The Meeting of the Minds… or Paws

So we got the okay from the vet for Albert’s feline leukemia and feline aids test results (both negative), so we were finally set to arrange the big feline introductions.

I admit that I was a little nervous, considering Chuckles’ size and strength (I’ve never met a cat with a stronger grip, paw-wise and jaw-wise), however Chuckles doesn’t have a mean bone anywhere (some would argue he doesn’t have a bone, but there must be a frame of some kind under all that… muscle). As soon as we brought Albert out to the living room, Ricky dashed around the edge of the room hissing and secluded himself in our bedroom. Poor thing.

Chuckles, however, took on a more cautious, but curious, attitude and did a lot of watching at first as Albert zipped about squeaking a lot. Then Ron, a.k.a. The Instigator, got involved and suddenly there was forced interaction, with the help of a kitty toy.


For the most part, things are good, with some actual pounces performed by minute Albert on Chuckles, and chasing being instigated by both Chuckles and Albert (without the aid of Ron). Chuckles is being a great sport and while there have been a few heavy-handed smackdowns on Albert, they were nothing he couldn’t handle. We keep telling Chuckles to fully enjoy his new squeaky toy while he’s here.

So, for the next few months while Albert lives with us, we’ll be able to enjoy some kitten antics (lots of flops, spills and tumbles), and we can test our patience (mine is amazingly short-fused, but Albert does tend to enjoy being a parrot on my shoulder which gets old). He likes to launch himself at either of us when we’re standing, splatting against our leg like a Velcro-kitten from which he then proceeds to climb up us (we’re getting him used to getting his claws clipped). He screams incessantly if anyone is in the kitchen, goes near the kitchen or says the word kitchen (we need to break his “I’m-a-starving-street-kitten” mentality). He loves toys, which include Chuckles’ tail, was quite intrigued by his first Christmas tree, and is particularly fascinated with electrical wires (yummy and fun for chewing) and hot lightbulbs (which he tries to examine by climbing up inside the lamp). I’m thinking a lack of nutrition early may affect brain development.

All in all, he’s been a fun addition. And luckily Ricky is now willing to put up with him in the same room, though he tends to perch above him and glare; willing him to disappear with just the power of prayer.

There’s an Eid a’coming… so we’s a’going…

Eid al-Adha/el-Kibir is fast approaching. It typically begins 70 days after the end of Ramadan and in Islam commemorates Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his son for Allah. But Allah rewards Abraham by substituting a lamb in place of his son for the sacrifice. This leads to the current feast of the Eid (Feast of the Sacrifice), which is celebrated by sacrificing lambs… all over the place. So Cairo is full of lambs and goats right now, but not for long.

We knew months ago that we wanted to get out of town for this “holiday.” A friend who was here last year at this time said that Zamalek in particular had blood running through the streets for days. I’ll take his word for it. Initially we thought of just going up to Alexandria on the Mediterranean for a few days, but then we talked about going on a proper vacation to celebrate our belated anniversary. (Ron’s online course is done as of tomorrow – YEAH!) So we started discussing locales. Considering the time of year, December, a lot of Europe was not necessarily what we were looking for. I suggested Jordan or Tunisia, but Ron begged to go somewhere “not sandy.” And considering he hasn’t left Egypt since April, I can understand. So suddenly I had a thought – Madagascar. It’s been on the top of my must-see list for over a decade – they have over 70 living species of lemurs – pure Heaven! So I spent the next four weeks, reading guide books, researching online, talking with travel agents and essentially going full steam ahead.

It took a lot of planning. Madagascar is a large island off the east coast of Africa, and there are only so many flights going into and out of the country per week. Plus, once you get there, you can rent a car, but you’re not allowed to drive it, so you have to hire a driver as well – some speak English, some don’t (French and Malagasy are the two primary languages). And then there’s the added fun of there being a limited number of roads that are actually passable. I did find a great travel agency in London whose employees specialize in African countries, so the gentleman I dealt with had actually been to Madagascar. (I was quite delighted with this, and realized that I rarely deal with a travel agent who’s actually been to the place I’m going – what a novelty!) So, with Sam’s help, we set up a 10-day tour focusing on lemurs, lemurs, and more lemurs, with some giant chameleons thrown in, and lots of beautiful birds. Madagascar really is amazing. Not only does it have species of all kinds that cannot be found anywhere else on earth, but it also has diversity reaching from rainforests to desert to mountains to beaches. I think you could spend months there and only see a sliver.

So the remaining issue was how to get there. The primary option was Cairo, through Khartoum, Sudan, to Nairobi, then on to Madagascar. Considering current conditions, Ron and I were none too thrilled to spend any time, even if it was only on the tarmac, in Sudan. So that led to a bit of flight juggling, but I was able to find a flight that went from Cairo to Nairobi, then another airline for Nairobi to Madagascar. This did leave us with a 12+ hour layover in Nairobi coming back, which wasn’t great, but we were willing to do it. On a Friday morning, I sent in our payment details to Sam for the tour and was planning on finalizing the flights the next day. That afternoon I got an email from Sam saying that he noticed our flight into Madagascar had been cancelled. What? Are you kidding? He wasn’t. Maybe due to the Hajj that would precede the Eid, Kenya Air decided to pull a flight? Who knows, but now our whole trip had to be moved two days forward or two days back. Plus, the flights, providing we still wanted to avoid Sudan (yes, please), now had us going from Cairo to Dubai, Dubai to Nairobi, Nairobi to Madagascar. At this point there were actual tears of frustration forming. My dream trip was crumbling before my eyes. I felt that fate was sending up flares left and right telling us this wasn’t the time to go. So I cancelled everything, and became quite cranky for a few days.

But, still wanting to celebrate our anniversary, and desperately wanting to get out of Cairo, we persevered and opted for Rome, Italy. I know, such suffering. It just took a bit of a mind flip to go from rustic and lemurs to ancient beauty. But I’m a toughie, I can do it. So in about four days we had our airline tickets booked and hotel booked, and I’ve bought two guide books (I can’t do anything new without buying a book to accompany me). So for December 8 through 18, we will be traipsing about Rome, enjoying the blood-free streets (hopefully), reveling in architecture and art, and wallowing in pasta. And despite being to Italy before, I’ve never been to Rome, and neither has Ron. We may take a jaunt to Naples or Florence as well, but we’ll see. I’m not feeling as compelled to over-plan this trip. We’ll relax and enjoy it. And the lemurs remain in first place, so hopefully we’ll be hanging with them in the near future.

Carrots & Fossils (but no fossilized carrots)

Our weekend trip to the commissary had a lovely detour this weekend. Before we hit the highlights of Silk soy milk and stuffing preparations, we took two friends to go explore the Wadi Digla Protectorate (like a national park). It’s this amazing 30 kilometer landscape of rock formations, valleys, hills, caves and desert, and is full of petrified wood and fossils dating back 60 million years (apparently it was once a riverbed reaching from the Nile to the Gulf of Suez). It was designated an official protectorate in 2001, and for the most part is in fairly good litter-free conditions.

We only spent a few hours poking about, and didn’t get to explore any caves (we hear there are bats – yeah!!), but it was great fun just wandering, driving about, stopping and finding all kinds of fossils! At one point as the three of us women were wandering and taking photos, I heard this banging and looked around to see Ron smashing rocks. ?!?!? Are we four? But after a few futile attempts to get him to stop banging rocks, I just let him bash away. We definitely need to bring our nephews here (Colin – 5, and Max – 2 ½) so all three “boys” can bash rocks.

We did take this opportunity to finally try out our 4-wheel drive on the Jeep. Sadly, we first had to sit in the car and read the manual. (Hey, I’m a Cabrio girl, what the heck do I know about 4-wheeling? How to drive and tie your hair back, that I can help with.) So I believe we successfully put the Jeep through the 4-wheeling test, without reenacting any Jeep-flying-over-sand-dune-advertisement antics.

After our explorations, and once we’d all reached definite parched-state, we did our shopping and then headed home. Saw a few fun sights, but not as many as usual.

However, Ron, feeling a whim, decided that we should stop and buy some carrots from one of the street vendors on the way home. We’d heard that the red carrots that are in season are really good. So we randomly chose one cart, pulled up and attempted to buy one kilo of carrots. As the seller and Ron bartered back and forth, he stood there and “peeled” a large carrot and handed it to me. I took it, but did not taste it as I had watched him “peel” it with a rusted mini-scythe that I had a strong feeling had also been used to clean under toenails at some point. When he saw I wasn’t tasting it, he peeled a smaller one, took the big one back, slit it down the middle, and handed it back to me, so now I had two and felt like I was holding carrot popsicles. But I still didn’t taste them. The bartering continued, as he desperately wanted us to buy about 10 kilos, or fill up our backseat with carrots. Ron kept reiterating “ONE KILO”, and at one point the man turned and muttered something and Ron said, “I think he just cussed at me.” Fair enough, we finally managed to get a smaller bushel, but probably about 2-3 kilos. As we drove on, Ron delighting in the ability to buy carrots from our car (that and smashing rocks, big day), we realized that we were now passing carts that had smaller purple carrot-looking things, which suddenly dawned on us were the actual red carrots. We had just argued over regular carrots. So, feeling confident from our first purchase, we pulled over again and our friend, Lindsey, got out to get us some red carrots. This exchange also took an inordinate amount of time. At one point she thought he said, “Do you want them in a bag?” and she said yes. But he really said, “Do you want them in the trunk?” which certainly implied a larger quantity. It finally worked out and the carrots, despite looking like purple gnarly hobbit toes, actually tasted really good – lighter and sweeter than regular carrots. Either way, we now have bushels of both in our kitchen. I think carrot muffins, carrot soup and carrot stuffing are on the menu for Thanksgiving this year.

Mini-Job

Well, I’ve managed to get a mini-job… sort of. Now, don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t looking for one. I’ve overly content being the unemployed Dip Wife, but one was presented to me. My Arabic teacher, Suheir, asked me if I’d like to work with her cousin who was interested in honing her English skills. This had come up earlier as the head of the language lab at the embassy, Ahmad, asked me one day if I’d be interested in working with a local Saudi Arabian family on their English (they were friends of someone in HR). They were interested in meeting with someone for a few hours on the weekend, but with my schedule being so erratic, and me wanting to see Ron whenever possible on weekends, I didn’t feel I could be consistent (not to mention having no idea what I’d be doing). So I regretfully declined.

But then Suheir asked me the same thing, and said her cousin would be fine with an erratic schedule and would prefer to meet during the week. Since I adore Suheir, I agreed to meet with her cousin Hala. We arranged a meeting for today and she texted me her address.

Thirty minutes before our meeting, I hopped in a cab and told him approximately where to go. I had found the street on the map, but of course didn’t know exactly where the building was. The address was 238 Sudan Street, and before I left the house I purposefully looked up how to say 238, as my number-knowledge is weak. But when we got to Sudan, I just opted to get out of the taxi and wander. Of course, this is rarely a good idea as numbered buildings are few and far between. I ended up calling her and she directed me to go right… but she meant left. So she called a little while later when I didn’t show up and told me to turn around and she’d send someone to meet me in front of the pharmacy. She asked what I was wearing and I told her a blue shirt and I had blonde hair – there was no way she’d miss me in this neighborhood (if I knew how to say “neon sore thumb” in Arabic I would have). So a woman came and got me and I followed her the opposite way down the street. Honestly, I wouldn’t have found it had I headed in that direction anyway. I do wonder if we westerners are just childlike and need to be spoon-fed directions, or do Egyptians also wander around aimlessly trying to find an address?

So I met with Hala and her business partner, Gilan. They met in college, 20 years ago, and now run their own graphic design and printing house, with 15 employees and they own several apartments in the same building. Hala speaks excellent English, but she wants to get more comfortable with it, and Gilan’s English is like my Arabic, so we puttered along with Hala’s help. They’ve offered to pay me for the time, and will help with my Arabic as well, so it’s a win-win situation. I enjoyed chatting with them, though I have found that some questions Egyptians ask tend to feel a little too personal to westerners (like, “Why don’t you go out and find a job?”) and they were very interested to learn that I was 38 and had only been married a year. They are both in their early 40s and I don’t believe either are married. But they seem to have this idea that American women marry much younger than I did – which I guess could be true. But I think it’s closer to just being a misconception of American women, much as we have misconceptions about Egyptian and Islamic women. They wanted to know what I thought about Egypt and what I thought about living in an Islamic country, and I tempered my answers as I definitely don’t want to offend anyone and admittedly am quite ignorant on Islam. But one interesting comment Hala made was that she didn’t like Bangkok at all when she visited it. She said it was just too dirty and filthy. Having to circumvent piles and piles of trash to get to her building, I guess it just goes to show that one man’s trash, truly is another man’s treasure. I’m slated to meet with them again next Monday, so we’ll see how this goes. (For all of my concerted attempts to avoid ever being a teacher, despite a professorial lineage, here I go.)

May I Introduce: Sir Albert Gezira

Well, it’s happened. I’ve picked up my first, and hopefully last, Cairo street kitten. But don’t worry!! We’re not keeping him. A friend from work, who came here with a kitty (ironically one she grabbed at the Khan a few years ago) had expressed interest in getting another one, so after determining that Albert was healthy (despite being 4-5 weeks, alone, hungry and extremely filthy) I sought out to see if she was interested. Even without meeting him, she apparently came in to work the next day and told Ron that Albert better enjoy feathers as she just bought him a new toy. She won’t be in permanent housing until February, so we’ll keep him until then. And we’ll get some proper veterinary tests run to verify his overall health before we attempt to introduce him to the Big Boys, as he’s currently living in our third bathroom, with periodic exploratory visits to our spare bedroom for playtime.

This all came about this past Tuesday as I walked home from Arabic class. Typically, anywhere you walk in Cairo you pass stray cats and kittens, but they’re usually semi-feral so they either scamper away as you approach or they watch you warily. But as I passed this scrawny little pathetic kitten, just hunched on a dirty piece of tarp on the sidewalk, he didn’t run away, or even move. He just lifted his head and looked at me and I had the strongest urge to just bend over and scoop him up. But I refrained and walked on. But I did keep peeking back over my shoulder to see him just sitting there.

As I walked on, I told myself that I can’t fix the problem here in Egypt. But then I remembered about the starfish* and knew I had to do something. So I came home, grabbed Ron, who was home finishing his research paper that day, a fabric shopping bag, a towel and a ½ can of cat food and we walked back to where I’d seen him.

As I rounded the corner I saw the dirty tarp and thought that I saw something in the spot I’d left him. And I was right. In 20-30 minutes, he hadn’t moved an inch. So I scooped him up, gave him the can of cat food which he ate ravenously as I carried him home in the shopping bag. (I wasn’t being mean, I just figured, correctly, that he’d be riddled with fleas and didn’t want to infest our airline carriers.)

I did attempt to take him directly to the vet next door, but I hadn’t made an appointment, so I made one for the next day and we prepared our third bathroom for him. I spent the next 24 hours feeding him and trying to get some of the Cairo street crud off of him, out of his ears and nose and eyes (he loved these washcloth baths, and would roll and purr constantly). We did some flea-removal and verified that there were no obvious injuries. The vet visit the next day was a little disappointing as I was hoping for a more thorough check, but all he did was take his temp and give him an adult-dose of flea meds despite his age of about 4-5 weeks and weight of less than 1.4 pounds.

But after five days, Albert is thriving and adorable!! He has been gaining confidence daily, branching out from the security of my lap to explore the bedroom; loves a shoelace and ping-pong ball we’ve given him; sleeps with one of Clifford’s stuffed toys (I figured Clifford could give up one of many so Albert could sleep with something soft); enjoys visitors; had his first nail-cutting and survived the “trauma” of it; and loves to nuzzle under your chin purring loudly and kneading constantly. He’s a very happy and grateful kitten.

I did have a brief flash at one point that Ron and I were being given remedial parenting classes. Ron had said he’d hang out with Albert in the bedroom, while I went and started getting dinner together (Mrs. Cleaver, watch out!). While cooking, I kept hearing things like, “Oh, no!” and “Albert, don’t!” and “Are you okay?” I finally asked how things were, and Ron said they were fine, Albert just tumbled off the bed after clambering up the quilt. If we fail remedial kitten parenting, does that mean we have to go back and start over with plants (maybe I shouldn’t mention that our basil plant died…)?

~~~~~
*(I was introduced to the following, written by Loren Eiseley, almost twenty years ago and it has stuck with me ever since.):

There was a man who was walking along a sandy beach where thousands of starfish had been washed up on the shore. He noticed a boy picking the starfish one by one and throwing them back into the ocean. The man observed the boy for a few minutes and then asked what he was doing. The boy replied that he was returning the starfish to the sea, otherwise they would die. The man asked how saving a few, when so many were doomed, would make any difference whatsoever? The boy picked up a starfish and threw it back into the ocean and said "It made a difference to that one..."