Life as usual

Back in the office after a trip out and about this morning, Mohamed’s friend called early asking could we take his wife and baby son to the hospital so that was the first task, then a look at the BMWs on the way past to Honda to check out a noise which has turned out to be a broken engine mount (to be fixed next Monday at a cost of 900 pounds), collected Mohamed’s new passport and back to the office.

Had news yesterday that Mohamed’s sister in Kuwait’s new baby is in intensive care; apparently he has a congenital problem that means his food doesn’t go into his stomach but rather his lungs. Apparently he still needs a week in ICU and then they will operate to fix this. We are all very worried. His other sister also arrives from Kuwait on Sunday (I think) to be here for around 6 weeks I believe – she will be here for Hagar’s wedding on the 26th and then a little while after that. She and her husband and two children are coming, Mohamed is very excited as he hasn’t seen them for almost 3 years.

Meanwhile for us the lawyer says the final license will come from the govt between Thursday and Sunday - oh I hope so!!!! We are currently speaking to an Australian company to work with and also a man here in Egypt who brings tourists from the US. Hopefully both these deals will come off and give us some immediate business.

Because we are having visitors tomorrow we have 2 cleaning ladies coming – Umm Rami and her younger niece who looks around 13 and has already had a live-in cleaning lady position – so that all the windows etc. can be taken out and washed and all the lights cleaned and all that stuff you don’t do all that often. Started cleaning the curtains last night. Mohamed gets really fussy when anyone is coming – you should see the flurry of activity if one of his friends calls to say they are coming, even when the place is clean (and really it’s clean all the time!). I have to confess it makes me cross, just one of the things we don’t agree about. Why can’t his friends take us as they find us instead of me cleaning toilets and bathrooms that are already clean and washing down kitchen benches and sweeping floors and putting absolutely everything AWAY? By the time they arrive I want a shower and feel sweaty and horrible and cross and I’m rushing to change my clothes as well so that I don’t ever enjoy a visit. I appear all red-faced and dripping saying “no problem, no problem” – they must all think I have some sort of congenital disease that means I look like this all the time! And I struggle to let my crossness go and relax and enjoy the company. I wonder if they leave muttering to each other – “can’t see why he married her!”

I worry a bit about Umm Rami these days, she is almost 6 months pregnant and looks about 8.9 months and I get concerned for her so find myself saying “leave that I’ll do it” quite often. Crazy! Not sure how much longer she will work. She also cleans the office for us. She told Mohamed the other day her husband is thinking of taking a second wife (remember Egyptian Muslim men can have 4 wives). I felt horrified but when Mohamed asked her she said she didn’t mind, maybe the new wife would help her. This is one of the truly unfathomable cultural things to me – I know I couldn’t do it. But maybe with baby no. 4 on the way and a life of work, work, work, she really does see it as an opportunity to get some help (her daughter isn’t old enough yet to do a great deal although I’m sure she does quite a bit in looking after the smaller children etc.) and maybe all the stuff that would matter to us doesn’t matter to her at all. But I wonder if that’s what she truly feels deep down…. But really what choice does she have?

Egyptian women, at least the poorer ones, really do work hard. Again, I struggle not to get agitated when I see the doorman’s wife washing all the cars in the morning or mowing the lawn in the bottom villa as well as looking after the children while the doorman sits under the tree drinking tea. And I know she goes out to clean houses too. And my hackles go up just a tiny bit when the man from the shack over the road arrives home on his motorcycle beeping the horn and one of the women rushes out to untie the load and take everything inside while he parks and sits himself down in the shade. And I know that those women have been up since daylight cooking for the small shop they run and working in the villa over the road.

That’s one thing that I have found out about myself living in Egypt. I am very accepting of other cultures when I visit, I find it much more difficult when I live here, especially in relation to women and children and their rights and treatment. I hate that I see boys who look about 11 or 12 working in the exceptional midday heat, clearing rubbish from the roads or working on a building site. I hate it that the doorman’s little girl doesn’t go to school and that Umm Rami can’t read or write a must ask her young son, who has more knowledge and power and rights than she does. And although I know that women chose to wear the hijab and abeya etc. for themselves and for God, I still find it difficult to watch the women, especially the older women, in the incredible heat fully covered, often with 2 or 3 layers, red-faced and looking like they might expire at any moment.

I know that all this says more about me than about Egypt, but I must confess I love that I can visit home and just be myself and have what is familiar around me. I feel, from my daily levels of irritation, it’s almost time to visit again…

Lotsa love

Lyndall

Almost over

Another partly cloudy day yesterday and the pyramids were at it again, ducking in and out of shadow and looking amazing. Taken through the bedroom window.


Hi everyone, Ramadan is now drawing to a close and although we don't know the exact date yet, it will be over and the Eid here in 4 or 5 days. That's not quite the end of the fasting - there will be 6 more days in the month that follows but you can choose how and when after the Eid you fast for those days. Mohamed says he thinks for him maybe 2 days a week, but I figure I'd rather get it all over at once. So we'll see after Eid. Muslims believe that if you do the extra 6 days it is as if you had fasted for a year.

Today has been a really nasty day with a very strong wind blowing and a temperature of 41 - there was so much sand in the air that we couldn't even see the pyramids when we went up to water the plants on the roof. It has looked like being in fog all day and the wind was really rattling the awnings. Very like the khamseen although that comes in March-April.

I hope it has cleared a little by tomorrow as I will be up reasonably early tomorrow (well, by 10.30 anyway) as tomorrow we provide an iftar meal to our drivers and the people at the park where the vehicles stay overnight, and for the doorman and his family and the family over the road in the little one room shop/house. Hagar is coming at around 11.00 am and thank goodness really as Masry has put in an order for a range of Egyptian dishes, most of which I know how to cook but have not cooked yet. The doorman's wife is also going to cook the rice - Masry says it's a farmer's dish - rice cooked in milk in the oven but with salt and butter, not sugar. SO that's one thing I don't have to do. The meal we'll provide is:
- dates
- toshi (pickled mixed vegetables)
- bread
- olives
- mixed salad of lettuce, cucumber, tomato, onion, carrot
- mulukhiyya, a soup made of a green leaf that I've never seen before and garlic and coriander and chicken (or rabbit) stock. Masry loves it. My little phrasebook says you'll either hate it or love it! Given the meat broth I have only barely tasted it, to me it doesn't taste much like anything except the garlic.
- maHshi koosa - zucchini and small eggplant and small peppers stuffed with a rice and tomato and dill mix and cooked in a tomato sauce (these are already made, a friend of Mohamed's sent them home with him tonight, along with a full meal for him)
- potatoes sliced and baked in the oven with sliced onion and garlic in a tomato sauce
- makarona bil beshamel - macaroni and mince layered with bechamel sauce and baked (sort of like lasagna but with ordinary penne or elbow or twist pasta)
- meat, chunks of rump, first boiled for about and hour and a half and then baked/browned in the oven
- juice

That's all to be prepared tomorrow and I guess with Hagar's guidance all will be well - insha'allah. The food has to be ready to leave here by 5.00 pm latest and when they get to the park it will all be spread out on carpets on the ground and all the men will sit round and eat and drink as soon as they are able. I won't be there to see it - it will be men only. Don't know if Hagar will be staying the night or not. So I might have iftar by myself tomorrow but that will be OK. Mohamed has been invited out to some of his friends for iftar a few times but he has always declined to be with me; I am sure one night eating by myself won't hurt. Mind you he has gone out often later to the cafe with his friends so it's not really as if he's been deprived.

We went out to the supermarket last night - another of my very rare evenings out in Ramadan. We were also asked out to one of Masry's friends house last night for iftar but preparations for the big meal took precedence. Instead, we will be going in the Eid to Osama's house. Osama doesn't have any English but I spoke to his wife on the phone and she and I should be able to communicate quite well I think. (Yes, Osama's house - I'll keep you posted) We went over to Carrfours in El Maadi, it's a bit of a department type store as well as supermarket and there's not a bad range of clothing stores in the same complex. One of the Ramadan customs is that you get new clothes as a gift before the Eid and we were looking for Mohamed but he didn't see anything he liked. We had been to City Stars earlier in the week but he didn't really find anything there either. Fingers crossed that he can see something he likes in the next few days.

It has been lovely being out on the streets and seeing the lights and the people out taking the evening air, the cafes full and the streets busy, even at 1.30 to 2.00 am when we come home. I think maybe now I can appreciate just a little the special atmosphere of Ramadan.

I don't really have too much else for now, it's 1.30 am and Mohamed is still at prayer, he will finish about 2.00 am and then we'll eat a little earlier tonight. After midnight he prays for an hour, a mixture of reading the Qu'uaran and praying - basically singing the Qu'uaran just as they do in the mosque. This is an important part of the extra religious rituals of the last 10 days of Ramadan for him.

I want to say a BIG thank you to everyone who has written, it's been great to get your letters and hear all the news from your part of Oz. I look forward to hearing more from you all. We are both fit and well. Sorry I don't have any new photos of Logan - news is that he's over 7 kg and laughs lots. I also know he's slept through the night and is being good. Sounds like a great baby, can't wait to see him again.

lots of love for now

Lyndall

رمضان كريم

Yes, Ramadan kareem once again as we celebrate two weeks of Ramadan tomorrow and around 2 weeks and a day or two more to go. The moon is full and bright tonight, and at the moment (9.00 pm) still a very warm 32 degrees outside. The airconditioners in here in the hall are struggling to make it comfortable after another hot day. Being single brick, albeit covered with lots of plaster and a different coloured external facing, the walls really hold the heat for quite a while. I can’t seem to get enough liquid into me tonight and I’m very thankful for the perpetual ice-maker in the fridge.

When we were coming home one evening just before Ramadan, I saw a shop that had been converted to a lantern shop. It was totally decked out with magnificent coloured lanterns, or fanoos, of every shape and size, some plain colours and some with elaborate patterns. As you drive around you can see these lanterns hanging on balconies and in windows.

And since Ramadan is considered to be the most joyful month of the whole year, children also have their share of fun. A fawanees (said fanoos, so that’s how I’ll print it from now on, fanoos for one, fanooseen for plural) is a must for many kids. These are traditionally made of tin and coloured glass, with a candle inside. More modern examples are battery operated or plug into mains electricity. All mosques and streets during the whole month are full of colored lights in a festival fashion. Apparently in the past, children played in the streets with their lanterns, singing "wahawy ya wahawy" – metaphorically meaning the light of fire. This tradition is still practiced, though rarely now in the streets, except in middle class or poor neighborhoods, and in the countryside. I haven’t seen any around this area with kids, although there are coloured lights on some buildings and lanterns at the entrances.

So I’ve done some research about this colourful custom and thanks to Tour Egypt I can tell you a bit more about them.

Lanterns and lamps of various kinds, hues and degrees of brightness, have always been special to the Egyptians. Many stories of their origins have been told. One story has it that the Fatimid Caliph Al Hakim Bi-Amr Illah wanted to light the streets of Cairo during Ramadan nights, so he ordered all the sheikhs of mosques to hang fawanees that could be illuminated by candles. As a result, the fanoos became a custom that has never been abandoned.

Another story states that, during the time of the Caliph Al Hakim Bi-Amr Illah, women were not allowed to leave their houses except during Ramadan, but even then they had to be preceded by a little boy carrying a copper fanoos. The fanoos was then used to announce the arrival of a woman and to caution men in the street to move away. As the laws against women softened, women were allowed to go out as they wished but people liked the idea of the fanoos, and so it became a tradition that little children carry them in the streets everyday to play.

A third story relates that the lanterns came from a completely different religion. Some believe that the use of lanterns was originally a Coptic Christian tradition celebrated during Christmas time (Coptic version), when people used to celebrate with colourful candles. This story says that, as many Christians converted to Islam, they took this tradition with them in the form of lanterns made of tin and lit with candles.

Regardless of the truth of these stories, the fanoos remains a very unique symbol of Ramadan to Muslims and Christians alike. It has passed from generation to generation, and is today explicitly associated with children. Its popular image is children playing out in the streets during Ramadan, happily swinging their fanooseen and singing a rhyme in colloquial Egyptian Arabic.

During the few days before Ramadan arrives, children become excited and are more insistent about having a fanoos. In fact, most of them can hardly wait to start swinging and singing. That’s why, exactly one week before Ramadan, some Egyptian streets are transformed into workshops for tinsmiths to produce as many fanooseen as possible.
The fanooseen makers are usually very humble people. They; as many other craftsmen in Egypt; work in small areas, in any corner, in alcoves or just simply under corrugated iron shelters, to produce the tens of thousands of fanooseen needed to meet the demand during Ramadan. Actually the fanooseen makers usually start between six to nine months before Ramadan depending on the market forecasts.

In these days of globalization it appears that the Chinese have also made inroads into the fanooseen market, producing plastic lanterns that also play popular songs. While it was initially thought that these might destroy the local trade, reports say that the traditional fanoos is still sought after and the old tradition appreciated.

Another popular decoration is like alfoil cut into a deep fringe and strung like streamers. You see this in silver and sometimes in gold strung across streets and from house to house. Usually it stays in place until the weather brings it down, so you see it for quite some time afterwards. I’m sure there’s still some up since last Ramadan.

I haven’t much other news; again I have been basically in the house except for the supermarket trip and a look around one of the newer housing estates (very nice). We had a problem with one of the Coasters this week – it was parked in the parking lot where it is kept overnight and some small boys got into a Hiace that was parked nearby and started it up and drove it into the front of our Coaster. It’s still in the panel shop but hopefully will be finished tomorrow. So that has been taking most of Mohamed’s time, both day and night. No-one has any insurance of course and at least the child “driving” wasn’t hurt.

Anyway, it’s about 3.00 am and time for the final meal and off to bed. Mind you I’m not tired, didn’t wake up until 2.30 pm today!!! Mind you it was almost 5.00 am when I went to sleep.

So, from hot and sunny Cairo I bid you Ramadan kareem until next time

Lots of love

Lyndall

PS Judy – my very favourite cotton nightdress is getting a very good workout over here – it’s perfect!

Logan's progress

These are the latest pictures sent by Lahni on Monday. Sunday was Father's Day of course and the 7th is also Ian's birthday so there was some celebrating happening. The picture of Ian and Logan enjoying a nap was taken on Father's Day. Very cute.


Ramadan is progressing well, we seem to be into the swing of it now although I dread to think how long it will take to get the biorhythms right again. Basically we sleep late, often until midday or very close to it, and then begin the day - usually going out for Mohamed to take care of business and doing the housework for me. Mohamed is back in time for the iftar meal, usually just hanging out the door waiting to hear the call from the mosque that tells us we can eat and drink. Today that was 6.09 pm. He's anxious to have the food ready right on the minute. Normally I manage it. I am not usually really hungry but I am always thirsty.

Once we've eaten it's relaxing time, or maybe doing bookwork, or going out to the cafe for Mohamed, or like last night, off to the supermarket about 10.00, and then we stay up to eat as close to 4.00 am as possible. Some nights we make it but sometimes it might be earlier, like 2.00 am or so. I have a normal breakfast of muesli but add some juice and water (as much as I can manage) and maybe even a piece of toast and Vegemite (I brought back a big jar this time). Mohamed has more of an Egyptian light meal or breakfast, bread, cheese, beans maybe, egg maybe, a little toshi (pickled vegetables) etc. Once we've had that and put the dishes in the sink it's off to bed. I don't usually like going to bed when I've just eaten but I'm so tired by then it's welcoming.

Today we had Rania and Hagar and the 3 boys to share the meal with us and in fact the ladies did the cooking for us and now I have 3 more dishes that Mohamed likes - a sort of spinach soup with lots of garlic and ground coriander called mulukhiyya, sliced potatoes done with onion and garlic in a tomato sauce in the oven and savoury rice made with milk. I would never have made that one - milk and salt and pepper, ghee and margarine, baked in the oven. It was fine but not my favourite. The potatoes were delicious however.

I have had an uneventful time, just in the house basically, one quick drive for coffee one night and a visit to the supermarket my only outings in 10 days. Such an enormous change for me and at times I find it very restricting. Thank goodness I now have the net.

Cairo suffered a significant disaster this week - you can read about it here

http://www.dailystaregypt.com/article.aspx?ArticleID=16381

Yes, I now have an Egyptian newspaper on line so I can keep up with what's happening around the country. But coincidental that I was just telling you about the Citadel last post and this major problem has occurred just behind it in Old Cairo. It's been so hot, I can't stop thinking about all the poor people and how they must be suffering. I would think it highly unlikely they will find any more alive and the death toll will be a great deal higher than it is now.

Anyway, sorry to end on a sombre note but it's time to think about getting food ready and then getting off to bed.


Looking forward to hearing from you guys, news from home is always welcome...

lots of love

Lyndall

Ramadan kareem

Images of the Mosque at the Citadel. It has many names, one of which is the Blue Mosque.


Today has been the first day of Ramadan – a lunar month that is also one of the months in the Islamic calendar. So last night when the new moon was visible for the first time after sunset we knew that Ramadan began today (Monday, 1st September).

The Islamic calendar has an eleven-day offset from the Gregorian (western) calendar, so the exact timing of Ramadan during the year is variable, sometimes falling in summer and sometimes in winter. The first day of Ramadan too is variable, since Sha’aban, the preceding month, sometimes has 29 days and sometimes 30 days (don’t ask me how it all works, I’ve really no idea – shifting time like shifting sands under your feet - it is all a foreign concept to me, pardon the pun)... Ramadan lasts for 29 or 30 days, as do most lunar months. This year, for better or worse, Ramdan is in high summer. Daylight saving time officially ceased one month early a couple of days ago because of Ramadan.

For Muslims, the holiness of this month comes from the fact that it marks the day when Gabriel started the transmission of God’s message to the prophet Mohammad, fourteen centuries ago. The exact date has never been identified (and I gather Mohammed the Prophet didn’t ever reveal it), but it is believed to be on one of the last ten days of this month, a day which Muslims call Laylat el-Qadr and which is considered the holiest day of the year. According to Islam, the month is dedicated to prayers, as it is believed that it is an occasion “to wash one’s sins away and enjoy God’s unlimited mercy”.

The principal ritual during Ramadan is fasting. This entails abandoning eating, drinking, smoking or sinning, even if minor, throughout the whole day, from dawn to sunset. Also no kissing or “relations” of any sort between the sexes, even those who are married. This year, that means from 4.00 am until 6.20 pm.

Last night Mohamed had been out meeting with the drivers and then having coffee with friends so he didn’t get home until 1.30 am. I had been too tired to wait up so was asleep although I heard him tiptoe in to change, but he then stayed up resting and praying until 3.15 am when he woke me up. We quickly got a meal ready and finished it so that Mohamed fitted in one last cigarette right on 4.00 am. I was so stuffed with food, even though I just had cereal and juice and water, and more water, that I had trouble sleeping because my belly was so full it was hurting. Although we’d thought to sleep late, for some reason neither of us slept well and I got up just after 8.30 am with Mohamed about an hour later.

Mohamed was out and about for most of the day but I had my usual house cleaning to do and then we both worked at getting the iftar meal ready. We timed it perfectly so that as soon as we heard the call from the mosque we were able to begin. I was really fine and not hungry during the day but I did get very thirsty and dry in the mouth. So I found it easier than I thought but I suspect that was just the first day and maybe it won’t always be that easy. In fact I could only eat a small meal, although I have had plenty to drink.

Mohamed has had to go out again this evening to meet one of the drivers so he will pray at home tonight although on other nights I think he intends to go to the mosque.

Though the usual daily practice is in most ways normal, Muslims prefer to spend more time praying or reading the Qura’an, particularly at night, and Mohamed will normally go to the mosque at 9.00 pm. Most Muslims also aim to read the entire Qura’an during the month as well. The traditional practice starts immediately after sunset, which is announced to people through all mosques by the ritual azan, or the call for prayers. Because the new mosque opened just down the road from us on Friday we can hear the call loud and clear.

The daily meals become limited to two, the first of which is the iftar, when fasting is broken just after sunset. The timing of the second meal, sohour, is variable according to what you feel like or what your plans are, but is usually delayed as much as possible until just before dawn. In between iftar and sohour, people are allowed to eat as they choose. For me, I snacked on grapes and fruit juice and water and water.

What makes this month different in Egypt? Well, from everything I can gather, a long time ago, Egyptians adopted certain social habits during this month that are not directly related to religion. Officially, the working hours are lessened to allow more time for prayers. Tourist attractions and offices close earlier. People usually sleep very late and spend considerable time in the mosques. Mohamed says that traffic is even more chaos and congestion in the afternoon because EVERYONE is trying to get home at the same time to break their fast as soon as allowed.

Once, beginning in the 16th century, it was the habit of the Egyptian government to fire a canon which could be heard throughout Cairo to announce end of the daily fast. This was fired from the Citadel over the El Moqattam mountains. Technology has replaced this habit so that now announcements are made on radio and TV and of course from the mosque. The Citadel is now a tourist attraction and well worth the visit. It has a very large mosque in the huge compound that is very beautiful, also a palace, still furnished in some magnificence and there’s also a fort although we couldn’t go into that part when I went there. There’s an amazing view over the city as well.

Iftar is considered the main meal of the day during Ramadan and is often very rich. Any type of food might be served, but traditionally the dessert (if you have one and we don’t usually) almost always includes konafa or qatayef. The former is a cake-like food made of wheat with considerable sugar, honey, raisins and different types of nuts (which Mohamed doesn’t like he tells me so I probably won’t be trying that). The latter is almost the same, but takes the shape of a small circular cake, which is folded to include nuts and raisins. But although we don’t normally eat dessert I did make Om Ali yesterday and we did have that after our meal and he said it was good!!!! I’ll put the recipe in because it is SO delicious!

On the last day of Ramadan, observatories again check for the new moon. The month ends after the 29th or 30th day, when the "eid el fitr" or feast and 3 day holiday begins.


That’s enough for now – it’s midday on day 2, I woke up about 10.00 am and Mohamed is still in bed as he didn’t actually sleep until after 4.00. I try to keep the noise down while he’s still sleeping so it’s a nice quiet and peaceful time for me too – reading, writing etc. Again today is not quite so hot, it’s to be around 36 I think and I don’t need the aircon yet but no doubt will later.

Anyway – here’s your sweet treat

Om Ali (or Omm Ali or Umm Ali)

200 gm puff pastry
30 gm ground almonds
30 gm ground hazel-nuts
15 gm raisins or sultanas
15 gm coconut flakes (not desiccated, the proper flakes)
4 tablespoons sugar
2 large cups milk
1 cup cream, whipped with a little vanilla (measure before whipping)

(You could also add 30 gm of ground pistachios, but then you will need to add a little more milk)

Directions:

Brush the puff pastry sheets with butter and bake in a 200 degree C oven (or according to packet directions if you use a packet – I do, I never did learn to make pastry properly). Let them get fairly firm and a little golden on top. In my oven this takes about 10 minutes.

When cool enough to handle, break the puff pastry into bite-sized pieces.

Mix the pastry with the nuts, raisins and coconut and put in a deep casserole dish. Mix it up well so that everything is evenly spread through.

Put the sugar and milk in a pot and bring just to a boil. Pour this mixture over the pastry, nuts and raisins.

Spread the whipped cream evenly over mixture (try not to leave any gaps anywhere including around the sides or as it cooks the milk will boil up and spatter everywhere – the cream seems to keep it sealed).

Bake 25 minutes at 200 degrees – it should just start to go golden brown on top and not be sloppy, a “firmish” consistency.

Mohamed says it’s eaten cold but all the recipes I have found say eat it hot or warm – I think I prefer it hot although it is also delicious cold, even if not so moist. You can serve it with additional cream or ice-cream or just as it is – sweet, creamy, nut crunchy, heavenly.


Enjoy!

Love until next time

Lyndall

Something for you to try

It's 10.00 pm and I'm still waiting for Mohamed to come home so we can have the final meal of the day. I've been researching Egyptian recipes on the net and decided to try and make hommus. There are many different recipes but I chose one that sounded like it might be what we're used to and gave it a whirl - don't know that it's exactly right but it's OK for me - not sure how Mohamed will like it.

I made fool madammas at lunch today - beans or fool it's usually called. It's very simple, at least the way that Mohamed likes it although there are probably as many recipes as there are houses in Egypt. For Mohamed you just need canned fava beans (although you can buy them dried and cook them), put them into a frying pan with some of the juice, some corn oil and mash the beans as they heat. Once they are mashed and hot add the juice of a lime and a little salt and pepper. It should have the consistency of porridge when made. That's it. He doesn't mind if you add just a little cumin sometimes (or maybe he doesn't notice if I do).

Anyway, I thought you might like to try kosheri. As I've said before it's a street food that's really popular and cheap. There are whole restaurants that serve nothing but - kosheri. It's also quite easy to make.

They say that kosheri is an Egyptian version of the kichri (kitchree, khitcherie) of India, which is always a combination of rice and lentils. Kichri is also the ancestor of the British/Scottish kedgeree which was a culinary by-product of the British-Indian experience.

Anyway, as I said it's quite straight-forward to make and even if you think it sounds a bit strange (yes a total carb feast - Mohamed told me the first time we ate it, in a kosheri restaurant, that they say you don't need to eat again for 3 days once you've had kosheri. You might really enjoy it - I know I do.

Ingredients
- two cups lentils (brown or black)
- one to two cups rice
- one to two cups elbow macaroni (or similar pasta, as long as the macaroni is very small to almost match the lentils and rice and not overpower them) (optional, Mohamed doesn't like to have it and I do, so it's a matter of personal taste)
- one cup vegetable oil (most Egyptians use corn oil) evenly divided into two portions
- one clove garlic, crushed
- one chilli, cleaned and chopped
- three or four ripe tomatoes, peeled and chopped ; or one large tin crushed tomatoes, or you can substitute tomato paste and enough water to make up the volume
- one-half cup water
- two tablespoons vinegar
- one onion, chopped fairly fine
- salt (to taste)

Method

Clean and rinse the lentils and place them in a large pot. Cover them with cold water, so that the water level is one inch above the lentils. Add salt if desired. Bring to a boil then reduce heat. Cover and simmer, stirring occasionally, until lentils are tender and water is almost completely absorbed (approximately 30 minutes). Add additional water if necessary. However, although the lentil should be soft don't let them get mushy.

While lentils are cooking, cook rice in normal manner, so that the grains are cooked but separated, dry not wet. (Egyptians cook it a particular way - I'll put the method at the bottom)

Prepare sauce while lentils and rice are cooking.

Heat oil in saucepan. Sauté garlic and chilli for a few minutes, until onion is clear. Add tomatoes, water, vinegar, and salt. Cook on high heat for a few minutes, then reduce heat and simmer.

While the lentils and rice are cooking and the sauce is simmering, heat the remaining oil in a frying pan. Sauté the onion until it is done to your liking (either lightly golden, or deeply browned and crispy). When done, remove onion from the frying pan and drain on absorbent paper or paper towels. (This makes a topping for the finished dish and is best when dark gold and very crispy)

While lentils and rice are cooking, sauce is simmering, and onion is sautéing, if macaroni is desired, bring a pot of water to a boil and cook macaroni in the normal manner.

When everything is done, assemble each serving of kosheri in a soup bowl. Alternate layers of lentils, rice, and macaroni, then top it all with the fried onions and tomato sauce. Optional additional toppings are more lentils, dry and crispy and chick peas (hommus) dry and cooked.

As I've said before, when you get kosheri in a restaurant you also aget a very hot sauce and a lemon type sauce but I've yet to find the recipes for those. I really love the hot sauce.

Egyptian method of cooking rice - let's say for 2 cups (always the same amount of water as rice and about one quarter of total is cooked in the ghee).

2 cups of rice, washed until water is clear
2 cups of water
about 2 good tablespoons of ghee

Heat ghee and add half a cup of washed rice. Cook until the rice is a darkish gold (don't let it get too brown or burn). Add the rest of the rice and stir until all grains are covered by the butter. Quickly add the water, cover and leave to cook for around 15-20 minutes. Check towards the end and make sure all water is absorbed and the rice has cooked. If more water is needed, add just a little at any time. The aim is to have all the water gone and the rice dry, fluffy and the grains separated. You should have a mixture of dark gold and white grains.

This method is for white short-grained (or basmati) rice, you could use it for other sorts such as brown rice but you would need to experiment with water and cooking times.

I really like it this way now.

So why not give kosheri a try while it's still winter and you need some comfort food occasionally?

Time to go, it's 11.00 now and Mohamed has rung to say he's on his way home and there's food to get ready.

Take care, enjoy

lots of lvoe

Lyndall

An entertaining week

Baby update for everyone - he's really very cute and obviously and of course growing fast


Saturday night

I found it amusing when I opened my iGoogle just now and the picture for today’s “Places to See Before You Die” on my computer is the Pyramids.


Anyway, hello and how are you? Time seems to be flying by, I only just realized it’s now over a week since I wrote last (not, mind you, that I’ve had a letter from ANYONE) and that I should be sitting and typing another posting.

We are up on the roof – me with my computer and Mohamed with his phone, pacing up and down. It’s been so hot since I got back, even though I knew it would be, day after day at around 40 degrees or plus means that you take any possible opportunity to get some fresh, cooler air. And the roof is very pleasant tonight. Of course we have the air conditioners, thank goodness, but we got last month’s electricity bill (first month with the aircon going very much) and Mohamed is now very much on a power-saving kick. Must say we still sleep with it on all night however.

The one in the bedroom had developed a leak inside and we got the man to come and fix it and it still leaked so we got him to come again and he made it worse than it was before and so we couldn’t use it at all. That was Tuesday and he said he would come back on Saturday and fix it.

We therefore had one night without the bedroom air conditioner and Hagar staying with us so we couldn’t use the spare room. At 4.00 am Mohamed rang the air-conditioner man (we had had about 30 minutes sleep by then) but didn’t get an answer (I did protest but he told me "I am not sleeping, he is not sleeping!"). However, he rang enough times the next day that 3 men came at 2.30 in the afternoon and it has been fixed temporarily – they are supposed to be coming back in a week to finish it off. But at least we are sleeping OK again.

We had Hagar staying most of the week but she went back to Rania’s on Thursday night. It was great to have her here even though I get really worried at how bored she must get. She is not a great one for TV and doesn’t read, or didn’t have anything here to read anyway. We can’t do housework all day and Mohamed was out all day basically. Hagar has the most English of the sisters but still not a huge amount so conversation is not exactly easy.

Back down into the air-conditioning – it got too hot for Mohamed on the roof.

On Thursday night Mohamed told me around seven that we were having guests for an evening meal – his friend Mohamed Elkardy (a policeman, his best friend) and also his wife and two children, little boy about 4 and baby boy, who has been born since I’ve been living in Egypt. I was quite excited at the thought of meeting another woman. Anyway, we took Hagar to Rania’s and I went to the supermarket and got a few things and got organized when we got home – Mohamed also helping to clean and tidy.

As you might expect, it's all quite different, entertaining in Egypt. There are foods that are acceptable in the day or the night, and ways of serving and eating that are all so different to what I'm used to in Oz, and it's really easy for me to make a mistake. So the evening meal was lots of different sorts of cheese, fresh bread, mashed potatoes, hot chips, packet chips, salad of tomato, cucumber, onion, little grated carrot with lime juice, honey, white cheese mixed with chopped tomato and cucumber (it’s both salty and peppery – Istanboli - very soft white cheese), lettuce and then some grapes and bananas after. They didn’t arrive until about 11.30 so we ate around midnight. Still it was nice to meet another woman and she has a little English and seemed very nice.

It's not suitable to have meat at an evening meal, and Mohamed thought not beans either, so we had what he thought would be the right thing. All food goes into commuity bowls, you cover the table with plastic sheeting (you buy it specially) and you use the table as a plate or your bread as a plate. Most food is retrieved with a piece of bread held in the fingers or with your own spoon. Yes, everyone dips their bread or spoon into the one big bowl. Not what we are used to. Not just double dipping... I'm sort of getting used to it. I have explained this to Mohamed but he tells me when he's in Australia he will have to have his own bowl becase he will never remember to use a serving spoon.

However, I brought the bananas to the table in my hand and Mohamed tells me that is very bad. All food and drink must be presented on a tray or in a bowl, never in the hand. Now I understand why Hagar took one glass of water to the airconditioner man on a tray (I used to think they used a tray to serve drinks just because if you were serving a few people it was easier). I made a faux pas with the bananas. But it seems so back to front to me - everyone eats from the same bowl (and there's no hand washing ritual or anything before a meal) but you must serve food not in your hand even when it has a skin on it or is in a cup.... Different strokes I guess...

And the plastic sheeting - well you put all your food rubbish, like olive pits or other scraps, plus of course all your crumbs, onto the plastic and at the end of the meal you roll it up and put it in the bin. Perhaps not the most elegant but certainly practical.

The El Kardys brought a traditional "congratulations" gift - a wrapped tray of sweets and sweet biscuits, it's a very nice touch and gives us a huge sugar fix - they are always so sweet.

We tentatively arranged to go to Sokhana together next week but I don’t know what that will mean in terms of me going swimming – or maybe me not swimming, at least not in my Aussie cossie…. I thought it was all arranged but Mohamed tells me that Elkardy has been posted to Sharm El Sheikh for a month beginning today so not now at least. I eventually found out the wife’s name – Sabah. There was a strange moment when I introduced myself and she didn’t tell me her name. Mohamed didn’t know it - he had only met her twice before. But about an hour later at the table she did tell me here name, so not sure what that was about… Yet anoather social something I don't really understand.

Then on Friday we had Rania, Allaa and Hagar and the boys. I hadn’t seen Rania since I had arrived back and I was anxious to do so. Mohamed had decided they would have ringaa – that really smelly fermented fish I talked about before – so eating was on the roof, not in the house. The meal was pretty simple and seemed to be standard – the fish, fresh bread, an onion quartered and in a little vinegar. That’s it. I sat at a separate table (felt like I was at the kid’s table) coz the smell is nearly enough to make me vomit, and I had cheese and salad. Mohamed brought them back after he’d been to the mosque and the barber so lunch was around 4 pm again. Each day during the week we’d had lunch around 5 pm, waiting for Mohamed. I guess we’re almost getting into practice for Ramadan which begins on 1st September. No food or drink from sunrise until sunset. Apparently we get up around 4.00 am and have something to eat before the time of first prayer at 5.00 and then that’s it. Not even water until sunset (fourth prayer) which will be about 6.30 - 7.00 pm. Ramadan lasts for a month but I guess the first week or so is the hardest as you try to get used to it.

Went to the movies today and saw Hancock which was about 2 1/2 stars I guess. Not one of Will Smith’s best. We also ordered the bathroom cabinet and mirror for the big bathroom today, will take about a week I think and then we need to find a plumber to put it in. The rest of the week has been very quiet – just at home with Hagar and doing the house work with a couple of quick visits to the supermarket, otherwise watching the Olympics whenever I can, although I tried not to watch them all day when Hagar was here because I don’t think she was terribly interested. Occasionally yes but not always. Mind you it was very nice having help with the housework. Hagar also showed me a couple more dishes to cook and I tried a casserole recipe from one of the cookbooks I brought over and they both seemed to like it. That's one point for Aussie food.

What have you all been up to? How’s work for everyone? Are you all well and happy?


Anyway, it’s quarter to 11 and I need a little food and then bed probably although I was so tired last night – I slept for 12 hours. Mohamed actually woke me up at 11 am this morning; I was still very sound asleep. He says hello to everyone. He’s currently driving the Xbox time trial demo with which he has a great deal of fun. So did Rania's two oldest boys - they were very good at it too.

Looking forward to the closing ceremony of the Olympics - the opening ceremony certainly had its spectacular moments. We get a couple of stations with commentary in Arabic and otherwise mostly New Zealand commentary although we did have some Australian commentators, for the diving I particularly remember. We were lucky, Al Jezeerah had a high definition broadcast in English for the whole games. Didn't see all sports of course and missed some really good performances in order to see popular Middle East sports like wrestling (Egypt's only medal was a bronze in wrestling) but all in all it was pretty good.

So will write more soon, until then

lots of love

Lyndall

Home again and we have the net at last!

Well hello at last

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!

Bread - the staff of life

So, it’s Friday again and so Mohamed is out and I am at home and have some time to write. Two weeks today and by this time I will be safely tucked up in Lahni’s house in Maroochydore, having spent over 24 hours on the road and in the air and having kept a couple of appointments on the Sunnie Coast, hopefully managing to stay awake all day so that I can get over the jet lag a little quicker.

As I said it’s a long way home – I leave Cairo at 7.30 pm on Wednesday night and I get to Dubai at 5 minutes past midnight on Thursday (actually only a three hour flight but I’m moving forward through time). I get to spend a fabulous 8 hours at the Dubai terminal which, regardless of the fact that is it the middle of the night, will be packed and buzzing and I will be very lucky if I find a spare spot on the floor to catch some sleep. At 8.45 am (Dubai time) I take off for Brisbane via Singapore, a journey of around 16 hours flying time, landing me at Brisbane at 7.00 am on Friday 30th, seven hours ahead of Cairo time (now we are on daylight saving here). A quick trip up to Maroochydore in time to get me to my first appointment at 10.30 am I hope.

While one part of me gets more and more excited I must admit another part of me recognises that I will really miss Mohamed, I mean really miss him. He will go and stay with his sister Hagar so I know that he will be extremely well looked after, better than I look after him I’m sure (even though I am getting the cooking under control), and with the exception of the massages. Still, it’s amazing how quickly he’s become quite indispensable to me and it will be hard to leave him behind.

It’s been a pretty good week with a few ups and downs. First there was news that the Hyundais wouldn’t be available for 2 months, reversed later in the week by the news that we could have them in the next week, imported from Dubai. Then there was the office that was on the market and off the market. And there were the turtledoves nesting behind one of the air-conditioner units that we have been really enjoying watching and feeding. On Tuesday the mama vanished and on Tuesday night the first egg hatched. Unfortunately we’ve had to watch the poor little baby struggle and finally succumb. If I hadn’t been leaving I would have tried feeding it but it wouldn’t have been self-sufficient in any way in 2 weeks. And last but certainly not least for me was the realisation that Mohamed wouldn’t be able to come to Australia at all. By the time I leave we will have 5 cars and drivers all depending on him to find the work and keep the books, collect the accounts and pay the bills. Unfortunately, there just isn’t anyone else who can do it for us at this time. For a number of reasons I’m really very disappointed.

And of course world news has covered those two huge disasters in China and Burma. Such incredible loss of life and devastation, so much tragedy on such a grand scale.

Today we had a really nice day, after the mosque we met Rania and Hagar and the boys (and Allaa after he finished work) at Felfela, well one of the Felfela chain of restaurants. This one has a large area with a stage and on Friday afternoons and evenings it has a floor show of middle eastern music and dancing and a man with an excellent balancing act. It was sort of the first place Masry took me out when we were just beginning to discuss marriage, so it brought back some nice memories as well. It was so good to see the ladies again, even if we hardly share any conversations there’s something very pleasant just being in their company. Perhaps because it is the company of women. And the boys are so cute of course. When Omar fell asleep today I took him from Rania and I had a wonderful long snuggle – about an hour. Before that we played some hand games and I got lots of smiles. Before I leave for home I really want to take the camera to the house (or have them come here again) and do some portraits of the boys as they are all beautiful looking children with real character – ideal portrait subjects.

I’m sorry I can’t put any pictures of them with this – Masry has asked that I don’t put any photos of either his sisters or the children on the net.

This week I also found another copy of my favourite magazine – Egypt Today - and read some really interesting stuff about the Egyptian economy and society that surprised me. Here’s a quick recap of a few of the latest official statistics:

- inflation is running at 14.4% as at March (6.9% in December last year)
- bread and grain prices increased by almost 50% in the first 3 months of this year (UN figures)
- 20% of Egyptians live below the poverty line of US$2 per day and another 20% hover just above it
- approximately 50 million people eat subsidized bread every day at an average of 3.2 pieces per person (220 million loaves)
- smuggling, selling or hiding subsidized bread is now a crime
- 29% of GDP is spent on food subsidies (75 billion Egyptian pounds)
- the export of rice has been banned until October
- around 40% of Egyptian marriages end in divorce (this one was a big surprise)

There is a food crisis in many countries (particularly African countries) of course but I must admit, although I’ve seen the queues at the government bread outlets I hadn’t realized the extent of the problem, as I don’t see any news in English except on BBC World, for which both Egypt and Australia do not exist – unless George Bush visits Egypt or Australia is playing cricket. According to my magazine source there was a shooting in the queues in February and someone standing in the queue was also run over. They estimate the number of deaths attributable directly to the queuing problem to be between 7 and 15. Obviously the bread and grain shortage and sharply escalating food prices are serious national issues and although the government has put a number of strategies in place to fix some of this it may take a little while yet to significantly improve the bread situation and of course even longer to resolve the inflation issue.

What I do see on a day-to-day basis is that many Egyptians live on a tiny wage and add to their quality of life with the tips they receive for almost every service or transaction. Of course there’s the usual tip on top of your bill at restaurants or coffee shops. Every visit to a bathroom anywhere means a 1 pound tip for the attendant (and interestingly no-one minds if you just go into a shop or food outlet to use the toilets). When you sit in a parked car and the man sweeping the street comes along past you, it’s a 1 pound tip. You pay for your food at the street takeaway and add a 1 pound tip for the man who fills your order. There’s a 1 pound tip for the man who makes your coffee, packs your bags at the supermarket, fills your car with petrol or the child who wants to wipe over your windscreen when you stop (especially if your car has just been cleaned and you don’t want it done). There’s the one pound tip for any man who helps you park in the street or in a car park. There are bigger tips for the tradesmen, the men who install your appliances or come to fix them, who deliver your furniture or clean your car, who cut your hair or the women who wax your legs. At the current exchange rate for Oz dollars, one pound is equivalent to 20 cents. But if you live on around 5-12 pounds per day, one pound makes a huge and significant difference. But also over the course of a month it also makes a hidden difference to our cost of living by probably two or three hundred pounds. But it’s worth it and I’m glad each day that Mohamed has a good heart and is happy to share what we have with those who so obviously have less.

Time to go to bed – I’ll be in touch again as soon as I can

Love to everybody

Lyndall

The search goes on

Taken at Sokhana - my first sightings of the Red Sea

Hi everyone

It’s Friday night and Mohamed is out with his friend at the café. Although as I've reported before Egyptian men are very used to "café" society and Masry certainly is, he has decided that one night a week will be fine for him if it is OK with me (much better than 3 or 4 or 5) so Friday night will often be the night I write …

Not a lot of news this time round as I have had some kind of stomach bug most of the week and have kept myself quiet in the house while Masry has been out and about seeing the companies for whom the Coasters have worked and presenting end of month accounts etc. and meeting with the drivers.

A few people have asked me about “the company” I write about and the vehicles. Here’s the story. Towards the end of last year the government announced that they wouldn’t approve any new company licenses for tourism companies in early 2008 and when they did begin to license companies again the fees would be significantly higher. Masry has long had a dream to own his own company working in tourism, beginning with a company that provides transport for tourists (a Level C company). So Masry duly made an application at the beginning of December, only to be told that the doors had already closed and they didn’t know when they would begin to approve applications again.

As well as fees to pay (quite substantial ones in the tens of thousands of US dollars) there are other requirements for a tourism transportation company. You must have a certain amount of money in the bank (200,000 Egyptian pounds) that must stay there for at least a year (I assume as a sort of guarantee), and you must have vehicles that provide over 100 seats. So once you do all this and can operate your company you must prove yourself for at least a year and then you can move up until you eventually can operate a Level A company, which can offer the full range of services, accepting tourists from outside Egypt, selling tickets, providing guided tours etc.

Now, the papers have been lodged with the Ministry of Tourism and the waiting goes on. But meantime there are other things that can be done. To begin with you can purchase vehicles and come to an arrangement with an existing company for them to be registered under their name and umbrella, so to speak. For this you pay several thousands of pounds each year. You also pay all costs associated with the vehicle and employ the driver and you are responsible for finding work for the vehicle. The vehicle wears the name and logos of the sponsoring company (and count towards their seat provision requirements). You take the money direct from the companies for the work done. If you get your own company at some stage the vehicles are then transferred to your name.

So that is what Masry is doing at the moment. To begin with he purchased two Toyota Coasters in January. They have been working since the beginning of March. There is also an order in with Toyota for a Hiace and with Hyundai for 2 H1s, all of which should be here soon, in a matter of a month. The Hiace will be placed with the same company (Mena) while the Hyundais will be placed with a different company (GITS – Gabry Inter Travel Service).

One of the other things that you can do is to buy an existing company (at any level) that someone wants to sell. This may be a company that has been operating as a going concern, or a company that has been approved but has never operated. In each case you really buy the “paper” from the owner. So that has been an ongoing search with the involvement of lawyers and people who work in the government and many others, usually men who know someone who knows someone. Or maybe with the help of a lawyer for an important man or the driver of a government official (or even the driver of the wife of a government official) – all at a price of course. This is Egypt after all.

Several companies have been located but each time Masry comes home and says “Congratulations (Mabrook), now you own a company”, there’s a problem in the next day or so. The seller changes his mind, or the lawyer finds that they owe taxes or have another problem with the government, or the price suddenly goes up out of reach. Masry’s search has been unsuccessful so far.

And there’s a third alternative. An application has been lodged with the lawyer (and government I think) with a fee paid to the lawyer of course, for a Level A company, which is (by all accounts) to be approved in a year’s time. Once the paper is in our hands a further substantial fee is paid to the lawyer along with the licensing fee to the Ministry. So that’s also in train.

To help fill in time while we wait we have also been looking for an office and trying to decide whether to buy now or to rent when the time comes. Currently we are looking on the estate at the new buildings going up on the first street facing the road.

Last weekend the government announced a 30% increase in salaries for those workers for whom it sets the salary scale. That was on the public holiday that as far as I could make out is a little like Labour Day in that it’s for workers. Two days later the government also announced significant increases in taxes and prices on many items, many of 30%+ increases but some less – petrol, oil and diesel, cigarettes, steel, cement, new vehicles, vehicle registration fees to name a few items. The office we looked at on Monday that was 350,000 pounds is today 400,000. We’re having a think about what to do. I’m afraid if we wait another year we’ll never afford to buy. The upside I guess is that the house has gone up significantly in value virtually overnight. It will take a little while to see what effect it will have on food prices and the cost of living in general.

I presume it makes the news in Oz but there is great consternation in many places about the cost of food. The UN has shortfalls in the monies promised to provide food relief in Africa. There were riots in Lebanon yesterday about food prices (although this seems to have now turned quite political between Hesbollah and the government) and there are problems across Africa. There was also a major demonstration in Cairo a few weeks ago about the same issue and about wages.

I don’t see enough news in English to know what the cause of this is exactly – is it all tied up with the situation in the States? I have noticed how the Ozzie dollar and the US dollar are neck and neck, as everything here revolves around US dollars I guess that’s a good thing for me for now. But any food crisis can’t be good for the world as a whole.

Looking forward to seeing some of you when I get home...


Lots of love for now

Lyndall

Yet more culinary disasters!

Taken during the foam fight from the jacuzzi yesterday - I SO need a haircut!

Hi everyone

Hope that all is well with you wherever you are, if you are in Victoria you will be beginning to feel the autumn chill in the mornings by now I have no doubt. Egypt is still going well, life is kinda quiet at the moment what with the state of play with the search for a company, but that’s OK too – I’m looking on it as a holiday period (and if I get too bored there’s always housework!) Just joking. Masry is finding it difficult not going to work every day I think also. Yesterday we slept in until 11.30 am – unbelievable! Mind you, he stayed up until 4.00 am watching TV but I didn’t have that excuse, I was asleep by 1. I’m beginning to get excited about coming home – one month today until I leave. I have a 9-hour layover in Dubai which will be awful, I get in at midnight and leave at 3.15 I think it is – I hope there’s some spare floor somewhere. I leave to come back on 9th July, although if we needed to change it Emirates seem to be OK about that.

I am looking forward to seeing everyone and maybe having toast and Vegemite. Also looking forward to seeing what’s in the clothing stores although in the big malls here there is a good range of quality clothing, although often not for my size. Masry says for me to basically take an empty suitcase and bring back a couple of suitcases full of stuff and clothes and shoes etc. So hopefully I won’t have much luggage to worry about when I come.

Life is mostly taken up with Mohamed meeting with the lawyer in his search for a company or with the drivers or whatever. I am leading the quiet life mostly in the house. I was never a big TV watcher but now I really appreciate that big 46” of screen and all the channels (although there’s not too many in English).

Sunday we had Rania and Hagar and Rania’s husband Allaa and her boys Lewi, Mohamed and Omar over for lunch. I was up early, cleaned the floors and the bathrooms and then started cooking. Masry cleaned windows. The meal in the middle of the day is the main meal here, when you have meat (if you are having it at all that day) and I had bought meat and was attempting a couple of Egyptian dishes, kabsah, meat in rice and kofta – meatballs in a sort of almost curry sauce. I bought the spices in packs made up and the recipes were on the pack. Thought I couldn’t go wrong. WRONG!!!! The kofta was really a disaster but honestly I don’t know what went wrong. It had yoghurt in it and that sort of curdled but from the minute I added the spices it smelled really bad. I thought it smelled just like vomit but I kept thinking maybe it’s supposed to smell like this! WRONG!!!! Everyone was terribly polite, but Masry gave me the secret signal that told me it wasn’t good and not much of it got eaten. Except that I threw it into the rubbish and put it outside the door overnight for the doorman to collect and a stray cat got in and it was all over the doorstep because it ate all the meatballs and left the sauce everywhere. So the cats obviously liked it. Nearly made me ill to clean it up.

And as for the kabsah – I bought rib fillet to use for the meat and thought that should be excellent but it was SO tough. I have seen Australian meat to buy frozen but it is almost 3 times the price of local meat. I could tell as it cooked up it would be tough, and the rice part didn’t work properly either, the rice was supposed to be all separate grains and fluffy but it must have had too much liquid and so it went gluggy. (The recipe said use 6 cups and reduce it to 3 cups – but how do you tell that in the saucepan?) And it also said use 750 grams of rice and I don’t have a set of scales so I probably blew it on two counts. But everyone ate that (in desperation I suppose) and we did have vegetable soup (and I have that down OK) and cheese and salad and toshi (pickled vegetables, green chillis, olives and lemons, I think it’s delicious and it is eaten with almost every meal) and bread and fruit and juice and tea, so I hope that everyone was full enough. I’ll keep practising. I really need that recipe book and to stock the pantry with spices etc. Next time I’ll make the kofta from scratch if I can find a recipe on the net. (Found one today)

Maybe I need to bring a couple of recipe books back with me for casseroles etc. Mind you one of the big supermarkets has all the Women’s Weekly series of cook books but they are fairly expensive (for Egypt, probably cheap for Australia). But maybe I should pick up a couple.

The boys are beautiful (Omar is SO cute and this week he let me pick him up lots and I even got a kiss) but loud and they like to run and squeal and push each other around. They give Rania a bit of a hard time, Omar smacks her back if she gives him a tap and he’s only 2! I asked her was she going to have any more and she said no no no, these 3 were more than enough and gave her a headache. Mohamed says that the little Mohamed in particular is a problem in the street every day for something. He’s always laughing – I think he’s probably a "ratbag" rather than a bad boy.

It’s always a little bit of hard going as both sisters don’t speak very much English (Hagar speaks more than Rania) so we don’t talk a lot, but I like them both very much and I’m sure it will get better. This week they looked through the photo album of all the kids.

Allaa invited us to their house next Friday which will be nice. Hagar thinks her fiancé will visit her there and it would be good to also meet him. So I hope that works out. But one thing I am learning here is that you have to be very flexible. Yes means maybe and maybe means possibly and no means we’ll see what happens and maybe it will be yes. And if a meeting is set for 11.00 am then anything up to abouat 12.30 is very acceptable. So when Masry says his sisters will be here at 11.00 to 12 and they arrive at 1.30 then that’s all OK. Mind you I was grateful - there was lots of chopping and grating etc. to be done and I wouldn't have been ready on time anyway.

This weekend has been a holiday for Christians but Masry couldn’t tell me what for. But putting two and two together it may have been for Easter as I know that the weekend just gone was Easter for Ethiopians. Yesterday Mohamed went to get himself a special fish lunch – we ate on the roof. We ate on the roof not only because it was a really nice day but also because it was the vilest smelling stuff I think I’ve ever smelt. Even Masry admits it smells revolting but he says it tastes wonderful. It’s called Alte Fork – salt-fermented mugli fish. It looks like sort of a whole half-rotten raw fish in slimy oil stuff and I simply cannot describe the smell. Masry says his hands etc. will smell for about 2 days even though he soaked in the jacuzzi for about 45 minutes. And he had about 3 litres of water to drink – he says he’s still sooooo thirsty. But he did tell me that all Egyptians would be eating fish on this day so maybe that supports my Easter theory.

So here I am at the net café while Masry goes to the lawyer yet again about a company and then he says it’s City Stars and a movie which will be nice. We didn’t go to one last time we went coz there wasn’t one that appealed but I hope we can today. It's just be nice to be out.

I’ve got a really sore little finger – we had a foam fight while the jacuzzi was filling up yesterday and in the process I hit my little finger really hard straight on the end – you know how you can do that? It didn’t seem to do a lot of damage, just hurt a bit, but it’s getting harder and harder to bend it and it’s fairly swollen. Hope it’s OK.

Masry says to say hello. I still don’t know if he’s coming to Australia at any stage, but I’m hopeful, although I know it will be difficult. I keep telling him how upset everyone will be if he doesn’t come. But it really will depend on what is happening with the vehicles and the company.

Anyway, I‘d better go, sorry there’s not much exciting news. I expect Masry back at any time and as it's 2.30 we'll both be starving by the time we get to City Stars.

lots of love

Lyndall