Jenyfer Matthews

I’ve been doing my best to settle in to my temporary home in Ohio and I think I’ve been doing okay lately in terms of not flipping out (too much) about what comes next. Distracting myself with the treasures to be found in the many thrift stores in the area helps (though I am glad my friend has a big house because I might need to store some things with her for a while!)

Considering what they went through with the upheaval and stress of the evacuation and then having a month gap before starting a new school in a new state with a new and unfamiliar curriculum, the children have been doing amazingly well. I couldn’t be prouder of how they have have settled in and how well they have adapted. My daughter wants to have straight As on her last report card of the year and I think she might just pull it off.

Overall, I have been feeling pretty good about how things have been going and about what might come next. It’s been a challenging year so far! Then I started to read back over my status updates on Facebook for the past year – of all the little day to day things that I was doing in Cairo and the friends that I saw and interacted with – and I started to feel a little homesick.

I even started to second guess everything I’ve done since February.

I still believe that we made the only decision that we could have made at the time by leaving Egypt when we did. The situation was simply too uncertain to risk staying to see how things played out, especially with the children to think of. In hindsight however, I kind of wish the children and I had gone back when my husband did at the end of February. It would make things so much less complicated in so many ways.

One of the biggest complications is that the children’s school in Cairo is pushing us to commit to whether we will be back in the fall term. I know that they need to plan for class sizes and staff, but how am I supposed to know what will happen in three months? It isn’t as if all the news from Egypt these days is good. And it is more than just saying “yes” or “no” – if we say “yes” we have to pay a hefty deposit per child to secure their places. The fee is an every year thing, but the difference this year is that my husband is looking for a job in the US. If we are lucky he’ll find something before next fall – which would be great only we’d lose the deposit with the school (which is more than I paid for my car – ouch!). If we say “no” and just take our chances, there is a possibility that he wouldn’t get a job and we would also lose their places at the school.

If I stay in the US, our family remains in limbo. If I go back to Egypt, we have to hope things remain safe enough until we can make a permanent move elsewhere. There are many other minor complications like what to do with my car – if I go back to Cairo in September, I’ll have to sell it. I feel lucky to have found it so I’d rather keep it. What can you do?

I never expected or planned to make my life in Egypt for the long term so in many ways I am ready to move on, however I don’t think I’m quite done with the place yet either. I never got to say goodbye after all.

It’s been another run-around-town morning. I dropped the kids at school, went for another appointment with the dermatologist (this time she cut a suspicious mole off my leg), and then to drop off the donations for the tornado victims. Now I have to tend to my son’s new pet.

The children have been asking for a pet for a long time and I have been resisting. I had two cats before I had children and I loved them dearly. The problem was that the cats did not love the children. By the time we were preparing to move to Egypt the situation had gotten so bad that I had to keep one of cats secluded in my bedroom and run a happy-cat phermone plug-in just to keep her from marking all of my things (guess who she blamed for bringing the children into the house??) I was at my wits end with what to do with the cats. They were clearly not happy with us and they were aging to boot – and Egypt does not have very good veterinary care for house pets. I was extremely lucky that at just about the same time a friend from North Carolina wrote me an email and told me her cats had just died and she wanted to adopt two older cats. Is that good timing or what? We went back and forth a few more times to iron out details and then I shipped her two aging cats. It was harder than I would have thought to let them go, but it was for the best. That was nearly six years ago and the cats have been restored to their former spoiled status and are living out their golden years in style. I still get status reports from time to time.

So no more cats. I’ve also vetoed dogs. Not only don’t I want to be stuck with the responsibility of walking a dog several times a day while the children are in school, but can you imagine having a dog with what has been my lifestyle for the last decade? How could I leave a dog for nearly two months every summer? I would go broke with kennel fees and the dog would go nuts. I have friends who bring their dogs with them when they travel but I have enough to keep track of with two children and six suitcases thank-you-very-much.

I have also nixed birds, rodents, and fish. I don’t think that birds belong in cages and there is the same problem with the vacation schedule. Also, who do you think would ultimately be stuck cleaning out the cage / tank? No thanks. I have many better things to do with my time!

Last weekend, my son found a pet that I could find no immediate objection to: a Venus Flytrap. It’s inexpensive, quiet, does not require walking, and eats bugs. What’s not to like? We’ll see how it goes. If there is one pitfall it is the frequency with which my son wants to feed it. If Venus Flytraps can become obese, ours will. It’s a good thing the new pot I found for it it is roomy…

Spring has more or less arrived in southern Ohio, and as I sit inside doing my best to enjoy the sunny days from the shelter and shade of the house (as is necessary while I treat my skin for years of accumulated sun damage with a potent and nasty cream) I’ve been thinking about cultural norms of beauty, particularly with regard to skin tone.

Generally speaking, it seems that everyone always wants what they don’t have. In the West, a golden tan is most often equated with health and vitality. I spent many hours laying in the sun in my youth chasing that particular ideal. Even knowing what we all should know by now about premature aging and skin cancer, people still lay in tanning beds or out by the pool in the middle of the day, and it would be interesting to know how many artificial tanning products are available on the market. Why is it so bad to be fair? I’m blonde – all I ever got for my time in the sun was at best a short lived “tan” and at worst a sunburn and a bunch of freckles.

As an aside, it’s funny because people in the Middle East don’t really understand freckles – they are more or less seen as a kind of disfigurement. Only the rare person ever expressed the opinion that they were cute on my children. I once won a series of micro-dermabrasion facials while I was living in Dubai. When I went in for the treatments, the consultant promised me not only softer, smoother skin but also that given enough time she could remove my “sun spots”. I laughed and explained to her that they weren’t going anywhere! Another time the mother of child at the preschool my son was attending, a Pakistani woman who also happened to have a medical degree, asked me what all the spots on my son’s face were – what was wrong with him? I explained to her what a freckle is in a medical sense and she understood, but she still seemed to feel a bit sorry for him!

Ironically, in the Middle East and Asia, light unblemished skin is the ideal. I have met all too many lovely, dark and olive skinned Middle Eastern and Indian women who want nothing more than to lighten their skin tone. You won’t see them baking themselves on a lounge chair – they are much more likely to stay inside during the day or at least in the shade, and their modest dress not only fulfills religious mandates but also protects them from the harsh sun of those latitudes. There are all manner of home remedies for skin lightening, many of which revolve around lemon juice, as well as many lightening creams on the market in those areas of the world, the most popular of which is called Fair & Lovely. Not a very subtle marketing trick, is it?

If only people could be happy with what their genetic gene pool gives them. Not only would it save everyone a lot of unhappiness but money – surely at least half of the “beauty aid” market would crash if we’d all stop fighting our DNA.

My face is currently red and scaly and would be considered very undesirable and unattractive no matter where in the world you come from. I’m trying to focus on the fact that this isn’t forever. I’m also using it as a lesson for my children and I think it’s working: They haven’t been complaining nearly so much about my putting sunscreen on them lately.

Looking at the world news headlines this morning, maybe my decision about whether or not to go back to Egypt in the fall isn’t as difficult as I thought. Protests were planned again in Egypt today against the military regime for “not being more transparent in their decision making processes” and because they had not prosecuted Mubarak for all of his various transgressions. I’m surprised it took this long frankly – the military regime is the same old beast with a different face (or no face depending on how you look at it). Between Egypt, Syria, Libya, Bahrain, and Yemen it may be better to just give up any thoughts of going back to that region, even for a short time.

Thinking about all of that was fairly depressing so after I dropped my kids at school, my friend and I went to a local diner for a greasy breakfast and then on to an antique mall. I love going to both thrift stores and antique malls – you just never know what you are going to find.

Earlier in the week I found a soft-as-butter black leather jacket with enough metal zipper details to make my inner biker chick very happy. Best part? It was only $5.99 and it fits me perfectly.

Today I was all about kitchenware – particularly mixing bowls and utensils. Since I don’t currently have a kitchen to furnish I resisted all the beautiful retro mixing bowls I saw. I did however find one treasure.

My mother had one of these measuring cups when I was a child. It’s great – filled to the top it is one cup, and the lid has a one tablespoon measure.

I can quite clearly remember my mother using it when she made gravy. She’d put flour and water in it and shake it up before pouring it into the meat drippings. I don’t tend to make gravy myself, but it cost little enough that I couldn’t resist buying it.

After we left the antique mall, we stopped by Jungle Jim’s. How can I describe it? It’s like Trader Joe’s but much, much, much bigger. It’s a spectacular place to just wander. We wandered through the liquor section, looking for sales. I couldn’t resist getting this bottle of wine, based purely on the label alone.

There would definitely be upsides to staying in the US…

I never dreamed I’d be gone from Egypt so long when we left on February 1st. I wasn’t really thinking much at all beyond get me out of here, but somehow I thought that we’d have a clearer answer on how things were going / how to proceed one way or another by the end of February.

Here it is already April and I am still not sure what to think.

In order not to drive myself insane with the what-ifs, I’ve been trying hard to be a bit more Zen, to take things one day at a time, not to get too far ahead of myself. If I can only get through this week… if I can only get through this month… if I can only get through the school year… maybe then I’ll know more about what happens next regarding whether I stay in the US with the children after the summer or whether we go back to Egypt so we can be together as a family while my husband looks for another job.

I had finally gotten to the point where I was resigned to drifting along for a while, trying to enjoy what Ohio has to offer in terms of entertainment and activities for the children, when reality butted in again: the school in Egypt wants to know whether or not we’ll be returning in the autumn so that they know whether or not to hold places for the children.

I understand why they need to know, but I’m not sure that my answer of how am I supposed to know will satisfy them. There are several variables that influence that decision and they themselves are subject to change at any time. Is it any wonder my shoulders are tense and I’ve got a sore tongue from industriously grinding my teeth at night?

There are many things to recommend staying in Ohio… but there are also reasons to go back to Egypt, at least for the short term. I’ll feel better once I make a decision – but then I’ll likely torture myself wondering whether or not it’s the right one…

The last couple of months have been difficult to say the least – it’s very hard to live your life when you don’t know what is going to happen next. Will my family move back to the US permanently or will we try to go back to life in Egypt in the autumn? If we stay, should I start looking for someplace of my own to live? Where? Which of course leads to the question of whether or not I should look for a job.

My husband is looking for jobs of course, but he’s been working in a fairly specialized field for a long time and the jobs at his level are few and far between. I have the opposite problem: I have a master’s degree in my field but next to no practical working experience since I’ve been a full time wife and mother for the last decade. Entry level would likely be all I could qualify for, which is fine, only even then I probably don’t look so good on paper next to a shiny new college graduate. Knowing how the game is played going in makes reading job ads a fairly depressing exercise in what is very much an employers’ market. I know that I could learn to do all that an employer might require, but getting the chance to prove myself is the trick.

Here’s the cover letter I’d like to write:

To Whom It May Concern:

I am writing in response to your ad for ____________________. As you can see on my resume (attached) I have a bachelor’s degree (with honors) and a Master’s in Library Science. Shortly after graduation, I worked for two years in corporate libraries doing online research and organizing their specialized collections before I moved abroad.

I did not work in a library setting in my decade abroad, but nonetheless I honed many valuable skills. As a full time mother and wife, I became a champion multi-tasker. I can do laundry, dishes, cook dinner, and help with homework simultaneously while also chatting online with friends across the world. Time management is another area of strength: I can not only keep my own schedule but those of two active children in my head. I can take care of a family of four including housework, homework, eleven hours of tennis lessons per week, two nights of soccer practice plus two Saturday soccer games (fall only), and still find time for two evenings of yoga classes.

Food management is also a talent: I can make a tasty and nutritious dinner in half an hour from assorted and seemingly unrelated ingredients lurking in my refrigerator and pantry. Need last minute snacks for a class / soccer team? No problem, I’ve got you covered whether you require healthy / fun / convenient / vegan / allergy friendly food.

I also possess incredible attention to detail. Nothing escapes my notice: stains, leftovers, homework / chores left undone, dust bunnies. Need something found? Just ask me. I know where everything in my house is at any given moment. Need confirmation? Just ask my husband or children.

Some might call all of the above talents micromanaging. I just call it efficiency.

As a mother I have honed and expanded my interests in science and health matters: I can now diagnose and treat a variety of illnesses and identify those which require more specialized attention. I have also gained considerable skill in psychological counseling and support. Note: I am not licensed to practice either of these skills outside the bounds of my own family or the sideline of a tennis court / soccer field.

In my time abroad I have traveled extensively which has taught me to appreciate other cultures. Traveling has also allowed me to learn how to navigate airports, bargain in souks, and communicate by way of charades and smiles. I have been to over ten countries and have paid for the tickets and related expenses by making and selling quilts. In addition to quilting, I am also moderately talented in costume design. If ever you require a handmade Tudor-style velvet hat, I have a pattern.

In addition to my many domestic talents, I have also written and published four novels both digitally and in print as well maintaining a website, an active blog, and an alter ego for the last four years. In short, yes, I can type and have good computer and communication skills.

On second thought, nevermind. I withdraw my application for your position. I see now that I am over-qualified. Thank you for your consideration and best of luck in finding the right applicant to suit your needs.

Excuse me while I go out to buy a lottery ticket…

I’m catching up on a lot of things I’ve missed out on while living in Egypt, including this very, very funny TV show called An Idiot Abroad which airs on The Science Channel. The friend I’m staying with happened to have several episodes stored on her DVR and we watched the one where he goes to Egypt a few nights ago. It made me laugh and, at the same time, a bit homesick. The “best bits” from that episode are below.

How happy was I when I found tons of clips from other episodes available on You Tube when I searched for this one to share with you? I’ll be staying up late trying to laugh quietly watching these for days…

It came with the “new” manual transmission car I bought over the weekend.

I haven’t owned a car in five years, and it’s been great – no payments, no maintenance expenses, no parking issues. Sure, we couldn’t get out of Cairo as easily or as often as we might have liked, but with the children’s tennis / soccer / birthday party social schedule who had the time anyway? Living in the US again changes the equation though. The things I want to get to are more spread out here. Also, living in someone else’s house is about as dependent as I want to be at this point. My friend generously offered to let me borrow her car as needed, but I wanted just a bit more independence in at least this area so I went car shopping.

I’m very out of touch with makes and models of cars, but my criteria were pretty broad: I wanted something that had enough cargo space for my suitcases, would get decent gas mileage, and was automatic. It didn’t seem as if I was asking too much.

My friend’s husband did a little research on the internet Friday evening and found three cars that fit the criteria at a nearby automall – a collection of several dealers. We set out late morning on Saturday and began our search.

We started at the dealership that listed the three cars he’d found on the internet. One car had already been rejected and sent off the lot, one was in the garage for repairs, and though the third one was heading to the garage shortly they let me look at it. It was a ten year old Corolla with one obviously replaced fender. You might think I spotted the repair because it looked shinier, in fact it was faded and peeling – and that was the least of the car’s problems. We left that lot and went on to the next.

We looked at four different cars at the Toyota dealership’s “budget” lot. They should have called it the “disaster” lot. It was ridiculous how poorly presented the cars were. I know I’m out of touch with what you can get for what I wanted to spend, but come on – can they not vacuum the cars first? Not only were they dented and rusty, but one of them had a half full can of pop in the drink holder and it looked as if someone had puked in the backseat. I actually test drove one that looked promising only to have the engine shudder and roar down the road.

I was getting seriously discouraged by that point and began wondering if I needed to raise my price point a bit. We decided to stop by the Kia dealer to check and see if the promotional flier that had come in the mail had won them a free car. Wouldn’t that have been convenient!!

Sadly, there was no free car. They were however running a big promotion on repossessed cars and there were several in my price range. We were there so we looked at them. The cars were in marginally better shape than the ones I’d seen in the other lots, but only one really caught my eye. The drawback? It was a manual transmission.

I have never really learned to drive a stick shift. The friend I am currently staying with has pretty much always had stick shifts and always got a kick out of me saying “I know how to drive a stick shift in theory.” I drove her car a few times when she was, um…under the weather, but that was more than 20 years ago. I really, really didn’t want to have to learn to drive a stick shift right now, not on top of all the other stuff I’m dealing with.

The car was so cute and clean that I decided we needed to take it for a spin. It would have been stupid to let the transmission be the deal breaker. As soon as my friend’s husband started the car and I heard the engine running so smooth, I knew it was the car for me. He even remarked on it when we finished our test drive – and said he wished he’d found it a few months ago before he bought the car he has now.

It’s a 2000 Volkswagon Golf, 4 doors, pale silver with tinted windows, a hatchback, a sunroof, heated seats – and a tape deck. My friend actually came up with two mixed tapes that I made for her 20 years ago. Need I say I never expected to see or hear those cassettes again??

I do not think this car was repossessed. From the records we got online, the car seems as if it had one owner and was very well maintained. I can only hope that I won’t end up crashing it in the process of learning to drive it properly. I spent Sunday morning driving in circles in a parking lot before I branched out to some quieter streets that ran through a neighborhood and an adjacent graveyard. Later in the day, I drove it a few blocks across town and only killed the engine twice, both times while stopped, once in a parking space. I am calling that progress.

I think it will be a while before I will be able to listen to music while I’m driving though… I need far too much concentration just to keep it moving down the road!

I first heard this song in relation to the World Cup (duh!) and downloaded it for my daughter because it’s a fun song and she loves loves loves soccer. We were listening to music on our drive to Ohio on Wednesday and it came on and it was like I was hearing the words for the first time:

You’re on the frontline
Everyone’s watching
You know it’s serious
We’re getting closer
This isnt over

Tsamina mina
Zangalewa
Cuz this is Africa

With all the stress I’ve been under lately, being separated from my husband, and missing being in my own space and routine and Egypt, I admit this happy tune made me weep.

If it were only me, I’d be back in Egypt already, but as it is, I have to do what is the best for my children. I will be going on a tour of a local elementary school on Monday to start the process of getting the children back into a real school routine and will also be shopping for a car shortly. I guess I really am going to be here for a while…

It’s been nearly an entire month since I evacuated Cairo with my family. When I left, I had no idea how long we might be away. I had to prepare myself for the idea we might lose everything, but deep down I sincerely hoped that we were overreacting by leaving when we did and that we would be able to return in a few weeks and pick up (mostly) where we left off.

I’m not stupid – I know enough about history and political science to have known that even if the protesters got what they wanted that there would be more bumps to come in the transition process from the old regime to whatever came next. The protesters against the old regime had one goal; once they achieved that goal there would likely be multiple, possibly conflicting, goals for the future.

Still, it has been very hard to make any decisions on what to do next. While the news from the region is not encouraging, what with Libya and Bahrain and Iran all staging their own protests, the news from neighbors and friends who either stayed behind or have already gone back has been the opposite. With every cheery Facebook post about resuming school, extracurricular activities, or social events, I wonder why it is I ever left.

In spite of the reality in front of me, I want so much for their message to be the true one.

I went to visit a good friend over the weekend, who works with the US State Department and left her post in Cairo last June for a new post. She in turn has a friend who lives in a building only a few doors down from me in Cairo. When the mosques made their announcements on Saturday 1/29 recommending that people be prepared to guard their homes against looters because the police were not on duty, a call from this women resulted in several armed Egyptian soldiers to be posted along our street. At the time I was under the impression she had called because she was nervous – in fact she called because she saw looters coming down the street. When she called for help, she was told that there was no one to send to her so she barricaded herself in a bedroom and hoped for the best. The looters came into her building but were chased off by the soldiers before they got in her place – only three buildings down from where I was sleeping with my own children.

In hindsight, I’m fairly glad I didn’t know about this incident in detail at the time because I was nervous enough as it was but this story did do one thing for me: it helped me to embrace my decision to stay in the US with the children for the time being.

I am driving to Ohio today to stay with an old friend and put my kids in school. Do I wish I could resume my life in Cairo? Sure. The problem is that life as I knew it doesn’t currently exist – the children’s school is only at 1/3 capacity for students, the club where they take tennis lessons is closed, and the streets are not entirely safe. My husband’s shuttle from work was diverted on his first day back in town because a policeman shot a bus driver during an argument only a few blocks from our house, not at all a typical occurrence. How could I go back and put my children on a bus to school and trust that they would be safe?

For now I will do what I can to give my children a safe and normal place to go to school for a few months and do what I can to find some sports activities for them. I am no substitute for a real teacher and as much as I rant, I am certainly no coach. They need some routine and normalcy in their lives. So do I. I’m a planner at heart but I’m doing my best not to get too far ahead of myself and take things one step at a time. Wish me luck…