The Girls Get Haircuts!

 Emily has been asking me for a haircut for the last couple of weeks. She wanted a short hair cut so that her head wouldn't be so hot. After much talkings amongst ourselves, we decided to do it today.

 

Of course, our little monkey see, monkey do, had to have her hair cut as well, but she didn't want it quite as short as Emily did. 

When we got to the hair dresser, there was a little boy about Emily's age who was having his hair cut. And when his father started shouting at the barber because he had cut the boy's ear twice! The barber insisted that the boy was wiggling and the father insisted that he was being still.

Emily didn't even act like she had heard, but while Emily was having her hair cut, Savannah said:

"Mommy, I don't want my ear cut, like the boy got. I just want my hair cut." :) I assured her that her hair cut placed the scissors no where near her ears.

However, as the barber was cutting Savannah's hair, he cut his own finger!!

Both girls love their new hair and keep swishing their heads back and forth. It is very sweet and cute.

Things You Don't See in America: Part 10

This may be one of my favorite pictures. Mostly because we see these donkey-pulled carts everywhere we go. They carry mostly people or vegetables. Sometimes you see one with piles of garlic and onion. You will find them in the most poor areas and on the busiest highways. You see them driven by boys who look to be about 10 years old and by old men.

Before the Revolution, they were never on our street... And I'm sure many of my neighbors are displeased by their presence. However, I love this new aspect of our street. I love hearing the men shout their wares as they walk by. And I often hang my head (and or camera) out the window to watch them interact with my neighbors. Last week I saw a guy buy at least an insane amount of red onions, there were at least 20 pounds. What in the world were they going to do with that many onions? 

Happy Birthday, Leigh!

Happy Birthday to my sister Leigh!


     I remember being small and it was Halloween. My family didn't do any Trick-or-Treating, so Leigh came over with a bag of candy and spread it around the living room and let us kids find it.
     I remember she always brought great presents for birthdays and Christmas. We knew she would come through the door shouting Happy Birthday and have arm fulls of presents.
     I remember the coolest thing ever as a kid was to get to go somewhere with her. That it didn't happen very often, made it especially exciting. 
     I remember hoping she would notice me and talk to me and she always did and always had something sweet to say. I valued her opinion.
     On days she had said she would come to visit, I remember staring out the window long before it was time for her to show up.
     I remember thinking she was the most beautiful person I had ever seen. 
     She drove several hundred miles to come attend my high school graduation.
     I remember her encouraging me that "everything would work out" during a particularly dark time in my relationship with Brian. She was right.
    I remember on my wedding day, while we were driving to the wedding, at a stop sign she stopped the car and got out and ran around the car, dancing, and shouting "Christy's getting married today!"
     I remember cards and letters while I was 1200 miles away from home.
     I remember visiting her when she lived in Texas and going to a park and she took pictures and swung in the swings and played with my girls.
     I remember feeling so excited and honored when she would drive down and visit me and go shopping and out to eat.
     I remember shopping with her on Black Friday and getting up crazy early, pregnant with Sophie, and standing in long lines, having a blast because I was with her.
    
 And now I get to watch her love my kids. She sends the best mail: cards, letters, presents and even awesome packages from across the ocean make my kids day. They love their Aunt Leigh like crazy. 
 
Savannah Leigh is her namesake because of her influence in my life. Leigh lives her life loving other people. She is sensitive to the feelings of people around her and tries to meet their needs. She brings happiness everywhere she goes.

I'm almost 29 years old and I still want to be like my big sister Leigh.

My Mama Always Said...

ya gotta start 'em young!

This is What Happens...

when you don't take the time to read the label. Never mind the label is all in Arabic...

 

All I could do was laugh when I unfolded these garbage bags that dwarf my garbage can.

Smile

Things You Don't See in America: Part 9

I believe this truck is full of garbage to be delivered to Garbage City. If you are interested, you can read more about Garbage City in my posts Part 1 and Part 2.

Eating Dogs

My girls were watching the Pink Panther Cartoons, the one where the Pink Panther sets the dog against his master. At the end, the man is shooting at the dog, chasing him out of the house. 

Emily: "I think he wanted the dog for breakfast or lunch or dinner."

Me: "Maybe, but you don't eat dogs. Ew."

Emily: "Ew? I've never eaten dog. Have you, Mommy."

Me: "No, I have never eaten dog. Ew."

Emily: "But if you have never eaten dog, you don't know that it isn't good. You can't say "Ew" unless you have actually tried it."

Me: "But Emily, its a dog. Why would you eat a dog?"

Savannah: "It has meat, Mommy, it has meat."

One Year.

Today, one year ago, is the day we arrived in Egypt.

As the plane landed, Savannah looked out the tiny window and saw the triangle shape of the wing tip, and shouted, "I see the pyramids! I see the pyramids! We are in Egypt, Mommy!" And everyone in hearing distance, that understood English, laughed.

I remember getting off the plane at 2:00 in the morning, 5 carry-on suitcases, and 3 tired little girls. We collected all of our luggage, 11 suitcases and 1 guitar case, I remember being crazy happy they had all arrived. We then made our way through the airport, to the bus waiting for us outside.

I remember looking at street lights, painted murals on walls, stores and shops, people and wondering what would happen in the next few years.

This picture was taken shortly after we arrived. 

I remember getting to the hotel and crashing. And then being awakened by our new friends who had put so much work into finding an apartment for us. He woke us all up :) and then had to wait while we tried to find clothes out of our suitcases.

I remember seeing our apartment for the first time and then, I blinked and it is now one year later.

 As I think about the last year, I cannot believe I worried so much about living here. In a lot of ways, it is just how life was in the States. We wake up every day, eat breakfast, fix three little girls hair, make sure everyone is wearing clothes. We tackle whatever is on the agenda for the day, school with the girls, study Arabic, shopping, make dinner, play with the girls, bath time and bedtime. 

There are differences, we hear the Call to Prayer 5 times a day, we can't always find what we want to eat at the grocery store, the money looks different, I do different things with my friends, and sometimes we have to play charades so that someone understands what we are wanting to communicate.

We have learned so much about living in another culture, about communicating in Arabic, about each other.

We've had good days and bad days. I feel lucky that we have more good days then bad days. We've missed grandparents and parents. We've seen and done some really amazing things. We've visited pyramids, the Library in Alexandria, Petra, and we drive past the Nile River at least weekly.

We've studied Arabic for countless hours and we have moments of brilliant success and moments of helpless stupidity.

This picture was taken 2 weeks ago, as we started our trip to the beach.

Our children have consistently amazed us with their ability to adapt and learn. Yesterday, Emily was playing Uno with one of her friends and she was using as much Arabic as she could to teach her how to play. Savannah has made many, many friends and plays with them for hours. Although, she has had no formal language classes, she surprises us by using a word or phrase in its correct context. Sophie has gotten so big and everywhere she goes, people love her. 

They have cried. It is hard to be 4 and 6 years old and live in a place where no understands what you are saying when you talk. It is hard to play games when you don't know or have the ability to understand the rules.

They have cried. It is hard to be on another continent and to miss your grandparents and aunts and uncles. It is hard to be the Mommy and the Daddy of the little girls who is crying for her grandmother.

We have learned so much. 

Enough to know we have so much more to learn.

Enough to know that we love Egypt and we love their people.

Things You Don't See in America: Part 8

This is a very common sight on our roads. Makes me a little nervous, but everyone else seem cool with it...

The Noise Outside My Window....

is inspiring my daughter.

The neighbor kids have gotten a violin-type sounding toy. It squeaks and wails in a high-pitched shrill noise.

It is miserable to be subjected to.

However, Emily and I just had the following conversation:

Emily: "Mommy, my friends all got this toy like a violin. Except its a stick with a string and its pink and yellow and it has the same kind of strumming thing like a violin. It must be a an Egyptian violin. And I want one."

Me: "Emily, do you hear that atrocious noise outside? that is that toy! I don't want one of those toys!"

Emily: "I promise, promise, promise to only play it outside."

Me: "Emily, you know I'm not going to believe that for a second."

Emily: "How about if I still want one when I'm nineteen?"

Me: "Then yes. Absolutely you may have one."

Beach: Sophie!

 Since the water was a little too cold for anyone other than the kiddos, I had many opportunities to take pictures of Sophie. And she's kinda fun to take pictures of.

Check out the little shoes! How cute is that? Although, it is also sad for my baby to be running around playing in real shoes instead of little baby shoes.

But it is also nice at the same time :) 

On the last day, Brian, Sophie and I went for a walk on the pier so I could get some pictures of the Red Sea, this is one of them. We were looking at all kinds of striped fish and even saw a few jellyfish floating by. 

Beach: Poolside!

 A lot of our time last weekend was spent in the pool. The water is cleaner and there isn't as much sand to terrorize Sophie :)

 Although, to be honest, Emily and Savannah spent a lot of time in the pool. The water was much too cold for Brian and I to spend much time in it. Brian enjoyed catching up on some reading.

 The girls played until they turned blue. At one point Savannah was so cold when I told her to smile for a picture, she grimaced and said, "Mommy, I am smiling!"

 The girls also enjoyed playing in the grass. We don't have very much grass to play in around us. There is one park, but we don't make it out there often enough and even there, the playground is filled with sand. They played hide and seek and in the above picture, they were pretending to have a picnic.

 Brian played with Savannah and Sophie in the pool on the first day. Emily was too busy splashing around in the water to be bothered with a picture :) That little girl really enjoyed the water.

If the water had been warmer, Sophie would have played in it much more than she did. It was cute to see her splashing and enjoying playing in the pool.

Beach: Playing at the Beach!

 

This is the view from the far edge of the pier looking back towards the beach and our hotel. 

 Sophie did not like to feel the sand on her feet. We set her down and walked toward the water and she fussed at us to come back and get her. Try as we might, she would not walk in the sand.

 Emily and Savannah had a great time playing in the water, digging in the sand and creating a rock collection.

When we first arrived at the beach on this morning, we were the only people there. After Sophie had expressed her dislike of the sand and the water, we took her back to the hotel and put her down for a nap. Brian stayed in with her (he dislikes lying in the sun and the water was too cold for him to enjoy swimming) and I stayed on the beach with the girls.

About 30 minutes later, the beach began filling up with Egyptian young people, seemed to be in their early twenties. They were cute. It was fun to watch them in a different environment than I have been able to see them before.

It was fun to watch the girls play in the water stand next to the water and giggle about it touching their toes. Some were wearing long skirts that they lifted about an inch before letting the water touch the hems. Some wore blue jeans and just splashed along on the edge. Some wore cute little swim dresses with leggings underneath and a long sleeved, spandex type top and dove right in the water. But all stayed covered from head scarf to wrists to ankles. 

However, no matter that my swim suit would be considered conservative, bordering on "frumpy-mom-wear" in the States, compared to all the women who were covered from head to toe, I was the most immodestly dressed woman on the beach.

It was uncomfortable, to say the least.

But I didn't want to just run and hide because my girls were having a good time playing in the water and on the sand and I don't get to go to the beach every day. I didn't come to the beach to sit in the hotel room!

I stuck it out for another 30 minutes, before I threw in the towel and we went in for lunch.

Beach: Getting Ready!

When I woke up on Thursday morning, Emily had created this list of things to do before we left:

1. wiat till Sophie is awake.
2. Get Dressed.
3. Get your Backpack.
4. Go potty.
5. Get Shoes.
6. Go potty.
7. Redy to go

*spelling and punctuation are original.

(more pictures and stories to come)

Going to the Beach!

We are really excited to be going to the beach tomorrow! The girls and I have bought juice boxes and Cokes and made Chex Mix, Rice Crispy Treats and two kinds of cookies.

Those little girls have packed their beach toys at least three times and tried on swimming suits twice.
They are so sweet and keep telling me at random times, "We are going to the beach tomorrow!"

I'm at least as excited as they are... 

"I'll see you on the flippity-flip!"

Things You Don't See in America: Part 7

Several times a day men with carts like this walk down our street. On the right hand side of the picture there are two gold disks sitting on his cart, these he clangs together to announce his comings and goings.

Typically, he is serving a hot soup with beans in the bottom that you drink out of the bag with a straw. Then you eat the beans.

When my friends insisted that I try it, I was expecting something sweet, so the salty, beany flavor was strange. But, if I had tried it with the idea of soup in my head, I would have liked it from the first sip.

Each bag costs about 1 pound or 20 cents.

The boy on the bike with the boxes in the front is one of our local delivery boys. For about one dollar, you can have anything delivered to your door. One day, I was walking home carrying about 6 liters of Coke. One of the boys stopped and asked me, in Arabic, if I needed anything. I plopped the coke on the back of his bike and told him my building number. Off he went.

For a moment, I was nervous, but a couple minutes later he came back and I tipped him. When I got home, my Coke was sitting with our boab on the porch. Whats not to love?

Buying Butter

The other day, I ran out of butter and didn't have time to walk to the supermarket where I usually shop. So I walked down to the "chipsy store" as the girls call it, at the end of our street, hoping I would get lucky and they would have butter.

They did. It was frozen in large blocks and the man used a machete type knife to chop off a hunk for me.

Turns out, it is about $4 cheaper to buy it at the chipsy store than it is where I usually buy it. The only difference I have noticed is that it is frozen and it doesn't come wrapped in nice little blocks.

For $4, I'm good with that.