Author: Robin Chartier

It would not be a stretch to say that we were quite the attraction at the pyramids. I don’t know if it was the white skin, the light hair, or the baby, but we turned heads and had people trying to talk to us, wave at us, or touch us everywhere we went.

It was totally different than the past 3 weeks in Maadi. Walking around Maadi people will look at us, usually because of the baby, but we’re not special. There are plenty of other Americans/expats around. Kind of like movie stars in LA. People notice Jennifer Aniston, but since they’re likely to see Robert De Niro around the corner, it’s not that big of a deal. At the pyramids, we felt like Jennifer Aniston in Des Moines, Iowa. We were the stars of the show.

It started before we even got there, as a bus packed full of preteen girls pulled up beside us as we were walking. All of them were hanging out the windows, shrieking and laughing and smiling and waving and pointing at us. Naive momma that I am, I thought they were looking at the baby, but Josh says they were all fascinated by my preteen boys. Uh oh. I guess I should have known when they were all calling out, “what’s your name?” and “where are you from?”

We weren’t any less of a spectacle up at the pyramid site. Everyone wanted to talk to Josh. Two different guys who must have gone to the same peddler school said, “Where are you from? Oh America! High Ho Silver!” High Ho Silver? Wrong generation buddy. All I know about Silver is that he/she is a horse that has something to do with either Roy Rodgers or Buck Rodgers. And I might even be wrong about that part of it. Now if he had said, “The tribe has spoken,” then we could have been BFFs.

And once they found out that Josh spoke Arabic, he couldn’t get rid of them. One guy was calling him, “my Arabic brother” and was trying to give him one of the headdresses he was selling. I think he’s the same guy that was joking about buying me for 5 million camels. The nice thing about being a woman in this case was that very few people talked to me. I was happily trekking around, baby wrapped on my front and women smiled and young girls reached out to touch the baby, but none of the peddler people said more than “camel ride?” and took “la” (no) for an answer immediately. Meanwhile Josh had guys buzzing around him like flies at a picnic.

All that and we still haven’t gotten to the Sphinx. Really? OK, tomorrow. I promise.

***reminder: you can click on any of the pictures to view them up close.

The baby’s non-sleeping is kicking my butt so we’ll continue our tour of the pyramids tomorrow. So far this Christmas day I dragged myself to breakfast and then baby and I went back to bed for a 4 hour nap (during which she woke up 3 times, but at least she would nurse and go back to sleep). It’s 3:00 pm and I’m still in my pjs.

Meanwhile, SuperDad made breakfast and took the boys on a hike out in the desert. Merry Christmas to me!

***I can’t take credit for the Santa pancake idea. A friend of mine posted a photo of her Santa pancakes on facebook and I knew the boys would love it. It’s cherry pie filling for the hat and nose, chocolate chips for the eyes, and whipped cream for the hat and beard. Our pancakes are made with whole wheat flour, giving them a very “Egyptian Santa” appearance that wasn’t intentional, but very fitting.

We thought as a Christmas Eve adventure we would surprise the kids and take our first trip to the Giza Pyramids. The best part about our timing was that since it was a Friday morning, no one was out on the roads since most people were in the mosques at prayer services. Translation: virtually stress-free travel for me. I only thought I was going to die one time.

 

 

 

This is what our Christmas looks like:

 

 

 

Now just like her mama, Camille loves to take baths and she likes the water to be HOT, so I was a little unsure if the baby pool water was going to be warm enough for the both of us, but I shouldn’t have worried. The water was heated, so it felt like sinking into our own private bathtub. It had to be at least 90, maybe even warmer. They must have known how I hate the cold water dance: tip toe around until your legs are numb and then gradually get lower and lower until you decide it’s not worth it and just get out. Oh, you actually take the plunge to get the pain over with in an instant? Ugh, not me.

But no need to worry about that here. As you can see, we’re both loving it.

Big day today — Josh conquered the Internet. One final visit to the Etisalat store and he was able to buy a wireless router that accepts the chip/sim card from my little stick so now everyone can be connected at the same time.

He went in to ask about the package that he was trying to buy last week, but they were still out of stock. Then the salesman said, “but we do have this option” and pulled out the solution to our problems. Um, hello. We would have bought that to begin with if someone had bothered to mention that as an available option . . . lol. Such a simple solution, not so simple getting there.

The boys spent the morning at Maadi House at Tae kwon do class. Maadi House is a private club for Americans that are employed by the US government (military, embassy, etc). Because Christmas break just began, they have activities scheduled for the kids each day of the 3 week break. Today the boys all participated in Tae kwon do class that was taught by the guy who teaches my self-defense class.

The following videos are from Caleb’s class. He was very enthusiastic!

After class was over, the boys played and we ate lunch at the club’s restaurant.

 

 

soccer on the lawn.