Eid on the gulf of Aqaba

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

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

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

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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