Author: Robin Chartier

Camille was fussing and screeching so we bought her a bottle of water at Starbucks so I could give her a few sips to keep her happy. I wasn’t really comfortable with the idea of nursing her out in the open since I don’t know what is customary here. I was assuming a country where the majority of women cover their heads and necks wouldn’t be too accepting of possible nursing exposure.

See the Toys R Us sign behind me? We had to go buy our princess a cup to drink out of since she was loving the water. But then that novelty wore off so I did end up having to nurse her. No one seemed to notice or care. And as long as we were sitting in the food court, we had to eat something, right?

Of all the things that could scare my kids here in Egypt, I never thought it would be the elevators. Carter thinks it’s cool to ride around in the middle of the demolition derby that we participate in every time we drive somewhere, but ask him to ride three floors in an elevator and he freaks out.

It all started the day after we moved here — our first time out of the house. We live on the 3rd floor and the boys wanted to ride the elevator to the ground floor and 1/2 way down it got stuck.

I was still in our apartment, grabbing my purse when I hear this yelling and banging and I go downstairs to find Josh yelling at the boys to calm down and he would get them out. The elevator was stuck between floors so Josh had to go get the key from the guard, open the doors and then lift them down.

Our elevator is one of those old ones where you manually open and close the door, so we figure one of them bumped something and caused it to freeze up. Great, we’ve been in Egypt for about 15 minutes and they’ve already broken something major . . .

The interesting thing was seeing how being trapped like that affected each of them. Calvin expressed his anxiety through silent, wild-eyed panic, Carter claimed he wasn’t scared at all, (but started kicking the door and the walls), and Caleb started crying.

So in an attempt to keep them from being scarred for life, I told them they would have to get back on the horse after the elevator was fixed. Caleb not only didn’t want to ride the elevator, but he didn’t want anyone else to ride it either. Every time Josh left the house, with tears in his eyes, he would ask, “Daddy, you’re not going to take the elevator, are you?” Poor kid.

Carter, the tough guy, was trying to show Caleb up and said, “I’m not afraid, I’m taking the elevator.” Caleb was begging him not to and Carter said, “ha ha. I’ll see you at the bottom.” Halfway down, it gets stuck. 

Caleb starts screaming, “get the man! Get the man!” (meaning the guard) and I can’t believe the odds of it happening AGAIN. Josh goes and gets the key, lets him out, and the boys’ phobia is now securely cemented.

We went to visit a friend who lives in a newish American-owned building on the 4th floor and they all balked and wanted to take the stairs. Josh and I made them take the elevator, cause gosh darn it, they aren’t going to end up like me if I can help it.

Caleb started crying, Calvin looked hopeless and resigned, like we were leading him to his death, and Carter reacted like a cat being taken to the vet. As we were guiding him (and eventually wrestling him in) he went spread-eagle, grabbing onto each side of the elevator door and kicking his legs. Once we had his body inside he stretched out his scrawny chicken legs to keep the doors from closing. Add in Caleb’s sobbing and Calvin’s silent tears and I’m sure we looked like Parents of the Year.

After we finally got all body parts inside and got the elevator moving they all held their breath and watched the numbers tick off until we hit 4. And they all let out an audible sigh of relief when the doors opened on the correct floor.

So we’ve been staging elevator interventions wherever we go. At the mall we made them ride it just because it was there. They seemed a little less afraid of riding in the glass elevator because, as Calvin said, “If it got stuck, people could see you calling for help.” *sigh*

We’ll just keep riding and riding until it doesn’t bother them anymore.

because our “express” shipment arrived early this morning so she has several new toys to play with! Her mother is thrilled to have some new clothes to wear, but not nearly as happy about having to find a place to put everything. . .

 

After all the delays, when we got a call last night that they would deliver our shipment at 7am, I thought, “yeah right.” But at 6:45 they were at our doorstep with boxes and paper and in a flurry of unpacking they were out of there in about 45 minutes. There were no numbers to check off, no inventory to reconcile, they just took everything out of the boxes, packed up the paper and cardboard and were gone. Totally not official and organized like it’s supposed to be, but it was nice. I don’t notice anything missing and that’s good enough for me.

We shipped a small stash of Legos so now the boys are in the middle of building something. Before that, this is how they were entertaining themselves.

 

Aside from the crabby barista, Starbucks Egypt doesn’t look too much different than Starbucks America, but it feels different. It’s the same decor, the same product (same price!), but there isn’t that wonderful overwhelming coffee smell when you walk in and it’s missing a warmth that I usually notice at home. Also, they allow smoking, which ruins any chance they had of being my favorite place to hang out.

We did pick up our Egypt mug to add to the collection, but I think I’ll have to wait for my real Starbucks homecoming in 2012.

After everyone raved about my last post I have performance anxiety, cause not much tops an encounter with a birthing dog . . .

 

 

 

We went to visit the Church of Saint Barbara (hi mom!), to find this sign pointing the way to “Saint Barpara’s Church.” Considering that “p” doesn’t exist in the Arabic language, somebody really screwed up that translation.

That also means that mom, when you come to visit everyone will have to call you “Bam.” (and we will drink “Bepsi.”)

 

 

This is how awesome of a camera person I am. Josh was talking to this Egyptian policeman in Arabic and it was pretty great sounding, so I was trying to secretly get part of it on video. I pressed record while the camera was down at my side. Turns out I didn’t actually switch over to video mode so you get this picture instead and will just have to imagine how authentic he sounded.

 

 

 

This is another one of my “shoot from the hip” photos. The guy holding the beer sign had another one right next to it saying, “con alcohol.” (I was hoping to get that part too, but was shooting blind.) You can buy beer in the grocery stores but it’s all non-alcoholic, so finding a place that serves beer “with alcohol” is an event. At least this seller thought so.

There you go! All the “highlights” of Coptic Cairo. I’ll try and do better next time.