Author: Robin Chartier

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the last 24 hours we’ve experienced two dental firsts — the first tooth lost outside of America and a unexpected trip to the dentist.

He was very excited to find that the Tooth Fairy does make house calls to the Middle East and she even pays in Egyptian pounds! (he’s holding a 5 LE note, almost $1 US.)

As for the dental emergency, the other night Carter said, “Mom, it feels like my tooth cracked in half.” HUH?!! We looked at his tooth and sure enough, there was a big chunk missing from one of his molars.

We contacted the embassy and they said there were 3 dentists that our insurance would cover. Two of them we would have to pay out of pocket and file the paperwork for reimbursement ourselves, the other one would accept the insurance amount as payment and do the paperwork for us . . . hmmm. Tough decision . . .

Actually, before we decided to go with door #3, I did ask around and the consensus was that dentist 3 was great, excellent with kids and everyone who worked in his office was happy. He also went to dental school in America and lived there for a good amount of time before coming back to Egypt. Carter was worried that they were going to pull his tooth without any anesthesia, so he was relieved to hear that the guy was trained in America. I don’t really blame him since the storefronts and medical “offices” around here don’t inspire a lot of confidence that they contain the latest and greatest technology inside. My favorite is an ob/gyn office sign that sits right above this pile of re-bar and chunks of concrete. I’ll have to get a picture of it next time I pass it.

So we called dentist 3, got an appointment for two hours later and Josh and Carter walked over to the office which was on Road 9. (of course!) When they returned home the visit was deemed a success by both and Carter said, “they were nice and their office smelled really good.” High praise from a 9 year old.

It turned out that a filling had fallen out of his tooth and Josh/Carter/the dentist decided to re-fill it because the rest of the tooth was strong and healthy. It is a baby tooth that will fall out eventually so the other option was to pull it. Carter said it didn’t hurt at all and that they were fast. Josh was impressed that they were really good with Carter and that the dentist showed Carter the x-rays and pointed out the part that needed to be filled and included him in the entire process.

I didn’t expect to be dealing with dental stuff for another 6 months when everyone was due for their cleanings, but I’m glad we had such a great first experience. And if it had to be any of the kids, I’m glad it was Carter. He’s much better at putting on his game face and sucking it up when he’s nervous about something. Plus he came home saying, “it was easy” and “it was great” instead of creating a dramatic story like someone else I know. :cough: Calvin :cough:
It will make it much less emotional and scary when the others have to go for checkups. (I’m crossing my fingers that it works out that way!)

 

We shipped our “express” shipment back on November 5th. It is understood that express shipments take about 30 days to arrive so we scheduled it for several weeks before we left so that we would have important things like diapers and wipes and favorite blankets soon after our arrival.

Well every time Josh has stopped in at the embassy to ask about our shipment it “hasn’t arrived yet.” And really it didn’t matter if it HAD arrived, since we had to wait to get our diplomatic IDs before we could claim our goods. Well the IDs are finally here and “coincidentally ” our express shipment is now in Egypt.

**** side note: my spell checker wanted to change my misspelled version of coincidentally into “coin incident.” What is a coin incident? When you run out of quarters at the vending machine and can’t buy those Cheetos that you really, really want? ****

So yea! We get our stuff now, right? Um, not exactly. Now I guess paperwork has to be sent to get our crates from Lufthansa and then they will enter the Egyptian customs process and then monkeys have to perform cartwheels and pigs will fly and then maybe we’ll get them by the end of the month. And who knows when the slow boat from America will arrive with the second part of our shipment.

And really, the most ironic part of the whole waiting process is I know I’m going to get my stuff and think, “Why did I ship this [insert name of crappy item here] to Egypt?” to about 90% of the things that come out of the boxes.

Thank God for Amazon. I’ve been ordering everything I want/need and it’s arriving in about a week. I got a shower curtain and rings, I’m waiting on three knives (Rada brand), and I’m eyeballing a toaster, but I can’t decide if I want to get one locally with a European plug. Online shopping is so much fun. Everything is right at your fingertips, low prices, reviews to read, many, many options, AND you don’t have to take your life into your hands by driving to the store.

Cilantro is the name of this café that we like to go to over on Road 9 (it’s actually a chain, so I’ve seen them in several places around Maadi, but we are able to walk over to the Road 9 location).
The boys like their hot chocolate – it’s like no hot chocolate I’ve ever tried before. it’s really thick, almost like they melted a chocolate bar into a mug.

I had a very yummy latte which was more like a cappuccino (the perfect ratio of milk/foam/espresso). And the best part is that it is located right next door to the Etisalat store so we have a place to kill time while Josh works out internet issues. (still working on that, btw.)

A familiar place I’d like to try (also on Road 9), but we  haven’t been there yet. And we still have to take the inaugural visit to Starbucks. I don’t know if I’m putting it off because I’m afraid it won’t live up to all my expectations or what, but we will go soon and I promise to take pictures. I wonder if they have Starbucks school for Egyptian baristas . . .

So I decided that Cairo isn’t nearly as charming when you’re sick. Yesterday we were out for a walk and all the honking cars weren’t doing anything to improve my mood or my headache. I had some Motrin and we bought a Coke from a corner stand (for my caffeine fix), but you have to drink it there so you can return the glass bottle that has been used by bazillions of people before you. I tried not to think about that as I was putting the bottle to my lips. Ew.

Something crazy that I saw as we were walking up Road 9 (home of McDonald’s, Cilantro, the light bulb store, and many other places that we frequent) was a man and a woman with a newborn baby standing next to a car. I assumed they were together until the man started walking with the newborn baby, but the woman wasn’t walking with them. She was walking so slowly she fell way behind – an entire block behind.

 

I asked Josh if he thought they were together and he thought so too, except the man never looked back and he was cruising with the baby, stepping in and out of traffic while the woman trudged along, carrying this huge backpack on one shoulder, moving like a pack mule. We were walking behind them both for about 6 blocks and then the man turned to go into a store and when the woman finally reached the storefront, she turned in too. CR-AZY.

I realize I don’t know the whole story for sure, but I would be pretty annoyed if I had just had a baby and I got stuck shuffling along, holding the bag of gear while baby daddy trotted on ahead, holding his pride and joy. It’s just one example of the many strange things we’ve seen in Egypt.

So last night, I had a fever and went to bed with the down jacket, heavy blanket, down comforter, etc and baby and I slept until noon and woke up feeling much better. Yea! And the ultimate boost to my recovery was getting out of bed and finding that Madiha had been here and instead of the house falling to bits while I was sick, it looked better than when I went to bed. [happy sigh]

Baby was pretty happy today too: