We are all human. We have wants and desires like everyone else. Even the little ones that are traveling know what they want and what they miss, even though they cannot necessarily explain it. One of the major indications that Princess is "homesick" is that she climbs into our bed almost every night. That NEVER happened at home in Winnipeg and I pretty sure she just wants to be close to familiar people, even if it is an unfamiliar place while she sleeps.
Our time here in Egypt has been a tremendously amazing experience so far. Although we have not really ventured out and been tourists yet, (our plans keep getting changed), we truly have experienced life in Egypt because the people that live here do not venture out to the Pyramids everyday or visit King Tut's tomb every weekend. The beautiful wonders are on my agenda to see, but as our teaching schedule gets busier and busier, the chances of an excursion like this may be a ways off. BUT, we have experienced Egypt...well, life as a wealthy person in Egypt.
You may remember one of my first blog posts when I spoke about how I was concerned about adapting culturally. That I wanted to live closer to the school because we would be closer to the local Egyptian people. Well, the more and more time we spend closer to the school, the fewer and fewer people we see actually outside. Granted, it is hot out, but the biggest thing is that we are in a relatively wealthy community. EVERYONE drives a car in this area and most of them are BMW's or Mercedes Benz vehicles. So, unless they are going out to the car, you do not see much of the local people around. Now, the porter's (or bowab's) they are around all the time. They are the doormen/gardeners/helpers for the each individual building. They get "free" accommodation (sometimes not very nice) and a very small salary. It seems so pretentious for the seemingly rich people to pay the people that do all the hard work around the building such a menial salary. During the heat of the day however, you find these groups of porters hanging around in the shade enjoying each others company. I do have to say that it is nice to never have to carry our groceries up three flights of stairs, and if we ever have a problem in the flat we just let him know and he takes care of it for us. We truly enjoy our bowab, Dimples even knows his name...he calls for him from the top of the stairs and since the stairwell is all marble it echos. It is really quite cute and the porter really likes it.
One of the more challenging things that we have really had to adapt to is life without a vehicle. When I pictured our lives in Egypt I thought that it would be a cross between what life was like i
The evenings are getting cooler now. It is definitely a season change here although it is still in the 30's everyday. But the evenings are beautiful and we go up to the rooftop and just let the kids run around. They have so much fun up there. The dogs come out to play and Dimples often finds the broom and has a blast. There is a lot of construction happening in our area and it has been fascinating to watch how they build villas. It is VERY different from at home, and it looks for more challenging that at home, but they do work very quickly. There is a law here that if you buy property you have to build the foundation by the end of the first year. Then there is no law as to when you have to finish the building, so in our area there are countless numbers of unfinished buildings. It is kind of an eyesore at times, but we have started not to notice.
The dates for the election in Egypt have been set! It is an exciting time for Egyptians, although it leads to much uncertainty as the dates approach. More on that to follow!
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