl of watermelon.
And then they brought out the chocolates.
“IshSwissh shocolate! Cannot buy in shtore!” Anna informed me. “Have, have!”
“I, uh, don’t eat chocolate either,” I told her, “I’m allergic…”
She studied my face for a moment and then pulled one arm in front of her face while contorting the other arm behind her back. “I know!” she exclaimed, “You yoga!?”
“Yes,” I said tentatively, “I do yoga…”
Not that I’ve actually done it much here. I need to get back into it, but that involves figuring out how to work the portable DVD player and I don’t have a mat to put on the wood floor and doing yoga on a wood floor just sounds ouchy.
“Me, too!” said Anna. She ran over to her (rather extensive) DVD collection and brought me an armful of yoga DVDs, “See?”
Yes, indeed I did see.
“Yoga means no tea, no coffee, no drinks, no candy. That’s why we’re healthy!” she slurred.
Uh-huh.
Rachel was sifting through the pile of imported Swiss chocolates on the table.
“Eat, eat!” Anna urged.
I helped Rachel sift through the chocolates, avoiding all cappuccino flavored ones, until we found a nice, plain milk chocolate. After Rachel had stuffed herself full of chocolate and claimed a little stuffed Eyore as her own (“Take, take! She likes it, take!”), and laden down with bottles of water, we left Anna’s apartment. Finally. I had 6 minutes until my visiting teachers arrived.
At least we found out from Anna’s husband (Uncle, we’re to call him) that there’s a pump broken somewhere between the Nile and Road 84 or something, and they turn it off and reroute the water so that they can work on it. It should be fixed soon (insha’allah). That’s about all he said to us before he disappeared somewhere in the house. He was about as drunk as Anna. Almost, but not quite.
Rachel was bouncing off the walls while my visiting teachers, Sister Lindsey and Sister Hall, were here. I suppose she had too much watermelon and chocolate. As soon as they left I fed Rachel lunch and put her down for a nap. She, uncharacteristically, calmed down immediately and fell asleep within five minutes of being put down.
I ate some breakfast, finally, and started cleaning up a bit. Then I read, took a nap, read some more, cleaned some more…and Rachel still hadn’t stirred. I went in to wake her up. She was very groggy and clingy and wanted to nurse right away.
I tried to make her stand up while I got ready to nurse, but she fell over and started crying and writhing on the floor. I picked her back up and she nursed for about two minutes. Then she looked at me and started gagging.
“What’s wrong, baby?” I asked. “Are you choking on something? Let me see in your…oh…gross…”
Rachel threw up all over me. I had a big puddle of throw up on my lap, which was quickly running down my leg and onto the floor. Rachel started gagging again. I didn’t want to be her throw up bowl again, so I quickly put her on the floor to finish throwing up while I tried to think about what to do.
She was holding my hands and shaking, puking her guts out every few minutes. We were both covered in throw up, and still the half-digested watermelon just kept on coming. Finally, Rachel let go of my hands, sat down (yes, in the throw up), and sighed a big sigh.
“Feel better?” I asked. She nodded and then, believe it or not, asked if she could keep nursing.
She threw a fit when I told her she’d have to wait while I cleaned up a bit, but there was no way I was nursing her in this condition. I peeled off her stinky, wet clothes, and then took off my own throw-up covered clothes, and we ran into the bathroom. I put her in the sink and turned on the tap. Nothing. Came. Out.
I had totally forgotten that we had no running water. Luckily we believe in baby wipes. Rachel and I got a baby wipe sponge bath, which was sufficient, but not perfect. I threw a towel over her throw up and sopped it up the best I could. We put some clothes on and then we sat down to nurse until Andrew got home.
“I feel so gross!” I told him, “But the water won’t turn on for a few hours!”. I still had bits of watermelon between my toes and Rachel smelled sour—I’m sure I did, too.
He called the Lewises who said we could come over and use their shower (bless them), which we did, and then they fed us dinner (bless them again). It felt so nice to be clean and de-throw-up-ified, surrounded by happy people who’d had water all day long, and full of, you guessed it, hamburgers (this time from Maadi House)!
Being home is depressing; we’re constantly reminded, by the lack of dripping water, that we have no water. I never thought that I’d be happy about having a leaky faucet, but since it does leak and I know that it leaks I’ve come to accept the constant drip as a comfort of sorts. If it’s dripping we have water, and that makes me happy.
Yesterday (Wednesday) was one of those non-water days. Rachel and I woke up around 9 in the morning and went into the bathroom. No water. Again.
I texted Andrew to complain…er, inform him…about the situation, “Ma fii maya…again.”
He called back a few minutes later and suggested I go out and see if I could find the gardener.
“Just say, ‘Ma feesh maya fii shu’utna.’” He coached me.
Our gardener is acting as our bowab for now since we don’t have one. More on that later.
I got Rachel dressed while I practiced saying ‘Ma feesh maya fii shu’utna,’ aloud. I always get flustered when I try to actually speak Arabic to anyone so I find it helpful to practice scenarios before I encounter them. Unfortunately I had no idea what I would say to the gardener if he happened to respond. I couldn’t even think of how he would respond, so instead of thinking about what I would say next I just mumbled ‘Ma feesh maya fii shu’utna’ to Rachel.
When I found myself saying “Ma feesh shu’utna fii maya,” I began to feel a bit like Tom Hanks in the movie “The Terminal.” I knew that, even though I knew the phrase “There’s no water in our apartment” forwards and back, I’d end up walking up to the gardener and telling him “Our apartment is not in the water.”
Unfortunately we didn’t find the gardener outside, so I was left to wonder what to do next instead of what to say next. I’m not sure what I was thinking, but I decided to ask our next-door neighbours if they had water. Big mistake.
We try to avoid our neighbours at all cost. They are an older couple; the woman is Polish and the man is English. We first met the woman, Anna, while her husband was out of town. She was completely intoxicated (she could hardly stand up) and had come to ask for some matches. She took Andrew into her apartment, gave him a tour (and one of her paintings).
“I am…eccentric, crazy lady. I paint. I listen loud music. I drink.”
That’s what she told him. All we can do is believe her. We thought perhaps her husband would be a proper English gentleman (I have no idea why we would think this, given her state), but he’s not. He reminds me much more of the thugs on 101 Dalmatians, if anything else. They both kind of scare me.
But I didn’t think of that until I rang the doorbell. And then it was everlastingly too late. I could already hear Anna coming. I suppose I could have run and hid, but I didn’t.
“Kheellloooo, my sweeetiesssh!” she spat at us. The smell of liquor on her breath was almost too much to bear. And it was only 9 o’clock in the morning.
“I was just wondering,” I stammered (I’m not used to working with drunken people), “We don’t have water…do you have water…?”
“Ahhh, da! Ze water ish bik problem. Bik, bik, problem. I maybe khelpju!”
She thrust some water bottles into my arms and turned around, shaking her derrière.
“You khan wasssh her…” she told me, indicating her rear end, “Babiessh always messhing zher.”
Again, the pointing and shaking of her backside.
“Khom innnn!” she sang, grabbing my arm and pulling me inside.
“Actually, I have company coming soon and I need to clean up my…”
“I don’t sink so!” she interrupted. But no matter what she thought, it was true. My visiting teachers were due at 11 o’clock and I did have to clean up my…apartment.
“You will have tea!” she commanded.
“Oh, I don’t drink tea,” I said. Always a touchy subject with Russians and Arabs, apparently beverages are a touchy subject with Poles as well. I suppose that can be expected since Poland was part of the USSR—their cultures are sure to have assimilated a little.
“No tea?” she asked, gravely offended.
“Uh, no. Spasiba. We don’t drink tea in my religion, but thanks.”
“Coffee then!”
“Uh, no, I don’t drink that either. Eto nilzya v moem tzirkye.” I tried Russian, hoping that she spoke it, again banking on the fact that she was already a grown woman when the USSR was alive and well. Besides, Polish is similar to Russian, so surely she’d understand part of it.
She sighed, slurred something in Russian. And after offering me both coffee and tea several other times, showing me her extensive collection of teas, and even offering me some liquor, we settled on a glass of water.
Anna was still not satisfied, however, and wanted to give me more. She brought out some watermelon, precut, from her kitchen. Rachel dug in. Juice was flying all over the place, drenching Rachel’s shirt and dying it pink, falling on the carpet, spilling on the couch, dripping on the tile.
“I’m sorry,” I said, “Rachel, do be careful…”
“It’s alright!” Anna sang, now thoroughly mixing Russian and English, “You will have some.”
She thrust the bowl in my face. I took a piece and ate it, noticing an obtusely odd flavor that screamed, “I’ve been sitting out all night! Don’t eat me!” After that I tried to discourage Rachel from eating anymore, but with Anna and her husband “Uncle” encouraging Rachel, it was a losing battle. Rachel ate about half the bowl of watermelon.
And then they brought out the chocolates.
“IshSwissh shocolate! Cannot buy in shtore!” Anna informed me. “Have, have!”
“I, uh, don’t eat chocolate either,” I told her, “I’m allergic…”
She studied my face for a moment and then pulled one arm in front of her face while contorting the other arm behind her back. “I know!” she exclaimed, “You yoga!?”
“Yes,” I said tentatively, “I do yoga…”
Not that I’ve actually done it much here. I need to get back into it, but that involves figuring out how to work the portable DVD player and I don’t have a mat to put on the wood floor and doing yoga on a wood floor just sounds ouchy.
“Me, too!” said Anna. She ran over to her (rather extensive) DVD collection and brought me an armful of yoga DVDs, “See?”
Yes, indeed I did see.
“Yoga means no tea, no coffee, no drinks, no candy. That’s why we’re healthy!” she slurred.
Uh-huh.
Rachel was sifting through the pile of imported Swiss chocolates on the table.
“Eat, eat!” Anna urged.
I helped Rachel sift through the chocolates, avoiding all cappuccino flavored ones, until we found a nice, plain milk chocolate. After Rachel had stuffed herself full of chocolate and claimed a little stuffed Eyore as her own (“Take, take! She likes it, take!”), and laden down with bottles of water, we left Anna’s apartment. Finally. I had 6 minutes until my visiting teachers arrived.
At least we found out from Anna’s husband (Uncle, we’re to call him) that there’s a pump broken somewhere between the Nile and Road 84 or something, and they turn it off and reroute the water so that they can work on it. It should be fixed soon (insha’allah). That’s about all he said to us before he disappeared somewhere in the house. He was about as drunk as Anna. Almost, but not quite.
Rachel was bouncing off the walls while my visiting teachers, Sister Lindsey and Sister Hall, were here. I suppose she had too much watermelon and chocolate. As soon as they left I fed Rachel lunch and put her down for a nap. She, uncharacteristically, calmed down immediately and fell asleep within five minutes of being put down.
I ate some breakfast, finally, and started cleaning up a bit. Then I read, took a nap, read some more, cleaned some more…and Rachel still hadn’t stirred. I went in to wake her up. She was very groggy and clingy and wanted to nurse right away.
I tried to make her stand up while I got ready to nurse, but she fell over and started crying and writhing on the floor. I picked her back up and she nursed for about two minutes. Then she looked at me and started gagging.
“What’s wrong, baby?” I asked. “Are you choking on something? Let me see in your…oh…gross…”
Rachel threw up all over me. I had a big puddle of throw up on my lap, which was quickly running down my leg and onto the floor. Rachel started gagging again. I didn’t want to be her throw up bowl again, so I quickly put her on the floor to finish throwing up while I tried to think about what to do.
She was holding my hands and shaking, puking her guts out every few minutes. We were both covered in throw up, and still the half-digested watermelon just kept on coming. Finally, Rachel let go of my hands, sat down (yes, in the throw up), and sighed a big sigh.
“Feel better?” I asked. She nodded and then, believe it or not, asked if she could keep nursing.
She threw a fit when I told her she’d have to wait while I cleaned up a bit, but there was no way I was nursing her in this condition. I peeled off her stinky, wet clothes, and then took off my own throw-up covered clothes, and we ran into the bathroom. I put her in the sink and turned on the tap. Nothing. Came. Out.
I had totally forgotten that we had no running water. Luckily we believe in baby wipes. Rachel and I got a baby wipe sponge bath, which was sufficient, but not perfect. I threw a towel over her throw up and sopped it up the best I could. We put some clothes on and then we sat down to nurse until Andrew got home.
“I feel so gross!” I told him, “But the water won’t turn on for a few hours!”. I still had bits of watermelon between my toes and Rachel smelled sour—I’m sure I did, too.
He called the Lewises who said we could come over and use their shower (bless them), which we did, and then they fed us dinner (bless them again). It felt so nice to be clean and de-throw-up-ified, surrounded by happy people who’d had water all day long, and full of, you guessed it, hamburgers (this time from Maadi House)!
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Ibn Tuloun and Al Azhar Park
At long last Andrew’s schedule has finally been solidified. He’s taking an Arabic class everyday Sunday through Wednesday. That class meets first thing in the morning so Andrew has to take the early bus to school. Due to Ramadan the class has been bumped even earlier, so that means that the early bus arrives earlier. Poor Andrew, who is not a morning person at all, has to get up by 5:30 in order to get to the bus on time.
Luckily, he was able to snag some graduate classes that were offered during the day so he only has to stay late on campus one night a week. Most of the graduate classes are only offered in the evenings, but I’m happy that 2 of his 3 Middle East/Political Science classes are during the day.
His one evening class is the same night that I take belly dancing lessons. Lora is babysitting for us on those evenings—I totally owe her big time once Abby gets big enough to be left with sitters on a regular basis.
This semester Andrew has Arabic 203—which is the 2nd to last regular Arabic class they offer at AUC. The number just sounds low, but really it’s high. I promise. If BYU used it, it would be a 400 level, post-study abroad class. But they don’t teach it…
He’s also taking A Critical Introduction to Middle East Studies; Islamic Institutions; and a seminar on Palestinian Refugee Rights and Issues. He’s happily interested in all of his classes so far. My favorite part, besides him actually having drive and purpose in his life again, is that he gets Thursdays off, which means that we get a 3-day weekend every week!
We squandered this Thursday away by sleeping in and puttering about the house, but we have been making plans to do exciting things on other Thursdays (when Andrew isn’t swamped with homework and reading). We made up for our lack of activity on Saturday, though.
Originally we were planning on heading out to the mosque of Ibn Tuloun, walking to the Sultan Hassan Madrassa/Mausoleum and then to the Citadel. We rode the Metro out to the stop at Sayeda Zeinab and after wandering through a market selling all sorts of wondrous things (including pickled cow heads *gag*) we grabbed a taxi and sped off to Ibn Tuloun.
The guards told us that the mosque was closed, but it wasn’t really. They were just grumpy—Ramadan Kareem (Happy Ramadan)—so we went in anyway and paid the staffers a few pounds to put some disgusting booties on our feet. I’m not really sure why we were wearing them, although I’m pretty sure it wasn’t to keep the mosque clean because, well, it was filthy—swirling with pigeon feathers and dust. I understand that mosques are sacred places and we offered to take off our shoes as we saw other people doing, but the staffers were quite insistent on our need for booties. Hot, sweaty, never-been-cleaned booties.
We put them on and wandered around. Rachel thought it was a lot of fun. Her sole goal seemed to be to get in the sabil (ablution fountain) in the middle of the mosque. She could climb up and reach across to the fountain, but she just couldn’t get her feet across no matter how hard she tried. Poor girl.
After many failed attempts she was able to satisfy her curiosity by going around and knocking on as many doors as she could. She had a great time.
Even though we promised the guards we’d only be 5 minutes, the staffers didin’t seem too pushy to get anyone out. There were a few tourists besides us milling around, as well as a few little Muslim families. Still, after admiring the architecture and reading about the mosque in our guidebook and having a little history lesson from Andrew, there wasn’t much else to do inside we thought we’d try to get on top (we’d seen some other people up there).
Among other things, Ibn Tuloun is famous for its minaret, which is in the Abbassid Iraqi style with the stairs on the outside. Ibn Tuloun was a governor from Iraq and copied the Al Mutawakkil mosque in Samarra. Apparently the minaret offers a spectacular view of the rest of the mosque, as well as the Citadel, but the door was locked and we couldn’t find the guards. We’ll have to go back another time.
After failing at getting to climb the minaret, we headed off to the Sultan Hassan Madrassa/Mausoleum. Rachel enjoyed the walk there. She loved being in Islamic Cairo—it was like being on a farm, only in the middle of the city. All we have out in Maadi are cats, dogs, and birds. In Islamic Cairo, though, there are donkeys and horses pulling carts, goats and sheep on the side of the road, and although we didn’t see any poultry we heard enough noise to believe that there were some roosters around somewhere.
Rachel was beside herself with joy and kept pointing at every animal she saw and making her generic animal noise (which right now is “Ooh, ooh!”). I didn’t think anything could distract her from her animal hunt, but then Andrew crossed the street and Rachel and I got stuck on the other side. She was alright until she noticed he was gone and then she started to panic.
“Dada?” she’d ask, put her hands into her question mark position.
“He’s right there, across the street,” I’d tell her. I don’t think she could focus on him that far away with all the cars zooming by and people whistling at her. She was pretty nervous until he was back within her reach.
The Sultan Hassan Madrassa/Mausoleum closed at 2 PM (Ramadan hours…Ramadan Kareem). At first I wasn’t going to believe the guy who told us that because people often try to scam you into believing that such-and-such a place is closed and will lead you somewhere else in order to rip you off. However, upon further investigation the site really was rather closed. He told us that the Citadel was closed, too.
So we thanked him and refused to go with him “down the street,” even though he was pestering us to no end, and quickly made new plans to visit Al-Azhar Park instead. We hailed a taxi and went off on the wildest ride of our life!
A garbage truck had decided to make his rounds so we were in stop-and-go traffic behind his truck for the longest time. We kept zigzagging around other cars and stopping so abruptly I thought Rachel would fly out of my arms.
And then we got to Al-Azhar Park and the driver gasped. We had taken the long way around instead of coming up in front of the Citadel. I don’t know if the driver honestly didn’t know he could come that way, or if he really just wanted to take us on a wild ride. I’m banking on him not knowing. He was pretty frustrated the whole time we were in the taxi… “Why do you want to go there?! Look at this traffic!”
It cost 5 LE each to get in (about 1 USD), which was worth it because Al-Azhar Park is beautiful! They had the same type of grass there that they have on the beaches in San Diego—all short and waxy. But it was nice to have a place for Rachel, our blossoming social butterfly, to run around.
We wanted to check out the playground, and she was more interested in becoming acquainted with everyone on the path. She ran up to a couple and jumped up into the arms of the man. It’s a good thing Arabs like children. He plopped down on a bench with her and gave her a Kleenex (one of her favorite things to eat) and played with her for a few minutes.
As soon as we had convinced her that she belonged to our family and not theirs, she was off hugging a pylon. And then she just about adopted herself into a family with three little kids walking the opposite direction. So many distractions, so little time.
Eventually we made it to the park and Rachel was in heaven. There were so many slides and swings to choose from. She had a blast running around while we chased her. For some reason she didn’t want to play with any of the kids at the park—go figure. Our camera battery died, which was only minutely unfortunate. We couldn’t take any more pictures of her having fun but it allowed us to get out from behind the lens and play with her.
We played until the sky started getting all sunsetty on us, which made us remember that it’s Ramadan and we had better hurry off to find a taxi before iftar or we’d be stuck in the park all night (okay, probably not all night…but probably well past Rachel’s bedtime). Rachel only had a few distractions on the way back: the couple she’d stolen the Kleenex from and a little boy that we had to stop and play with for a few minutes. She gave him a hug. His parents just about died of happiness.
Oh, and then we had to have a last minute photo shoot by the fountain at the main gate. A bunch of teenagers were there and they all whipped out their cell phones so that they could take pictures with Rachel. They passed her around and pinched her cheeks and made her anxious enough that she willingly let Daddy carry her all the way to the taxi.
Luckily, he was able to snag some graduate classes that were offered during the day so he only has to stay late on campus one night a week. Most of the graduate classes are only offered in the evenings, but I’m happy that 2 of his 3 Middle East/Political Science classes are during the day.
His one evening class is the same night that I take belly dancing lessons. Lora is babysitting for us on those evenings—I totally owe her big time once Abby gets big enough to be left with sitters on a regular basis.
This semester Andrew has Arabic 203—which is the 2nd to last regular Arabic class they offer at AUC. The number just sounds low, but really it’s high. I promise. If BYU used it, it would be a 400 level, post-study abroad class. But they don’t teach it…
He’s also taking A Critical Introduction to Middle East Studies; Islamic Institutions; and a seminar on Palestinian Refugee Rights and Issues. He’s happily interested in all of his classes so far. My favorite part, besides him actually having drive and purpose in his life again, is that he gets Thursdays off, which means that we get a 3-day weekend every week!
We squandered this Thursday away by sleeping in and puttering about the house, but we have been making plans to do exciting things on other Thursdays (when Andrew isn’t swamped with homework and reading). We made up for our lack of activity on Saturday, though.
Originally we were planning on heading out to the mosque of Ibn Tuloun, walking to the Sultan Hassan Madrassa/Mausoleum and then to the Citadel. We rode the Metro out to the stop at Sayeda Zeinab and after wandering through a market selling all sorts of wondrous things (including pickled cow heads *gag*) we grabbed a taxi and sped off to Ibn Tuloun.
The mosque of Ibn TulounThe guards told us that the mosque was closed, but it wasn’t really. They were just grumpy—Ramadan Kareem (Happy Ramadan)—so we went in anyway and paid the staffers a few pounds to put some disgusting booties on our feet. I’m not really sure why we were wearing them, although I’m pretty sure it wasn’t to keep the mosque clean because, well, it was filthy—swirling with pigeon feathers and dust. I understand that mosques are sacred places and we offered to take off our shoes as we saw other people doing, but the staffers were quite insistent on our need for booties. Hot, sweaty, never-been-cleaned booties.
Notice the cute booties...We put them on and wandered around. Rachel thought it was a lot of fun. Her sole goal seemed to be to get in the sabil (ablution fountain) in the middle of the mosque. She could climb up and reach across to the fountain, but she just couldn’t get her feet across no matter how hard she tried. Poor girl.
Rachel and Nancy at the fountain
Sitting on the fountainAfter many failed attempts she was able to satisfy her curiosity by going around and knocking on as many doors as she could. She had a great time.
Hello?Even though we promised the guards we’d only be 5 minutes, the staffers didin’t seem too pushy to get anyone out. There were a few tourists besides us milling around, as well as a few little Muslim families. Still, after admiring the architecture and reading about the mosque in our guidebook and having a little history lesson from Andrew, there wasn’t much else to do inside we thought we’d try to get on top (we’d seen some other people up there).
Among other things, Ibn Tuloun is famous for its minaret, which is in the Abbassid Iraqi style with the stairs on the outside. Ibn Tuloun was a governor from Iraq and copied the Al Mutawakkil mosque in Samarra. Apparently the minaret offers a spectacular view of the rest of the mosque, as well as the Citadel, but the door was locked and we couldn’t find the guards. We’ll have to go back another time.
Rachel and the mosqueAfter failing at getting to climb the minaret, we headed off to the Sultan Hassan Madrassa/Mausoleum. Rachel enjoyed the walk there. She loved being in Islamic Cairo—it was like being on a farm, only in the middle of the city. All we have out in Maadi are cats, dogs, and birds. In Islamic Cairo, though, there are donkeys and horses pulling carts, goats and sheep on the side of the road, and although we didn’t see any poultry we heard enough noise to believe that there were some roosters around somewhere.
Rachel was beside herself with joy and kept pointing at every animal she saw and making her generic animal noise (which right now is “Ooh, ooh!”). I didn’t think anything could distract her from her animal hunt, but then Andrew crossed the street and Rachel and I got stuck on the other side. She was alright until she noticed he was gone and then she started to panic.
“Dada?” she’d ask, put her hands into her question mark position.
“He’s right there, across the street,” I’d tell her. I don’t think she could focus on him that far away with all the cars zooming by and people whistling at her. She was pretty nervous until he was back within her reach.
Where's dada?The Sultan Hassan Madrassa/Mausoleum closed at 2 PM (Ramadan hours…Ramadan Kareem). At first I wasn’t going to believe the guy who told us that because people often try to scam you into believing that such-and-such a place is closed and will lead you somewhere else in order to rip you off. However, upon further investigation the site really was rather closed. He told us that the Citadel was closed, too.
The Mohammed Ali mosque at the CitadelSo we thanked him and refused to go with him “down the street,” even though he was pestering us to no end, and quickly made new plans to visit Al-Azhar Park instead. We hailed a taxi and went off on the wildest ride of our life!
A garbage truck had decided to make his rounds so we were in stop-and-go traffic behind his truck for the longest time. We kept zigzagging around other cars and stopping so abruptly I thought Rachel would fly out of my arms.
And then we got to Al-Azhar Park and the driver gasped. We had taken the long way around instead of coming up in front of the Citadel. I don’t know if the driver honestly didn’t know he could come that way, or if he really just wanted to take us on a wild ride. I’m banking on him not knowing. He was pretty frustrated the whole time we were in the taxi… “Why do you want to go there?! Look at this traffic!”
It cost 5 LE each to get in (about 1 USD), which was worth it because Al-Azhar Park is beautiful! They had the same type of grass there that they have on the beaches in San Diego—all short and waxy. But it was nice to have a place for Rachel, our blossoming social butterfly, to run around.
View of downtown Cairo from the park
Chilling at the parkWe wanted to check out the playground, and she was more interested in becoming acquainted with everyone on the path. She ran up to a couple and jumped up into the arms of the man. It’s a good thing Arabs like children. He plopped down on a bench with her and gave her a Kleenex (one of her favorite things to eat) and played with her for a few minutes.
As soon as we had convinced her that she belonged to our family and not theirs, she was off hugging a pylon. And then she just about adopted herself into a family with three little kids walking the opposite direction. So many distractions, so little time.
Rachel and her new best friend...Eventually we made it to the park and Rachel was in heaven. There were so many slides and swings to choose from. She had a blast running around while we chased her. For some reason she didn’t want to play with any of the kids at the park—go figure. Our camera battery died, which was only minutely unfortunate. We couldn’t take any more pictures of her having fun but it allowed us to get out from behind the lens and play with her.
Down the slide!
Playing with daddyWe played until the sky started getting all sunsetty on us, which made us remember that it’s Ramadan and we had better hurry off to find a taxi before iftar or we’d be stuck in the park all night (okay, probably not all night…but probably well past Rachel’s bedtime). Rachel only had a few distractions on the way back: the couple she’d stolen the Kleenex from and a little boy that we had to stop and play with for a few minutes. She gave him a hug. His parents just about died of happiness.
Oh, and then we had to have a last minute photo shoot by the fountain at the main gate. A bunch of teenagers were there and they all whipped out their cell phones so that they could take pictures with Rachel. They passed her around and pinched her cheeks and made her anxious enough that she willingly let Daddy carry her all the way to the taxi.
Monday, September 15, 2008
Sunday, September 14, 2008
Babysitting
We babysat for Sara and Kevan on Friday evening so that they could attend a fireside—they serve in YW and YM, respectively. We couldn’t really say no since we find their kids hilarious and they promised to save some dinner for us.
Dinner happened to be enchiladas, which goes against all tradition. We’ve had dinner at their place three times previously and each time we’ve had burgers, so tradition dictates that we should have had burgers again. I guess since we were just eating leftovers, and not actually “eating over” per se, tradition still reigns.
Kevan offered some sour cream and salsa to top our enchiladas, which we accepted, mouths watering, while Rachel sat at the computer with Sara happy to have a captive audience. American-style sour cream and salsa are not readily available here and we were excited for the luxury.
We sat down at the table and Andrew put some sour cream and salsa on his enchiladas while mumbling some comment about how he’s “putting salsa on his lasagna because he can.”
I ignored him for the time being and remarked how absolutely happy I was to have real tortillas! He ignored me for the time being and made some remark about how he shouldn’t have put salsa on his lasagna. The thought was starting to gross him out, but he had been so excited to have salsa back in his life that, caught up in the moment, he put it on his “lasagna” anyway.
He pushed it around on his plate with his fork, bemoaning his rash decision. I let him suffer for a few minutes before I let on that dinner was actually enchiladas.
“These are enchiladas!” he choked out, a little too exited for words.
Does anyone out there actually put sour cream and salsa on their lasagna? I wouldn’t be surprised to find a few sour cream toppers out there. Salsa is another case entirely.
Dinner aside, we had a wonderful evening throwing paper airplanes around with the kids. We were a little taken aback by Jacob’s knowledge of plane parts, paper airplane models, and air strike terminology. Megan and Emma seemed, similarly, stunned so we just went along with whatever he monologued for us.
Bedtime in their household is typically 8 o’clock, but they had been given permission to stay up later—at least until we couldn’t stand them. Things were going so well, but bedtime is bedtime and around 8:02 Megan started to get a little teary. She started bawling over everything and when I told her that certain little girls who couldn’t stay awake and be happy at the same time might have to go to bed, she got even more upset.
I suggested a “teeth-brushing contest” as a way to get Megan ready for bed without thinking she was actually getting ready for bed. That backfired.
Emma raced off to brush her teeth leaving moaning Megan in the dust.
“No!” wailed Megan, “There is no contest! And even if there was a contest I’d still be upset because Emma won! I lost the contest! I said there wasn’t a contest and I still lost!”
I took Megan into the bathroom to brush her teeth and tried to be sympathetic. This also backfired.
“Do you know what, Megan?” I told her, “I have two big sisters and a big brother! How many big brothers and sisters do you have?”
“I have two *sniff* big sisters and *cough, sniff, cough* one big brother, too!”
“Wow! That’s so cool!” I said. And then we continued to talk about trivial things like how long I’ve had glasses and why Rachel can’t borrow Emma’s toothbrush and why Megan was so sad.
“It’s hard to be five, isn’t it?” I said, trying not to laugh while pulling my most genuinely caring face.
“Yeah, it is…but I hope you mean that it’s hard to be five-and-a-half because I’m actually not five I’m five-and-a-half!” Megan was wailing again.
I’d completely forgotten about the whole quarter/half/three-quarters thing that kids care about until they get so old that they’d rather subtract any given number of years from their age than tack on an extra half of one.
We eventually got the three youngest in bed, leaving Jacob up reading silently. Rachel was also getting up, wired as ever. I tried to put her to sleep but she would have none of it, so we let her stay up. She was still up when the Lewises got home and was plenty hyper. We stayed for ice cream (and to use the internet, borrow some DVDs, and talk books and politics—and to think our parents were worried about us coming out here. We’re being taken care of) and watched Rachel run around like a crazy monkey. She showed off all her tricks, ever grateful for her captive audience, and was still awake when we got home.
She put up as much of a fuss about going to bed last night after 11 PM as she did going to bed tonight at 8 PM. I think that girl would stay up all day and night if she was given the opportunity…
Dinner happened to be enchiladas, which goes against all tradition. We’ve had dinner at their place three times previously and each time we’ve had burgers, so tradition dictates that we should have had burgers again. I guess since we were just eating leftovers, and not actually “eating over” per se, tradition still reigns.
Kevan offered some sour cream and salsa to top our enchiladas, which we accepted, mouths watering, while Rachel sat at the computer with Sara happy to have a captive audience. American-style sour cream and salsa are not readily available here and we were excited for the luxury.
We sat down at the table and Andrew put some sour cream and salsa on his enchiladas while mumbling some comment about how he’s “putting salsa on his lasagna because he can.”
I ignored him for the time being and remarked how absolutely happy I was to have real tortillas! He ignored me for the time being and made some remark about how he shouldn’t have put salsa on his lasagna. The thought was starting to gross him out, but he had been so excited to have salsa back in his life that, caught up in the moment, he put it on his “lasagna” anyway.
He pushed it around on his plate with his fork, bemoaning his rash decision. I let him suffer for a few minutes before I let on that dinner was actually enchiladas.
“These are enchiladas!” he choked out, a little too exited for words.
Does anyone out there actually put sour cream and salsa on their lasagna? I wouldn’t be surprised to find a few sour cream toppers out there. Salsa is another case entirely.
Dinner aside, we had a wonderful evening throwing paper airplanes around with the kids. We were a little taken aback by Jacob’s knowledge of plane parts, paper airplane models, and air strike terminology. Megan and Emma seemed, similarly, stunned so we just went along with whatever he monologued for us.
Bedtime in their household is typically 8 o’clock, but they had been given permission to stay up later—at least until we couldn’t stand them. Things were going so well, but bedtime is bedtime and around 8:02 Megan started to get a little teary. She started bawling over everything and when I told her that certain little girls who couldn’t stay awake and be happy at the same time might have to go to bed, she got even more upset.
I suggested a “teeth-brushing contest” as a way to get Megan ready for bed without thinking she was actually getting ready for bed. That backfired.
Emma raced off to brush her teeth leaving moaning Megan in the dust.
“No!” wailed Megan, “There is no contest! And even if there was a contest I’d still be upset because Emma won! I lost the contest! I said there wasn’t a contest and I still lost!”
I took Megan into the bathroom to brush her teeth and tried to be sympathetic. This also backfired.
“Do you know what, Megan?” I told her, “I have two big sisters and a big brother! How many big brothers and sisters do you have?”
“I have two *sniff* big sisters and *cough, sniff, cough* one big brother, too!”
“Wow! That’s so cool!” I said. And then we continued to talk about trivial things like how long I’ve had glasses and why Rachel can’t borrow Emma’s toothbrush and why Megan was so sad.
“It’s hard to be five, isn’t it?” I said, trying not to laugh while pulling my most genuinely caring face.
“Yeah, it is…but I hope you mean that it’s hard to be five-and-a-half because I’m actually not five I’m five-and-a-half!” Megan was wailing again.
I’d completely forgotten about the whole quarter/half/three-quarters thing that kids care about until they get so old that they’d rather subtract any given number of years from their age than tack on an extra half of one.
We eventually got the three youngest in bed, leaving Jacob up reading silently. Rachel was also getting up, wired as ever. I tried to put her to sleep but she would have none of it, so we let her stay up. She was still up when the Lewises got home and was plenty hyper. We stayed for ice cream (and to use the internet, borrow some DVDs, and talk books and politics—and to think our parents were worried about us coming out here. We’re being taken care of) and watched Rachel run around like a crazy monkey. She showed off all her tricks, ever grateful for her captive audience, and was still awake when we got home.
She put up as much of a fuss about going to bed last night after 11 PM as she did going to bed tonight at 8 PM. I think that girl would stay up all day and night if she was given the opportunity…
Friday, September 12, 2008
Maadi House
We had a little playgroup at Maadi House on Wednesday morning. Lydia invited several moms in the branch to meet her there because she can take guests in for free on Wednesdays and, in her words, there’s no one there to play with, anyway.
There’s a true statement! The place was really quite deserted. I’m glad that Lydia invited us so that we could enjoy the playground! It’s huge—so much better than the playground at Orchard Creek—although there were no swings. I suppose Rachel will have to do without. There are several different play areas, meant for different skill levels, I suppose.
Rachel immediately headed towards the biggest, most difficult play area and climbed up the first flight of stairs. She kind of panicked when she realized that she was all alone up there and spotted Jacqueline playing on the more age appropriate playground set. After I helped her climb down, she followed Jacqueline around from the play set to the toy kitchen and back again. I think she was kind of annoying Jacqueline, really, since Jacqueline is the youngest in her family and is used to following other people, not being followed.
At any rate, we had a good time. It was nice to be able to kick our shoes off (literally) and just be American for a while. I talked with Lydia, Melissa, and Lora while Rachel played with Jacqueline and Abby and Finn relaxed as only babies can. It was quite relaxing.
Rachel and I haven’t been getting along very well recently. I think it’s because we’ve been cooped up for far too long. Even when we get out of the house, we still feel cooped up because Rachel is either strapped to me or stuck in her stroller—and we’re usually just going somewhere else to be inside. It was good for her to run around in the hot sun, eat some sand, and realize that she still, occasionally, needs me. Like when she walks too far out on the hot sand in bare feet and has to have me rescue her.
When Lydia decided to call it a day and took Jacqueline home to have her afternoon nap, the rest of us hit the pools. Rachel and I almost didn’t because I forgot our swimming hud but, lucky for Rachel, I found a swim diaper left over in our diaper bag from our swimming excursion last Saturday and so she and I got into the wading pool. Her in her swim diaper and me with my pants cinched up around my knees.
She did a lot better today than she did last week. I think last week was just too crazy for her with so many people in the pool. The pool was, like the playground, completely unoccupied and she had no problem getting in.
The wading pool is only a foot and a half deep, which is plenty deep for Rachel. She held on to the side and practiced lifting her feet up and down, splashed around for a bit, and tried walking around. She really did pretty well, but the bottom is a little slippery and she kept going under and floundering around until I’d pull her back onto her feet. Nothing really seemed to scare her; she’d come up from each dunk ready to keep swimming. By the time we were ready to go home Rachel was a pro at climbing out of the pool, jumping up and down in the pool (using my hands for balance), blowing bubbles, and not splashing the babies. She never tried to get in the pool by herself, which I was perfectly fine with.
The best part was that Rachel was ready for a nap by the time we got home. That didn’t mean she slept any longer than usual. In fact, she slept for under an hour. Still, she woke up cheerful and we were able to get along for the rest of the day. How sad is my life? Rachel is only one and already we butt heads almost constantly. It’s not that we don’t love each other, because we do. We just have yet to find a way to peacefully coexist.
Rachel actually reminds me a lot of my little sister, Josie. I also love Josie—but I have a theory as to why we’re 9 years apart. My basic theory is that if we had been close enough in age to be teenagers at the same time under the same roof, the house would have spontaneously combusted. Again, we love each other. We have fun with each other. We even look alike and talk alike and act alike…sometimes.
Mostly, though, we’re pretty different people and that makes for some interesting conflicts.
For example, no one in my family sleeps very well. We’re all rather insomniatic and are half-zombie half the time. I am the type of person who, if I wake up in the middle of the night unable to sleep, will quietly read a book or rearrange my stuffed animal collection.
Josie, however, is the type of person who will break out her pogo stick and go for a new world record. I’m not even slightly joking—I’ve actually had to interrupt her 2 AM pogo stick workout in order to ask her to do something a little more quiet.
Yeah, Rachel kind of reminds me of Josie, which is great! Josie is an amazing person, as I’m sure Rachel will be. I just need to find a way to figure out why she does the things she does. Perhaps things will get better when she can talk a little more (perhaps). For now, if running wild at Maadi House helps her to be happy for a day, I hope for many more outings to Maadi House.
There’s a true statement! The place was really quite deserted. I’m glad that Lydia invited us so that we could enjoy the playground! It’s huge—so much better than the playground at Orchard Creek—although there were no swings. I suppose Rachel will have to do without. There are several different play areas, meant for different skill levels, I suppose.
Rachel immediately headed towards the biggest, most difficult play area and climbed up the first flight of stairs. She kind of panicked when she realized that she was all alone up there and spotted Jacqueline playing on the more age appropriate playground set. After I helped her climb down, she followed Jacqueline around from the play set to the toy kitchen and back again. I think she was kind of annoying Jacqueline, really, since Jacqueline is the youngest in her family and is used to following other people, not being followed.
At any rate, we had a good time. It was nice to be able to kick our shoes off (literally) and just be American for a while. I talked with Lydia, Melissa, and Lora while Rachel played with Jacqueline and Abby and Finn relaxed as only babies can. It was quite relaxing.
Rachel and I haven’t been getting along very well recently. I think it’s because we’ve been cooped up for far too long. Even when we get out of the house, we still feel cooped up because Rachel is either strapped to me or stuck in her stroller—and we’re usually just going somewhere else to be inside. It was good for her to run around in the hot sun, eat some sand, and realize that she still, occasionally, needs me. Like when she walks too far out on the hot sand in bare feet and has to have me rescue her.
When Lydia decided to call it a day and took Jacqueline home to have her afternoon nap, the rest of us hit the pools. Rachel and I almost didn’t because I forgot our swimming hud but, lucky for Rachel, I found a swim diaper left over in our diaper bag from our swimming excursion last Saturday and so she and I got into the wading pool. Her in her swim diaper and me with my pants cinched up around my knees.
She did a lot better today than she did last week. I think last week was just too crazy for her with so many people in the pool. The pool was, like the playground, completely unoccupied and she had no problem getting in.
The wading pool is only a foot and a half deep, which is plenty deep for Rachel. She held on to the side and practiced lifting her feet up and down, splashed around for a bit, and tried walking around. She really did pretty well, but the bottom is a little slippery and she kept going under and floundering around until I’d pull her back onto her feet. Nothing really seemed to scare her; she’d come up from each dunk ready to keep swimming. By the time we were ready to go home Rachel was a pro at climbing out of the pool, jumping up and down in the pool (using my hands for balance), blowing bubbles, and not splashing the babies. She never tried to get in the pool by herself, which I was perfectly fine with.
Abby's first swim
Rachel stealing Finn's floaty
The best part was that Rachel was ready for a nap by the time we got home. That didn’t mean she slept any longer than usual. In fact, she slept for under an hour. Still, she woke up cheerful and we were able to get along for the rest of the day. How sad is my life? Rachel is only one and already we butt heads almost constantly. It’s not that we don’t love each other, because we do. We just have yet to find a way to peacefully coexist.
Rachel actually reminds me a lot of my little sister, Josie. I also love Josie—but I have a theory as to why we’re 9 years apart. My basic theory is that if we had been close enough in age to be teenagers at the same time under the same roof, the house would have spontaneously combusted. Again, we love each other. We have fun with each other. We even look alike and talk alike and act alike…sometimes.
Mostly, though, we’re pretty different people and that makes for some interesting conflicts.
For example, no one in my family sleeps very well. We’re all rather insomniatic and are half-zombie half the time. I am the type of person who, if I wake up in the middle of the night unable to sleep, will quietly read a book or rearrange my stuffed animal collection.
Josie, however, is the type of person who will break out her pogo stick and go for a new world record. I’m not even slightly joking—I’ve actually had to interrupt her 2 AM pogo stick workout in order to ask her to do something a little more quiet.
Yeah, Rachel kind of reminds me of Josie, which is great! Josie is an amazing person, as I’m sure Rachel will be. I just need to find a way to figure out why she does the things she does. Perhaps things will get better when she can talk a little more (perhaps). For now, if running wild at Maadi House helps her to be happy for a day, I hope for many more outings to Maadi House.
Finger, Finger, Fan
Rachel has been most interested in the fans around the house. They have “grills” on the front that spin around to direct the airflow of the fan. Upon trying, and failing, to stick her finger through the grill, Rachel took a personal vendetta against the fan. She was going to stick her finger through that grill or die in the process.
Naturally she’s heard a lot more of the word “NO!” since she started on this little quest than before.
She’ll stick her little pointer out and will aim, ever so carefully, at a hole in the rotating grill and slowly move towards it…
“No! Rachel! Stop! You’ll get hurt.”
So she’ll stop, once more thwarted but still wanting to try. It didn’t matter how many times we said no, she wanted to get around that grill!
She succeeded this week, noticing that the back of the fan doesn’t have a grill that moves around, not only making it easier to stick her fingers through but also making it easier to hide what she was doing. While I was reading on the couch, Rachel was behind the fan and before I could tell her to step away there was a sickening grinding noise and Rachel fell backwards screaming and pointing angrily at the fan with her mangled little finger—the same one she’d just stuck inside.
“Ahhh! Ahhh! Ahhhh!” she accused before breaking down into terrified sobs.
I scooped her up and she screamed into my chest, cradling her hand.
“That’s why Mommy and Daddy keep saying no,” I told her, “Let me see your finger.”
After a bit of a tussle I finally got a good-ish look at her finger. She had a series of little cuts, so small they looked like paper cuts. Only one was bleeding, a small flap of skin flapped around, like flaps of skin do. I wasn’t all that worried about her injuries. She was.
I imagine it wouldn’t be a fun thing to experience and we’d hoped that maybe she’d learn her lesson. Alas, she tried to stick her finger through the fan again that afternoon.
Perhaps I’d misinterpreted her goal. Perhaps she didn’t want to merely get her finger through the grate. Perhaps her actual goal was to cut off her finger. Who knows?
Update: I just caught Andrew sticking his finger in the fan in Sara’s kitchen. Maybe it is genetic.
Update: Rachel also bit a bar of soap in half this morning while she was taking a bath. She gagged and then threw up. I think there is still a half bar of soap in her tummy. Maybe she’s just crazy.
Naturally she’s heard a lot more of the word “NO!” since she started on this little quest than before.
She’ll stick her little pointer out and will aim, ever so carefully, at a hole in the rotating grill and slowly move towards it…
“No! Rachel! Stop! You’ll get hurt.”
So she’ll stop, once more thwarted but still wanting to try. It didn’t matter how many times we said no, she wanted to get around that grill!
She succeeded this week, noticing that the back of the fan doesn’t have a grill that moves around, not only making it easier to stick her fingers through but also making it easier to hide what she was doing. While I was reading on the couch, Rachel was behind the fan and before I could tell her to step away there was a sickening grinding noise and Rachel fell backwards screaming and pointing angrily at the fan with her mangled little finger—the same one she’d just stuck inside.
“Ahhh! Ahhh! Ahhhh!” she accused before breaking down into terrified sobs.
I scooped her up and she screamed into my chest, cradling her hand.
“That’s why Mommy and Daddy keep saying no,” I told her, “Let me see your finger.”
After a bit of a tussle I finally got a good-ish look at her finger. She had a series of little cuts, so small they looked like paper cuts. Only one was bleeding, a small flap of skin flapped around, like flaps of skin do. I wasn’t all that worried about her injuries. She was.
I imagine it wouldn’t be a fun thing to experience and we’d hoped that maybe she’d learn her lesson. Alas, she tried to stick her finger through the fan again that afternoon.
Perhaps I’d misinterpreted her goal. Perhaps she didn’t want to merely get her finger through the grate. Perhaps her actual goal was to cut off her finger. Who knows?
Update: I just caught Andrew sticking his finger in the fan in Sara’s kitchen. Maybe it is genetic.
Update: Rachel also bit a bar of soap in half this morning while she was taking a bath. She gagged and then threw up. I think there is still a half bar of soap in her tummy. Maybe she’s just crazy.
Tuesday, September 09, 2008
Kleenex Pushers
I’ve often wondered why the Kleenex pushers work in groups. They all descend on you at once, like vultures or piranhas or something, forcing packets of tissue into your hand, insisting that you are a good person, and asking you for money. What could I possibly need all that Kleenex for? Am I supposed to choose one lucky Kleenex pusher and give them my money? It isn’t as if one packet of Kleenex is far superior to the next, is it? As you can see the whole scenario is rather overwhelming.
The trickier ones place packets of Kleenex to Rachel’s ever-extended hand and then expect me to pay for them. I usually just end up giving the Kleenex back and not paying them because I find it horrible that they take advantage of my child to get a few LE.
The more determined ones will follow me for several streets whining about this and that. I don’t buy their Kleenex, either, because they’re just annoying.
I usually ignore them all, truthfully, and I feel rather callus about that. But how many little packets of tissue could I ever possibly need?
Yesterday Rachel and I went out walking and I kept a pound in my pocket to give to a beggar. Oddly enough we didn’t see a single beggar the whole time we were out, so it was still in my pocket when we went out with Andrew this evening.
Keeping with the ordinary, I saw a lady peddling her Kleenex. She looked truly poor and her baby honestly sad, unlike the other lady who’s been pestering me (she refused the food I offered her and laughed when I offered her some change. And her baby is super chubby. She keeps telling me he’s hungry and I’m like, “Are you kidding me? His rolls have rolls!”).
Like most other Kleenex pushers tonight’s shoved her wares up in my face, like perhaps I didn’t see her or hear her. Or maybe waving Kleenex directly under someone’s nose makes the Kleenex more attractive, or at least reminds the person that they might just need it someday.
I don’t know if it was her Kleenex-waving skills, or the way her face was so pleading, but I decided she was the one to get my pound. She took the money and told me I was a good lady and then, get this, she wouldn’t give me the Kleenex.
One pound is a bit much to pay for 5 sheets of lousy tissue, in my opinion. Much more overpriced than buying a box of Kleenex in the store. But to pay a pound for a packet of Kleenex and then to have that Kleenex taken from your hand…
I suppose she really needed the money. But why did she even offer the Kleenex to me in the first place? Why didn’t she just flat out ask me for money?
At least the Kleenex pusher/Indian giver and I are friends now. She smiled and waved at us on our way home and called me a good lady again. Not that I gave money away to be called “good lady.” I actually gave my money away for a packet of Kleenex.
I will admit I was a little miffed about the whole situation. I’m not sure why because it was only a pound, which is like 18 cents. It’s not like that broke the bank, but Andrew has a cold and really could have used a tissue just then.
I’m not sure when I’ll be buy Kleenex off the street again. I feel like I kind of got the bad end of the deal this time around.
The trickier ones place packets of Kleenex to Rachel’s ever-extended hand and then expect me to pay for them. I usually just end up giving the Kleenex back and not paying them because I find it horrible that they take advantage of my child to get a few LE.
The more determined ones will follow me for several streets whining about this and that. I don’t buy their Kleenex, either, because they’re just annoying.
I usually ignore them all, truthfully, and I feel rather callus about that. But how many little packets of tissue could I ever possibly need?
Yesterday Rachel and I went out walking and I kept a pound in my pocket to give to a beggar. Oddly enough we didn’t see a single beggar the whole time we were out, so it was still in my pocket when we went out with Andrew this evening.
Keeping with the ordinary, I saw a lady peddling her Kleenex. She looked truly poor and her baby honestly sad, unlike the other lady who’s been pestering me (she refused the food I offered her and laughed when I offered her some change. And her baby is super chubby. She keeps telling me he’s hungry and I’m like, “Are you kidding me? His rolls have rolls!”).
Like most other Kleenex pushers tonight’s shoved her wares up in my face, like perhaps I didn’t see her or hear her. Or maybe waving Kleenex directly under someone’s nose makes the Kleenex more attractive, or at least reminds the person that they might just need it someday.
I don’t know if it was her Kleenex-waving skills, or the way her face was so pleading, but I decided she was the one to get my pound. She took the money and told me I was a good lady and then, get this, she wouldn’t give me the Kleenex.
One pound is a bit much to pay for 5 sheets of lousy tissue, in my opinion. Much more overpriced than buying a box of Kleenex in the store. But to pay a pound for a packet of Kleenex and then to have that Kleenex taken from your hand…
I suppose she really needed the money. But why did she even offer the Kleenex to me in the first place? Why didn’t she just flat out ask me for money?
At least the Kleenex pusher/Indian giver and I are friends now. She smiled and waved at us on our way home and called me a good lady again. Not that I gave money away to be called “good lady.” I actually gave my money away for a packet of Kleenex.
I will admit I was a little miffed about the whole situation. I’m not sure why because it was only a pound, which is like 18 cents. It’s not like that broke the bank, but Andrew has a cold and really could have used a tissue just then.
I’m not sure when I’ll be buy Kleenex off the street again. I feel like I kind of got the bad end of the deal this time around.
Power Outages
We had a branch party on Saturday and, after a wonderful mix up on Andrew’s part, ended up at the correct swimming pool, which was lovely.
Andrew had led us all the way to Maadi Club (or Clup, depending on which sign you’re reading) and we stood at the gate for a while not knowing what to do. He didn’t have any money on his phone so he told me to call someone but I hate making phone calls so I handed him my phone and told him to call someone.
He called Kevan who told us just to look at the guestbook, choose someone in the branch as a sponsor, write our names down as their guests, and go on in.
We tried explaining this to the guards. Andrew took the book and opened it. The guard slapped it shut. Andrew explained again that we had friends inside and tried to open the book. The guard slapped it shut again and told us that this was a private club and, essentially, to get lost.
We resumed our previous position outside the gate looking stupidly lost and out of place.
Andrew handed me back the phone.
“You call someone,”
Fair is fair. I looked through the numbers in my phone. I need to program more numbers in there. Phyllis was the first on my list. She wasn’t going swimming. Then the Masons. Finn had a doctor’s appointment so they weren’t swimming either. Then Sara.
I need to add more numbers in my phone. I know more people than that. I called Sara who told us that Kevan had just gotten home and would be over shortly to let us in.
A while later Kevan called back. Andrew answered.
“Where are you guys?” Kevan asked.
“At gate #1, right by the circle,” Andrew answered.
“There’s no circle…”
Ah, we were supposed to be at Maadi House not Maadi Club (or Clup). Things were beginning to be clearer already. We wandered our way over there, crossing Boor Said twice, much to my dismay. I hate that street with a burning, fiery passion.
At any rate we found our way and had a wonderful swim, even if Rachel wasn’t in to the whole thing. When she’d completely come undone, we decided to call it a day, but not before stopping by the Lewis’s to use the internet.
Once home, Andrew showered while I put Rachel down for a nap, and then it was my turn in the shower. As luck would have it, the power went out the minute I was in. Again, very reminiscent of Jordan (I don’t know why it took us so long to replace that burned out light bulb—was it just a hard light bulb to find or our laziness that allowed the bathroom to remain dark for so long? Perhaps the bathroom was simply more welcoming in the dark. It was a scary bathroom, eh, Crystal?), showering in the dark while praying that the hot water didn’t run out before I finished rinsing my hair out.
The power goes out here all the time, but just in little spurts. It rarely stays out for longer than 30 minutes. Andrew and I did a little sleuthing around our apartment to see if we could figure out why the power goes out so often. It really wasn’t hard to find dozens of reasons why, especially when you consider that every apartment here has similar “features.” Is it any wonder we get a few blackouts now and again?
Amateur electricians are everywhere, including Andrew who daringly spliced our phone line together and then, in a death defying feat, chipped away the paint in the phone jack so that we could plug in our phone. (Amateur painters are everywhere, too. They seriously painted over our phone jack, completely filled the little hole with paint). I don’t think they have to train at any special trade school or do apprentice work or anything here. It’s all learn-as-you-go, as evidenced by every single cord in our house. Each one has been cut in half, mangled, and then taped back together. The bigger question is how we get away with so few blackouts. From the looks of things we should have at least twice as many more!
We only use 110 volts in North America and they scare us silly “educating” us at school about the dangers of electricity. We’re taught how to unplug an appliance properly (by the plug, not the cord) and that we shouldn’t use the phone during an electrical storm. My elementary school went so far as to bring in a miniature “green box” and electrocute a hot dog just to show us how much energy was running through those wires. I don’t think I’d ever been so scared in all my life.
Here they use 220 volts but they don’t seem the least bit concerned about being electrocuted. How do they do it?
Andrew had led us all the way to Maadi Club (or Clup, depending on which sign you’re reading) and we stood at the gate for a while not knowing what to do. He didn’t have any money on his phone so he told me to call someone but I hate making phone calls so I handed him my phone and told him to call someone.
He called Kevan who told us just to look at the guestbook, choose someone in the branch as a sponsor, write our names down as their guests, and go on in.
We tried explaining this to the guards. Andrew took the book and opened it. The guard slapped it shut. Andrew explained again that we had friends inside and tried to open the book. The guard slapped it shut again and told us that this was a private club and, essentially, to get lost.
We resumed our previous position outside the gate looking stupidly lost and out of place.
Andrew handed me back the phone.
“You call someone,”
Fair is fair. I looked through the numbers in my phone. I need to program more numbers in there. Phyllis was the first on my list. She wasn’t going swimming. Then the Masons. Finn had a doctor’s appointment so they weren’t swimming either. Then Sara.
I need to add more numbers in my phone. I know more people than that. I called Sara who told us that Kevan had just gotten home and would be over shortly to let us in.
A while later Kevan called back. Andrew answered.
“Where are you guys?” Kevan asked.
“At gate #1, right by the circle,” Andrew answered.
“There’s no circle…”
Ah, we were supposed to be at Maadi House not Maadi Club (or Clup). Things were beginning to be clearer already. We wandered our way over there, crossing Boor Said twice, much to my dismay. I hate that street with a burning, fiery passion.
At any rate we found our way and had a wonderful swim, even if Rachel wasn’t in to the whole thing. When she’d completely come undone, we decided to call it a day, but not before stopping by the Lewis’s to use the internet.
Once home, Andrew showered while I put Rachel down for a nap, and then it was my turn in the shower. As luck would have it, the power went out the minute I was in. Again, very reminiscent of Jordan (I don’t know why it took us so long to replace that burned out light bulb—was it just a hard light bulb to find or our laziness that allowed the bathroom to remain dark for so long? Perhaps the bathroom was simply more welcoming in the dark. It was a scary bathroom, eh, Crystal?), showering in the dark while praying that the hot water didn’t run out before I finished rinsing my hair out.
The power goes out here all the time, but just in little spurts. It rarely stays out for longer than 30 minutes. Andrew and I did a little sleuthing around our apartment to see if we could figure out why the power goes out so often. It really wasn’t hard to find dozens of reasons why, especially when you consider that every apartment here has similar “features.” Is it any wonder we get a few blackouts now and again?
Amateur electricians are everywhere, including Andrew who daringly spliced our phone line together and then, in a death defying feat, chipped away the paint in the phone jack so that we could plug in our phone. (Amateur painters are everywhere, too. They seriously painted over our phone jack, completely filled the little hole with paint). I don’t think they have to train at any special trade school or do apprentice work or anything here. It’s all learn-as-you-go, as evidenced by every single cord in our house. Each one has been cut in half, mangled, and then taped back together. The bigger question is how we get away with so few blackouts. From the looks of things we should have at least twice as many more!
We only use 110 volts in North America and they scare us silly “educating” us at school about the dangers of electricity. We’re taught how to unplug an appliance properly (by the plug, not the cord) and that we shouldn’t use the phone during an electrical storm. My elementary school went so far as to bring in a miniature “green box” and electrocute a hot dog just to show us how much energy was running through those wires. I don’t think I’d ever been so scared in all my life.
Here they use 220 volts but they don’t seem the least bit concerned about being electrocuted. How do they do it?
Water Woes, Mother Woes
At dinner this evening, Rachel denounced her babyhood. We ate out, at Pizza Hut, because I had failed to have dinner ready when Andrew got home and so everyone was starving to death. I had been intending to have some rice ready to serve up with leftover curry but our pipes ran dry all afternoon.
I immediately began to have day-mares of life in Jordan, day after day with no running water. We averaged 3-5 days with water. Sometimes, when we were lucky (or out of town for half the week) we’d have running water clear to the end of the week. Most often, though, we’d run out on Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday. It was dreadful. I’m not sure water ever meant so much to me until I had to live without showering, dish washing, or toilet flushing, among other things.
Quite paranoid, I checked the pipes every 10 minutes or so all afternoon.
With no water to boil the rice, I sat down and wondered what else to make for dinner. Pita bread and cheese somehow didn’t sound terribly filling.
When Andrew came home from work, he checked the pipes and, much to my surprise and relief, found that we had water again. He then suggested we just go out for dinner. I think he noticed how much stress not having water for one afternoon had caused me. I was a blubbering idiot when he came home.
“And I couldn’t do the laundry or clean Rachel off after lunch or *sniff* anything!”
Cowboy up, girlfriend! It was only one afternoon. Clearly I’ve seen worse, though I think that was really what pushed me over the edge—the prospect of having worse once more.
Anyway, we went out to dinner. There were several Muslim families there, waiting for the call to prayer so they could, essentially, dig in. As soon as the call to prayer started sounding there was a rush of waiters dropping pizza off at this table and that. I felt a little left out as we had to wait quite a while for our pizza to show up. I hadn’t even been fasting and my tummy was protesting the wait loudly. I’m kind of harboring the idea that our waiter was punishing us for being non-fasting Christians while he was a fasting-Muslim because he was surly. He didn’t bring our ketchup out with our pizza, if you can believe, and we actually had to ask for it.
Ordinarily this wouldn’t have been a big deal since Americans that I know of, including ourselves, don’t eat ketchup with their pizza (maybe Megan does…) but Arabs do eat ketchup with their pizza and I’ve come to expect a full bottle at my table. Besides, we’d ordered “potato wedges” and clearly those call for ketchup. Unless you happen to live in the Middle East, in which case you have to learn to eat your fries plain.
Surly waiters and ketchup problems aside, there was a cute little family sitting on the other side of the room from us. They had a little girl who was probably about a half year older than Rachel, and Rachel was rather excited to see her. She kept turning around in her chair and grinning so hard I thought her face would fall off.
For lack of a better term, we called the little girl a baby. I don’t know if Rachel was excited to see another girl her age or if she was simply jealous because this little girl already had her food.
“Where’s the baby, Rachel?” we asked, “Do you see the baby?”
She’d turn around and point to the little girl, who was clearly older than she was. When Andrew asked if she, herself, was a baby, Rachel vehemently shook her head no, much to my dismay.
And I suppose that she really has grown up in the past few weeks. We went swimming at a branch party and she kind of chickened out at the pool (wouldn’t blow bubbles or put her face in or do anything exciting), but after we’d met for iftar in the evening, Rachel was off playing with the rest of the kids. I was so sure she’d get trampled, or worse, but she really held her ground well.
I sat and watched her play for a while. She was chasing after Sam and mimicking his every move (except for sliding down the stairs—that was too tricky for her) and I was just sitting deftly to the side, wishing that she was my little baby again and not this grown up toddler.
When I asked her if it would be alright if I left, she gave me a look that said, “What have you been hanging around here for, anyway? I don’t need you!”
I went to mingle, albeit nervously, with some of the other “useless” mothers while Rachel played. I did see her get bowled over a few times by some tag-playing boys but she didn’t even cry or come find me. She just brushed herself off and rushed to catch up with whatever Sam was doing. Talk about feeling useless! Perhaps I just shouldn’t have spied on her playtime. Then I wouldn’t know how absolutely useless I was.
Aside from letting her venture out of my sight to play unchaperoned, Rachel has unleashed a few surprise words on use recently. She can say “dog” and “car,” although they come out more along the lines of “D-indiscernible vowel-G” and “C-random vowel-R.”
“Arf! Arf!” we hear somewhere in a distant street.
“Dog!” Rachel will say, although to me it sounds much more like “dig” and then she’ll start into her monkey sound, which is apparently also what a dog says, “Ooh! Ooh! Ooh!”
It will take some time to get used to all the changes Rachel is imposing on me. She’s just growing up too quickly—still hasn’t given up nursing, though. Although that is getting increasingly embarrassing to do in public since I never know whether she’s planning on starting the nursing session off by growling like a lion and gnashing her teeth at me or crooning a song of gratuity. I know you’re all thinking the lion growl would be more embarrassing but she usually gets enough milk in her mouth to gurgle with while she sings. I thank my lucky stars each time she goes through a public feeding without putting on a show.
I also thank my lucky stars that we were only without water for a couple of hours this afternoon and not for days on end.
I’m not sure I could hold together if both my baby and my water pipes abandoned me in one day!
I immediately began to have day-mares of life in Jordan, day after day with no running water. We averaged 3-5 days with water. Sometimes, when we were lucky (or out of town for half the week) we’d have running water clear to the end of the week. Most often, though, we’d run out on Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday. It was dreadful. I’m not sure water ever meant so much to me until I had to live without showering, dish washing, or toilet flushing, among other things.
Quite paranoid, I checked the pipes every 10 minutes or so all afternoon.
With no water to boil the rice, I sat down and wondered what else to make for dinner. Pita bread and cheese somehow didn’t sound terribly filling.
When Andrew came home from work, he checked the pipes and, much to my surprise and relief, found that we had water again. He then suggested we just go out for dinner. I think he noticed how much stress not having water for one afternoon had caused me. I was a blubbering idiot when he came home.
“And I couldn’t do the laundry or clean Rachel off after lunch or *sniff* anything!”
Cowboy up, girlfriend! It was only one afternoon. Clearly I’ve seen worse, though I think that was really what pushed me over the edge—the prospect of having worse once more.
Anyway, we went out to dinner. There were several Muslim families there, waiting for the call to prayer so they could, essentially, dig in. As soon as the call to prayer started sounding there was a rush of waiters dropping pizza off at this table and that. I felt a little left out as we had to wait quite a while for our pizza to show up. I hadn’t even been fasting and my tummy was protesting the wait loudly. I’m kind of harboring the idea that our waiter was punishing us for being non-fasting Christians while he was a fasting-Muslim because he was surly. He didn’t bring our ketchup out with our pizza, if you can believe, and we actually had to ask for it.
Ordinarily this wouldn’t have been a big deal since Americans that I know of, including ourselves, don’t eat ketchup with their pizza (maybe Megan does…) but Arabs do eat ketchup with their pizza and I’ve come to expect a full bottle at my table. Besides, we’d ordered “potato wedges” and clearly those call for ketchup. Unless you happen to live in the Middle East, in which case you have to learn to eat your fries plain.
Surly waiters and ketchup problems aside, there was a cute little family sitting on the other side of the room from us. They had a little girl who was probably about a half year older than Rachel, and Rachel was rather excited to see her. She kept turning around in her chair and grinning so hard I thought her face would fall off.
For lack of a better term, we called the little girl a baby. I don’t know if Rachel was excited to see another girl her age or if she was simply jealous because this little girl already had her food.
“Where’s the baby, Rachel?” we asked, “Do you see the baby?”
She’d turn around and point to the little girl, who was clearly older than she was. When Andrew asked if she, herself, was a baby, Rachel vehemently shook her head no, much to my dismay.
And I suppose that she really has grown up in the past few weeks. We went swimming at a branch party and she kind of chickened out at the pool (wouldn’t blow bubbles or put her face in or do anything exciting), but after we’d met for iftar in the evening, Rachel was off playing with the rest of the kids. I was so sure she’d get trampled, or worse, but she really held her ground well.
I sat and watched her play for a while. She was chasing after Sam and mimicking his every move (except for sliding down the stairs—that was too tricky for her) and I was just sitting deftly to the side, wishing that she was my little baby again and not this grown up toddler.
When I asked her if it would be alright if I left, she gave me a look that said, “What have you been hanging around here for, anyway? I don’t need you!”
I went to mingle, albeit nervously, with some of the other “useless” mothers while Rachel played. I did see her get bowled over a few times by some tag-playing boys but she didn’t even cry or come find me. She just brushed herself off and rushed to catch up with whatever Sam was doing. Talk about feeling useless! Perhaps I just shouldn’t have spied on her playtime. Then I wouldn’t know how absolutely useless I was.
Aside from letting her venture out of my sight to play unchaperoned, Rachel has unleashed a few surprise words on use recently. She can say “dog” and “car,” although they come out more along the lines of “D-indiscernible vowel-G” and “C-random vowel-R.”
“Arf! Arf!” we hear somewhere in a distant street.
“Dog!” Rachel will say, although to me it sounds much more like “dig” and then she’ll start into her monkey sound, which is apparently also what a dog says, “Ooh! Ooh! Ooh!”
It will take some time to get used to all the changes Rachel is imposing on me. She’s just growing up too quickly—still hasn’t given up nursing, though. Although that is getting increasingly embarrassing to do in public since I never know whether she’s planning on starting the nursing session off by growling like a lion and gnashing her teeth at me or crooning a song of gratuity. I know you’re all thinking the lion growl would be more embarrassing but she usually gets enough milk in her mouth to gurgle with while she sings. I thank my lucky stars each time she goes through a public feeding without putting on a show.
I also thank my lucky stars that we were only without water for a couple of hours this afternoon and not for days on end.
I’m not sure I could hold together if both my baby and my water pipes abandoned me in one day!
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