Selfies

Here are some items from the vault that have somehow been neglected.  We'll start with some self-portraits, with a loose circus theme:

Here Thomas films himself doing a favorite trick.  Please excuse the gratuitous profanity at the start.  This was early one morning last spring while the rest of us were sleeping.

Here we are at circus camp, waiting for the "pie day" activity to start.  Emmett evidently grabbed the phone, and realizing what he had, began a selfie photo shoot until Mom realized what was happening.  I think Uncle Arthur has a similar series from Emily's wedding.  After this is a self-portrait I took after being "pie-d"

Saqqara

I know people are worried about us here in Egypt. The disconnect between what is on the news, and my daily life with the boys is pretty staggering. Here we are playing in the pool at a friends weekend house in Saqqara yesterday (Friday).


If you look carefully next to the palm tree silhouettes you can see the outline of the Abu sir pyramids, older than the great pyramids.



It was actually one of my favorite afternoons in Egypt so far. While we played, Dave was out covering the protests. They were largely peaceful.

The saqqara house actually belongs to a friend of my friends. Evidently he's out of the country and won't be back for a while. He asked them to look after it in the interim. They also have the keys to another friends apartment in maadi, who has been evacuated and doesn't know when he'll be back for his stuff. My friends' actual house is downtown in Zamalek but they've been spending the last week cycling between all their spare homes.

I guess it's a kind of disaster tourism, but its not unfun. Kind if like how a new fad here is curfew cycling- with no cars on the road evidently night is a glorious time to bicycle.

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First day of school

Emmett was very proud of his handsome big boy uniform. He announced that I can no longer call him little.
It was great to see old friends and familiar faces. That said, Thomas' class was missing more than half the kids. In general, school seems almost empty. Many families have delayed return until 1 September, so some are going to come. But some are not coming back now. The next few weeks are key, I think. If military retains order, expats and companies will start to return in force. If there is more bloodshed in the streets, then companies and embassies will keep families out for the rest of the school year. That's my guess.
It's funny to rely on the military leaders to maintain our school and jobs routine. It makes us complicit, frankly, in the return of the police state because now we are rooting for it to succeed.




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The most astonishing things about today

If you were here, american friends, these are the things that would most surprise you:

- most Egyptians think all of this, the rise of the brotherhood, the coup,the bloodshed today, has been engineered by America and Obama.  

- no matter what happens today, tomorrow, next month, next year, they will continue to think this.  

- all of the Egyptians I know personally, except the journalists and human rights people, are pleased that Sisi cleared the brotherhood protests, and think the brotherhood brought the deaths on themselves.  It is a like a red state/ blue state divide from hell.  To a certain segment of Egyptian society, quite well-represented in Cairo, the Brothers are enemies, not real Egyptians and their deaths don't count.

- the official English-language voices of the Brotherhood, who have no need to embellish the injustices visited on this group lately, can't help themselves.  Death tolls, reports of mass uprisings, are all manifestly false and cannot be trusted.  

- everyone, everyone, to the last person, saw today coming.  It was like a big bright blinking roadside sign, This Way to Massacre and the Gates of Hell.  Nobody who could have turned, did.  The question of why not will bother me for a long time.  

- That said, as I walked alone with the boys through the neighborhood, after all the warnings and closings had gotten too numerous to ignore, i saw only one person.  A few moments before, leaving the US embassy swim and tennis club, everyone had said, "be safe," "Be careful.". The shady wide streets were deserted, except for a few motorcycles.  Workmen were scraping off the tiles at the top of the wall surrounding the swim club, ostensibly to add a few layers of barbed wire.  I worried we might see burning cars or smashed windows.  Instead one of the boabs, who are like doormen but more rural, came running out to the street to give me and the boys handfuls of fresh sweet basil.  He often does this.  For no reason.  We carried it home and locked the door.

And here is what Emmett and I did this morning while the police cleared the square (not knowing yet what was happening):

- Posted by Laura