I feel better

I usually make a point of not posting when I have nothing interesting to say, but I didn't want to leave you all on my previous (cranky) note for days on end.

I feel a lot better. Yesterday was a fine day at work. Nothing in particular happened there at all. I left early because I had a follow-up doctor's appointment. Even though my eyes look a lot better, apparently they're not, so I have to keep at them for a while. After the doctor I met up with Anita and Omar, and after playing with Karim and Ramy* for a while, we all headed over to Omar's father's house for dinner. There we saw Sherine and Shaggy and Zak, and, of course, Omar's father.
Karim and Anita's maid, Sabah, both agreed that they liked my car.

*Karim, 4, and Ramy, 1, are Anita's kids and my playmates. Karim loves me, and asks his parents when Auntie Lisy is coming to play with him. We also have our own special language. Karim is quad-lingual. He speaks Arabic, English, German and Polish. He favours his Arabic heavily, and speaks it about 95% of the time that he's not at school (where he speaks only German). In an effort to help him learn English, Anita has convinced him that I don't understand Arabic, and he can only speak to me in English, which he does for the most part and can surprise even me with how much he knows. When he does get lazy or forgetful, and speaks to me in Arabic, I usually tell him to speak to me in English or just respond to his Arabic in English. Unfortunately for both of our linguistic development, however, sometimes we both get lazy and forgetful and revert to our own special arabic-english mix. (E.g. "Where's the tayara, Tauntie lisy?" "The tayara is stuck fil shagara, yaKoko".) Ramy and I also have our own language, but it mostly involves making 'geeeaaaaah' noises at each other, as he's not old enough to speak yet.

Wahied is coming home today! I'm pretty excited, because I've missed him a lot over the past THREE WEEKS, and can't wait to see him. Hopefully tomorrow will bring all of the progress and problem resolution that we need (gas company is coming, Wahied can duke it out with the parking guys, perhaps we can convince the doorman to clean up our hallway). In the meantime....breakfast.

A rant

Let me tell you about my day, anyone who dares to read.

If you don't want to read rambling ranting, I suggest you stop reading now.

I got to work early today. The client sent a ridiculous e-mail telling me how "Gravely disappointed" she was that I was unable to provide any analysis of the data at this point in the project. I tried to explain to her that there IS NO DATA at this point in the project, but that didn't make it less irritating. She also was sour that I hadn't gotten back to her yesterday (I wasn't in the office) even though she wasn't in the office yesterday either, and didnt check her e-mails until after noon today (well after I had sent her everything she needed that I could provide).

Anita and Omar did me a HUGE favour today, and drove 1/2 way across Cairo to sit and wait for the Gas company to come and install my boiler. They waited and waited and waited and the Gas company never came. They both wasted their entire day for me, and I still have NO HOT WATER. It's coming up on 2 months now, and this is the 3rd appointment the boiler company has missed. (Each time they claim that they came to the apartment, knocked, and no one was here. Riiiiight.)

I ordered a coffee at 9am sharp this morning. My co-workers arrived at 9:45. At 10am the office boy (who is female) brought 7 coffees---for my 7 co-workers---and then announced to me (I'm the only one who speaks any arabic, and she doesn't speak any english) that they ran out of milk, and she can't make me coffee until more comes. More came at 5:30pm.

It might have seemed strange to put coffee on someone's desk at 6pm, but I guess the office boy (girl) knew something I didn't---I was going to stay at the office until 9pm. I managed to mangle the codeframe I was working on (it was the first one I've ever done) and needed to re-start the whole process at about 3pm. Apparently I'm not so good at those.

I left the office just before 9pm, and much to my surprise, MY COMMUTE was the highlight of my day. In that it only took 45 minutes (to go 11 miles) and I only fought with one other driver.

Then I got to my parking spot. Except it wasn't my parking spot, because someone else had parked there. And my parking guy didn't have the keys. Or the keys to ANY OTHER CAR PARKED IN MY LOT. But he told me the guy was coming back in 5 minutes. So I waited, and then I waited 30 minutes more. Then I called the head parking guy, made a stink, and waited some more. After an hour (to the second) of waiting, I still hadn't parked. SO I ventured around to find a new spot. I parked my shiny new car in some much-too-small space in a heavily traversed alleyway, in front of a bakery.

Fair Enough, because now it was 10:40. 10:40, almost 2 hours after I had to put in more eye-medicine and they were THROBBING.

So I came into the building and tried my elevator. Stuck. I tried the second Elevator. Stuck. So I hoofed it up 6 flights of stairs, in heels. When I arrived at my hallway, I almost decided to hoof it back DOWN the stairs.

The cats have returned. They brought friends---a swarm of nasty (flying!) cockroaches. They also left me some really, really gross excrement-related presents on my doorstep. But I didn't flee. Instead I managed to step over the poo into my apartment without letting any flying cockroaches into my apartment. I let one flying creature, roughly the size of a dragonfly into my house (by accident) and it is buzzing and flying around like crazy. And making ME crazy.

By the time I got to put my first batch of medicine in, my eyes had all but crusted completely over. I had to scrub my eyes with warm water before I could even put the drops in. As soon as I finished that, I decided that I needed a little R+R. A Bubble bath was right out, as I have no hot water, so I decided to make a cup of tea and start dinner. But I had No matches. Not a single one. So I can't even light my stove.

So I put the heels back on, and hoofed it back out of the apartment, past the roaches and the poo, back down the stairs, across the street, bought some cheap little matches and hoofed it back up here.

Last night, after wahied managed to wrangle that woman into her ambulance, and he boarded a bus with his group, his saga continued. His bus broke down on the side of the highway towards Suez. Shortly before that he discovered that his wallet, ID and license were missing. He then got to stay up all night dealing with police (in relation to the bus incident).

Needless to say, he is a bit stressed out at the moment, and distinctly didn't want to hear about any more problems that he's unable to solve. But I have managed to convince myself that SOMEONE wants to hear about how bad my day was. Actually, I'm aware that no one wants to hear how bad my day was, but I feel a whole lot better now that I've written it.

Nevertheless, I'm looking forward to tomorrow. I'm going to go back to the doctor to get my eyes re-evaluated, then I'm going to relax, because tomorrow is Thursday. And we all know what "Thursday" means in Egypt. It means the same thing that "Friday" means wherever you all are. And it also means that I'm one day closer to seeing Wahied (Friday) the Gas company's next attempt (Saturday) and the beginning of another long work week (Sunday).

But now it's after 11pm, and I need to make and eat some food, un-goop my eyes, and go to bed. For those of you who have made it this far...thank you. I promise I'll be back to myself and out of rant-y mode next time. Cheers, Lisy.

In my eyes...

...there are infections. That's right, both of those things are plural. I have both a bacterial and a viral infection in each of my eyes. Yum!

I won't go into details of my eye-infection saga because it's gross, boring and I'm not supposed to be using a computer. (I am typing this with sunglasses on, in a dark room, so it's all good). Let it suffice to say that I and my stubbornness were all parts of the problem, and Anita was part, if not all, of the solution. After inappropriately dealing with the problem all day, in a final act of desperation I called her and she fixed it.

There is nothing in the world quite as important as good friends, who are there for you in the most inconvenient (and disgusting) of times. I only hope that someday there is a way I can re-compensate her for what she did that doesn't include driving her and her oozing face halfway across Cairo on two minutes' notice during rush hour and back.

Needless to say, I didn't go to work today. The doctor was really really good, and whatever he gave me has been working miracles, but I still felt it was better to give myself some time. But without books, the internet, or going outside, things can be a bit slow. Luckily, food is still tasty.

Wahied is having a bit of trouble. One of his older tourists fainted while he was out in one of the Oases. She has been in the hospital for a couple of days now, and Wahied, who was working with them alone, has been trying desperately to manage all arrangements with the 17 people not in the hospital, without leaving the sick woman's side. While they all see a 'difficult situation being flawlessly handled by an attentive guide and tourist company' I see a scared, exhausted, 29 year old boy, desperately trying to handle an extremely difficult situation, who has only a mobile phone and no help from the company. After a full night of negotiating, which was his second night without a minute of sleep, Wahied managed to get the woman into an Ambulance to Cairo, and then promptly boarded a bus to go give a tour of some pyramids. Worried is not the right word for what i feel for him right now, but unfortunately the emotion I do have at the moment is not one that can be eloquently described in words. The closest I can come is "Gaaah!".

I'm going to go shut my eyes for a bit. I'll write more soon.

The best thing about living in Egypt..

...is that moment, just around noon on a Thursday, when you're sitting at work, rubbing your temples thinking "I'm not entirely sure I can make it through the next two days...there's no way I can come to work tomorrow...." when suddenly, like an out of control micro bus it hits you----I don't have to! (In Egypt, the weekends are Friday and Saturday).

After that point, you can spend the rest of your Thursday afternoon counting down until 6pm, making your shopping list, making your to-do list, making plans to go to the park with your friends' kids, and making plans to do things you know you won't actually do (like go to the gym, clean out your closets).

Alternatively, (one of) the worst thing(s) about living in Egypt is that moment, just around noon on a Saturday, when you haven't yet started tackling your hundreds of lists, drinking a coffee and still wearing pjs when you think "I don't need to get dressed right now, I have a whole day left to do my errands...." when you remember that, in just 20 hours you will be stuck in traffic on your way to work, nearly getting hit by far-less metaphorical micro buses.

But since Saturday is really really far away from now.....Happy Thursday everyone!

When it rains it pours...

It's winter in Egypt, everyone!

Unlike winter in most places winter doesn't mean snuggly warm clothing, colour changes in the foliage, or, well, anything much at all. But today we had a ferocious sandstorm followed by 'rain'. The sandstorm came on suddenly. It was a quiet, lazy Friday afternoon (which is the same as Saturday afternoon in the rest of the world), and then the windows began to rattle. Then our lungs started to rattle. Then the windows, shutters and doors began to bang. Then we lept up and continued to bang windows, shutters and doors, but all in the same direction---shut. Then we watched as our normally slightly-less-beige view became completely beige. This lasted for about half an hour, during which time Wahied and I desperately tried to warn our friend who was out at the pyramids that, there is a sandstorm happening (ya know, in case she didn't notice) and she probably shouldn't be standing outside in the middle of the desert in the middle of one of those. (Later, after the sandstorm cleared, she called us back and somewhat briskly thanked us for our warning, but suggested that she might have appreciated it 15 minutes earlier, BEFORE she had been caught outside in the middle of it).

At some point sitting inside watching NOTHING got really boring, so I stopped doing it. Moments after I stopped looking outside Wahied eagerly exclaimed that it was RAINING! I hurried into the only room that doesn't have shutters (we had closed them all) to have a peek out, but I apparently missed the rainstorm. After accusing Wahied of lying to me and/or being crazy, I decided to go outside. Other than a surprisingly small amount of filth considering the recent sandstorm, there was no evidence of this imaginary 22 second rainstorm.

Then Wahied and I decided to drive out to Carrefour, a short trip away on the ring road. The road was completely flooded. There were huge puddles everywhere, and any patch of road visible above the pools of water was covered in a thick red mud.

We found out that, in addition to ::ahem:: "heavy" rains, the sandstorm had somehow mysteriously caused the major water pipeline in Maadi to burst, flooding the ring road.

It was a disaster! The pools of water were so deep that the water came midway up the car doors. The traffic was terrible for two reasons. 1) Water baffles Egyptians and 2) The water broke the spark plugs on every single car older than mine, and cars would break down mid-puddle.

On the way back, they had actually closed the road on that side, because the flooding was worse (the flooding on the other side of the road would have been enough to close any American highway, so one can only imagine that cars would literally be underwater on the side that was closed). The problem was, once stuck in traffic in Egypt it is nigh impossible to get un-stuck. So Wahied and I were stuck in traffic (on an 8km journey) for about 2 1/2 hours. And we both had to pee. Badly.

About an hour into our traffic-blockage, I was already at the undoing my seatbelt and jeans stage, and by the time we broke free of the first major blockage (about an hour and a half in) I was actually shaking. As soon as we passed the re-entrance to the highway, I pulled over, and Wahied and I both lept out, jumped over the concrete barrier, and peed between some "trees".

Then, greatly relieved, we promptly got stuck in more traffic, which had been stopped due to flooding on the road so deep, it was mid-door level.

We finally made it home to a wonderful surprise waiting for us--a beautiful hot-pink bougainvillea tree (bush?)! We had bought it on our earlier walk and it had been delivered during our loooong stay in traffic. It is absolutely lovely, and I may (don't count on it) post pictures of it later.

Now, Wahied and I are slightly damp, drinking tea, and about to go to bed (in preparation for another sand and rain storm tomorrow!).

Six Months

Four days ago, Wahied and I successfully neglected our 6-month anniversary. When I remembered yesterday, Wahied vehemently denied getting married in April. This may seem odd for a man (his wife claims) is blissfully married, but, then again, we are odd.
See, Wahied and I were officially, legally, married on the 10th April, but we didn't have our Church Wedding until three months later, on 25th July. The gap between the two is so large because the marriage of a foreigner to a Christian in Egypt is actually (unsurprisingly) quite complicated, and it took months and months (both before and after) to get all of our paperwork in order. But now that everything is in order, our only problem is agreeing about at which point in the process we were married.
For me, the 10th April is more significant, because a) it's the date we have written on our marriage certificate, and b)it was the point of no return for our marriage. We were fully committed (Wahied uses the less elegant term 'stuck') at this point.
For Wahied, the 25th July is more significant because it's the date that we celebrated in the church and the date that everyone (all of our friends and family) acknowledged our marriage.

Either way, it is amazing to me how quickly these past 6 months have gone by. And it is even more amazing to think how our lives have changed so drastically in the two years that we have known each other. We've gotten through so many difficult things, and here we are now alive (though that nearly wasn't the case), together in Egypt (also at times not guaranteed), and happy (never a doubt about this).

Bas dilwaqti, kulu tamam, guys.

A place called home.

During my trip to London and France I felt a kind of longing that I had never felt before. It wasn't homesickness, I was much too busy for that, and it wasn't solely missing Wahied either. It was a feeling that I'm sure a lion would feel if someone took him out of his natural habitat and set him loose in Hyde Park--not desperation, but rather a jarring sense that it wasn't where he belonged.

Even knowing that I wouldn't see Wahied for at least another day (he was in Sinai) the sense of relief (comfort? excitement?) I felt when I landed in Cairo was so overwhelming I nearly kissed the ground like the Pope and skipped through the terminal. (Thankfully, I managed to appear more composed than I felt and kept the kissing and skipping to a minimum)

Much to my own surprise (and Anita's horror) I realised that I love Cairo. And more than that, for the first time I realised that I belong here. I had missed everything around me.

I had actually missed the way the air smells, even though I know it's disgusting.
I missed the traffic and the bustle that was overwhelming, even at 1:00am
I missed how the outcome of any situation depends on how you want it to turn out (and how nice you are and how much you're willing to pay)
I missed the people and how warm, curious, and unconventional they are.
I missed the weather, which is warm but never too warm.
I missed the sand and the garbage in the street, just because I'm used to them.
I missed the children playing in the middle of the highway in the middle of the night, because neuroses and over protectiveness don't make better kids.
I missed seeing sedans full of sheep, bicycles carrying lawn mowers, children carrying gasoline, men carrying babies, and women carrying more babies.
I missed having to wait 45 minutes to park my car before eventually driving off and parking somewhere else, because my parking guy wouldn't interrupt his lunch for me.

I missed all of the chaos and disorder and dirt and incompetence as much as I missed everything wonderful here.

I'm home.