August and Everything After

The August heat clamped down on Cairo with a vengeance this year, right along with Ramadan (the Muslim month of fasting,) which has made for a cranky and very thirsty country. The Egyptian government conveniently went on daylight savings with the start of Ramadan to shorten up the day a bit, a rather odd move as the overall number of fasting hours remains the same. Oh well, who I am to complain? I’m not the one going without food and water all day in 110 degree weather. We will spring forward again after Ramadan for a few weeks, then fall back again with the rest of the world in October. Egypt likes to stand out, I guess.

Productivity everywhere in the Muslim world declines during this month, but in Egypt, that decline is in a league of its own. People stay up all night after they break the fast and through the early morning, pre-sunrise meal (suhuur), then go to bed. Restaurants have extensive menus for both meals, including delivery options for the 4am shift. The work day, if there is one, looks to me to be about four hours long. The nice thing about Ramadan in Egypt is that there isn’t the total moratorium on eating and drinking that there is in other countries. Restaurant and cafes are still generally open during the day, serving the Christian and foreign community, as well a fair number of non-fasting Muslims. We have managed to maintain our café options, as well as our weekly Papa Johns order.

Life has felt wonderfully ‘settled’, something I haven’t experienced in several years. For once, there is no great change on the horizon, no agonizing wait on jobs, no new baby, no big move, no major family separation, no packing or unpacking. We are here for two years and that feels great. I have been surprisingly content with my current at-home role, aside from the inevitable days when I do not want to change one more diaper, answer another ‘why’ question, or clean up yet another mess of toys. Theo is happy, chuckly and fat, fat, fat, and settling into good sleep patterns. We are within sight of the blessed 7pm-7am uninterrupted night sleep, which means that I have been able to slowly but surely chip away at my sleep deficit. It has never been that bad, since both our children were jammed into schedules from day one, but present enough that I do feel that general fogginess and look forward to it lifting more permanently.

Emma seems very positive about her preschool, which frankly surprises me. Not that there is anything particularly wrong with it, but it is a far cry from what she had in Virginia, and actually a far cry from what she could have here in Egypt if we chose to go the more expat route. She attends a place called Wee Care, run by a lovely woman affiliated with one of Egypt’s main Protestant churches here. We chose it because it came with positive recommendations from non-embassy people, and would give Emma full immersion in Arabic. Needless to say, no one in the embassy community has ever heard of it as it is located on the other side of the tracks in Maadi, so to speak, right on the edge of a neighborhood that feels like a different world. The roads narrow, the apartment buildings get higher and dingier, and the cars get older and more beat up. Trips to and from there usually involve endless jockeying around cars through the narrow streets, and dodging piles of trash, enormous potholes and pools of standing water of unknown origin. There is also a herd of goats, and several donkey carts that make regular appearances outside the preschool. I am a TOTAL anomaly in my SUV with my blond children.

The ladies at Wee Care love Emma and daily ask me to drop Theo off as well for a few hours so they can play with him. They are only half-joking. I don’t know how much Arabic Emma is actually getting, but they tell me she understands most things. I’m not hearing much, though she will randomly start counting in Arabic, or sing one of the songs she’s learned. It is very fun to hear her singing Sunday School songs from my childhood. I’m not sure what exactly is at the root of my reservations. Emma is perfectly content, and whenever I worriedly ask her which ‘hadanah’ (nursery) she likes more, she always says, “I like my old hadanah AND my new hadanah.” I need to just take her at her word and let it go at that.

I think some of my issues have to do with broader questions of assimilation and education that I know will be dogging me throughout this strange life we will lead. As a diplomat family, we are not expected, required or, for that matter, necessarily encouraged to fully assimilate wherever we go. Our job is primarily to represent our country, not get fully integrated with our host country. This is such an extreme departure from my upbringing where cultural assimilation was my family’s modus operandi. Both Dan and I would like to see our kids get some Arabic under their belts, but realistically speaking, this can’t be a long-term proposition if we’re going to be posted to countries where Arabic isn’t spoken. We’re certainly not going to be able to fling them into a new language every two years. So what really is the point of Emma picking up some Arabic now, only to drop it later? I don’t quite know the answer to that. I do believe, whatever happens, that there is value in our children having experiences in each country that strengthen and expand their views of the world and develop their cross-cultural skills. I’m writing this down now and keeping it, so that when they accuse me later in therapy of ruining their lives, I can show them that I was well-intended.

We enjoyed a fun visit from my mother at the end of August for a long weekend. Another wonderful part of our new digs is our ability to properly host people without having to create sleeping quarters wedged under our dining room table or in a corner of our living room, while standing in line for the bathroom. We have an extra bedroom and bathroom off the kitchen that we refer to as the “West Wing” and it makes for a nice, private guest space.

We had a great couple of days just doing what we normally do, with my mother joining in the family routine. We had some café outings, painting and reading time, fun with the cousins, the usual weekend swim, and lots of hanging out. Dan and I got to spend some time out on the town (hah!) one of the nights, courtesy of her babysitting. Dan turns into a pumpkin around 9:30, so we had a short window to experience some Ramadan night fun. We headed down to a restaurant in our neighborhood, where we were ushered to a table outside with two chairs side by side, facing a wall. We were a bit mystified by the placement, until we realized that there was a flat screen TV set up that was playing the Ramadan soap operas that are so popular. The patio was totally decked out with lights, awnings and flags. Various huge screens were set up in strategic locations so that people could watch TV while they smoked their sheesha pipes, ate, and talked. It was pretty fun, even though we weren’t there very long. My sister told me that the fancy hotels have a whole Ramadan special where you can rent cabanas by the pool that come with flat screens, a PlayStation, and a drinks bar. People spend all night there and have their morning meal before heading home to sleep. I don’t think we will likely be experiencing that part of Ramadan any time soon.

I had a vague goal to be working part-time come September, but honestly, I just don’t see that happening. I don’t have enough fire in my belly to go job hunting, which would also mean nanny hunting. I’m finding that I’m happy to have these months at home with Theo when he is easily entertained and in that golden baby stage of 6-9 months. It’s that stage when people are so charmed with their kid that they are lulled into getting pregnant again, only to have their adorable infant turn into an 18-month-old hellion when their newborn shows up. We won’t be going down THAT road for sure, but I know that I don’t want to miss much of these dear, sweet times. Who knows though? If the right thing came along, I would probably find a way to make it happen. For now, I will embrace my general state of contentedness for as long as it lasts, since it is a rare and fleeting thing for me.