Jenyfer Matthews

I’ve spent the last couple of days scurrying around trying to finish up my Christmas shopping before the children are out of school for the holidays, and thank goodness I think I’m done! My husband and I decided not to exchange big gifts this year since we’ve been pretty efficient about being generous with ourselves this year. (I never did tell him what I spent to have that ring repaired this summer – ssshhh!)

Christmas shopping in Cairo is hard enough – sure, there’s lots of stuff but finding items of decent quality is difficult. Once you find them, overcoming the notion that they cost 3x what they would cost anywhere else is the next hurdle. It hurts my thrifty heart to pay more when I know about how much something would cost in the US. Since it’s just the cost of living here and it’s not as if I can NOT buy presents, I close my eyes and hand over the money.

Harder still is finding appropriate gift wrap. I have some gift bags which I do like to use for soft items like clothes or for awkwardly shaped items, but I still like to mix things up a bit and wrap boxes in gift wrap.

I haven’t yet exhausted all the possibilities of places to look for it, but I have exhausted myself in the process. Why on earth is it so hard? Does no one else wrap presents in paper anymore? The only rolls I found were a pretty red with gold writing on them. When I looked closer it was all in Chinese. Um…not quite what I had in mind!

I still have some paper leftover from next year but the difficulty I am having in finding anything new has led to some extremely careful cutting practices. No scrap it too small to save for something! I probably have enough but I want a fresh, unique roll to wrap the “Santa” presents in (one per kid) I do still have some time to look, but it may come to just leaving the Santa gifts unwrapped with a pretty tag on them!

Guess what I’ll be asking my family to purchase and set aside for me, and attempting to bring back in my suitcase next summer? Gift wrap – and colored sugars for cookie decorating. All I have is colored sprinkles and chocolate sprinkles (brought back from the US on a previous trip) I will have to make my own colored sugars with white sugar and food coloring I guess. One thing about living abroad: you get good at improvising…

We’ve had a lot of clouds but little real rain – and still we got a rainbow. This beauty appeared outside my window on Friday afternoon and vanished a few moments later. Glad I looked out when I did!

Happened to have my camera handy when this lady happened by. You should have seen me trying to get up close enough behind her to get a good shot without alerting her!

You can’t see it in the picture but the English writing under the Arabic on the bag she’s carrying says “Step into Fashion”.

Pictures like these are why I should always carry my camera with me!

I went to a local bakery run by two Egyptian brothers who had lived in the US for while – during which time they learned how to make bread and pastries that are extremely palatable to a Western palate and I’m sure provide a lucrative income for them now.

So I’m in there trying to decide which variety of bread would go best with a very tasty cheese that I’d bought for dinner. I didn’t want a bread that would have too strong a flavor of its own because I wanted it to complement, not compete, with the flavor of the cheese. I explained this to one of the brothers when he tried to help me.

He wanted to tell me what I wanted to hear and replied that any bread would do. I tried again to explain that I didn’t want anything that had too much flavor on its own. He said that his bread had no flavor. Of course this struck me as very funny – what a way to sell your product! I laughed a little and that confused him further. He didn’t see what was so funny. It has no flavor, he insisted, it’s just bread.

Rather than try to explain, I chose the multigrain. It had plenty of flavor actually – and it was fantastic with the cheese.

It really heated up in Cairo over the weekend. Great for drying clothes outside but not for much else. And because it’s so hot, people are running their air conditioners more which does two things: pumps yet more and hotter air back outside and puts more strain on the already inadequate electrical infrastructure of the city. It won’t be long before the rotational black-outs start. We’re lucky because our power is rarely off for more than half an hour, and usually in the middle of the night. But once in a while an unplanned black out occurs. Yesterday I had to grocery shop by the light of the flashlight in my cell phone because the transformer in the building next to the grocery store had blown. Smoke was billowing out from between the cracks in the pavement as I walked home. Is it any wonder that the quality of frozen foods isn’t the best here?

I have lots to accomplish in the few weeks that remain before I leave Egypt for the summer (provided I don’t contract H1N1 flu and get quarantined or grounded before I leave, touch wood) but all this heat is making me lethargic. I need to get busy quilting the moose head wall hanging but have found that my thread colors aren’t quite right. It may be some sort of elaborate procrastination method generated by my genuine fear of messing this thing up, but I can’t start until I get the right colors of thread and yesterday when I went to the shop it was closed. Will try again tomorrow.

And today I got another commission, this time for a bed scarf (they are all the rage, darling!) The project itself isn’t such a big deal, the problem is that the family is leaving Egypt at the end of September so I have to get a start on it now if I have any hope of completing it before they leave, given that I will be away shortly for six weeks myself. If the school shuts down because of H1N1 flu, I’ll be totally screwed.

(No, H1N1 is not actually such a big deal here but the Egyptian government is taking no chances at all – hence the senseless slaughtering of masses of pigs.)

Basically, I’m just trying to prioritize and get through it all – and stay cool in the process…

For a long time when I would go to the deli counter at my local grocery store to get sliced cheese, they would just pull packages they had prepared in advance out from under the counter. That was fine by me – I got what I wanted without having to wait around.

Lately though, they haven’t been as prepared. And I’ve discovered something that I could have lived without knowing : They only wear one glove when they are slicing the cheese.

Why only one? If they were worried about hygiene wouldn’t they put on both gloves? They are at least wearing the glove on their left hand (the potty hand in Islam practices) but still – I don’t really care to have them pick the rind off the gouda with the bare fingernail of their other hand.

Once, when the regular deli guy was out, a stock clerk stepped behind the counter to help me and donned the one glove. Just as he was about to commence slicing, someone asked him a question so he stopped what he was doing and started digging through packages of pasta on the shelves in search of something. When he was finished, he stepped behind the counter to start on my order – without changing the glove he’d just touched all those packages with. I couldn’t help myself and decided to request he change his glove. It took a minute for it to compute with him but he did finally change the glove he was wearing – though he looked exasperated while he did it. I tried not to think too hard where the other hand had been. (No, he hadn’t washed his hands either time he stepped behind the counter)

I overheard a woman at my regular vegetable stand telling a friend that she soaks her salad fixings in bleach for ten minutes and then ten minutes more in water, just to be sure that she’s killed all the bacteria and parasites that might be lurking. Bleach? I think she’s going to kill herself one day as well. I clean my salad in vinegar and water and it seems to do the trick. I’m into my third year of living in Cairo and I’ve yet to catch anything terribly serious – and that is with eating the unwashed fruit and questionably handled food that my friendly green grocery is always offering me. Even the buffalo latte didn’t make me sick. Besides, if you think about it, a little intestinal distress could be considered on par with a high colonic. Some people pay big money to get cleaned out that way.

Still, I can’t help but wonder what the bleach woman would think if she saw the one gloved cheese man…

I really dislike Christmas shopping. The time it takes, the pressure, the crowds, the expense, coming up with the ideas. And it’s even trickier in Egypt because even if I come up with some decent ideas, more often than not it’s for items I cannot obtain (easily) here. For all the reasons stated above, I’m happy to say that most of my shopping is already done.

(Don’t hate me – I have a fairly small family!)

Because we are spending Christmas in the US, the availability of items wasn’t such an issue this year. But since I’ll be staying in the north woods of Minnesota and wanted more at my disposal than the local gift shops and the Ben Franklin, I did most of my shopping online (no crowds! free shipping! yeah!) All of my items will be delivered and waiting for me to wrap them when I arrive. The only obstacle left was coming up with the ideas.

My children are full of suggestions of course. My daughter alone gave me a list a mile long that included a new laptop (we may end up getting one, but not for her!!) My problem is picking out the things that I think are actually worth buying. And in my opinion, that doesn’t leave much.

I don’t tend to go overboard at Christmas with the children. Seems to me that the more gifts appear, the worse their attitude gets! Santa fills their stockings and leaves one “wow” present, mommy and daddy give perhaps six more, and the rest are from relatives. All in all they end up with 12-15 presents each which is plenty. Since I’m fairly strict about limiting presents to birthdays and Christmas with few if any gratuitous purchases in between, what might seem like a paltry Christmas to some is an extravaganza to my two.

Much of my daughter’s list included requests for toys and this is where my main conflict (and Grinchiness) appears. I really dislike toy shopping. So few toys are interesting or well made. Most look as if they would hold their interest for all of ten minutes, tops. And having just been through two birthday parties in the last six months at which they received massive numbers of toys from friends, I can pretty much state that it’s true. The toys have not been the items that have had the most staying power. Which is why I find it hard to bring myself to buy them.

Still, it is Christmas and they will expect some “fun” presents. So I tried to buy toys, I really did. I looked at games, at Ben 10 merchandise, at the “hot must-have toy” list at Amazon. My reaction to most of what I saw was “meh” at best. I might have bought a few things anyway, if they hadn’t also cost so much. I’m not going to pay $20 for something I *know* won’t hold their interest long term. So I ended up navigating away from the toy section to the sports section and found what I think will be the hit present of the season – something they will use time and time again but would never have thought to request : pop-up mesh travel soccer goals. Both children are soccer crazy and are always outside using trees or lawn chairs as goal posts. How cool are they going to think these goal nets are? I even found groovy new balls for each of them. That’s Santa sorted. He’s a great guy.

Mommy bought them good stuff too. I got my daughter a new Razor scooter, a board game about the US states (perfect for the ignorant expat kid!), a pile of new Junie B. Jones books plus many others, and a couple of new Gameboy games. Little Man is getting the board game Operation!, a pile of new books, the first two seasons of the original Scooby Doo on DVD, and two new Gameboy games. I am happy with the selection and I think they will be too. (And everything there will be easy to pack and bring home again – bonus points!!!)

I’m sure I can confidently leave the toy buying in the hands of the grandparents. I already know there is at least one remote control car in the mix…

I live in an average sort of apartment building in what was once considered the one of the most upscale neighborhoods in Cairo. Once upon a time, the housing primarily consisted of single family “villas” and everyone had yards.

Those days are all but gone. Today, land is at a premium and landowners would rather knock down the old homes to put up ugly apartment buildings (like the one pictured below) where they can charge rent to as many families as they can fit into the space. Few have any yard space to speak of. Some buildings are nicer than others of course, but there are a whole lot that look like this on the outside.

(click any image to enlarge)

There are still a few of the lovely old villas left here and there, like this one

or this one, which was recently restored

or this one, which isn’t looking as carefully maintained but is still pretty

There are even more magnificent examples downtown where the French influence is quite obvious. But many of the villas are just falling down. From what I understand, it costs a fortune to maintain them (and to rent them) and many landowners would prefer to tear down the existing building and build something cheaper, collecting rent from many families rather than try to rent a single space for more.

It seems a shame to tear down these lovely old buildings, some of which must be close to 200 years old, to put up an ugly concrete apartment building. But I suppose that in a place where their own history is so rich, a couple hundred years just doesn’t really signify when other historical sites are thousands of years old.

I was out walking the other day when I saw a new apartment building being constructed, overshadowing the villa standing next to it. The buildings here are often built very close together, but this seemed ridiculous.

Not sure I’d like being overlooked that way myself.

But wait – it sure would be handy if you needed to borrow some sugar or your TV was on the fritz. Just lean step out onto your balcony and lean across!

I can’t help but wonder what they were thinking when they started this project. Does the same guy own all the land and this is his idea of a compromise? Or are there two different land owners? Is the owner of the apartment building simply trying to force the villa owner to back down by making living in / renting out the villa totally impossible? It doesn’t look as if anyone is living in either place at present, but I’m going to keep my eye on this one.

Just fascinating!

I’m wearing red, white & blue and I have the Rice Krispie Treats ready to go. Today is international day at the school – the day my daughter has been agonizing over for two weeks now – and all because she couldn’t decide what to wear.

It’s a shame that American doesn’t really have a national dress – no lederhosen, no sari, no galabiya. Some of the other children look so exotic when they come to school in their embroidered tunics and pillbox hats. But unless I’m going to dress her up like a Pilgrim or maybe Davy Crockett, it’s pretty much just jeans and a t-shirt for good old USA.

(She wanted to dress hip-hop but I put the kibosh on that!)

She made her final decision last night – her baseball jersey and her plaid flannel pants. I bit my tongue – mostly because I knew it wasn’t really her final decision. Today she walked out of the door wearing long gray soccer shorts and a gray Nevada t-shirt decorated with wild ponies. I thought I was home free until I noticed that Sunday is the end of year party at school and is once again a non-uniform day. No theme this time, but I see lots of angst in my weekend as she tries to decide what to wear.

It’s going to be a busy weekend for me. Baseball is finished for the season but there are still tennis lessons for the month of June and there are two birthday parties this weekend. Plus I have to design a Greek tunic and leafy crown for Greek Day next week (heaven help me!) I may not be around much, but don’t despair. Marianne Stephens will be here over the weekend with her Cerridwen Press book Gone to the Dogs.

What are your weekend plans?