I’m so sorry that I haven’t written before now – I don’t know where the time has gone really and I have only been to the net once very quickly and then another trip to Honda to service the car where they have wi-fi. But I spent most of my time there trying to renew my security subscription and update security on the laptop with only time for a couple of quick emails.
We have had Mohamed’s sisters Walaa and Hagar and Walaa’s two children Khamsa and Mariam aged 2 and 2 months and 11 months respectively staying on and off. The kids were both extremely cute but Khamsa is EXCEPTIONALLY active and was awake from about 9.00 am until 1.00 am with maybe a tiny nap in the middle somewhere, around 5 pm. Both had chest infections, with Mariam the worst and a nasty cough. She was such a happy thing though and just on the verge of walking, she took her very first steps from the coffee table to Mohamed (about 3).
But anyway, back to the beginning.
The flight was fine, very smooth, I slept plenty really (business class - I hope never to fly anything else again, unless of course it is first), stayed on the plane in Singapore (why is it that you can stay on the plane going over but you MUST get off at Singapore for all of 20 minutes coming to Oz) and had a fairly quick break in Dubai, where I shopped and bought an X-Box for Mohamed.
There were a couple of surprises for me when I got home – Mohamed had bought the bedroom suite and it is very nice really. Probably not what I would have originally chosen but very good in the room, it really suits it and I like it a lot. It has a king size bed, two bedside tables, a big dressing table with a mirror, a very large wardrobe, a coat stand and another cabinet with a drawer and large cupboard. The dressing table and bedside tables and cabinet are topped in a dark red, white-veined marble.
He had also done a lot of work on the roof and had bought 50 trees and shrubs in pots that are now up there and it also looks very nice. It’s lovely up there in the evening and I really enjoy watering after the sun has gone down. We usually spend an hour or so up there fiddling with the plants. Tonight was magical, cooler than the house, full moon over the desert and the sound and light show (well I could only see the light show) on the pyramids. Pretty special.
We have also been and bought a dining room suite and a cabinet kind of like a large china cabinet with a glass-doored one on top and closed in cupboards on the bottom. It is made of a wood called zaan in Arabic but neither Mohamed nor the lady in the shop knew what it is in English. And I can’t tell by looking either. At the same shop we bought two bedside lamps for the bedroom tables that I really like, a sort of dark red and gold. We also bought some artificial flowers, again not usually my thing but Mohamed really wanted flowers so we went to a specialist shop for artificial flowers and got some that are quite good I think. Got some for the bedroom as well in dark red. They are still too long for the vases but I need a pair of clippers to get them right.
So the house is beginning to look a little more “full” although still lots to get.
We had two trips to Alexandria to sort out my boxes from Australia. A total cost of just over 3000 pounds to get them out and into the house. Terminal charges, payment for the man to do the paperwork and also customs duties. At first we had a phone call to say that there were many cds with naked pictures on them, but I said that I didn’t believe that was true and was either an attempt to explain why some disappeared or someone wanted more money. So Mohamed just told them it wasn’t true and when we got the boxes they all seemed to be there. I thought I couldn’t find one at all with a naked picture but Mohamed did find a Tom Waits one with a naked woman in the background on the cover.
Unfortunately not everything arrived intact with 4 crystal glasses broken, one of the crystal vases smashed to smithereens and about a dozen pieces of the dinner set broken. And Mohamed told me when we unpacked the silver cutlery that it is haram for Muslims to eat or serve food with gold or silver. So all of that was a waste to bring and it will sit in the cupboard. Actually under the main silver set was a whole lot of miscellaneous silver and cutlery, some of which was stainless so was OK. Can’t use all the silver teaspoons I brought over in my luggage either.
Nor was I meant to have any of mum’s crystal glasses – two days later the glass cupboard in the kitchen fell off the wall and smashed everything!
While the sisters Walaa and Hagar were here I have learned some more Egyptian dishes - white beans you might like (sort of like a spicy homemade baked beans) but I wonder if you’d enjoy the meat soup (basically boiled big chunks of meat with an onion in it and salt and pepper). Still they all think it is delicious. I think I also have the egg perfected and my mashed potatoes are considered good. And koshery I can now also make except for the lemon sauce – koshery is a really cheap dish you can buy on the street – rice, very tiny macaroni and lentils all cooked in together and then you get a tomato type sauce, just a little spicy, a very hot sauce, a lemon sauce, extra crispy lentils and very golden dry crispy onion and chick peas that you sprinkle on top. I only got the method for the tomato type sauce from Hagar but I can do the sprinkles although I would need a recipe for the hot sauce and the lemon sauce. Maybe the net will provide eventually. Mind you a huge dish of it costs 5 pounds (A$1) on the street – you would wonder why we would bother making it!
And the phone and the net is another story. The phone is here and is to be wireless. Yes, the phone will be some sort of wireless/mobile deal as will the net but it doesn’t work right now – we get to wait for them to build the tower for this area – they said a couple of months but goodness knows what that means. Mohamed got it to work the other night but he now tells me it can only make house to house calls, not to mobiles, and he doesn’t know if it will make international calls. So we have made one call to Rania,
Etisalat has a new deal for mobile net for 6 months – it costs 300 pounds per month and if you take 6 months you get your modem free – or something to that effect. At least that was what was advertised. And that was 3.75G with 3G about half that price. I wanted to faster speed, of course, but on further investigation Mohamed has phoned me tonight to say that the fast speed is only available in 2 areas in Cairo so it will be the slower speed. I think he’s organizing it tonight. I HOPE!
On our first trip to Alexandria about the boxes we had a bit of time and we went to the library – it is such an impressive building from the outside, so incredibly unique and unusual – I was a bit disappointed with the inside. It also costs you to get in which surprised me. Still I was pleased to have seen it. It’s renowned throughout the library world.
The new library at Alexandria replacing at last the ancient library that was destroyed by fire.
Have also had a new sort of mango which is just incredibly delicious – it’s called a foss –don’t know if that’s how you spell it but it’s how you say it – it’s very small and also has a tiny seed and is not at all stringy, very sweet and juicy. They are fabulous and so we’re eating lots of mangoes. At the moment most of the roadside donkey and horse carts have mangoes, probably about a dozen different varieties. And cucumbers are just starting to come and corn is getting ripe in the fields, there are food sellers with roasted cobs all around the streets. And guavas are also in season, we have a couple of kilos in the fridge – mind you now everything smells of guava!
Porto Sohkna - a huge new hotel and apartment complex being built
We took another trip to Sokhna and this time spent a day on a beach at one of the big hotels (cost us 300 pounds to use the beach) and we swam all day and had an excellent lunch (extra, not included). We could also have used the pool if we had wanted but the sea (the Red Sea below Suez) was much better. Lots of fish in it – they would sometimes nibble on you – a bit disconcerting. The sea was beautiful to swim in, fabulous temperature and very clean. Only problem where we were there were rocks with lots of sea urchins, Mohamed got some small spine pieces in his foot and it’s given him some problems but I think I finally got the last very tiny piece out last night as it seems at last to be not so sore. Not a lot of sand and very rocky in places to get into the water but beautiful once in. Not a wave in sight of course. Mohamed is very willing to learn to swim and mastered floating without much problem, I think he will be swimming in no time if we get to go back often enough. He’s just got to get the breathing thing happening, although while we’ve watched the Olympics he has seen how the swimmers breathe out through their nose. He’s very observant and has probably learned heaps just from watching.
The other night we took Walaa and the kids to the airport – she had 120 kg of luggage but she could take 100 for free. At last! Someone with more luggage than me! She also had a problem because the police wanted proof the children belonged to her and she hadn’t put Mariam into her passport yet. I asked Mohamed how she managed and he said that she cried and the policeman let her go. Different – it’s all so very different.
We also went back to the visa halls to get my visa renewed. Now I am married to an Egyptian I am entitled to a 5 year resident’s visa, renewable as many times as you like. So it was back to the first window we ever went to and again off to the other window to pay the fees, but this time I had a pen and we knew enough to have photographs with us and copies of my passport and the marriage contract etc. etc. But we were still caught out because we didn’t have copies of Mohamed’s passport. So it was still back down the stairs to the copy booths and shove through the crowd of dozens all shouting waving papers (well Mohamed shoving through the crowds) to get his passport copied. But eventually we had everything we needed and we went back to our original window and dropped it all off. It will take two weeks, which means that it is supposed to be ready on Monday. I HOPE!
Hagar has come back to stay with us for maybe a week – well as long as she likes really and as often as she likes. She has given up work and I am most concerned about her living alone without any work to do. She can work for us once the company is a reality but meanwhile I hope she stays as often as possible.
So off to wash the floors, talk to you again soon now that I can do it more easily
lots of love
Lyndall
PS - And just for Henry Kwaczynski – Henry when we were driving to the supermarket the other night I saw a whole new one – a truck with the load slipped and no rocks on the road – instead we had a fire on the road to warn everyone of the problem! There’s always something on the road to astound me!
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