Kirkpatrick boys

Garbage City

2012-02-10T21:25:00.001+02:00

This isn't garbage city. This is a mosque that Thomas and his friend Alexander built out of blocks.

This isn't garbage city either. This is the British School's "Festive Production" from last December. It was the Wizard of Oz. The Pre-K kids were the flying monkeys, Thomas' class were the munchkins, and the year above were narrators and speaking parts. It was excellent. Especially the munchkins.

(Thomas is on the very far right of the picture, standing up on his knees, with a cone hat, red tights, and his hands in the air. One thing I've noticed about the British is that they seem to be much more accepting of little boys wearing tights and nothing else than I think an American school would be. This probably explains a great deal of the differences between grown-up Brits and Americans.)

This also is not Garbage City, although it's close. These are the cave churches above garbage city. The Zabaleen, who live in garbage city, are Christians. But it's very hard to get a permit to build a church in Egypt. So the Christians had been holding services in caves in the hills above the city. Eventually they just blasted these huge caverns, and have these enormous, elaborate churches at the end of tunnels. This all happened in the 1990s, not ancient history. It feels very weird to all this christian iconography gaudily displayed above Cairo. I'm really not sure how they get away with it.

Ten Commandments, in Arabic:

OK, this is Garbage City. The Zabaleen go all over Cairo and collect household garbage. They bring it back to this neighborhood and sort it. Then each separate clan/family is responsible for one type of garbage-- one for plastic, one for cardboard, one for fabric etc. There are workshops everywhere where the garbage is being sorted, taken apart and put back together to make various new things that the family sells to someone.

I'd heard garbage city was smelly and gross, but it wasn't really. Maybe it's worse in the hot months. To be honest, it made me feel better about throwing away my garbage.

We came to a small workshop filled from floor to ceiling with plastic bottles, many of the kind of milk we buy. It was amazing-- we all kind of startled in recognition, as if we were coming face to face with our own bags of garbage all the way across town.

In between the workshops there are cafes, and even schools, and apartment buildings. We even came to one corner cafe that smelled deliciously of garlic.

On the rooftops some families keep cows and goats.

There's a company that runs walking tours through the area, and we went with them. They are called Solar Cities and they evidently have some small-scale solar projects going on in this area.

We were with Greer and Joanna and John, who'd come back to Cairo to see us for a few days and say goodbye to the city.

This was their last day in Cairo, ever, at least as Egyptian residents. I loved that they spent it going to garbage city.

Moving on, some people have been curious to know more about the nature of Golden Book awards. Here is a picture of such an award below.

It is a trophy in paper form. I have no idea what specifically Thomas did to earn it. I think pretty much improve dramatically in all areas from the beginning of the year until now.

And below is a photo of my finger, because I'm an idiot, and also of a rally at AUC last week in honor of one of the students who was one of the 70+ people killed at a soccer game last week. The police evidently did nothing to stop the mayhem, or to keep the place secure ahead of time. The students are calling for a nation-wide strike next week. At this rally, they showed a film of this young man's life interspersed with damning footage of the ruling military council. All around other young men marched holding plain black flags. It was stirring, in a dark kind of way.

One of my students asked me if I planned to hold class or not next week because of the strike. I asked her for how long it was planned. She said, Indefinitely, until the SCAF meets their demands to transition to civilian rule. In that case, I told her, I would not be canceling class.

Golden Book! and More Friends Moving On

2012-02-05T23:14:00.002+02:00

Today Thomas got a Golden Book award in assembly! This recognizes hard work and achievement. We are so proud.

Below are some pictures from the Year One assembly put on by his class. They did a play about a lazy farmer and a hardworking duck. Thomas originally was one of the head ducks, but somehow got demoted to a cow. He didn't mind though because his buddy Sam was also a cow. That's them below with their cow headdresses.

The theme of the show was "People Who Help Us." They each drew a poster of someone at school who helps them and showed the picture to the audience with a short explanation. Thomas drew a picture of Miss Iman, one of the aides in his class. She also works with him some outside with Dahlia. This is what he said, "This is Miss Iman. She's someone that I know and trust, and she helped me when I was new at school." Dave and I nearly wept. Then, the farmer/duck play, and then the whole class sang, "Lean on Me." I swear to God, it was the best show I've seen anywhere, ever.

We went to Felipe's 3rd birthday the other night.

Diana told me they are being transferred to Siberia! She is not happy about it. We are going to miss them a lot, though maybe not enough to go to Siberia to visit them.

We have been visiting other friends though. Last week Thomas and Emmett had the day off school to mark the one-year anniversary of the revolution. Since Dave was going to be busy summing up what it all means, Clare and I decided to go to Dahab and catch a glimpse of Joanna and Greer. Joanna just got engaged! And soon they are moving back to Chicago! So this was a last chance to hang out on the beach . . .

(we didnt make this)

Check out these cute knees:

We did see Joanna and Greer and John, but we left the documentation to the semi-professionals. Hope we can share the results soon--- but here's what they looked like!

What about us, do we ever go the pyramids? Sure!

Road rage

2012-01-16T13:16:00.000+02:00

I am such a goofball. I finally learned how to drive a stick shift well enough to drive the little apple red mercedes that's been sitting outside the house gathering dust. So now I can drive myself to pick up T at school and don't need a taxi or driver.

I am, though, ahem, a little on edge still driving stick around maadi. Last Thursday while driving to get Thomas, the car behind me kept honking and urging me into busy intersections. There seems to be a honking rule in Egyptian driving that a car overtaking another car can do whatever it wants so long as it honks. Once there is a honk, the thinking seems to be that the first car is duty-bound to give way. Anyway, I wouldn't do what this driver wanted.

When we got to clear road I knew he would slither around me and gun it, so I slowed down. I also knew he'd give me an angry face or shake his hand at me as he passed. So I didn't look as his car approached but just held my hand to the window, middle finger in the air.

The next thing I knew he had squealed to a stop. A stringy young Egyptian guy got out with white headphones dangling from his ears. He was yelling and shaking his fist. I wasn't scared at all, but I was mad too. I started to get out but then an older man began shouting at the guy to forget it and keep going. A taxi pulled up next to me and both the passenger and driver shook their head at me to stay in the car.

So we kept driving. A little while later the same car passed me again and the driver shook his fist at me. That made me madder. I saw him stop at an intersection to make a right turn. As I passed, I gave him the finger again. In the rear view mirror I watched in astonishment as he pulled out of his turn and began chasing me at high speed. The street was two lanes and I was driving next to an old minibus going slowly. As I rarely top second gear, I, too, was going slowly. We stayed like this for a few seconds with the young guy fishtailing behind us trying to get through. Eventually, when he was behind the bus, I braked hard and he continued on. Instead of speeding off he swerved hard and stopped so he was blocking both lanes of traffic. I was really amazed, and also hoping that no other MBIS parents were around to see this. He was yelling at me and saying what's your country?!! Fuck your country! And I was yelling, not as loudly, what's your problem?!

The other cars were honking loudly in protest, so after a minute he got back in and continued on. I was boiling mad. I wished I knew a corrupt police officer so I could get the guy thrown in jail and tortured. I was still thinking this as I turned on the dirt road where Thomas school is and went to back into a parking place. To my surprise, that same guy appeared walking up the road. He stopped, as all Egyptians do when they see a foreigner attempting to park, and started guiding me backward into the parking place. I got out kind of laughing and said, well, now you've got me confused. Thanks for the help with the parking.

He looked at me and shook his head and said stubbornly, you are a woman, you should not go like this, and he repeated my gesture.

I said, you are as bad as me, you were honking at me and you said to fuck my country.

I only just honked twice.

Look, the only reason you even saw me do that is because you were going to make some gesture to me.

He kind of nodded and said, yes, but in my country, we don't have fights with women.

Ok then, I said.

Yeah, so, ok, no problem, I'm sorry. He said, giving up.

I said, no problem, I'm sorry, too.

Where you from? He said as he walked up the road.

I live here, Maadi. But I come from America.

Ah, America. I am sorry for your country. He looked at me sideways to see my reaction.

I shrugged. I'm sorry for my country too.

He made a small smile and shook his head a little. Ok, well, bye.

He started walking ahead and I realized the only thing left on the road was the British school. hey, I called, do you have a child at the school?

Yes, he said.

What year?

I don't know, it's my bosses child actually. I am the driver.

I thought about this. As we walked down the steps to the gate I said, you know, I don't mind, but you should be careful when you are driving for someone else. I might know your boss.

I know! He said, shaking his head at himself, And also now I am late to pick up his child!

Good luck, I said.

After I got Thomas, I saw the driver again with a few children walking back to the car. We walked back together and he explained that the children were having a sleepover.

Ok, well, bye.

have a nice day, he said.

drive safe, I said.

We saw each other again yesterday and greeted each other like old friends. The whole thing is so Egyptian from beginning to end.

and now here's some shots of new years day in Wadi Degla with Daddy.

Emmett is bowing after singing a song.

And of course, the best news is Clare is here!!!! but that deserves its own post:

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Santa

2011-12-23T20:06:00.003+02:00

Emmett met Santa a little while ago at the British School Christmas Fayre.

They reportedly discussed motorcycles, forklifts, and Sarah, the triceratops.

Christmas in Egypt is pretty understated. There is a sizeable Coptic Christian minority still here. They celebrate christmas on January 6th. So there is a general awareness of the holiday. But the Coptic celebrations tend to focus on fasting and prayer, not so much buying presents or Santa Claus. Also, this isnt a rich country. The Holy Family, according to one of the gospels, fled through Egypt to escape King Herod, and there are three or four churches around town that claim to be the site where Mary, Joseph and Jesus stayed when they were here. To the extent anyone talks about Christmas, it's really the basics: baby Jesus, born at this time, fled persecution. I have to say, it is so much nicer than Christmas in the U.S. Except the lack of family, snow and traditions.

shows

2011-12-19T22:18:00.002+02:00

Emmett likes to climb on one little pillar, and sometimes announces that he will put on a show there. Here is one about a farm and a tractor:

Thomas has now also adopted the spot for his shows.

Luxor and Kirkpatricks Part Deux

2011-12-17T01:31:00.000+02:00

I agree with Andy's comments. Light is a big theme! Also hats. Here is some more of the Thomas oevre, with some other pics thrown in.

Here Grandma Nancy and Grandpa Doug are amused by some ancient Egyptian humor.

The journalist ponders.

Our tour guide Mohammed, who was going to impart his knowledge no matter how many people were throwing tantrums or falling asleep.

Here Emmett prepares by the Nile for future matches with Grandpa Peter:

Perspective:

rare family photo:

Thomas' point of view

2011-12-13T11:00:00.000+02:00

As mentioned earlier, Dave brought home a camera for Thomas from his last trip to Libya. It really fired his imagination for a few weeks there. He left it to me to pick out the best of the best, so here are some representative snapshots of Thomas' view of home life, travel, grandparents, Luxor etc.

See if you can pick out any themes or recurring subjects!

Dinner at the British club with Grandpa Doug and Grandma nancy:

The boys' room:

3 legged dog at the horse farm:

Here we move to Luxor: the famous Valley of the Kings where many of Egypt's ancient pharaohs are buried. This whole place was covered in sand for centuries, then dug up and restored when the French/ English 'rediscovered' Egypt in the 1700-1800s. There is a whole avenue of sphinxes that was recently rediscovered that links two of the biggest temples across the town. Here, the sphinxes become rams-- some kind of fertility signal.

Lots of hieroglyphics. Nobody knew what these said until a Frenchman decoded them with the Rosetta Stone I think around 1900. I think because so much of the work and study of the pharoanic era was carried out by Europeans, the Egyptians themselves seem a little distanced from this aspect of their history. They publicize it for tourism purposes, but the history Egyptians seem to embrace is the story of the Arab conquest in the 6th and 7th centuries and centuries of Islamic rule that followed. My understanding is that most Egyptians are descended from these Arab conquerors, and it is the Coptic Christians who are most closely related to the ancient Egyptian people that built the temples at Luxor. Indeed, many of these temples were used and repurposed by early Christians before the desert swallowed them up after the Arab invasion.

At the resort. We did history in the mornings, and swim and nap in afternoons.

If I were organized enuff to do a christmas card, this would probably be it:

Bye for now, more later.

Now we are six

2011-12-08T15:42:00.001+02:00

Now We Are Six

Author: A.A. Milne

When I was one,
I had just begun.
When I was two,
I was nearly new.
When I was three,
I was hardly me.
When I was four,
I was not much more.
When I was five,
I was just alive.
But now I am six,
I'm as clever as clever.
So I think I'll be six
now and forever.

Balloon ride

2011-11-24T09:28:00.001+02:00

daddy brought Thomas his own camera as a present from Libya before we went to Luxor so we have a treasure trove of photos. Before we get to that, here is just a taste of our derring-do: a sunrise balloon ride over the ancient temples:

Thomas was ok with the height, but the enormous flame in the middle of the basket was unnerving. The other Kirkpatrick men are awed, not scared, just fyi.

Here are some more shots:

What is perhaps most surprising about this ride is that they encouraged us to bring Emmett. We did not- he and Grandma Nancy had a snuggly morning back at the hotel. He is not happy about that when he looks at these pictures, but one thing I am thankful for today is that we did not have wiggly, screaming Emmett on this ride.

This colorful young lady greeted us when we landed in a random field behind some houses:

Tear-gassed!

2011-11-22T18:51:00.001+02:00

poor Dave!

But actually he says he is fine, and all is mellow, even festive, downtown.

Update: Man with bottle is protester helping teargas victims by offering eye drops. Photo was taken by a NYT photographer, I think. Boys and I have not been to Tahrir-- dont worry. (well actually I did stop by with two friends on the way home the other night. It smelled terrible- we all got sore throats immediatly. The rumor is that they are dropping extra-strong new chemical gas-- I am getting lots of outraged messages from friends telling me to tell Dave to make the NYT report this. As if I could.

protests seemed to be thousands of young men sitting around- most looking like Williamsburg hipsters, but some with beards and jalibayas. Seemed to be teams devoted to ferrying supplies, patrolling perimeter, controlling traffic, organizing buses, and the like. Other than that, not clear what the focus was, but they are doing good things, and very brave.)

Posted by Laura

Protests

2011-11-21T01:15:00.001+02:00

yesterday, on my birthday, I saw that Dave had taken the time to write a front page story on Libya during the few hours of calm between violent protests in Tahrir. I had had the boys most of the day and all of the day before. Left the house for milk, then sent Dave a text, "be back in a few hours, good luck with the boys.".

I am the 99%.

- Posted by Laura

Aunt Carola and a Dramatic Rescue

2011-11-18T09:55:00.001+02:00

Aunt Carola and Antionette paid a visit to Egypt! They chose to spend their first few days with us in Maadi. The boys and I introduced them to Egyptian culture by having them accompany us to multiple expat children Halloween parties. I think they really came away with an appreciation for the traditional superhero and princess costumes donned by the natives at such celebrations, and the ritual imbibing of candies and popcorn.

They came laden with gifts from far off lands, including our first ever candy corns, Vermont pumpkins, maple syrup, turkish delight and science books! It was awesome. It made Halloween extra special to spend it with family, especially as Dave was still stuck in Tripoli with Qaddafi's corpse.

Emmett showed them how we do things at Kompass.

We visited a horse farm in the country, where Carola wore an amazingly stylish hat and glasses on her ride. I wish I had a picture of that.

Then we hightailed it back to Cairo for a finale feluca boat ride, including the Kirkpatricks, just arrived from the States to spend the November Eid with us.

As usual, sunset on the Nile was sublime.

Antionette was a great sport, and was lots of fun to chat with. I realized later that the boys understood us to be with two of their aunts: Carola and Oinette.

After an hour or so of pizza, wine and conversation, the wind disappeared. We sailed along upstream for another thirty minutes or so, while remaining next to the same fancy villa the whole time. However, it was when the feluca captain started shouting clear distress cries at passing ferries that we realized we might be in a spot of trouble.

Luckily, Grandpa Doug deftly took the helm while our captain tossed a rope to one such ferry.

We certainly were a curiosity to the grizzled men making their nightly commute across the river! I tried to capture the ferry boat passengers watching as they towed us safely to shore, but it was pretty dark by then.

Thomas later remarked how his life so far has been unusually filled with adventure for a 5 year old. Revolutions, evacuations, and now dramatic nighttime rescues on the Nile!

This was not the last of our time with Aunt Carola and Antionette however. Our paths crossed again a week later in Luxor . . . home of the Valley of the Kings! More adventures to come . . .

Halloween

2011-10-29T20:59:00.002+02:00

Homework

2011-10-21T17:52:00.002+02:00

Thomas is learning to read! He can read short books and basic sentences. This is so fun for me. He also has homework this year. All of the international schools assign it to his age. I dont know if this some expat overachiever phenomenon, or if all kindergartners everywhere do homework now. Since my AUC class was postponed, (alas), I'm now starting to take Arabic. Sometimes we do our homework together-- copying out letters and vocabulary side by side.

Here are some words I can write in arabic: (right to left)

طفل، باب, مکتب , بیت ، کتاب

(child, gate, desk, house, book

Here are some words Thomas can write in English:

cat, fat, bat, hat, jam, ran, fan, man, pan, pig, wig, the, you, bad, mad, sad, dad, pin, win, tin, Kipper, Mum

parenting in Egypt

2011-10-11T01:19:00.001+02:00

Text message from Dave today:

Looks like a serious crisis for the revolution, won't make soccer.

- Posted by Laura

School

2011-10-05T17:09:00.002+02:00

We haven't been posting much because this isn't a very photogenic time of year for the family. This is the season when when we stress over getting snacks, and socks, and teeth brushed so we are on time for school and the teachers will like us. When we live in fear over a call from the school. When there inevitably is a call from the school. We have been very preoccupied with Thomas starting a new school (again), this time at the Maadi British International School.

It is very different from Kompass. Lots of structure, kids wear uniforms, and bulk of time on reading and "numeracy." T was only conditionally accepted, and we have been waiting, holding our breath, to see if it was a good school for him. There were some dark days at first. One morning, the "learning support" lady announced, by surprise, that if I left Thomas there that day without an outside aide for him, she was afraid of another incident that would get him tossed out. But did we soldier on? Did we stay calm, emphasize the positive, and start to get used to the routine? We did.

Is it the right school for Thomas? It is.

He loves it. He has made friends. He gets 10/10 on his spelling tests. He comes home and tries to read books for fun. He loves his teacher. I love his teacher. He says he is the best at math in his class. He gets free choice time, and "golden time" if he finishes his worksheets early. He loves his worksheets.

The school is right on the edge of the wadi (desert). It gets great light. It has a pirate-ship play structure. Some of us get to play on it even without being enrolled.

Daddy is intermittently in Libya, but has also been home many weeks. That has been real nice.

And here is a dragon we made.

Social Skills, Part II

2011-09-20T22:34:00.001+02:00

Thomas came home from soccer practice last night very excited about making friends with a boy Matteo, who is also in his class at the British School.

Thomas: Mom, when we were in Movieland, before I went into your womb, Matteo and I had the same DNA. It was like the experiment with the penny in the glass that you can't see . . . At first you can see it, then it disappears under the water and then you find it again.

Me: you mean, at first you knew you had the same dna, but then you met him again at school and didn't know, and now you've realized it again?

Thomas: Yes! At the soccer game!

Me: that's very poetic. Um, how would you say that in regular six-year-old language? (this is a big new theme of Dahlia's: that Dave and I need to do a better job of talking to T like a normal six year old.)

Thomas: oh, well in Movieland we had the same DNA . . .

Me: Most other six year olds won't know what DNA is.

Thomas: They don't? (surprised and kind of proud expression)

Me: Nope

Thomas: Ok, well in Movieland we were friends and then we saw each other again-

Me: Most other six year olds don't know about Movieland.

Thomas: oh, well, they can ask me and I'll tell them,-

Me: They may not ask. They may just think it's kind of unexpected-

Thomas: OK, ok. well (shrugs) I made friends with Matteo at a soccer game?

Me: Perfect!

(Actually T just learned about DNA yesterday from a Captain Underpants comic book- )

- Posted by Laura

On the Nile

2011-09-18T14:37:00.000+02:00

I am so glad to be able to share with you the photos from Felucca-palooza, Giacomo's goodbye celebration.

We were two boats tied together. That's Giacomo's dad on the guitar.

Here's Giacomo on top of the world:

And here's Thomas:

This girl had just moved to Cairo with her family. They looked ecstatic all evening. I suspect they will be disappointed when the rest of their time in Cairo is not like this at all.

And how does the "empty room" look now with furniture? Quite nice, thank you.

This chair is controversial. We really like it, but if we are honest with ourselves, it's too big for the room.

And here are some sweet memories of days gone by:

August at the Art cafe

2011-09-09T21:57:00.005+02:00

It was a little sad and weird coming back this fall since so many of our friends from last year have left. Or had they?

It turned out Giacomo and his family were back in town to pack up for their next assignment in Kuwait. We had a great week or so hanging out with them-- and a beUtiful goodbye party on a felucca.

I hope to have more pics of that soon- at one point all the kids climbed up and sat on the canvas roof of the boat and it was quite something--

Then we did a week of art camp at the art cafe. Thomas made some amazing things.

Here he and Emmett show off their art skills at home.

Mulu is back on the scene. If she is a little overwhelmed by this household with a perennially missing father and totally disorganized mother, she has only barely let it show. It turns out she is also a crack shot with a bow and arrow. I don't think we have photos of that, sadly, but here are Diana and Juan taking aim at our new backyard target.

So we do still have some old friends about!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

NYC and then Cairo, year 2

2011-08-16T23:51:00.004+02:00

We had such an extraordinary visit to NYC, it was difficult to come back to dusty old Cairo. First, we checked in with those badass Michel girls in Riverdale. No wonder the boys always want to stay with them! What lovelies.

Sadie was her usual charming hostessing self, even though she had mono. That's only fair, because we exposed her to lice last time we were there.

While Sadie and Clare looked after the boys, I got to hit a Fountains of Wayne concert at City Winery! It was rockin'. Their new album is just hitting the airwaves, and I bet I don't need to tell you to snap it up pronto! Especially if you are in that slamming over-40 demographic.

Here they are in action.

Then we stayed chez godmother Julie looking out over the reservoir on 5th avenue. It was like we were back in the country, but with a doorman! You can't take the 718 out of us though- we quickly made our way over to Ocean Parkway to hang with those adorable Erika Lea twins.

They even found a park that had a dragon water feature! Too bad some of us were feeling a little too grumpy to enjoy it-

Then came the main event: a visit to Times Square!

Here we are saluting the corporate flagship. Thanks for all the groovy furniture, that vacay in Dubai, and the plane tix home guys!

But actually, no, the real main event was meeting cousins Ben, Emily and new cousin Shannon in Times Square!!!! For lunch and then Lion King. Here Ben schools Emmett in some family traditions:

Here's the whole gang. Needless to say, we totally approve of beautiful Shannon, and can't wait to offer our ring-bearing services wherever they might be needed.

And then Ben bravely took Thomas solo for some big-boy bonding amidst giant puppets. Thanks fairy godmother Mim for arranging everything, including a tour backstage with Simba himself!!!!

The next day, Uncle Arthur arrived to help us make our airplane home. Thanks to him, the trip to the airport was smooth sailing.

Bye NYC family!!! I really feel like we got to see the best the city had to offer in our short stay!

After all this, it was truly a bit of a letdown to fly home to Cairo with a bunch of smelly Egyptian strangers. And I think we would have felt this way even if the plane hadn't been delayed for 5 hours.

But now we are back and settling in. Ex-pats are slowly straggling back from their summer holidays and everyone is grumpy. You can't help it if you arrive in Cairo in the August heat during Ramadan. No one quite knows what to expect-- more demonstrations? fraudulent elections? War with Israel?

Kath is right-- the first few days in a place you notice things that kind of gloss over later. I'm sure I'd seen this sign at the check-out stations at the Carrefour market before, but, maybe I was jet-lagged, who knows, I found it truly infuriating this time around:

It says, "priority for ladies and disabled."

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

More Maine

2011-08-04T04:47:00.008+02:00

Here is Thomas starring in the play at camp. The story involves 8 bunnies, and some dragons.

I know, he is great isn't he?

Moments later, one of the bunnies took her cue too early, obviating Thomas' last line. The counselor/ narrator tried to prompt him to say it anyway, but Thomas said quietly that the line no longer made sense. Then, as the situation sank in, he turned and pointed at the little bunny, shouting "SKIPPER!" and "SHE's the one, she skipped my line!" I think he expected the rest of us to join in and begin hurling tomatoes and old shoes at her.

i'm not sure exactly what happened next because I was hiding my face in Mim's shoulder, but cooler heads prevailed.

Yes, that's right, Auntie Mim came all the way to Maine. She fit right in:

And Mim was not the only extremely special guest last weekend. We had all the Creston Leas! Thomas and Cora Jane got on like a house on fire. I think it was her deep Lea voice that captivated him.

I got the chance to hold little Arthur!

It was heaven. In fact, this is exactly what I always used to wish for: me, big and in-charge, and Arthur, tiny and helpless.

Then the Erica Leas came by! Those twins are gorgeous. We are hoping to see them again in NYC.

And now it is nearly time to pack up and say goodbye to our wonderful summer idyll. We are sure going to miss being here!

See you soon Cairo!

Vermont snuggling

2011-07-26T21:29:00.001+02:00

We had a fantastic two-week visit to Vermont.

We met Wilbur, super hound. He sure is cute. We weren't quite ready to snuggle with him and his sharp puppy fangs yet, but the thought of future snuggles made us, or Emmett anyway, literally dance with glee.

(that's him under e's chair).

Thomas and Grandma Susan shared a cuddly, if soggy, time on the super slide at bromley thrill zone.

Sadly, their awesome ride was too quick for this papparazo.

Thomas and Emmett got comfy with Holly the pony.

Nobody actually caressed the nearly biblical host of polliwogs in the pond, but we could have, if it came to that.

Thomas went to mini-adventure camp. He sure liked it better than farm camp, though he objected to the idea that his adventures were minuscule. Emmett hung out some with sweet sitter Isabel, for what we liked to call "Isabel adventure camp.". Here they enjoy some reading adventures together-

Here he is suited up for a trip with Isabel to hapgood.

Thomas palled around with cousin Marina. Woe to any little red-headed creeps at camp who tried to bother her when T was around.

But of course, the most magnificent snuggling was with Grandpa Peter, learning about pheasant-poaching as we nestled down for the night.

We miss all you cuddly folk!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Maine

2011-07-08T03:51:00.004+02:00

Oh, state of Maine, how we sing your praises.

We arrived in Maine on June 18th, weary and sick. Two weeks later we were on top of the world. What happened?

Well, Thomas had a great two weeks at wolf's neck farm camp. This is him there with his counselor, Ahmad.

Thomas did complain about the lazy counselors making the kids do all the chores. He says he will never become a farmer. He doesn't believe me that there is any other point to this camp other than training him for a future job. But, thanks largely to Ahmad's relentless good cheer, he had a good time anyway.

Daddoo arrived with fine wines and motorcycle t-shirts from far off lands.

Emmett models one such shirt below.

Grandpa Doug and Grandma Nancy made the scene! In a beautiful old rented house on the point-

We ate lobsters, biked around the Bowdoin campus, and took a train to Wiscasset!

On July 4th, we swam at Thomas Point Beach.

Emmett won second prize in a watermelon eating contest.

We watched fireworks in Freeport at LL Beans with Thomas' new friend from camp, Will Gleason. The Gleasons were very pleased to meet Will's exotic new Egyptian friend.

But most of all, there has been Grand Kathy, feeding us, bathing us, entertaining us, even discipling us when we need it.

As Emmett says, "grand Kathy, you are a very beautiful lady."

In NYC!

2011-07-02T21:06:00.016+02:00

WE have been very busy traveling the continent, but we have some things to show for it: Pictures!! Here we go:

Arriving in NYC-- what a welcome--

Then we spent a divine night at the Michel's in the Bronx. It turns out Sadie likes to strip down for a party as much as we do!!!!

At that chair in the foreground, Adam was often busy writing this truly brilliant opening number for the Tony awards.

Then another long flight to Tahoe to help Aunt Emily get hitched, and meet Uncle Brian. It was a little much for Thomas, who retired with a fever to his room to watch Scooby Doo, leaving Emmett to shoulder ring bearer duties for the family. At first all this fell in turn to grandpa Peter, who manfully walked the bride, as well as bore the bearer, to the alter together.

On the day of, however, Emmett kept a close eye on other bearer Austin, and flower girls extraordinaire Elsie and Theo.

It was a beautiful event, cake incident notwithstanding.

(much credit to Aunt Deborah for the beautiful photos)

Then off to Portland for some stories with Uncle Arthur, smoke bombs, and waterfalls.

About this time, Thomas started scratching his head. Upon closer inspection, we found these!!! From Egypt!!! These are no ordinary bugs. These are super-lice, and woe unto you who catches them.

We thought seriously about just not mentioning it to anybody. But if you've snuggled with us lately-- that's what you're looking for. Happy Hunting!!!

Last thoughts

2011-06-05T02:18:00.003+02:00

Heading home for summer holiday in the morning. We leave you with this parting shot . . .

I can't disclose at this moment why I was abaya shopping, but my friend Lucy and I had a great time trying these things on. Once you are paying attention, there is a whole language in these things-- the sleek swishy ones vs. the drab cotton, the nature of the beading-- subtle or very flashy. This one above was the silliest I saw. But I can see now how even these costumes can be adapted to express oneself-- more on this later.

See you soon dearest family! Grand Kathy-- hope we will see you at the terminal tomorrow!!

Macarena

2011-05-28T22:45:00.003+02:00

Last weekend we went to Kompass' end of year picnic at Fagnoon- the art school just outside Cairo. Here Thomas performs a dance routine with some of his classmates--

This was actually a reprise. We got terribly lost trying to find the place, and missed the first show, so the teacher sweetly re-staged it for us. Maybe in the original Thomas wouldn't have been the only boy, but maybe he would have.

here are some more views of the Fagnoon fun:

That's not Picasso's real signature below. Somebody else wrote that. So far as we know he never went to Fagnoon. But he would have loved it!

Tomorrow we say goodbye to Grand Kathy, but only for a week. We leave ourselves for NYC on June 5th!!

felucca boat ride and superhero dinner

2011-05-23T21:06:00.005+02:00

With one glorious trip down the Nile, we said goodbye to Aunt Lola and welcomed Grand Kathy to Cairo.

It didn't take long for Grand Kathy to get in the swing of things. Here she is as Grammy X-ray Vision for "Superhero Dinner."

Other attendees included LadyBug, Magic Boy, and Emmett.

A tribute to aunt Lola

2011-05-20T16:58:00.000+02:00

It was so great having aunt Lola as part of the team these last two months. So great in fact that I really neglected documenting it. Also, I seem to have destroyed the camera again, so any good pictures you see here were probably taken by aunt Lola. You can also read her take on visiting Egypt, which explains lots of things we were confused about before.

Lola- come back!! We miss you!!!

A few days before she left Lola and I wandered around Islamic Cairo. This was taken at the Ibn Toulon mosque- the oldest one in the city I think. From the 8th century or some such.

The view from the minaret. Aunt Lola was not a fan of climbing to the extra tippy top of the minaret, but did enjoy the view. We paid dearly in baksheesh for this side trip.

This wall niche, which has a fancier name, shows the direction of Mecca.

Aunt Lola was an adept explorer of Arab Cairo. By the end, she could recognize the difference between an Abyssid arch and a Mamluk one, and could count from one to ten. More than either Dave or I can do. (ok, more than I can do.)

Lola also assisted the Easter Camel in hiding the eggs, eggs, eggs.

On Sham El Nissam, or "Smell the Breeze" day, spent in the Andulusian gardens.

At the zoo, getting our faces painted:

The pyramids!!!!! Aunt Lola was here. She rode a camel named Mickey Mouse.

Farewell,

Come back and see us soon,

Love,

the Caravan

Grand Kathy rides the metro

2011-05-18T23:09:00.001+02:00

Thomas and Ally (for Kath)

2011-05-07T19:58:00.002+02:00

Thomas has been working with a woman here on his fine motor and social skills. We go every Monday and wednesday after school. To help Thomas with the "give and take" of friendships, this woman, who is British-trained and at the top of her field, brings in her own five year old son. This is just so Egyptian. I cannot imagine any US clinician who would do the same. I have no idea what kind of treat or inducement was used to get Ally to come. He is unfailingly polite and generous with T though.

The sessions alternate with Ally picking a game, and Thomas has to play it, and often copy exactly what Ally does, and then Thomas picks a game and Ally follows Thomas. Both parts are hard for T- when it's Ally's turn he has to rein himself back from veering off into dragon pretend. And when Thomas is the leader, he finds it hard to translate his impulses into actions that Ally will be able to follow.

But the whole thing is very sweet. It is hard for me not to feel a more global sense of sweetness when these two young boys, one Arab and one American, concentrate fiercely to imitate the other. If this were a movie, they will meet again while trying to negotiate a peace treaty or something, and the breakthrough for world peace will happen when Thomas starts copying Ally's movements and then Ally copies Thomas and they break into smile and hug each other. And then everyone will dance to shakira or something.

This plays into a larger theme that i've noticed- by US standards this is a weird mingling of the professional and the personal. But in Egypt that distinction feels much less present. Mostly, to my surprise, i enjoy the absence. At a forum I moderated this week at the American University about Intellectual Property rights in Egypt, which was attended by exactly two students, the Microsoft rep at one point got really sentimental talking about his personal dreams for Egypt's future. That got the whole panel going on their own visions and dreams. It was kind of off-topic, but also refreshingly free from canned "talking points" that you would get on a similar American panel.

This lack of appreciation for "professionalism" does mean customer service can be lackadaisical and amateurish- but once you get someone engaged in your problem, my experience is that they really focus and tackle it as if they were your friend. There is very little of the faux concern that I feel when I have to call a US company about an insurance issue or to clarify some kind of bogus charge- where you can just feel the person shrugging you and any feeling of moral responsibility away. I suppose all this will change if the economy here does pick up and work becomes a source of mobility. But for now, I feel like most people seem to treat work the way we did school-- as a good opportunity to make friends.

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Bike-riding!!

2011-05-01T09:16:00.002+02:00

We did it!!!

The training wheels are off . . . and Mommy loses her mind . . .

Spring in Maadi

2011-04-29T13:34:00.003+02:00

The flowers are in bloom everywhere, and baby creatures are scuttling about-

And look what the west wind blew in!

This was on a glass-bottom boat trip in El Gouna. We stayed at a lovely resort packed with Germans for five days. For some reason, the revolution seems to require of me that I spend a lot of time at nice hotels-

More Kompass shots

2011-04-22T21:00:00.000+02:00

From Thomas' Kompass disk:

Cleaning up the street as part of the Keep Egypt Beautiful campaign:

Sadly Giacomo and his family have not returned after the revolution. Thomas has been keeping company with Greer in his absence.

If you cant tell what that says, hold it in front of a mirror!

Bonus video

2011-04-15T21:12:00.000+02:00

Mommies are for hugging.

Yes it's true.

Mother's Day at Kompass

2011-04-14T21:49:00.006+02:00

This happens in March in Egypt . . . and for some reason required costumes.

The kids presented us with carnations and picture cd's hung around their necks like they were little st bernards.

This is Emmett with Shadiya, his settling in teacher. She speaks to him only in Arabic.

Sometimes at home he'll say something to me and I have no idea what it is.

Congratulations grand Kathy

2011-04-11T14:28:00.001+02:00

You are an inspiration.

Upon hearing about their grandmother's Guggenheim fellowship for painting, both boys grabbed green markers. A creative frenzy ensued.

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the ones you don't save

2011-04-01T01:03:00.001+02:00

The past few weeks many more cats have been trolling the garden. last weekend we were teasing Egypt about the friends she invited home- it was like a caterwauling Hell's Angel convention out there. (and yes, I have been to a Hell's angel convention and so speak with authority.)

There has been one cat in particular, a miserable, mangy spotted white little thing who was missing half her tail. She did not hang out in the back and beg for food like most of the others. She stayed under the bushes in the front and cried. She would also make kamikaze runs for the house and try to sneak inside. It made me wonder if she weren't an abandoned housecat- she seemed to crave being near us more than anything. I always shooed her out. I'm pretty sure Emmett has inherited Dave's allergies, and also nothing about this cat looked healthy. One day last week she cried for hours- like a baby wanting food.

I didn't feed her. There are so many cats, and we can't save them all. If I don't hold the line at Egypt the garden will be nothing but cats. But i felt guilty- the way I do when children on the street try to sell us Kleenex and we always wave them away. The boys are very confused by this- what did the children want, why did I say no? I tell them it isn't the right way to give, that I don't want to encourage sending kids out to beg. Its true, but I don't know what happens to these kids when they go home empty-handed.

Yesterday I saw the body of the little white cat at the edge of the street in front of our gate. I don't know what I expected-- that some other organization would step in and feed her? Some other family? It didn't happen. Nothing saved her and she died. Thomas offered that Egwyn the dragon has magical powers and can bring creatures back from the dead. I told him that the cat was happier where she was- she wasn't sick or hungry anymore and her tail was whole again. On some level I believe this. But it was the first time in my life I had to confront the result of a decision not to help someone that really needed it. I can't feed all the cats in Cairo, but I could have fed this cat.

Makes me glad I don't have to make decisions about humanitarian interventions in Libya and Bahrain on a daily basis.

On a happier note, in case you were wondering, we did find homes for egypt's three kittens in January just before the protests. Given all the evacuations since then I like to think that the three of them ended up in Paris or Rome, sipping cream and curled on silk cushions.

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Aunt Lola arrives and Emmett jumps for Theo and joy

2011-03-29T23:07:00.005+02:00

Aunt Lola is here!

Alhumdillillah. We are very glad to see her. Words can't really express it.

Last Friday we visited the Citadel, the military compound which dates back to the rule of Saladin. If you don't know who that is, it's because you've been raised in a western imperialist cloud. Look him up immediately! It's a scandal!

There we checked out the mosque of Mohammed Ali, which dominates the Cairo skyline.

I know many people are wondering how the West can help the New Egypt in its transition to democracy. I have an idea. In addition to debt forgiveness and civil society programs, how about we do something about this?

This is a clock given by King Louis somebody in France in return for one of the twin obelisks from the tomb of Ramses II. That's right- the obelisk in the Place de la Concorde. You know it. Beautiful pink granite, 3000 years old. The clock, as it happens, has never worked since the day it arrived. It is surrounded by scaffolding, rusted, and generally an embarrassment. Every day busloads of egyptian schoolchildren visit the citadel. They for sure learn two things- the complex was built essentially to repel frankish Crusaders. And that five hundred years later, in exchange for their magnificent obelisk, these same french gave a egypt a busted clock. Maybe as a gesture of goodwill, in addition to bombing Libya, the French could send someone over to get this thing ticking again. Or give back the obelisk, which is ancient and irreplaceable, unlike an old clock.

Now here Emmett sends a gesture of goodwill to his cousin Theo.

He was quite pleased with his efforts:

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Videos

2011-03-17T22:41:00.002+02:00

Emmett on the phone with pals:

And here's part of a longer project: a music video for one of our favorite songs, James' Kolchaka's Monkey vs. Robot. I think cousin Creston (Sr.) is playing the guitar on this, but I'm not sure. Anyway, here's our interpretation so far:

Not so great week

2011-03-10T15:38:00.000+02:00

Here is Thomas and his friend Greer at the International Women's Day march at Tahrir Square last Tuesday.

They are standing at the gates of the American University Campus which is right on the square. Here they are on their way out of the metro. At one point they were holding hands and waving their egyptian flags, which was about as cute a thing as the world can hold.

Sadly, this was the high point of the protest. When we got to the square, it turned out that not that many egyptian women had turned out. Like maybe 6? But there were dozens of western women like us who had come to watch and "support" the march. And there were a couple of hundred men, some carrying signs supporting women's rights, I think, and some shouting the first group down.

We saw some of Thomas and Greer's teachers from Kompass, who were involved in a heated debate with some Egyptian men about, I'm not sure, I think about whether women have smaller brains. It was sort of angry and sort of friendly.

One of the teachers handed Thomas and Greer a stack of leaflets with a list of ten demands in Arabic. Some of the men standing around started taking the leaflets from Thomas, so I put him on my shoulders and he held them out. As I did this, I was aware of the considerable risk that Thomas would one day be appalled to learn that he had passed out feminist literature at an Egyptian protest. Greer's mom did the same thing with Greer and mostly it was kind of a funny joke-- this two cutie pie American kids wandering through a crowd of skeptical guys handing out feminist demands in Arabic. Most of the guys, who were young, smiled and looked at the list with a kind of polite curiosity.

I really misjudged this though, because the noticeable presence of western women was galling to some of the men. One man approached Greer's mom to ask "Where are you from?" to make the point that this was an Egyptian matter and not for outsiders. Joanna, who is 26 and a student in the refugee law program, said she was a student and living in cairo. They started debating, and of course I joined in. I was trying to point out that the revolution needed women to succeed-- research shows and blah blah blah when someone tapped Joanna and pointed to Greer. Greer was bent over and sobbing quietly on her mother's head. Evidently while we were arguing some guys had come, taken the leaflets out of Greer's hands and ripped them up in front of her. Poor little Greer-- she didnt understand and took it very personally. Thomas hadn't seen it happen, but he was upset that Greer was upset. They both just couldn't understand why grown-ups would rip up her papers. The explanation, that some people are disturbed by the idea of women having power and being smart, raised a number of new worries for Thomas, at least, who had never really thought about the whole thing before.

We left soon after. Later I heard that the protest had gotten uglier with women being attacked and "harassed." I dont really know what this means. When we were there, for every one young Egyptian woman there were 30 men surrounding her and arguing. It wasn't menacing but it didnt look pleasant either. Maybe this is what the reports meant by harassment or maybe it got more Lara Logan-ish later. Anyway, I think we will cool it on the protests for a while.

Joanna and I later wondered if we would see pictures of Thomas and Greer on the news as examples of the "foreign" agents who are inciting unrest in Cairo.

Just one other note-- the guy we argued with, and many of the others, seemed most disturbed about the idea of a woman being elected president. This whole thing has come up because the proposed revisions to the constitution to open up elections state that any presidential candidate cannot be married to "a non-Egyptian woman." So there has been some criticism that the revisions seem to assume that only men can be president. I've mostly seen this raised as an example of why the committee revising the constitution should have maybe y'know at least like ONE woman on it. None of the men counter-protesting really seemed to disagree; at least they said they were fine with women voting and participating, but they just couldn't stomach one as president. Evidently the Koran states men shouldn't take orders from women. But whatever, the dumbest part about this is that it is totally irrelevant. I guess maybe if you've had a dictator this isn't immediately apparent, but y'know, if you and everyone else don't want a woman for president, just don't vote for one.

Also last week, two guys on a motorcycle tried to snatch my purse as I was walking to pick up Thomas at Kompass. Luckily I am still part-New Yorker and I didn't let it go. Nothing was stolen and I was fine. But the feel of the man's fingernails snatching at my arm lingered. Even before the motorcycle was out of sight, past several bystanders who just stared, I was already thinking, "I miss the police state."

It just lasted a day or so, but I did think it.

Emmett's birthday

2011-03-06T21:36:00.001+02:00

Emmett turned two last Friday. We celebrated with a nice pizza and cupcake lunch at the house. The weather has turned beautiful, and a few of our friends have returned: Chloee, Diana, Juan and Felipe, whom Emmett calls "Pee-pe." With the lack of old friends, we've also made some new ones.

Best of all, the guests cleaned up after themselves, which was very considerate.

I did not manage pictures of the fun- it was all I could do to host it. But in honor of Emmett, here is a picture of his car seat. Unlike Emmett, the car seat went out with Dave and reported on the protests of January 28. I found it sitting forlornly on the balcony of the NYT office downtown last week.

luckily Emmett had pretty much outgrown it anyway.

In addition to Emmett's birthday, Egyptians have been celebrating a new campaign of civic engagement. This includes neighborhood litter pick-ups and the placement of decorated trash cans around intersections. Also the repainting of curb and traffic lines, presumably to encourage better driving behavior. Here are some twenty-somethings out repainting the road at one of the local midans-

On the minus side, with the police state gone, every other day a different person rings the bell and announces they are here to collect some random amount as the "garbage" bill. I actually find these Egyptian scams almost endearing. Why always the garbage bill? Why doesn't someone try posing as the water bill collector? Anyway, we don't pay them, and they go away, and the garbage is still being collected.

Aren't they adorable, these boys?

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Text message

2011-03-01T01:29:00.001+02:00

I received a text message in arabic from the Egyptian Armed Forces today. The substance: "good news! Life in Egypt has returned to normal. Also, the people who are burning buildings are not Egyptian citizens.".

Glad we cleared that up.

For skittish grandparents: i think there was some burning at the interior ministry last week but nothing and nobody near us.

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More on Dubai

2011-02-27T02:17:00.001+02:00

I can't believe I haven't posted this before. This video sums up Dubai for me.

To set the stage, we had just arrived that morning after traveling all night. We got a room at the Ibis hotel at the World Trade Centre, had breakfast, and slept all day. Here's Emmett (with Thomas sleeping behind him) that morning:

Then we woke up and explored the plaza outside. There was a convention center next door that seemed to be hosting something related to dentists. As we wandered the near-empty halls at dusk, a group of one hundred or so men in Saudi-style jalabiyas filed in and did the following dance:

I have no idea why, or to whom the performance was directed. I didn't see anything else like it while we were there. But the mix of corporate trade center with Bedouin hillbilly war dance captures Dubai for me.

Note: There should have been two videos- i uploaded the same one twice last night, but its corrected now.

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Uh oh

2011-02-25T01:45:00.000+02:00

I thought I heard gunfire again today, but couldn't quite believe it. Evidently we are back to civilian patrols in the neighborhood-

Maadi witnesses protests after killing of microbus driver by police

Dubai

2011-02-20T17:02:00.001+02:00

We certainly are lucky to have witnessed history in the making. Here is how the boys will remember the Jan. 25 revolution in Egypt:

One long Backyardigans episode.

Now here's a quiz:

Which of these photos/ videos were taken in Peru, Vermont, and which at Ski Dubai the indoor ski area in the Mall of the Emirates?

A.

B.

C.

D.

E.

F.

Couldn't tell the difference, could you?

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Thomas and the Revolution

2011-02-19T01:00:00.000+02:00

Today we went to Tahrir Square to join a celebration/ display of strength by democratic protesters. Here are Thomas' thoughts on the experience:

after a while he got into it though.

Lots of people wanted to take his picture. We loved that, but this was his usual response.

I thought these signs were notable because the women holding them were so crazily beautiful. Check out the older veiled women having a heated debate underneath them.

This is okay because Egyptians don't know how to spell "volcano" either.

Bathed in the dawn of a new Egypt:

The sign in front of the pillar says "walk lik an Egyptian"

Back in Cairo

2011-02-13T23:28:00.001+02:00

Today was our first day back. It is so nice to be home with familiar things. The housekeeper came at 8. The boys went off to school. I had time to think for the first time in weeks.

We saw some tanks on the drive from the airport, but mostly unmanned. On one, a man was holding his young daughter up with an Egyptian flag to take a picture. Everyone greeted us with big smiles this morning. It is funny- the people I spoke to first, the Times travel agent from Dubai, and Mohammed the driver at the airport, were nervous. They are older and have done relatively well under Mubarak. They told me they thought this sudden change was foolish. But the younger men on the street- they are proud. You can see it everywhere. Everyone is smiling so big. I think we are some of the first expats back. People are nodding at us and saying good morning, and welcome, which never happened before. It's as if it's a new country now, one that they own, and they are letting in the first visitors.

Thomas and I counted 5 Egyptian flags on our walk home from school. I didnt even know what it looked like before. I tried taking Thomas and Emmett to the local mall, where tanks had been stationed to deter looters, for a photo op, but the tanks were leaving as we arrived. I've also heard that some soldiers take offense to westerners trying to pose with the tanks. Fair enough.

So, it feels a little stale, but ill try to remember back to that last day before we left. You'll recall, faithful readers, that we'd spent a worrying night with fears of looters and sounds of gunfire. The first thing I did the next morning was call my friend Diana who has two boys the same age as thomas and emmett. She had told me the afternoon before that her husband's company was evacuating them to Dubai. The minute she said it I had thought, "hmm . . .". It was warm- I wouldn't be trapped inside with the two boys the way I would if we went north to Europe. It was a short flight. And the boys would have friends to play with. She had wanted to know our plans and I'd said I didn't know- we might leave for a few days but I didn't know where. She had joked that I should come to Dubai, and I'd thought that maybe I should.

It was clear from the night before that our being around was going to be a big distraction for Dave. I still didn't feel in much danger. But things could change at any moment. Also, probably more importantly, schools were closed, and it was another 4pm curfew. Both the cleaner and the housekeeper/babysitter were too scared to come to work that day. It still wasnt safe to move around the city. If I stayed I was looking at house arrest alone with two small boys.

So I called our friend and said I thought we'd try to go to Dubai too. I asked where they were staying. Her husband was actually in charge of arranging the evacuation for his company, and she asked if I wanted him to try to put us on their plane. I said yes, please, remembering that Michael and Chloee had gotten a similar permission from coca cola and not really thinking it would be that big of a deal.

The same friend who'd told me the night before about the looting of private villas called to check on us. She is one of my favorite people here- a fiesty, artistic Brit- and, I was learning, somewhat susceptible to rumors. She reported that the entire us embassy staff had been evacuated in the middle of the night. Having spoken to Isabella late the night before I was pretty sure this was not true. I called to check, and found Isabella and family at home- still ordered not to leave their home, but having a nice time hanging out with the other embassy families in their apartment building. She invited us over to play.

At their house too, everyone was talking about whether to leave, and what was going on. Isabella said that if they were evacuated they wouldn't be able to come back for at least 30 days. Thomas played some kind of electronic follow the leader game with giacomo and another boy. It involved running to different colored sensors. Except Thomas was having his usual trouble absorbing verbal instructions when he's nervous. So he kept picking up the sensors and hiding them or taking so long the machine turned off, to giacomo and the other boy's extreme annoyance.

Isabella's apartment has a balcony that offers an amazing view of the city perimeter and three different pyramids. We stood on the balcony and tried to figure out where the sporadic gunfire was coming from. We couldn't see anything- no angry mobs, no clashing between guards and looters. But we could definitely hear gunfire.

Here's a video when we were on the balcony. You can hear gunfire at the very beginning but then it stopped.

YouTube Video

Dave had gone to check out some of the local carrefour supermarkets. He was curious, as I was, about whether the looting stories were true or wildly exaggerated. I think we both suspected the latter. Later that morning he called to say he thought we should try to go to Dubai and he was asking the office manager to get tickets for us the next day. He didn't say it then, but I could tell that something he'd seen at carrefour had disturbed him. A lot.

I left Thomas at isabella's and came home to pack and put Emmett down for his nap. Dave had told Mohammed to stay with us that morning, so he drove us home and went and got more milk and baby wipes for us. The stores were open, but he said the grocers were charging double the usual prices.

Emmett napped and napped until I woke him up at quarter to four to go get Thomas before curfew. Mohammed had gone to the airport to try to get tickets to Dubai for us, since all the ticket offices in town were closed. I took Emmett in the bugaboo stroller with the surfboard on the back for Thomas. As we walked, the civilian patrols were already setting up barricades at the end of each street. One street had branches and buckets of sand. Another just a few big potted plants. Here's a few hasty shots of the streets on the way over:

If you blow the one below up really big on your screen you can just see the barricades and the guards beyond.

Of course, I took a long time gathering Thomas and saying goodbye to Ben and Isabella, so when we left it was about 4:20- or 20 minutes past curfew.
The second we left the building - me pushing a big goofy blue stroller with an enormous two year old and a big five year old standing on the back- a man stopped us. He raised his shirt to show us his gun and told us it was too late to go out. I thanked him and said actually I was trying to get the boys home. He nodded and said ok and waved us forward and signaled to the guys at the end of the block to let us pass.

It went on this way at every checkpoint- and the checkpoints had multiplied in the half an hour I'd been inside at isabella's. At the end of the block a huge steel water pipe had been laid across the road. It was being guarded by a bunch of sweet young guys holding sticks and bats and one with a golf club. Two of them came out and helped me lift Emmett up and over the barrier. "we are doing this for you," they said. "to keep you safe."

At the next block a bunch of young guys were checking id's and searching cars at a railroad crossing. They lifted up the gates and nodded us through. At the place with the branches and sand, the original fence had been fortified with double the amount of branches and the sand had been piled higher. We could no longer get through. Three nice young guys came over and dismantled a bit of the fence so that I could lift Thomas, Emmett and stroller up and over. They joked that it had been too easy for me and Emmett to get through on the way over so they had decided to build up their defenses. I smiled and said thank you over and over again.

I was so blown away by these guards and the seriousness and sweetness with which they undertook their posts. They were all Egyptians. I have no idea how they were able to organize a citywide block patrol effort so quickly. Dave says there is something called "the Shabab" in Arabic, and it means, roughly, the young men; a kind of tribalistic concept of a youth guard with certain privileges and responsibilities. Once the police had abandoned the city, families had fallen back on this reserve system- the shabab- to guard their neighborhoods. It was achingly sweet and also awe-inspiring to watch in action. I didn't get to see the masses of protesters in Tahrir, but I felt as if I saw some if their spirit in the neighborhood guards.

That night I felt absolutely safe sleeping with the boys alone in the house.

The next day our friends came early to pick us up for the charter flight to Dubai. It was monday. After waiting for hours in a line at the airport, the soonest Mohammed could get a ticket was for Thursday. (and actually egyptair ended up canceling all it's flights for a few days because none of their staff was coming to work.). Diana's husband meanwhile was able to put us on their company's charter the next morning. But with a catch- I had to pretend to be diana's friend from home who was just visiting when the crisis hit.

We spent most of that day in a big hospitality suite at one of the hotels near the airport. It was evidently total chaos at the airport so we were not going to go until the plane was all set. We were supposed to leave around 1, but I think we didn't take off until 11 pm or so. Diana's husband was really stressed out because this was his show and everyone was grumbling and complaining. A lot of expats, especially the ones who work for oil or oil-services companies, are used to the company being able to buffer them from all of the inconveniences of life in Egypt. We all get a little spoiled. So many of the other families were annoyed at being suddenly thrown in with the chaos. Diana was trying to help her husband and make the other families comfortable. So I ended up spending a fair amount of time looking after all 4 boys.

This wasn't so bad- they were all kind of entertaining each other. But I was kind of a spectacle- this one woman seemingly traveling alone with four unruly kids. A couple of the other mothers came over to try to offer some help. It felt truly ludicrous when they would ask who I was, and I had to say that I didn't even live in Cairo and just happened to be visiting. Because what kind of nut job would take her four sons alone on a holiday in the Middle East, let alone to a place already convulsed with epic protests?

I managed to take some photos in the hospitality suite because we did have quite a bit of time on our hands.

And here's some video Thomas and his friend Juan shot of each other:

YouTube Video

Once we got to Dubai, the company had cancelled the original hotel booking. It was so late/early that everyone was just being rerouted onto connecting flights to their home countries leaving that morning. Diana and her family had been booked into a hotel apartment, but there had been some kind of kerfluffle about who got to stay in Dubai versus who had to fly home, so I couldn't stay at the same place anymore. The upshot being that Thomas, Emmett and I climbed in a taxi at about 7 am after being up all night and drove from hotel to hotel looking for a room. There was some kind of shopping festival going on and the city was fully booked.

We ended up that first night in the ibis, a business hotel. Although they were very nice and tried to be understanding, it was a nightmare managing these young, wiggly, anxious boys in its ultra-sophisticated techno-modern spaces. After Emmett nearly squished himself in the automatic revolving door I got on the phone with the nyt Cairo bureau chief and threw a good old-fashioned hissy fit. That afternoon we checked into the nicest hotel I will ever stay in- the jumeirah beach- which looks like a spinnaker sail and has a kids club, beach and multiple pools.

So the next few days, while Dave was chased around Tahrir by machete-wielding thugs, we three relaxed in proper style. Heroes of the revolution, each of us.

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Addendum

2011-02-07T06:56:00.001+02:00

To avoid alarming anyone unduly, maybe I should add a postscript to the last bit stating that the rumors of looting of private villas turned out to be false, except for one palatial residence belonging to someone in Mubarak's family somewhere in an entirely different part of town. So there was never a real danger of the house getting sacked. I could kind of tell that at the time-- it just didn't sound/feel as if mobs of angry people were wandering around the neighborhood. It was true that the police station a half mile away was attacked and burned, but there were no police in it.

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More on leaving Cairo

2011-02-05T04:52:00.001+02:00

Now that we are safe and can catch our breath in Dubai it is hard even to remember what it felt like in Cairo. It didn't feel scary, most of the time.

So where were we- last saturday after the first big Friday protests. When we woke up on Saturday one of he first things Dave said was that, just in case, where would I like to take the boys? He made it sound light- the nyt would pay for us to have a nice little vacation somewhere. There was no obvious choice though and we didn't make any decisions.

That turned out to be the theme of the day- expats fleeing. Dave left to cover events downtown and I went back to chloee's. It was a very different mood. Michael's company, coca-cola, was one of the first to decide to get their people out, and Michael and Chloee were being told they had to go to Istanbul the next day. Chloee's nine year old son Julien told me the news when we arrived. Then chloee came down and told me not to tell the boys (hers) because they didnt know anything yet. So i had to tell her that yes, in fact, they did. This was a very hard balancing act for all of us- how much to tell our kids, what to say in front of the children of others. And of course they soaked it all up on their own. Even emmett was jumpy as a cat and wouldnt nap that day.

Michael and chloee's house is really pretty. Chloee had a much better sense then I did of what this evacuation would mean, and she was calling the driver and the housekeeper to coordinate who would watch their things and guard the house after they left. Michael had a satellite phone and I borrowed it to call my dad and start exploring options for us to leave as well. But it was really different- coca cola was calling the shots for them and making all the arrangements, including chartering a plane. While Michael and Chloee coordinated all this, friends called in to report that carrefour, the big French supermarket in an upscale mall outside the neighborhood, had been targeted by mobs of looters the night before.

We left chloee's house after lunch and the streets seemed even more deserted than usual for a Saturday. Maadi is usually filled with expats, but the only people I saw walking home were Egyptian. It didn't really register at the time, but one thing that was different was that the usual phalanx of guards and police at all the embassies and crossings were not there, except a single guard at the Korean embassy across the street from our house.

We were supposed to go to a friend's for a bbq and I called another friend Eden to find out the address. Cell phones were now working again. Eden was already at the bbq, but she said not to come. There was now a 4pm curfew, and more rumors of looting and gangs of people wandering the ring road around the city pulling people from their cars and stealing the cars. Eden said their car, a wonderful big old chevy-style truck, had been stolen the night before.

I checked in with Isabella who had called that morning. She and all the other embassy families had been ordered to stay in their houses. She asked if I wanted to come there with the boys and maybe even stay the night. At that point it was close to 4 and, I guess remembering how badly behaved Thomas was at lunch the day before, I really didn't want to have to deal with corralling the boys in someone else's house. It also seemed like maybe not a great idea to walk over there and we didn't have the car. Michael called later to say that the army had moved in to protect the perimeter of the neighborhood and he'd seen tanks on road 9, the main little shopping road at the edge of Maadi. He asked if I wanted him to try to secure a seat on the coca cola plane for me and the boys to go to Istanbul the next morning. He thought he could do it but has to know then. I couldn't really imagine leaving that soon, and, since Michael and Chloee weren't even sure they would stay in Turkey, I wasn't sure what I would do with myself once there. So I thanked him and said no.

Writing all this it seems odd that I wasn't more panicked at the time. But the thing was, I had called Dave in the afternoon, and he had said that all was peace and love down in Tahrir square. The police had backed off and the situation seemed to be moving toward a positive, peaceful conclusion. Isabella, who had access to us embassy reports, had also told me that the army had announced that it's job was to protect the Egyptian people, which was being widely interpreted as a signal of support to the protests. There had been some concern that the military would come in and crush the protests and things would get really bloody. That seemed off the table. So the idea of tanks on road 9 was actually reassuring. The us embassy was not ordering it's people out and, like many, I was using them as a kind of barometer for the situation.

Just as I was putting the boys to bed another friend who lived near the Israeli embassy called to say that there were reports of attacks on the local police station and the embassy and also some looting of private villas. She said that neighborhood patrols were being organized and her husband, who is Egyptian, was participating. They had the numbers for the patrols and if I felt at all unsafe I should call her. "I don't want to worry you," she said, "I know it's a big story, but maybe Dave should come home and work from there tonight.".

Of course I was good and worried by then. On the one hand, lots of rumors of things turned out later to be not true or exaggerations, so I didn't want to panic the boys and ruin dave's story for nothing. On the other- well, i forget when we started to hear gun shots but certainly by then I could hear occasional gunfire. We live in a one story villa right near the center of Maadi. I've always felt very safe because there are two embassies right across the street and usually a half dozen armed guards at the corner. I looked out the window to try to see if the guards were there, but it was dark and hard to see. if there were looters targeting villas, ours could be vulnerable too.

I called Dave and asked if he could send Mohammed the driver home. Dave offered to come home and write from there. But I didn't like the idea of him or Mohammed being out on the main roads, and it wasn't really clear that his being home would make us much safer. Also there was some reason neither of them could leave right away. Even if they could the drive home would take at least an hour with all the road closings and check points etc. I called Isabella to see if Ben, her husband, could come pick us up and take us over there as she lives in a tenth floor apartment. But their cars had been ordered into some secure garage and locked in for the night. I for sure did not want to pack up the little boys and walk them over the ten blocks or so in the dark if there were mobs and looters around.

This was the toughest moment for me. Through all these phone calls I'd managed to get Emmett to bed but he was still awake and calling for me. Thomas had been playing quietly by himself in the playroom but now had a project he wanted to show me. I was trying to peek out the windows to see if any guards were around, monitor the news, get the lights off and close the wooden shutters all around the house without panicking the boys. While looking at thomas' project I started to hear voices and see men moving around outside. I heard the sound of something large and metal being moved across the road just outside the house.

I pulled Thomas out of the playroom, which is at the front of the house, and turned off the lights. He kept asking why, and I just said I wasn't sure it was a good room to play in right then. He had all these pieces and props to this giant Lego thing he was building that he wanted and he kept coming back in to get them and also to be near me. Poor guy- I really scream/hissed at him to get out of that room NOW.

I stood at the window and with the lights off I could see much better what was going on. There was a group of twenty or so men with sticks and guns. They had pulled the metal barricades from the guards' station across the road to stop any cars from going by. They were talking calmly to each other and did not seem especially excited or like they were going to break into chants of "Death to America!" anytime soon. I decided they were the guards dressed in plain clothes who had come back to secure the embassies.

Once I made the decision to think they were guards, everything got much easier and clearer. We could stay the night in the house. Not only should Dave not come home then in the middle of writing his story, but he should not come at all. Traveling the main roads outside Maadi would be too dangerous. It sounded as if downtown was safe, and our corner right here was safe, so we should each stay tucked in our little safe pockets. I called Dave and told him he should stay put, and that we would be fine. He sounded relieved, and agreed that was the best plan. He said he would send Mohammed when he could.

It may sound as if I was being cavalier about mohammed's safety as opposed to dave's, and that's some true. But it's also true that Mohammed is Egyptian, speaks fluent Arabic, and is very agile at dealing with all the crazy restrictions and nuances of making one's way around Cairo. I thought he had a good chance of staying safe dealing with whomever he met on the roads, but that Dave maybe would not. I guess I also thought that at some point it was someone's job to make sure we were safe, and since Dave had to write a story, Mohammed was the right choice.

I then finished getting Thomas to bed and watched the news until Mohammed arrived. Dave had told him to take a good look around Maadi and see if it was really safe or seemed dangerous. I couldnt really follow everything Mohammed said when he came, but he said it was very safe. He had had to go through many checkpoints on the roads, and he also talked about barricades and check points all through Maadi. I had no idea what he was talking about since I still thought the people on my corner were the usual embassy guards. Later I would learn about how the police had abandoned their posts and about the amazing civilian patrols that had sprung up all over the city, but just then I gave Mohammed a hug and went to bed.

That's all for now.

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Aside

2011-02-04T02:32:00.001+02:00

I will continue the "tick tock," as Dave would say, of our last few days in cairo, but thought this was cute and if I don't write it down I'll forget. This is still a baby blog after all:

We were talking with uncle Arthur tonight via skype, and he was saying that if I'd written a blog about being a mom in Egypt for babble.com, the "urban parent" site, so many people would be reading it now. And I said I was just as glad because i didn't want to have to worry about what a bunch of snarky hipsters thought. Immediately Thomas, behind me, stopped his chariot pretend game and asked, "what's a Snarky Hipster?"

I deferred to uncle Arthur who defined it as "someone who likes to laugh at everything and wears tight pants.". Which is as good of a definition as you're likely to find.

Thomas ran under a table, now concerned that Snarky Hipsters were lurking under the beds.

good times here in Dubai.

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Leaving cairo

2011-02-03T02:07:00.001+02:00

Emmett is napping, and Thomas is at our new hotel's kid's club for the time being, so I am going to take a stab at recording some of our experience of the last few days.

Starting from my last post, just to note: clearly, I underestimated the Egyptians. As we all now know, they did not need the Internet or social media or whatever to continue the protests. I've now seen some CNN and fox news analysis giving a lot of credit to twitter and facebook. Yes, these tools were instrumental in making things happen, and it's awesome how they work, ok. But to lionize that seems to me to slight what I did see those days the Internet was down: the incredible bravery and dedication of ordinary people.

The civilian patrols the days after the looting were enough to make you cry- sweet, sweet guys- dads and teenagers holding golf clubs and using branches and sand to form barricades to keep their neighborhoods safe. More on this to come-

I don't know how the Egyptians were so brave. Every day the rumors were bad- that the police and army would shoot people who came out, that not enough people would come and those who did would be thrown in jail and disappeared. And yet every day the crowds came out again, and larger. I have no idea what made people so brave- I do not know enough Egyptians. It could have been desperation but I don't think so. Say what you want about Egyptian gender roles, and Islamic traditions, and there is a lot to say, but I do think family and civic ties are stronger in Egypt and that the large and determined protests reflect that. And i would guess that the traditional religious observance makes up some of the difference.

More specifically, I think and from what Dave saw, what allowed the protests to go forward logistically were the mosques. This is a country where everyone who can attends prayer together daily. Friday, the day the internet went down, is the sabbath in egypt and everyone attends prayers. So it was maybe not that tough to coordinate everyone marching from different points to try to reach Tahrir square, because you were starting with large groups to begin with. These were not religious protests. At all. But Egypt is a religious society, and that social fabric helped. Sure, and so did twitter, but just sayin'.

Ok, but you can read dave's articles to hear about the protests. What about us? This has been so surreal because while Dave was out in the thick of things, and being so brave, we were pretty much just living life as usual.

The night before the big Friday protests Dave had just come home from tunisia. He was working late into the night on deadline about a story there. We were wondering whether the Internet would really go down the next day as the rumors were saying. Dave thought certainly not, Mubarak would not want to signal to the international business community that Egypt was so chaotic. Sure enough, the next morning neither of us could get online. Then we realized the cell phones were down too.

Dave had to leave with our driver and car to cover the protests. I couldnt really face being alone with the two boys and totally cut off from everything else, so I packed them in the stroller and walked to my friend chloee's house. Her kids are older and everyone was just getting up. We had a nice morning playing in their sandbox and with their impressive collection of trucks. Chloee and her husband are great foodies, and they fed us kiwi and bread and chocolate. At this point we were all still debating whether anyone would show up at the protests or whether people would be too scared. Everyone had asked their Egyptian drivers what they thought, and the consensus seemed to be that only crazy people would risk turning out.

At noon, Chloee and her boys set off for the playground but it was close to emmett's nap time so I started for home. On the way we met up with thomas' friend giacomo and his family. They had been driving over to our house to coordinate plans to go to Maadi House for kids movie night since phones were down. They stayed for lunch, which was nice, except Thomas and Emmett were tired and cranky and behaved terribly. Someone called on the home phone, which was working, to warn that protests were planned in Maadi that day after noon prayers. Isabella, giacomo's mom, got nervous and decided to leave - though we could pretty much hear from the house that nobody was protesting on the main square outside.

All of us were wondering and speculating how Dave and the other reporters could file anything with no phone or Internet. Isabella thought maybe they would try to hire protesters to act as runners ferrying news from the reporters back to the bureau. I called the office to check in and see if maybe I should be trying to round up helpful teenagers or something if they did in fact need runners. Dawlat, the office manager, said they did have a satellite Internet connection at the office. All the reporters (extra staff had flown in) were calling in from land lines in people's houses or the big hotels and dawlat was typing up the reports and filing them. She hadn't heard from Dave yet, but I decided to take that as a positive sign.

Later we met up with giacomo and family again at Maadi house. Lots of friends were there. Everyone was ordering beers and joking about the revolution. People who didn't have tv at home kept leaving the table to check al jazeera which was finally covering the protests. They had been massive- much bigger than at least we expats had anticipated. The nice Egyptian waiters were setting up the lawn for the movie and Thomas and giacomo were playing on the climbing frames. At about 5:30 the tv announced a curfew had been set for 6 o'clock. The nice waiters gently told us to get out, Thomas was furious and giacomo started crying when they heard there wouldnt be a movie. Mostly I think they were scared. Everyone was so nice to me- rushing to make sure I had a ride, and help, because I was the only one there with two small kids and no spouse. We got home to a messy house (no help on weekends)- I made a terrible dinner and let them watch a movie on the computer while I snuck peeks at the news.

It took forever to get the boys to bed. Chloee broke curfew to drive by and make sure we were ok since we hadn't been answering the phone and I hadn't told her about our Maadi house plans. Dave called and said he was ok and had had quite a day. Since the US is 7 hours behind Egypt he still had several hours of writing to do before deadline in new York. Emmett wanted extra snuggling and I lay down next to him and fell asleep.

I woke up to banging in the kitchen at about 4 am. There was Dave standing at the sink trying to finish off the dinner dishes I had left lying around. Before he'd left that morning he had said, as he usually does when he feels bad about working late, "leave the dishes for me.". I had pooh poohed him but when he got home and saw the kitchen he thought I really had gone to bed and left all the dishes for him to do. (Which ok I had actually done but not on purpose.) So, after a full day of covering protests and getting tear gassed and harassed by police, he rolled up his sleeves and started washing the pots. We had a good giggle about this. He ate some of our leftover dinner while I finished up and heard about his adventures.

Among other things he told me the back of the car window had been smashed by tear gas cannisters and the car smelled terrible. Two police men had ripped up his notebook, but he had not been arrested, which was a relief. earlier in the week dozens of journalists covering the protests had been arrested so it was a real concern. Mostly though he had watched unarmed protesters battle police over a single bridge to Tahrir square. The protesters had been beaten, tear gassed, and sprayed with water cannons but they refused to give up the bridge. He said he watched for hours. Finally the protesters pushed the police back off the bridge and continued to Tahrir square.

I guess I'll leave it here. It's now night time and the boys are sleeping. After a few hectic days we have had quite a soft landing into a beautiful hotel by the beach in Dubai. I hope this is interesting. It does feel as if I should write it all down, though maybe a baby blog is an unusual forum.

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Location:Dubai

guys what is our plan if the government pull the plug of internet tomorrow ??

2011-01-27T22:26:00.000+02:00

Dave is home, allhumdillallah. Big protests planned for tomorrow. Facebook, Twitter, text messaging all shut down, though people have been finding ways around the blocks. People downtown are unlocking their wifi to allow protesters to upload text and video. Thought this was interesting from Twitter feed:

"RT @Zeinobia guys what is our plan if the government pull the plug of internet tomorrow ?? #jan25 "

These guys in power are on the ropes and they are not kidding around. It's possible protesters will get fired on tomorrow. we are safe-- our neighborhood is far from all of this. No mothers I know are planning to go, though most of us would like to. But if they did shut down all access to the internet tomorrow? I don't even know if it's possible, but that would be the end of it. TV News is not really covering the protests-- even Al Jazeera. Not sure why-- corruption probably. If activists lost internet contact . . . it would be much harder to find the courage to face the police I think.

As sympathetic as the protest movement is, and it is-- what I've seen is totally inspiring and amazing-- it's not clear it would be all that great if Mubarak stepped down. In an ideal world, this would take a few months and people could think a bit about what they would like to happen next. The tension is that this momentum won't last forever. If protesters don't keep up the pressure now, they may lose their chance.

Ok, this is all off-topic for the K boys blog, but it's pretty fascinating.

مظاهرات يوم الغضب فى مصر 25-1-2011 وشجاعة المتظاهرين.

2011-01-26T14:07:00.000+02:00

Check out brave guy at @ 1:18. Seems as if protests were amazing-- thousands of people, all peaceful-- until police marched in around midnight last night and blasted tear gas and rubber bullets to clear the main square. Now, there are reports of huge security presence downtown but also rumors of more protests. If people protest on the scale they did yesterday, they are very brave. This could tip either way right now . . .

Update

2011-01-26T01:08:00.001+02:00

I should add that we are all fine. Dave is still in Tunisia although the story is moving to Egypt. The "day of revolt" here was very quiet in our neighborhood. The protests were anticipated and everyone knew to steer clear of downtown.

Thomas, to his credit, was incredulous when I told him that protests were coming to Egypt but that we would not be going. We have been talking about why Daddy is in Tunisia, and he knows that there was a bad leader and that the people told him to leave. He knows that the leader here is considered "bad" too. When he heard that people were going to march in Tahrir Square, he insisted, with that hard logic of the very young, that we go too. I explained that it would be too dangerous- there would be lots of people and what if he and Emmett started wandering in two directions at once? He said very seriously, "Mommy, I will stay close to you. You can look after me, and I'll look after Emmett."

We did not go-- nowhere near. I wish that we could have though.

In praise of Kompass

2011-01-25T23:43:00.000+02:00

Here are some photos of Thomas' days at Kompass. We really love this place.

This boy, Ryosuke, is a bit of a mystery. The teachers insist he is one of Thomas' best friends, but Thomas says he doesn't like him at all.

Sand drawing is a big part of every day.

Fun with uncle Arthur in the pool

2011-01-22T01:26:00.001+02:00

Dc shots may have to wait for dave's return from Tunisia so he can explain the new camera equipment to mommy.

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Visit home part I: Snow!

2011-01-17T22:26:00.001+02:00

We saw some, and it was awesome.

Apologies, dear readers. We were away for a week visiting grandparents in the states and things have been too busy to post. Events in the area grew more dramatic while we were away, and Dave was sent almost immediately to Tunisia when we returned. It's been a funny and kind of disorienting reentry into Egypt.

But first, here are some beautiful shots of Thomas and Emmett with cousins Elsie and Theo in Vermont.

Below Grandpa Peter tells once more of the food behind the piano in London. Thomas resisted the temptation to reenact the tale in Vermont.

Thomas and Elsie both hit the slopes, and Theo was sighted there as well. Here is Thomas arriving in grandpa pater's waiting arms. It's hard to say who looks the most graceful in this multi-generational portrait.

As usual, the après-ski was the real highlight.

Aunt Anna's dog Boomer enthusiastically convinced the boys that not all dogs are feral menaces. Emmett still talks about Boomer and Aunt Anna every night. Somewhere he got the idea that they "love him so much."

And here is grand Kathy seeing us off in new York. We had a lovely visit in the terminal 4 food court. Thank you thank you for making the visit spectacular from end to end!

Coming up . . . We test pools up and down the eastern seaboard and other fun with the kirkpatricks in Washington DC!

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Christmas cheer and other exile experiences

2010-12-29T13:34:00.001+02:00

Here is Emmett at a local toy store. The artists who own it started posing Emmett with different items. He was good-natured about it. I've promised to send them copies of these photos. Maybe I even will.

Here is the scene Christmas eve after Santa had been through. We hung our stockings firm the window handles since we don't have a hearth. Santa figured it out.

I didn't take a picture of Christmas morning. It was actually quite a nice scene. I was nervous since it was our first year without any family elders around, so Dave and I were running the show. We missed family for sure, but Thomas and Emmett had a nice Christmas. Thomas had been pretty worried about getting coal, and was relieved and pleased at the number of presents he got. Later he wondered aloud if perhaps "Santa couldn't see behind the couch.". Not sure what that means, tho grandpa peter's piano story springs to mind.

And, switching gears, here's a scene from a friend's dissertation defense at Cairo University. She teaches English literature there. Thats her in the corner speaking into the microphone. When I first met Sonia, who got her masters at Santa Cruz in the states, I asked her what her specialty was. I expected her to say Arab literature, or Arabic women, I guess because that would be a very marketable specialty in the States. She said hispanic-American literature. This really surprised me.

Her PhD thesis focused on narratives of exile- Hispanic American women writers whose characters have moved from their home country to the United States. I was really pleased and honored to be invited to watch her defense. I for sure would not have invited my own mother to watch my job talk in the states, but I guess it's different here. It seemed like a lot of her friends and supporters were in the room, and two big bouquets of flowers arrived at the beginning.

It was a little surreal sitting in this classroom in Cairo listening to Arab academics discuss the experience of Hispanic immigrants to the United States. At one point one of the panel of interlocutors said, as if it was self-evident, that virtually all Egyptian scholars that focus on American literature specialize in African- American writers. She asked Sonia to explain what was special or noteworthy about hispanic American works. I found this quite surprising- I was a little sad to realize that scholars focusing on American literature don't generally focus on Hawthorne or Edith Wharton or Mark Twain. Maybe all that was done to death a generation ago.

The interest in, and obvious sympathy with, the immigrant experience in the United States also surprised me. There was a lot of discussion of the hardship of translating the Spanish experience into English, and the fight to retain the language and customs of home against the "Anglo" majority culture. Initially I couldn't figure out why this room full of Egyptians would be in such universal sympathy with this community. None of the questioners or nodding audience members were exiles- they were native Egyptians studying in their own land. It's not as if Egypt is such a haven for migrants or minorities, especially religious minorities. If anything I have the sense that Egyptians are more sympathetic than many Americans to the idea of protecting and preserving national culture. Egypt has had it's periods of empire- why weren't they also discussing the difficulties of assimilating different populations into a coherent whole? I know the whole legacy of colonialism blah blah, but that still wouldn't make Egyptians exiles.

Here is what it looked like on the cairo university campus. I was still puzzling over this after the talk when I remembered something Sonia had said that had gotten a lot of smiles and nodding from the audience. She had referenced how the Louisiana Purchase had transferred huge areas of Texas, new Mexico, California? (I am not checking my facts here - this could be off, but Sonia had it right) to the united states from Mexico and quoted a Latino poet as saying, "we didn't come to the united states, the united states came to us.". That was kind of my lightbulb moment- that would also be how Egyptians feel about the British and their successor, the Americans. Even if it is still their country, so much has been transformed by the West and the products and technology of the West. The craziness around cars, pollution, litter- all of these things were imported in the last century and have been grafted not quite successfully into Egypt. Not to mention that the Mubarak regime, which is acknowledged to be corrupt and ineffective in many ways, survives due to American support. I can see why it might feel like the united states, or at least some nebulous Anglo power, had come to them and was forcing change.

That would also explain why I didn't identify as much with the descriptions of the exile experience as I thought I might. Even though I am no longer living in the geographic territory of the united states, I have not really left it. Americans and other Europeans are top of the heap here, and nobody seriously expects me to speak Arabic or wear a veil. We have special police who make sure we are not harassed or bothered by the locals. (Once when I got in one of my usual fights with a cab driver, which I do everywhere no matter what the city, and the guy was really clueless and so lost and incompetent I just jumped out and started walking away without paying. He followed me and pulled up next to me gesturing that i owed him money. I shouted "la!" (No) quite forcefully through the window and walked away. Two seconds later I heard someone shouting excuse me and a pretty woman in western dress ran up to me. She said she worked with the police and wanted to know if the cab driver had done anything improper. I felt like such an idiot having to explain that basically I'd jumped the fare and the guy was probably well within his rights to ask for money. If I'd said he'd done something he probably would have been put in jail and tortured. I dont know whether she was keeping an eye on me all along or just happened on the scene- either way it enhanced my feeling of walking around in an artificial expat bubble. . . . ) There is more to say, of course, about "exile" and our "immigration" experience in Cairo, but for now I'll just leave it here Anyway, it was a great talk and a very rich subject.

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Meanwhile . . .

2010-12-20T23:08:00.001+02:00

This is the scene at 3931 Livingston in our absence:

No surprise that these folks work for a nuclear power company.

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Weird things

2010-12-17T22:13:00.001+02:00

So last week I finally got a taste of what expats complain about in cairo: sometimes one encounters scams and a "lack of work ethic" in Egyptian business. I have heard lots of complaints about this, but really have been treated nothing but kindly since august. It is annoying that sometimes there is a price for Egyptians, and another price for foreigners that is 10 times the local price, and no one sees anything wrong with openly charging foreigners more because we're foreigners. But whatever, there's a lot of privilege in being an expat in cairo. I wouldn't myself back the dual price system as the most advantageous way to level the field, but it doesn't bother me that much.

But last week I finally got around to taking Egypt and the kittens to the vet for vaccinations, spaying etc. This wasn't so much for them as for Thomas and Emmett, since these cats spend a lot of time in the garden and I'd just as soon they were healthy. I went to a place our driver recommended, but it was kind of sketchy. The vet assistant seemed genuinely terrified of cats, and then I saw that the vaccine they were about to give was expired. I took the cats home and later saw that this place is not only unscrupulous, nobody there is actually a vet. They advertise in expat magazines, and charge expats who bring in pets for "vaccines" that are never administered and travel paperwork that is forged. One man evidently tried to board his golden retriever there when he went on a trip only to get a call after six hours that they'd lost the dog. He strongly suspected that they'd actually just sold it since it was a purebred and could get a high price.

I should say that I'm quite sure that Mohammed, our driver, was totally on the up and up in recommending the place. But I think that vets are hard for most Egyptians to wrap their heads around. There are plenty of people here who can't afford basic healthcare, and cats are dime a dozen all over the streets. I did eventually find a good vet and took the cats for treatment, but I think it was completely mind-boggling to Mohammed when he heard me talk about the cost, about $200, with Dave. I think to him I'd done the equivalent of picking up three random pigeons in central park and spending $10,000 on them.

Even for me it's all a bit much. Having cats in Egypt is not the same thing as having a cat in the states. Since I have to keep them outdoors because of dave's allergies, there's no way to stop every other sick and decrepit stray cat in the area from coming in the garden and trying to share their food. And since there is garbage all over the streets here, the cats will bring back tasty morsels of rancid meat to enjoy on the lawn. They also climb into emmett's stroller and sleep there. The whole thing is not very sanitary, even after getting vaccinations etc. I kind of wish I could just cut the cats loose, but that feels immoral, even while getting them basic healthcare also feels immoral because they are just cats and the care is expensive. What do you think, loyal readers? I'm trying to find homes for the kittens, but if I can't, should I cut them loose? Accept responsibility for all 4 cats? Blow off their heads with a shotgun like my aunt carola did once? Suggestions appreciated.

Other weird things: here's Santa arriving by camel to maadi house.

Here's Thomas explaining his list:

Check out his awesome "volcano" shirt- a birthday present from Grand Kathy. It's part of the "science" school series.

And here's Emmett:

Here's the City Stars mall in downtown Cairo, where we went on an expedition last weekend.

And here's me and Emmett riding in the women and children only cars on the metro to downtown:

Finally, here's Thomas and Juan on December 8th, the day Thomas turned 5!!!!

Santa visits the Irish nursery

2010-12-11T14:32:00.001+02:00

Santa paid an early visit to Emmett's hadana. Emmett and Felipe were ready.

The kids put on a Christmas show.

Emmett was the only child brave enough to sit on santa's lap. He got big applause.

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Christmas in tha house!

2010-12-04T23:10:00.001+02:00

David went out to the wadi, and surprised us all by coming back with this handsome evergreen tree.

I didn't even know they grew in the desert! And where did he find a cross-bow axe I wonder?

Emmett and I set out to decorate it at once.

The tree is sitting in what we like to call "the empty room." This is probably as good a time as any to show you some pictures of the house, as promised lo these many weeks ago.

The "empty room" is the only room in the house that wasn't fully furnished when we arrived. It is a traditional Islamic sitting room where men would receive guests apart from the family parts of the house. I have big plans for this room. Up to now it has been useful for car racing, trains, balloon tosses, and Christmas trees.

(we have been waiting for our fixer guy to come to hang pictures. Supposedly this will happen tomorrow! As you can see, the finest art in our collection is headed for these walls).

On either side of this front room are two wings- one for eating/ lounging, and the other for bedrooms.

These here are two of my favorite rooms. The wife of the last nyt correspondent is a graphic designer, and you can see she had a real flair in decorating.

Kitchen. Pretty average. At night a few lizards come and cling to the windows.

This hall connects the two wings of the house. The rug we inherited but I'd like to change it.

This is the playroom/ guest room. That's giacomo with Emmett and t building a train track.

Here's where y'all will sleep when you come visit.

Here's our messy room complete with one handsome nyt bureau chief.

I guess I don't have a photo of the boys' room. It's pretty crowded now cause it has 2 big boy beds and a crib. Hoping we'll lose that before too long.

Now here's Santa:

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Thanksgiving catch-up

2010-12-03T14:11:00.001+02:00

Well, it's already december and I've been a little delinquent about updating november's events. For the last few days ive been laid very low by what I insist is dengue fever, but what medical evidence suggests was just a flu.

Here we are just before leaving to have thanksgiving dinner at our friend giacomo's house. Here we really have to give credit to Thomas for being savvy enough to befriend someone whose parents work for the embassy. This means they have access to the us commissary and all it's goodies. We had turkey AND ham and stuffing and pumpkin pie! Also, they are very nice people.

We all looked very sharp as you can see. Thomas was so polite: when asked what he wanted to wear he said, "whatever looks handsomest.". And, all by himself, after the food was served, he looked at his hostess and said, "what a delicious thanksgiving dinner." I was so proud.

Emmett wore his plaid party pants that continue to be crowd-pleasers.

Here we are on a recent trip to the Wadi with Juan and Felipe's family. You wouldn't believe the off-roading dave had to do to get us to this spot! The Rodriguez's were so scared.

Despite how we look in this picture, we all had a nice time.

Next up, Christmas is coming to Cairo!

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emmett with bites

2010-11-28T18:08:00.000+02:00

Eid on the gulf of Aqaba

2010-11-23T22:02:00.001+02:00

Last week was another "eid" or feast here. Everyone had the week off school. The holiday celebrates, among other things, god's decision to spare Ishmael and accept a sheep sacrifice from Abraham instead. Now, I remember this story in the bible, where God tells Abraham he has to sacrifice his son and then relents at the last minute after ishmael (Isaac to christians) is spread out on the slab. Granted, I didn't have the most church-y of upbringings, and new englanders shy away from emotional intensity generally, but I don't remember anybody celebrating this particular story. It mostly seemed to make everyone uncomfortable and was skipped over pretty quickly. So I was surprised to learn that the islamic world embraces this passage with such intensity. It's one of the biggest holidays of the year- sort of like Christmas. To do it right you really have to slaughter your own sheep. The Egyptian government imports thousands of extra sheep for the occasion. Everyone has to share some of their meat with the poor. On the day of the feast evidently the streets of Cairo run red with sheep innards and gore. Someone told me that the whole thing about feeding the poor has gotten out of hand: there is too much lamb and the poor can't even eat it all and so some just goes bad. I don't know if that's true. In this person's opinion it would be better if some people gave sheep to the poor, and some other people gave money or their time. But the Koran says to slaughter the sheep, and all that is taken very literally hereabouts.

On the other hand, this adherence to text means that absolutely everyone shares with the poor in tangible way. That certainly has not been my experience of holidays in the US even though there is a lot of talk and prayer for the poor on Christmas.

Anyhoo, I thought the boys were a little young for all this, so we joined some friends who were going diving in the Sinai. I really cant describe how different this place was, so i wont try. This is the hotel we stayed in:

It was right on the beach.

One day we rode horses.

We all enjoyed relaxing Bedouin-style.

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The only drawback was that there were some Mosquitos. They especially liked Emmett. We were able to take evasive measures, but not before he looked like this:

Poor guy!

We finally got rid of them by sacrificing a sheep . . . Just kidding!

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the Glamorous Life: fashion and art

2010-11-19T23:28:00.001+02:00

It's been a busy few weeks here in Egypt. I went to a fashion show held at the Cairo Opera House.

It was really fun to see a non-family-oriented side of Cairo. The designers, a company called Nagada, are a husband and wife team of a Swiss former potter and a Lebanese woman. Their original inspiration comes from traditional Egyptian cotton patterns, but lately they've been drawing also from Asian influences. The result, a mixture of dramatic Arabian and Asian images, was kind of magical. So was the audience of arab and asian fashionistas enjoying the show. The weirdest part was realizing that it all had nothing to do with the united states: not the audience, not the clothes, not the locale, not the history. I'm pretty sure this was the first event in my life where this was the case.

The next day i went to the shop with a friend and bought lots of things. in my head they will look spectacular in New York but maybe i will look like a lost Hun.

We spent another afternoon at the fagnoon art school outside Giza. We went with the French expat club

Here is Thomas singing a song of his own composition about an emerging pottery pot:

Next up: the glamorous life: travel episode, as we document our week spent in the Sinai on the gulf of Aqaba celebrating the November Eid.

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Bees and kittens and things

2010-11-05T11:39:00.001+02:00

Here's some pictures of things we've been up to:

For those of you who felt you didn't get a full impression of emmett's bee costume, he helpfully decided to wear it again a few mornings later.

Thomas and old CAC pal Juan at the Halloween carnival.

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Egypt the cat had kittens! We've named them Violet, Mouse and Charlotte.

On weekends we let Thomas ride his bike around the neighborhood. One of us has to run beside him at all times because traffic laws are not enforced in Egypt. It's just a giant game of chicken at every intersection. Bikers and pedestrians have no right of way- if you want to cross a busy street you have to step in front of traffic and hope the next car will stop. Expectations of personal space are different too so drivers will come within inches of you or your children at full speed. I have noticed that arab women drivers are often the worst offenders about this. Unfortunately in a stressful moment i noted this out loud, so now thomas will often repeat "The ones with the head scarves are the worst," when we get to a bad intersection.

The first few weeks I startled at every horn blast, and would come home exhausted and knotted with stress. I realized the other day that I'm much better at tuning it all out now, which probably means I'll be hit by a bus sometime soon.

how is thomas' new school going? he's much happier. I'm not sure his behavior has improved any. Can you find him in this picture?

Here's a hint.

Thats his friend giacomo's legs there next to him. Here's a picture of a tree house project the kids are working on:

So cool!

We've been following the US election results with interest. We also read about Jon stewart's rally in Washington. His closing statement- using the image of cars merging into the Jersey tunnel as an example of how real Americans work together to solve problems everyday-- has been criticized as kind of wimpy in the blogs I read. I would just like to day that from the vantage point of Egypt, Americans should not underestimate the value of orderly traffic merging. The amount of time and stress required for driving in Egypt- it's like a massive tax on the whole society except there's no revenue produced. Don't take it for granted USA!

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Pyramids and Halloween

2010-10-31T19:59:00.001+02:00

We did finally get to the pyramids a week or so ago. Now that it's cooled down we had a great time spending an afternoon in the desert in Giza.

the older boys are Theo, 12, and Julian, 8, who belong to my French friend Chloee. They are very sweet with Thomas.

Sometimes I really wish Granny were alive so that I could make her really happy by living in Egypt and having French friends.

Our shipment of stuff from the US finally arrived. There were some missing items, among them our beloved Candyland game. I dropped by a department store where I'd seen a wall of board games to see about a replacement. Upon closer inspection I realized that the whole wall of American games consisted entirely of editions of three games: Monopoly, Risk, and Clue. That selection pretty much would confirm the middle eastern impression of American culture: materialism, empire, and crime. But actually, when you think about it Clue is a weird kids game-- why would Colonel Mustard want to do that with the candlestick in that nice billiard room?

Here are some shots of us at Halloween. As Egypt does not recognize this holiday there are limited options in terms of costumes. Thomas really wanted to be a dragon. He had some specific ideas about how his costume should look. I had pretty much resigned myself to making it when I saw signs up at the Irish nursery, where Emmett goes three mornings a week, for a seamstress who would make costumes to order. Labor is really cheap in Egypt- part of the reason for the afore-noted "house staff" - so this isn't really that ridiculous a thing to do. But when we went to Madame Aliaa's "shop," which was some kind of converted elevator shaft in the basement of a building, we found she had pretty much ripped out pages from disney-type american costume catalogues to use as models. The upshot being that I paid slightly less than I would have paid in the states to get the same crappy costume but this time made to measure by an old egyptian woman.

Thomas really liked it though, so there you are. For Emmett I found a bumble bee suit. I only have one picture here- but he was pretty cute. In fact, his nursery teacher gave him the prize for best costume. He didn't really have the best or most original costume, but I think it was his *interpretation* of a pudgy bee that won her over. Here he has a little blinking light in his mouth that I got for Thomas to use as "fire," but Thomas hated it.

Here is T having his fortune told by a high school kid at the Halloween carnival at his old school. The swami said that Thomas would be a good friend to all animals and would rescue them from perils. I thought this was awesome, but Thomas found it to be merely a statement of the obvious.

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Kompass!

2010-10-22T08:01:00.001+02:00

I have sorely neglected this blog lately. We have been distracted mostly by problems at Thomas' pre-K. After near daily trips to the principal's office we finally pulled Thomas out and have moved him to a wonderful Montessori-based German kindergarten. This is really the school I have wanted for Thomas all along.

Just to be sure, we brought him for a brief morning tour. He seemed to feel at home.

Ok, there's a reason he's in his underwear. Those of you who followed our adventures in Munich will recall the water pumps that were ubiquitous in all the parks and playgrounds. there is one here too, on the other side of the garden, complete with a sluice mechanism representing the finest of German engineering. Thomas stripped down to play in it at the suggestion of the head of the school. Afterwards he told me this was the best school ever. Ahhhhhhh. I have been so waiting for that with this boy.

The kindergarten has children from 30 different countries ages 2 to 6 years and operates on an "open" system. This means that the children can do whatever they want whenever they want except for meals and circle time. Inside the villa are gorgeous, bright Danish modern-y rooms for music, painting, building, weights and measures, library, pretend etc. This is supposed to be based on the latest brain research though of course it's very similar to a school uncle Arthur and I went to back in the 1970s. Viva Collinsbrook!

But with a twist. Here everything is taught through simultaneous immersion in German, Arabic and English. One third of the teachers speak only English to the children, one third speak German and one third speak Arabic. This means that some days circle time is in English and some days it is in German or Arabic with the kids that know the language translating as needed for the others. It is so global village! If this works Thomas will get an amazing education. Almost as good as Tumbleweeds! He's only gone three days but already we think he seems more relaxed and reflective.

And we've put Emmett on the waiting list for march. They will go to school together- and spraechen zie deutsch!

The website is kompasseducation.com but its been down a lot lately.

And here are some pictures from a trip this afternoon with Thomas and Emmett to Al Azhar park downtown. Poor guys were basically mobbed by kids looking to practice their English or just squeeze Emmett's cheeks. Sometimes traveling with these guys is like being a roadie with the Beatles- scores of girls looking to get a cuddle and a picture.

Here is Emmett getting nabbed by some fans. He mostly takes it in stride.

Thomas is a little more stand-offish. Here he is, tiny man of the world.

Kirkpatrick boys!

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Gertrude Bell

2010-10-10T09:34:00.001+02:00

Before we got to Cairo I started reading a biography of Gertrude bell, an englishwoman from the Victorian era who was a kind of female TE Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia) She led expeditions into uncharted deserts, danced war dances with the Druize, camped with devil-worshippers in the Nejd, held court with expats in Syria and got to know the heads of all the desert tribes. During WW1 she was invaluable to the British, and she basically designed the state of Iraq. The book, desert queen, mostly just paraphrases bell's letters. But I really liked the british-ness of her letters even in the remotest deserts. She would be sneaking around trying to avoid the Turks and getting hassled by an unfriendly tribe and she would write to her father, "we are really having the most marvelous time and learning so much."

I imagined this blog might sound a little like her- clueless suburban american burbles around expat cairo. Now that im here i can see why she wrote that way. When you are new in a place, even the kind of crummy things are interesting. We have had kind of a trying few weeks- thomas misbehaving at school, the school not handling it well, a nest of thousands of ants found in the bathroom, turned down at maadi house, Emmett catching a stomach bug. But I still like it here a lot- and we are Learning So Much.

Thomas plays in a little soccer league for 5-7 year olds. Here he is with his teammates from Al Suez. There doesn't seem to be an English language 4s league, so we fudged his birthday a bit. It doesn't matter- he is a tiger on the b-team field.

Emmett likes to come cheer him on.

I love the Saturday mornings of little tiny people in shin pads.p

Last weekend we went to an "art school" outside the city. It had a very "hey kids, lets put on a play" spirit about it. A big improbable homemade treehouse and farm sitting out in the Egyptian countryside. It reminded me somehow of collinsbrook. but with a better revenue model. We paid $20 for both kids to have the run of the place and choose any two craft activities like pottery or silkscreen. I didn't take as many pics as I should have, but here we are:

Thomas of Arabia!

Emmett rode the horse too but I was too panicked to take any pictures.

Finally, we are sending good wishes and prayers to Devan, who had his bone marrow transplant on Thursday. Here is a pic from our last playdate at Dev's:

We sure miss those times sometimes!

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Cook while still frozen in the same way fresh vegetables are cooked

2010-09-27T19:06:00.001+03:00

That is the instructions on a pack of frozen beans I just prepared. In general the vegetables, fresh and frozen, have more flavor here. Also, there are no real directions on anything- a sign of a society where people know how to cook. All the boxes in my kitchen are like this: the rice, the cous cous, the frozen chicken patties. None of them have proportions, or methods or times or anything. They mostly just say cook until done. Or note what is different in the packaged version from the fresh. It makes me realize how funny most of us are in the states that we don't really know how to cook vegetables without instructions.

Here we are at the beach. This is the Hamptons of Cairo, just an hour and a half away. We stayed at a great family resort.

The sparkle effect is a waterfall.

Here is Emmett practicing Arabic.

I really tried hard to get a picture of a burkini. There were lots, but i never had a camera handy. These are burkhas which is not quite the same thing. But it still feels weird standing next to one wearing just a bathing suit.

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Wadi degla

2010-09-17T20:30:00.000+03:00

Last weekend we ventured over to a desert canyon where people like to hike, mountain bike and camp. Many thousands of years ago this place was an ocean, and a forest surrounded by volcanoes. Doesn't look much like that now.

I like this picture of me because I look like a deranged British archeologist. Below is my first headscarf encounter. Today we visited a mosque in old Islamic Cairo with dave's Arabic tutor. I was fine, even looking forward to wearing a headscarf until it actually came time to put it on. Then, something about having to wear it put me in a bad mood. Also I put together a little ensemble and came out to show Dave. He told me I was probably showing too much neck. Something about this really rubbed me the wrong way. I know he didn't make or agree with the rules, but just having him in his t-shirt casually tell me that I couldn't show so much neck made me want to kick him. It seemed like at least he should've said it apologetically. Luckily it only took me most of the afternoon to get over it. What's the deal with our feet, you ask? Two old men at the front of the mosque tie these booties on when you come in. Keeps the street dirt out. Emmett was very confused and kept asking shoes? all the way through the mosque. He didn't have to wear them though.

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Disorganized Friday Morning Post

2010-09-09T14:16:00.000+02:00

Here are some random photos from around the neighborhood. I really haven't made it very far out of maadi. Maadi is a relatively green and calm suburb. Downtown cairo, where Dave's office is, is much more urban and hectic. For now, the little bubble of Maddi feels adventurous enough.
I do the same things here that I did at home when not working: check out interesting classes for the boys, go to playdates, go to the pool. It is easy to get lost around here because there are very few street signs. So even setting out to a friend's house feels like a small adventure because we will probably get lost or at least go down a new street.

Above is one of my favorite buildings that I pass walking Thomas home from school. You can't really see but there is a grand open spiral stairway under the cupola. I don't know if it's a private house or apartments or what. This neighborhood is considered posh, but in the last few decades a number of the stately old villas have been torn down for more modern apartment buildings. Now it's a mix, beautiful grand old buildings next to grey concrete apartments. All of cairo is over-crowded, and some of those crowds are moving out to maadi, and even "new maadi" which is basically a horrible apartment complex and mall being carved out of the desert. That's where Judy lives. It is considered a good neighborhood-- middle class egyptians want to live there. But it looks just like a housing project in New York-- rows and rows of small balconies with laundry lines, and no green spaces anywhere ever. It's all surrounded by highway and construction. There must be children there but they must never leave the buildings. The only places that seem at all inviting are the mosques which have airy domes and paved courtyards. That alone would be a reason to love Allah here.

At a friend's house yesterday morning they warned that this guy in Florida who wants to burn korans might cause hostility and possibly violence here and to avoid mosques etc. this weekend. My friend's husband works for Coca-Cola and I guess they get a weekly security report or something. Not only is this weekend Sept. 11th, it is the end of Ramadan here. That means everyone has been fasting and staying up late for a month and is in a bad mood. It's really hot. And it's a national holiday long weekend to mark the end of the fast and celebrate the Prophet attaining enlightenment. So the news that a preacher in Florida wants to burn the holy book is not well-timed. Islam is very coordinated here-- there is no such thing as independent churches or small, out-there congregations. If an imam here were burning the bible, it would be something he had talked with higher-ups about and received at least tacit approval for. And if the state wanted to stop it, they would stop it. This is a police state-- the guy would be arrested. So it really does not translate here that this is not an official action on behalf of US Christians. Even if Obama and Petraeus denounce it-- the sense is if the US government was serious about stopping it, they would.

Here is a picture of a woman walking past an embassy wearing the niquab. I saw the black cloth billowing in the distance as this woman walked toward us and was honestly scared. It looks like those wraiths from Lord of the Rings that float menancingly around and if you get close have skulls for faces. She's probably a nice woman, but there is something hostile about this get-up. I'm sorry, that's just true. Many egyptians think this too. I have been told that the niquab has nothing to do with Islam or the Koran-- its a bedouin tradition to prevent sunburn and stop raiding tribes from stealing your wives. It is only in the last twenty- thirty years that it has been considered part of an Islamic identity. It is true that very few women in Cairo or the other arab states wore a veil a generation ago, and now most women do. But it is a class thing too- the working class embraces veiling and the elites do not. Most women wear just head scarves and abbayas, but I have seen more niquabs (full face veils) than I expected.

Here are Thomas and Emmett dancing to Oum Kathoum in the kitchen. She's a classic egyptian singer. And here we are playing at another friend's house-- Maxou. His mother is french and his dad is a Jewish American- the one working at coca cola. We are about to meet them to go to their fancy pool club that Coca Cola pays for. The thing is-- no one knows what time it is this morning. The Egyptian government announced this year that clocks would be set back for ramadan. But the end of ramadan is decided by looking at the moon somehow. Then there's an official holiday-- which could fall either on this past thursday or Sunday (which is a work day here). No one knew when it would be until whoever decides had looked at the moon Wednesday night. We had to check the school website the night before to find out if there would be school the next day. Many people travel for this holiday and it must have been such a pain in the neck to not know ahead of time whether the day off was Thursday or Sunday. (It is Sunday) But that is how central Islam is here-- no one questions this. So anyway, the time will go forward one hour with the official end of ramadan. We were told a while ago that would be thursday but now-- is it sunday? How does this holiday work anyway? What time is it in this country?

Once we figure that out, in two weeks, the clocks will fall back again for daylight savings.

Friends

2010-09-02T21:01:00.000+02:00

We have a few! Here's Juan, who is in Thomas' class at CAC. Here they sit sweetly looking at books about a magic school bus that teaches science.

The night before, at an elementary school-wide iftar marking the end of the day's ramadan fast, they together decided to attack some older boys in fun and try to wrestle them to the ground. This was evidently Thomas' idea. On the way home I told him Juan's parents might worry if they thought Thomas was the kind of friend who would involve Juan in fights. But, trying to highlight the positive, I said if they saw Thomas and Juan discussing books and playing nicely, his parents would be happy. The next day when Juan came over, Thomas brought out a bunch of books. I found this unbelievably sweet.

Juan's parents work for a Latin American oil company. They are from Columbia, but Juan was born in Brazil and his younger brother, Felipe, who is Emmett's age, was born in Houston Texas. There are quite a few Latin American oil families at CAC-- at least judging by Thomas' class. Here's Felipe kicking a ball around.

They are lots of fun. We also entertained them in our new splash pool. The pump I got didn't work so Judy generously blew the whole thing up herself. This is a picture of her doing that. I tried a few times to tell her not to, but she insisted. I am not sure if this was an elaborate protocol, and really I was supposed to say no one more time and then she would have quit. But I didn't, so she blew the whole massive thing up and must have felt very faint. But we have very much enjoyed the sea monster and castle, and now have a working pump.

And here's some pictures of us at Maadi House. This is a private swim and tennis place for US government employees. It's very near our house. Most of the members are military or embassy personnel but faculty and staff from the American University can also join. The club itself kind of reminds me of a shaggier, smaller and dustier New Canaan Country Club. It sure is convenient to have here. And you can get beer there, which is not available anywhere else. We are trying to convince them to let us join as a special kind of cultural exception. We'll let you know how that turns out.

This night we were guests of some new friends, Eden and Nate. Nate is a philosophy professor at AUC. He and Eden and their son Jules also play in a band called the Fuuls, which is named after some kind of Egyptian breakfast food. A while back Eden and Nate were part of a band called enormous out of San Francisco and they opened for acts like Better than Ezra and maybe Bush(?). They toured for a few years playing really big places! The Fuuls were playing a concert at Maadi House that night. It was Thomas and Emmett's first rock concert. They only lasted through the opening act, but we all enjoyed it.

It is nice to have some new pals around town. And of course, one of the best new pals T and E have discovered is each other. It has been fun to see Thomas and Emmett find new ways to play with one another now that they've been thrown together in this new place. It sure is nice to have a brother--

Souk

2010-08-30T21:34:00.000+02:00

On Saturday we took a family field trip to the big market, the Khan al-Khalili. I made the mistake of telling Thomas we might find magic carpets and genie lamps there.

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After some hard bargaining, we paid about double what we should have for an old brass lamp. We'll let you know how that turns out for us.

We went early in the day to avoid the heat, so many of the stalls weren't open. A lot of the merchandise was touristy brick a brack. But you could still imagine the old medieval markets with the camel stalls and fountained courtyards.

While trying to find a way out, we stumbled accidentally back in time.

We didn't know where we were but we decided to explore.

Later our research suggested that we'd visited the mausoleum and madrassa of Qalawun, a turkish slave from the 12th century who rose to become sultan. Evidently he was a fierce opponent of the crusaders. One guidebook said his mausoleum is second only to the taj mahal.

After that we went to Al Azhar park, a new green space in the center of Cairo. Ostensibly it was built to give average citizens a place to go-- like a central park. There is a small fee to cut down on crowds which was working very effectively the day we were there.

We stopped at a the central restaurant for lunch with a view.

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Zoo

2010-08-28T09:18:00.001+02:00

Yesterday I took the boys to the zoo. It was the craziest zoo ever. As you walk around the kepers whisper to you like pushers in Washington Square Park: "ostrich, over here, ostrich." "Want see zebra? here, zebra, psss, pssss." If you nod, the guards will literally let you in with the animals. They expect a tip in return. Below we hang with the kangaroos and pet the lion cubs.

One guy encouraged Thomas to pose next to an angry mama tiger kept in a private cage in the back. He told me it was safe, while brandishing a stick menacingly at the cat. We did it but it occurred to me I had a lot more to lose from his being wrong than he did.

We also helped feed the elephant, but my hands were full with emmett so no pictures.

Since it was a Friday during Ramadan there weren't many people there. Again we were the only westerners there.

At one point a group of school children ran up and surrounded the boys. They were yelling hello and whats your name in english. I think they thought Thomas and Emmett were the best exhibit in the zoo.

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Days in the Garden

2010-08-26T13:30:00.000+02:00

Here are some pics of us wandering around in the garden. It is really too hot to stay out there for very long, but we all like to walk around and check out the unfamiliar plants. Sometimes we sit in the sprinkler or chase Egypt the kitty.

There is a beautiful little arbor with a table. It will be nice to sit here on cool evenings. Assuming such evenings exist. I've heard things get cooler next month and are nice by October. If you look carefully in front you can see the nice blue tweety backpack that Grandma Susan bought T on Klima. We are getting lots of mileage out of it here!

Here are Mohammed (the driver) and Hamdi (the gardener) enjoying a small bit of shade. Mohammed has been sick all week so we've been taking taxis everywhere. Sometimes, Judy, our housekeeper comes with me and she gets in big arguments with the cab drivers. She says they are all cheats and lazy and they will rip us off if we aren't careful. Its true fares are lower when she rides with us, but the difference is mostly a dollar or two so its hard for me to worry too much. But is does give me a sense of what Judy's life in Cairo is like.

If this all seems very colonialist, it is. I saw a sign in Maadi (our expat neighborhood) yesterday for a pharmacy saying in English "Your health is our world." That would seem over the top if, say, CVS said that in DC, but here there does seem to be a group of people whose world (at work) is making things easier and better for foreigners. We're like these big babies who come here and have constant minders. But, since I don't know how to do anything myself, or even how to talk to people, I do need the help.

Here is Emmett on the seesaws at Thomas' school, the Cairo American College. It runs pre-K- 12th grade. The other day Dave and I were getting coffee at the stand in the high school building and we wandered into the college placement office. There was a big picture of the Bowdoin college campus. It was nice to think of the boys graduating from school in Cairo and going back to Brunswick for college. But I don't think we'll be here that long.

As Emmett and I were see-sawing, Thomas was showing off his moves for the youth soccer coach. We find out what team he is on this week. He's young for the league, and people here are great at soccer-- I saw some 6 year olds with mad skills at the try-outs, so we're hoping it isn't all too overwhelming for him. At his DC class last spring, they just had them run to different colored cones. That clearly will not cut it here. You can see Dave watching T in the first picture but sadly I didn't catch the little Ranaildo himself. Nonetheless E is in fine form on the see-saw.

Emmett is maybe the cutest thing anyone in Cairo has ever seen. Its normal here for people to come up and hug a strange baby, or pinch his cheeks. This happens a lot. All of the house staff competes for Emmett's attention and are very proud when he knows their name. If we ever want a special favor, say from the school administration or a shop that has already closed for the day, we've learned to carry Emmett in with us.

And then here's some shots from a water park T and I went to check out this week. Before we'd left the states, I'd found a list of fun kids activities in Cairo and read them to Thomas. I thought this was really good parenting to give him some concrete things to anticipate. Last weekend we asked him his favorite thing in Cairo so far, and he said, "the water parks." We were confused because we hadn't been to any. Then I remembered the list I'd read to him, which had included some water parks. So off we went after school on Sunday (Sunday is a school day here)--- when I told Mohammed where we wanted to go, he demurred that it was a little far-- maybe 40 minutes. I said it was Ok. Poor Mohammed-- it was really far through lots of traffic. I think we might have actually driven all the way to the Sudan. It was a big cheesy park by a random highway in the desert. Thomas and I were for sure the only westerners there. Thomas seemed not to notice and dove right in. I got a lot of bemused smiles from the other families.

The weirdest part was that I brought a t-shirt to cover my 2 piece suit since we were in a muslim country, but every lifeguard told me I had to take it off. Basically all the other women were wearing t-shirts too, so I just shook my head. But when we moved to a different splash pool the next lifeguard would come up to tell me that I couldn't wear a shirt. They also told me, after we'd been going down the slides for a while, that Thomas was too young to go down the slides. I looked around and all the other kids were around T's age. When I pointed this out (through pantomime and one-word English), the lifeguard shrugged, grinned and waved me past but said to hurry. I was glad to see Mohammed at the end of the hour, but was too shy to ask him about the weird t-shirt thing.

And here, for those of you with working zoom functions, is the first newsletter from Thomas' class at CAC. He's in the two group photos but you have to look.

Today he came home with a "Shokrun Splash" ticket. Shokrun is "thank you" in arabic, and they give out these slips when your child is "caught" being especially good. The teacher told me what Thomas had done to earn the slip, which I think amounted to following directions for the first time in 2 weeks. Yay Thomas!

And now, here is a memory from more carefree days, when there were no rules about t-shirts. xox

Klima

2010-08-25T14:33:00.000+02:00

Stepping back in time, let's remember fondly our first stop on our trip east. From Washington we set out first for Greece and the island paradise of klima beach on Ios. After 3 airplane flights and a ferry ride, We saw Grandma Susan waiting for us on the dock at ios. Hurray! Then it was only a quick bus ride and a zippy motor boat trip to the beach, where grandpa Peter waited in towering swells to unload our luggage from the boat.

Evidently I had made a promise that we would each arrive with only a small pack back of stuff. Despite the helpful loss of one of the bags by the airline, I am afraid we fell well short of my guarantee.

Thankfully klima was so gorgeous or I think my crew might have mutinied by the end of the trip.

It was a very nice way to introduce the boys to their new life. Emmett saw the house, the beach and his grandparents and yelled out excitedly "Egypt!" Until then I hadn't even known that he understood anything about the move. (alert readers may point out that Emmett seems to greet every new situation with a cry of Egypt! That,s not true. It was a only seeing his grandpa and then the kitty that got this reaction.) Thomas was also happy, especially about a pair of goat skulls on the stairs. He did ask quietly, "But why did we have to travel for so long?"

We spent a happy few days snorkeling, playing in the sand and learning chess.

Grandma Susan impressed us with her daily spear-fishing. Here she and Emmett compete to see whose dimples are bigger.

Another sign that emmett understood what was happening was that he clung to Clare like a little monkey. I thought it would be terrible when we had to say goodbye in athens. But when the time he let go and did not put up a fuss. It was nice for us to have such a special trip with her before she left us for sf. We Skyped with her yesterday on her birthday and she seems to be doing well.

See you soon klima beach! Thank you for the wonderful introduction to Mediterranean life! We want to come back soon. And we promise, only backpacks . . . .

Cairo!!

2010-08-19T20:24:00.000+02:00

Here are some of our first impressions of Cairo. We arrived last Saturday. It was a hectic trip overall. Emmett overturned two lamb and rice lunch trays on the flight from Athens. The rice and lamb squished into the aisle rug and a stewardess came and bent down next to us for a long time to try to scrape it off. I was surrounded by mostly arab men and veiled women who seemed vaguely disapproving. Thankfully Daddy Dave managed to meet us right at the foot of the airplane. We were all so relieved!! We gave him a big long hug and went to meet Mohammed the driver.

Mohammed generously did not say a word about the enormous pile of luggage Dave and I had between us, which, upon closer examination, turned out to consist almost entirely of multiple vials of toddler diarrhea pills. He whisked us away to our villa which will be home for the next few years. On the way we passed camels and men in robes and lots of sand-colored half-constructed high rises. We passed a cemetery in which a huge village of squatters makes their home. Everything looked hot and dusty. Generally, the city is much more other-wordly than I expected. I thought it would look basically like a dingy commercial street on the lower east side with some beautifully preserved old buildings and sites. It does not look like this at all. It looks like nowhere I have been before. Maybe Havana a little bit in the general falling-down-ness of it all.

Our villa is in an expat suburb called Maadi. The house is small, but beautiful. It has enormous ceilings and a wonderful new garden. Someday I will post pictures. But not now because in our story we only stayed long enough to drop off the bags and meet the gardener, Hamdi. Evidently word of my love of cats had made it to the Cairo NYT bureau which had been paying Hamdi all summer to buy Friskies cat food so that a feral momma cat and her kittens would still be in residence when we arrived. The cat was here! I squealed in delight, and so did Emmett. He immediately called the mama cat "Egypt" I think this is because I had been telling him w'd see cats in Egypt. This was how he knew we were really there.

Then Mohammed drove us to nearby Giza where for reasons unclear the Times had agreed to put us up in an amazing palace of a hotel right at the foot of the pyramids. Mohammed pointed out that the house was all ready and it would be much easier to get Thomas to school on time the next day if we just stayed home. Thankfully we ignored this good advice. Here are Dave and the boys at the hotel, which was enchanting. Because it is Ramadan here everyone is fasting until sun down when they sit down to a good feast. We feasted like demons.

So much more to write-- the trip to Klima, saying goodbye to Clare, Thomas' new school, the embassy club, a felluca boat ride on the Nile. But now I would just like to say that it has been a real bear figuring out how to blog on the Ipad which is otherwise a great device.

In closing here is Grandpa Peter teaching Thomas to play chess in Greece:

and here is Thomas on the day we arrived in Greece from DC. He had just endured a missed plane, a transatlantic overnight flight, lost luggage, a third flight to santorini, and a three hour wait for a ferry. We were now floating through the actual crater of an ancient volcano, which is what the island of santorini is. This would have been Thomas' first encounter with an actual live Volcano. As you can see from the shadows, Thomas is fast asleep. I chose not to wake him.

Xox

Vermont

2010-07-23T17:06:00.000+03:00

It may seem as if there is not much activity in the Kirkpatrick household. Nothing could be further from the truth!

We are very busy here preparing for the move to Cairo:
Thomas is planning a goodbye party with rocket ships, volcanoes and a pit to hold all the parents.
Emmett is working very hard to outgrow many things before packing.
Daddy has joined the Muslim Brotherhood.
Mommy is enjoying her last few weeks of equal civil rights with Daddy-- and is trying to shore up the newspaper industry before we go.

Hang in there NYT!

We have also spent some time saying bittersweet goodbyes to nearest and dearest. A few weeks back we were with the Friedman/Bradford/Vining clan in Vermont to celebrate a bunch of birthdays, including America's and Grandpa Peter's:

We enjoyed delicious birthday cupcakes prepared by Aunt Anna. Everyone got one with their own name on it! We were almost sorry to have to eat them. But not that sorry.

We also enjoyed a lot of fresh-water water play. This will be the last time for a while we can swim in any ponds or rivers, due to the presence in Egypt of parasitic worms that like to burrow under your skin and cause schistosomiasis. Thankfully we found none of these in Vermont. We did find some salamanders and other mysterious but friendly water creatures: