Driving Miss Emma

Over the past ten years of visiting Cairo, I have taken pretty much every means of transport available: metro, chartered bus, mini-bus, micro-bus, train, taxi and private car. I have yet to ride on two other common forms—the scooter or the donkey/horse cart. I am sure that every single foreign exchange student, tourist, journalist and expatriate who has spent any time in Cairo has written something, be it a blog entry, tweet, status update, article, cry for help, or an expletive-laced rant about driving and traffic here. I won’t be adding anything new to the commentary on this unique Cairene phenomenon, but it would be impossible NOT to write something about the vehicular ethos of this fair city. (BTW- the picture of Theo is unrelated to anything in this entry. I just thought it was kind of cute.)

When we first arrived two months ago, we knew we would be without our car for some time while it made its way from storage in Antwerp. Some people opt never to drive in Cairo, and for good reason. You really have to get into a certain mindset to take to the roads in your own vehicle, though I would hasten to say you also have to similarly gird your loins to get into anyone else’s vehicle. As far as our family is concerned, we are unabashed car enthusiasts. Our concern for the environment and our liberal Bay Area roots will sadly never overcome our desire to be independent with our own set of wheels. As Dan said recently, “Why walk when you can drive?”

You may wonder what the big deal is about the driving here. Where to start? There are no traffic lights-- this in a city of twenty million people by day. I have seen a total of two since we arrived and both were blinking yellow. (This is definitely NOT the case of living in such a small town that there is only one traffic light.) There are no stop signs. No one uses turn signals. There is no observed right-of-way in any situation. There are no defined traffic lanes. There are thousands of roundabouts with snarls of cars surging around them, jockeying for position. The only way to get onto a main road from a side road is to gradually inch out into the onslaught of traffic and force the cars to slow down long enough to get yourself out there. Getting through any intersection is a bit like lancing a boil. You crowd in with a group of cars and slowly but surely, squeeze your way forward with everyone else until eventually your group breaks through and forces the cars coming from the other directions to stop while you ride the wave and stream through the intersection until another group of cars does the same to you.

Drivers here are under the mistaken impression that headlights use up gas, and so the ever-thrifty Cairenes simply never turn their headlights on, even at night, making driving on any fast roads truly treacherous after dark. If you miss a turn, you can simply back up to get back to where you wanted to go. It doesn’t matter if you are on the freeway and the cars are going at NASCAR speeds around you. If your car has a problem or you just want to take a break or you want to ask for directions, you can feel perfectly free to just stop in the middle of the road, on the overpass or in the merge lane and get that taken care of.

To say nothing of the actual condition of the roads. It seems that every road was built once, maybe fifty years ago, and never repaired. There are potholes like bomb craters on most streets, pools of standing water, random piles of rubble, tree debris and trash, and mountainous speed bumps, even on freeways, that bring the cars to a screeching halt as they stop to rapel up one side and down the other. Rather than patching major holes in the roads, someone (I don’t know who, since I’ve never seen anything approximating a road crew) simply rolls a huge boulder over the hole. At night, this means you can be driving along on an unilluminated route and suddenly find your bumper crashing into granite, seemingly out of nowhere.

Most residential streets in Cairo are pretty narrow, but that doesn’t stop everyone from parking and double-parking on both sides, leaving just a tiny stretch down the middle for cars to proceed single file, even though the streets are supposedly two-way. The only way to get down the streets is to fold in your mirrors, and it sucks to be you if you parked your car and didn’t automatically fold in your street-side mirror. I have seen many mirrors dangling off the sides of cars, likely sheared off by passing vehicles. Challenges arise in particular when cars go down streets in opposite directions and meet in the middle. There are several approaches to getting by: back up down the street and let the other car pass. Flash your lights as you turn down any street to assert your presence in advance and make sure the opposing car knows to stop and pull over. Or, the favored approach, which is to meet nose-to-nose and to honk incessantly at each other until someone backs down and backs up.

So why would anyone want to wade into this nutty world of driving? For me, the alternative, namely taxis, isn’t very appealing when hauling two small children. Dan gets transported to and from the embassy daily in comfortable, armored, air-conditioned shuttles. I have no such luxury. For the first six weeks we were here and before I got to borrow my sister’s car while she was on vacation, I was taking cabs every day to get Emma to and from preschool and to get anywhere else. After winging it for a few days, I arranged with a cab driver to do a daily pick-up for us so that I didn’t have to walk out to the main road and stand in the hot sun with the kids, hailing cabs and negotiating fares.

Ahmed, our driver, was a lovely man and actually punctual about 80% of the time, which frankly, I found rather astounding. His cab was something else. Many of the cabs here are dilapidated pieces of junk that run on rubber bands and glue. Any suspension or shock absorption has disappeared long ago, and seat belts are non-existent. The windows are permanently down to let in the 100+ degree breezes and the seats are usually cracked, black, scorching hot vinyl. Ahmed’s cab was no exception. It had to be at least 30 years old, one of the ubiquitous Ladas that crowd the streets of Cairo. The only thing missing was a bumper sticker that I saw on more than one cab around town declaring “I Love Curves.” I would strap Theo into the Baby Bjorn and climb in with Emma every morning and afternoon. By the time we reached our destination, I would be completely soaked in sweat. Eventually, I started to put in a gel freezer pack between my chest and Theo’s back to try to mitigate the furnace effect. I had to do a complete change of clothes after each trip.

So you can imagine how excited I was when Dan told me that our car had arrived on the shores of Alexandria. And how pissed I was when he found out it had gone to the wrong port and would take longer to process before it got to us. Finally, finally, last week, someone drove our "Barcelona Red" Rav 4 (affectionately known as the Red Hot Chili Pepper) through the gates of our apartment complex and it was home. We got to reacquaint Emma with her car seat (Huh? What’s that??) and I proudly took to the road the next morning to drop her off at school.

As I drove around, I noticed every other person gesturing frantically at me. Oncoming cars flashed their lights and honked. People leaned out of windows and made a blinking motion with their hands. What was up? This happened every time I went out. Finally, I asked Dan if he had any idea what people were going on about. Ah, they were concerned about my daytime running lights. Apparently, the idea of running lights is completely foreign, so everyone I pass takes it upon themselves to let me know that my lights are ON and likely devouring precious gasoline. I have been surfing the web looking for ways to disable running lights. If anyone has any clues, do let me know.

I am only a few weeks into my driving career here in Cairo, and I have a feeling I am in for quite a ride. Since our bright red car with its diplomatic plates doesn’t exactly blend in, Dan has ghettoized our dashboard with the flame-tipped, fake fur piece that he purchased in Yemen. What can I say, except that this picture doesn’t do it justice.

Summer Daze

You might be musing to yourself, in all the time you surely spend thinking about us, “I thought the Wrights had moved to Cairo. Where are the pyramids, the Sphinx, the mummies, the camels, the sand dunes in the background of all their pictures? Why am I only seeing close-up shots of the children, looking like they are indoors?” I’ve been thinking about this myself as we have settled into our summer here and have noticed that we have not gone out and done anything remotely cultural, touristy or even halfway interesting.

The bottom line is… well, there are many bottom lines. For one, there is a huge difference between moving to a country and visiting a country, particularly when we had to report to work the next day after arriving, Dan to the embassy and me to childcare duty. Knowing that we have two years here, there is zero urgency to hustle ourselves out into the frenzy of Cairo to take in the sights or the sites. Then there is the simple practical matter that the temperature on a regular summer day without a heat wave is between 95-100 degrees. Because strollers are untenable around here, we are stuck with carrying our children, which is just a whole load of fun when they are strapped, sweaty red-faced and frustrated, to our chests and/or backs.

To be perfectly honest, once you’ve seen the pyramids, you’ve seen them and have no reason to return. Dan and I saw them several years ago, and do not plan to go back until we are dragged there by visiting friends or family. Sure, they are awe-inspiring in their own way, but the ordeal of getting there and making our way around one of the world’s most popular tourist sites is just fine to be done once and never again, if we can help it.

Aside from the tourist side of Cairo, there is the whole social aspect as well. Therein lies another conundrum: life gets going here starting around 9pm. A while back in June, my sister babysat for us one Saturday night so that we could go see the US’s first World Cup soccer game. As we headed out around 9:30pm, the normally mildly busy roads around our apartment were parking lots of traffic. People were heading out to various social engagements, where dinner would likely be starting around 10pm or later. It makes sense in a hot climate like this, but it doesn’t make sense for our family. There is NO WAY we could survive a single day on that kind of schedule.

I think it will take some time for us to start venturing out, and then it will be for short, manageable excursions. It is difficult to convey the overwhelming intensity of Cairo to anyone who hasn’t visited it. I have been coming here for over ten years, visiting my sister, and still find myself cowering a bit in the face of the sheer magnitude of this city. (Apparently Theo feels the same way, based on the picture of him here.) We do look forward to making our own discoveries of places to go and things to see, but it may be a while before that happens. It certainly won’t be happening until the temperature is at least in the 80s again.

The thing is, life with small children lends itself to being rather mundane. Once you have advanced beyond the portable, easily-pleased infant stage during which you pat yourself on the back for how flexible and unchanged your life has remained with parenthood, you enter into the stubborn, whiny, unpredictable toddler and preschooler phase, which can be equal parts delight and frustration. Wonderful, carefully planned outings are shot to hell in an instant with a bad toddler attitude or meltdown, whereas the most ordinary things, like eating snacks on a park bench, provide the most golden and precious moments of parenting. This holds true no matter where in the world you might be. So you find yourself getting a little less expansive in your plans and sticking to tried and true excursions that have easy and quick getaways for when your child’s mood flips on a dime. Your restaurant choices narrow, your circle of friends gets a little more defined and you learn to dramatically alter your expectations. People without children may read that and think it all sounds rather depressing, but honestly, it’s not so bad. You get used to adjusting your expectations to certain life stages and build up a stable of babysitters for when you want to periodically dip a toe in the water of your old life.

That said, we’ve had many sweet, low-key times as a family in our two short months here. Some of the highlights include our weekend afternoon swims, where Emma has taken to the water with fearless and joyful abandon. There is a nearby club for Americans (the Maadi House) that has two pools, tennis courts, a play ground, a grassy area and a restaurant with indoor and outdoor seating. We have been there pretty much every single weekend day. Each morning, Emma asks me how many more days are left to the weekend so she can go swim.

We have the incredible good fortune of living in the same city as my sister and her family, something that hasn’t happened in well over a decade. I cannot even begin to describe what a gift it is to move somewhere new and have a kindred spirit that I don’t have to work for years to cultivate. With two older cousins, Emma is in heaven, and Dan has a great friend and fellow sports fan in our brother-in-law. We have dreamed about this moment for years and my sister and I have made many plans of things we want to do together, most of which seem to not include either our husbands or our children. Hmmmm.


On weekdays, I get to spend quiet mornings with Theo after taking Emma to preschool. We pick her up in the early afternoon, a wilted and sweaty mess from a day without air-conditioning, and spend the remaining hours before Dan gets home hanging out together. She has been enjoying playing in the tiny little grass patch that borders the playground in the courtyard of our building, digging for bugs, making mud pies and watering various plants. Theo, being in that aforementioned portable and easily-pleased stage, just happily gazes up at the trees. With the return of Dan comes dinner, bedtime for Theo, bath and bedtime for Emma, then the magical moment when Dan and I look at each other and breathe huge sighs of relief that our work for the day is done. We pull out the ice cream, grab our books or pop in a DVD, and collapse on the couches. And so the summer days slip by…

Notes from Al-Qahira "The Vanquisher"

I don’t know why it feels more legitimate to me to restart our blog now that we are back overseas. Life is not necessarily more interesting in Cairo than it is in Virginia, but it certainly is different, so perhaps it is that difference that compels me to think about it out loud in writing. I’m moving away from our website that we maintained for a few years, mainly because the upload speeds overseas are rather cumbersome and I found myself supremely annoyed every time I attempted to update it while I was in Jordan. I’m guessing this will likely be the longest entry and subsequent ones will be shorter. Also, now that we are second-time parents, the whole kid thing is a little less consuming, so I won’t be reporting in nauseating detail on every single movement or flash of ‘brilliance’ from our children.


We've been in Cairo for almost two months now, and for the most part, it has been a smooth transition. Much easier than I anticipated, because I have only had the ‘roughing it’ missionary experience in the Middle East, rather than the cushy, diplomat experience. I was a nervous wreck in advance of this move, having just recently gone through the life-altering experience, round two, of giving birth. Even though the second time around is light years different in terms of how drastically it transforms the contours of one’s life, there is something to be said for the sheer monumentality of ushering an entirely new human being into the world. That, coupled with a quick about-face to ready our family for yet another international transition, made for many anxious and sleepless nights and early mornings. I am so glad to be beyond that now, and to be here in our new home, settling in bit by bit. Watching Theo grow is a delight and Emma has proven to be an amazingly adaptable little girl, in spite of how much change has been thrown at her at once. I never thought I would say that about her, given our experience with her and our moves so far. She has settled into her new preschool and the Arabic immersion has not seemed to faze her. With all my Arabic fluency, I find myself lost in the flood of the Cairene dialect, and just nod and smile a lot. How she and Dan are handling this with such equanimity is beyond me.

Dan plunged into work after taking a few days to settle us in and has been working extremely hard. He enjoys what he does, but the days are taxing and he arrives home spent. Being the wonderful father that he is, he still summons the energy to take over with the kids while I make dinner and is fully present to them until the blessed hour of 8pm when they are in bed. By then, we are both largely incoherent with fatigue. It has been fun to watch the World Cup, but we have consistently fallen asleep during the first half of most of the later games.


Our main shipment of household items that had gone to Yemen and then was languishing in storage in Antwerp, arrived last week, and there has been much rejoicing. I had not seen our stuff for over two years, so opening the boxes was truly like Christmas in June. (The photo shows one of our tubs being used as a packing paper containment device.) I was particularly glad to get my kitchen back with proper pots and pans, good cooking utensils, full sets of plates and flatware, and nice, sharp knives. Given how much cooking I do and how obsessed I am with food, it has been painful for me to deal with woefully inadequate kitchens for a while.

Apropos of our cushy, diplomatic life, we have been enjoying the comfort of our spacious apartment, fabulous air conditioning and access to the commissary, which is like a fully stocked US grocery store. Sadly, coming to Egypt for its food will disappoint most people with dreams of tasty Middle Eastern cuisine. It just isn’t here. So I find myself cooking even more than I have before because we haven’t exactly found anything that would taste better than what I make at home. Having the option to purchase pork and good cuts of meat from the commissary is wonderful to facilitate that.

We live in Maadi, a southern suburb of Cairo that is about 25 minutes from downtown. It wouldn’t qualify as much of a suburb anymore, given that the city has grown so much that it has just blended into greater Cairo. Maadi is considered to be one of the nicer sections of the city. Comparatively speaking, it is, given that there are wider streets, lots of trees and some single homes, all of which you cannot find elsewhere in Cairo where huge, brown apartment blocks crowd together in congested neighborhoods of narrow streets and unrelenting noise. However, even this nicer section has its fair share of trash heaps, rubble, stray cats and dogs, various livestock herds, and general dilapidation. It was a bit surprising to me when I first arrived, but I have quickly become accustomed to it. It’s nothing I haven’t seen before, just somewhat startling when it’s cheek-by-jowl with fancy apartments and villas.

There is so much more to write, but I think I will save my ruminations for future posts. My horizons are rather limited just now, which, given the eventfulness of the past months, suits me fine. It feels weird after anticipating so much change to be in a place where all I am focusing on is our two children and our home. Most days, that feels like plenty and I am okay with that. I know that I will soon get restless though and will need to find an outlet for some aspect of a professional life. I’m trying to keep my mind limber with regular infusions of the New Yorker, NPR and NY Times online and I try to tell myself daily that this is a precious time that we have, a luxury when I don’t have to worry about pulling my financial weight and I can just delight in my children at these young stages. Given that we are car-less and largely friend-less for the time being, it means for a lot of family togetherness. I think the rhythm of moving so often, while challenging, will mean a greater reliance on one another for companionship and cameraderie, particularly in the early days of adjustment and transition. That, my friends, is not such a bad thing.