I have only sent one letter via Egyptian-post office... and Drew mailed it from the office. By the way, it took nearly 2 weeks for the letter to get to Dad & Kate. We wrote it on the first day of school -- late August -- and it arrived during their trip to Czech/Germany. Not exactly timely. Incoming mail takes a little over a week, and it's thoroughly "inspected" by the time it reaches us. The envelope has white security tape all over it with arabic text stating very clearly that it was examined... luckily our bills and financial statements aren't interesting "stuff" for the inspectors, so we probably recieved everything that Dad forwarded. Now... the postcard with the Well-Endowed German Beer-Wench was another matter altogether... it got here quickly, but we didn't get it for a few days because our Boab (doorman) had all his comrades come over to look at the picture!!!! They passed that one around quite a bit before it was delivered upstairs to the 7th floor where we have our flat. Dad - you're famous now, and I told them you like to travel and they're looking forward to meeting you in the spring.
We had our first sandstorm in Alexandria last week. I had the laundry hanging on the line (off the balcony) when I went to Schutz school for the day. Around noon it started getting overcast and the lighting changed outside and I got all excited thinking we were going to get some rain!!! But the color was golden and soon the heat was hotter and little bits of sand were getting in kid's eyes. It was noon and the kids were playing outside for lunch recess. Around 1pm the wind started and they had the kids stay indoors for the rest of the day. It never really "dumped" sand, but somehow at least a half inch of the stuff covered the city. Every horizontal surface. Some vertical surfaces. Crazy. I had to re-wash everything hanging outside because the sand was caked onto the clothes. Not so comfy in your underwear if I just give 'em a good shake and hope for the best.
We hired a maid to come once a week. Her name is Subrin. She doesn't speak English, but she's a really hard worker and earns her 50 Egyptian Pounds hands down. She is going to have lots of sand to sweep up on our balconies (we have a small and narrow one off the "master" bedroom where the laundry hanging apparatus is located; and a bigger balcony off the living room that connects with JP's room and Kaisa's bedroom which is pretty good sized.) She's also in charge of mopping and cleaning the bathroom, which is perpetually stinky. I can NOT get the toilet to smell decent. I bought Clorox bleach. I bought oxygen bleach with fragrance. We tried caulking the wall where the plumbing enters the cinderblock. Basically, the sewer pipes aren't vented to the outside, they have a little "floor drain" next to the toilet for air to escape as water decends... but the smells enter the room from the floor drain. After Kaisa takes her bath, we have to lift the plug and let the water out slowly or it floods the bathroom by coming back up the floor drain. Mmmmmm. That's fun. The gurgle sound gives us about a half second warning that the water/air ratio isn't favorable and we could have a problem. The sink and washing machine are also tied to this same drain. I'm working on solving this, but at least mopping with Clorox helps for a little while. I don't really enjoy that job, so it was given over quite gladly to Subrin, lucky girl. I guess she's in her teens, and doesn't know how to read or write in Arabic, nor has she learned any English. She really took a liking to Kaisa, though, so we're exchanging vocabulary words (like learning colors) while she cleans for us.
Tomorrow Magdy picks us up at 10:30am for the drive back to Alex. We've been in Cairo for the past 3 days enjoying a mini-vacation with a great pool and nice hotel room and really nice restaurants and it's hooked up to THE giant shopping mall in Cairo. We came with intentions to buy certain items: Drew wanted a money-clip because everything here is done with cash... no checks or credit cards. This includes large transactions like purchasing a car or an apartment, where suitcases of cash are wheeled into the room. We were talking with some people from Canada who've been here for 8 years and they were telling us about literally bringing suitcases for such needs. Crazy. Anyway, his billfold was more trouble than useful here, so he's been using a binder clip. We found a real money clip this morning, so he's set. Kaisa wanted a yellow dress (which we still owed her for Birthday loot) and we found a yellow nightie with Cinderella on the front, so she's totally excited about that. JP wanted more books in the series he's reading, but the bookstore was out of the one we needed. They have the 5th in the series, but that's no good until we get the 4th one. I wanted an Arabic/English dictionary, but they were out of stock until next week. Drew has to come back to Cairo on Thursday, so he'll swing by and check then.
OK... the kids have to go to bed, and the laptop is giving them reason to procrastinate, so I have to sign off... too much light, too much noise from typing, and JP wants the chair that I'm sitting in to be the roof of his "fort"/bed.
Good night from the Drews in Cairo.
Wendy
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