Mind you, in the few days that I have had it, the electric supply has been down twice, so in fact I have still had probs accessing the net !!! Fingers crossed it will help me to update here more often though, not that there's anything much to report.
The hubby is calling me now so have to go. Hope to be back soon to put on an update about Noor . . . . .
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Sunday, January 4, 2009
another update - will try 2 do better
Naughty me. Haven't posted on here in oh so long !
I'm gonna be a tad crafty and copy and paste into here a couple of emails I sent a while ago by way of a quick update and hopefully will try to update this blog more regularly from now on – say every couple of weeks minimum hopefully.
Here is the first one sent in November - …… "Life here is generally pretty monotonous, it's not like being on holiday (sadly). There is the usual housework to do, and because its so dry there is a lot of dust, so one has to try to keep on top of the housework otherwise the place very quickly starts to look like it hasn't been touched for weeks (when in fact it might be only a couple of days). I find it impossible nowadays to come onto the PC when Noor is here, as he needs constant 'surveillance' as he has his little fingers everywhere!
The weather here has cooled down from the extreme heat of the summer, but it's still pretty hot outside on sunny days between about 11am and 3pm. After 3pm it starts to cool down, and also we've had some cloudy days when it's been quite pleasant between those hours. The nights are considerably chilly now – though not as cold as the UK of course, but it seems quite a drop from the warmth of the daytime. Its warm bedclothes and a light blanket at the moment, but last night I was still feeling a tad chilly so it might be time to get the heavier blanket out soon.
Noor is coming on well. He is having some 'difficulty' in speaking – his little niece who is a couple of months older than him is saying quite a bit now and has been for quite a few weeks, but Noor still only says the odd word now and again, or practices the same one over and over (like Mama or Daddy) but he uses one manner of speech – namely 'da-da-eh' for almost everything, when he wants you to look at something or something is out of his reach and he wants you to pick it up and give it to him. I remember reading though that when a child is being taught 2 different languages from birth, they usually take a little longer in learning to speak initially, but that once they get the hang of it they soon catch up with other children of their own age. He can also say a couple of Arabic words, or at least we think they are his attempt at Arabic words as they are not 'spot on'. That said, he doesn't always say them when that thing is in sight, so we're not sure if he understands what the words actually mean. Of course he has been walking for a while now, he can also walk backwards, and he likes to run. He also loves to climb up things whenever he can, but of course it's always somewhere dangerous (!).
Reda has been quite keen recently for us to invest in a flat in the nearest city, to do it up and then sell it on at a profit. Though I like the idea, I told him that now was not a good time to do it because of the economic crisis, as the price of property even in is bound to fall. Of course being a typical man he thought he knew best and that it would still be a good investment. Thank God, however, one day when he was looking at a flat in a particular block, he met a man who lives in the same block, who was kind enough to offer him a cup of tea and while he was chatting with him, it turned out that he too invests in land and flats, and he advised Reda to be cautious as the price of property is continuing to drop, and that quite a few people in the city were trying to sell their flats at inflated prices to 'foreigners' who don't know the market. Even those who weren't out to 'cheat' people in such a way were looking for a price that was above what they had paid for the property, but of course in many cases that price is now higher than the current market price. Reda realized that this man was talking a lot of sense, and Reda did at least apologise to me and say that he now realized what it was I had been trying to advise him about. We have agreed that he will use the time over the next few months to really do his 'homework' and study the market etc and see what prices things are really selling for, and if prices are continuing to drop. It seems to me that we should wait until prices have stopped falling and even start to rise a little before we buy anything – once prices start coming back up then that should be a good time to buy and to then be able to make an income from what we are investing in. Well that's the idea anyway! As having said that, he came home Friday after praying in the mosque and told me someone who knew he had been looking to invest in land knew of somewhere that was for sale at quite a 'reasonable' price. I wasn't too chuffed about him going to look at it – Reda said 'oh I'll only look I know it's not a good time to buy' - but it's easy to get interested. The price did seem quite reasonable I must confess, but I think if things continue like they are at the moment, we could get it (or somewhere like it) even cheaper. Luckily that's when it started to rain again, and it put him off. Then yesterday he had a call from someone about flats in Alexandria. He has a brother there and says he'd been looking at flats for Reda to see what might be a good investment. He went to the coffee shop to have a chat with him, and they spoke to his brother in Alexandria on the phone. I am pleased to say, however, that his brother advised waiting a few months as he said that the prices are still high and fluctuating, and it would probably be better to wait 3 or 4 months and see how things settle. I was pleased that this person was honest enough to say this and not try to talk Reda into buying something now at an inflated price.
Believe it or not, but I actually miss shopping in Asda! Here, apart from the fact that the nearest supermarket is in the nearest city (about 10km away), it's also more expensive to shop in the supermarket – so my Mum in Law shops here in the village and buys all the food for both our families, which sounds good but of course I have to eat and/or cook whatever she has bought that day rather than get to choose for myself. That said, I can of course put in a 'special' request for something I particularly want, but it just isn't the same. That said, about every 6 weeks or so we do go into the city to the supermarket, and I am able to buy some things that we aren't able to get at all in the village, which I enjoy doing. Reda has gone a couple of times on his own, but I insisted I go last time with him, firstly because it's a chance to get out of the village for a while, and secondly because being a typical man, when I get him a list of things I want, he misses some things off and quite a few of the things that he does buy aren't actually exactly what I wanted (like buying shampoo for me for blond hair when my hair is now brown – I'm not bothering with the highlights anymore, as what's the point when I have to keep my head covered a lot of the time anyway!)
I've finally gone back on a diet. I thought when I came here I would easily lose weight, as I thought that the heat would help me lose my appetite. Whilst that is true when one is on holiday, of course a typical holiday is only 2 weeks. After a while, one starts to acclimatize and by about the 4th or 5th week my appetite was back to normal. On top of that, the food his Mum makes, though tasty, is typically very high in fat. Add to that the fact that apart from housework I'm not getting all that much exercise here, and that adds up to weight gain. A few weeks ago we went to the supermarket and I bought a pair of bathroom scales. I was pleasantly surprised in that I had not put on as much weight as I thought I had – though of course I still weigh FAR too much. This is my 3rd week on a diet. I lost 1kg my first week and only half a kilo my second week. I'm hoping this week will see at least a 1kg loss. One of the hardest things here about dieting is that it's impossible to buy a lot of the things I used to buy in the UK which made a diet more appetizing/interesting etc. There are no low calories squashes here, no low fat stock cubes, no cottage cheese, no extra lean cuts of meat, no diet cakes or biscuits, no low cal soups etc etc, so cooking has been quite a challenge. Not that I can't cook anything but it's harder to make it tasty. I need to experiment more with herbs and spices I think.
Just over a week ago we had our first 'proper' rain that I've ever experienced here in Egypt. Boy did the heavens open or what ??!!! It really chucked it down. The problem here is that the roofs are flat – the idea being that 1) when they have enough money they can build another level on the top and – as most people don't have gardens then 2) in the meantime they can keep their chickens and ducks there, and use it as outside space to sit in the sun, hang their washing or whatever. This is all well and good in the summer, but when it rains what happens – the roof gets wet! Of course they don't build the floor with a slight lean in it, so that the water can drain off – as I guess that this isn't really what people want when they build another floor on the top. In addition to that, the stairwells are open at the top, not only because they don't want a roof there if they are going to build another level, but also to let light in.
But we have reached the limit of how many floors we can have – so why didn't they have the sense to add more concrete on the top so as to make it uneven so that the water drains down towards the drain up there? And they should have built a roof on the top of the stairwell surely? Yes it would have made things a little darker, but there are windows on the side of the stairs, so it wouldn't be too bad. That said, I really hadn't realized what the consequence of this would be until it rained. Well of course what happened was that the rain came running down the stairs, and threatened to get high enough to come into our flat, thank God my sister in law bless her came up and helped us to 1) she used a cloth to help re-direct some of it on down the stairs and 2) mopped up the rain as it fell. Reda and I took it in turns to help her, as we also had Noor to look after and of course we didn't want him getting soaked. Once the rain finished, we went up onto the roof and then with our brush and these things they use in the toilets here to 'push' water down the drains, we began to push the water down towards the drain. Then someone clicked on the idea of using the pans from a dustpan and brush to scoop up the water and put it into a bucket, then we took the bucket over to the drain and poured it down. One thing is that it was jolly good exercise, which I could certainly use more of. It did rain again on Friday but luckily it was just a short shower, though there were still some dodgy clouds about it stayed dry after that.
Had I told you about the cats here? The village is full of half-tame/half-feral cats. We have a cat which had a litter of 6 kittens who was coming here for food, and once her kittens were a bit older she brought them here for food too. At one point, she was 'housing' the kittens in the chicken house on the roof, but my MuminLaw kept 'turfing' them out. A few of them still go there on their own now they are older, though. They are older kittens now, but 3 of them still regularly come to me for food, and I let them into the flat when Noor is downstairs with his Gran. She thinks I shouldn't let them in, but you know what a big softie I am. So far they haven't been any problem. There are 2 in here at the moment, just sitting quietly on the mat not too far from me. Yesterday when my MinLaw brought Noor back upstairs, she shooed the cats away but one of them – unbeknown to either of us – ran into the living room, so after she left me with Noor I shut the front door (as I don't dare keep it open as Noor runs off out and I don't want him falling down the stairs – could do with a stair gate there really- anyway) and of course she was shut in. Noor loved seeing her, as he really seems to take after me and adore cats. She was a bit scared though, and ran out onto the balcony, so we left her alone to come back in, then once she was back in I opened the front door and Noor and I 'hid' out of her view and after a little while she ran out. It hasn't put her off coming here, I'm glad to say. I can't help wondering what happened to the other 3 kittens though, as I haven't seen them for at least 2 weeks now. I hope they have just found somewhere better to get their food from, rather than anything nasty having happened to them.
And this is one sent just a day or 2 before Xmas :-
" ………………………….. Ramadan was absolutely fine, really. It's really not that bad and after the first few days one really does get used to it. For one thing, one gets to eat 2 meals per day, for as well as the one as soon as the sun starts to set we also have a small meal before the sun rises (yep!!) and at both meals I made sure that I had plenty of water to drink. Even so, I did find that some days I really did start to get pretty thirsty by about 4pm or so, but really it was no hardship at all.
Noor's talking is starting to come along at long last, albeit slowly. But then he is having to learn 2 languages. Some words he says in Arabic and some he says in English, and a few he can say in both (like cat). He's getting quite tall now and really looks more like a little boy now rather than a baby. He walks very well now of course and can run quite well too, though he falls alot ! He also tends to not look where he is going. Unfortunately I don't have any recent photos of him as our flippin' digital camera broke !!! I am really miffed! Because of the make of camera that it is, the nearest place we can take it to for repair is Cairo, but I am a bit miffed at Reda about it, as he keeps putting off us going there until we have another reason to go to Cairo to, to 'justify the expense'. Frankly I would be quite happy to have a day out !!!
To a large degree our 'plans' for investment here in Egypt etc have been put on hold, as though the economic downturn hasn't affected Egypt yet in quite the same way as the US and Europe, nevertheless house prices etc have been falling, so I've convinced Reda to play it safe for now and not buy until prices are more stable, and maybe even start to rise again.
Well, that's all for now. I hope to have some news in the next month or 2 about our building our new home on the land we bought, but for the time being its fingers crossed in that regard and 'watch this space'. "
sorry that was so long guyz, wikk try 2 do better by being more regular in t future .............. oooooooo er :-)
I'm gonna be a tad crafty and copy and paste into here a couple of emails I sent a while ago by way of a quick update and hopefully will try to update this blog more regularly from now on – say every couple of weeks minimum hopefully.
Here is the first one sent in November - …… "Life here is generally pretty monotonous, it's not like being on holiday (sadly). There is the usual housework to do, and because its so dry there is a lot of dust, so one has to try to keep on top of the housework otherwise the place very quickly starts to look like it hasn't been touched for weeks (when in fact it might be only a couple of days). I find it impossible nowadays to come onto the PC when Noor is here, as he needs constant 'surveillance' as he has his little fingers everywhere!
The weather here has cooled down from the extreme heat of the summer, but it's still pretty hot outside on sunny days between about 11am and 3pm. After 3pm it starts to cool down, and also we've had some cloudy days when it's been quite pleasant between those hours. The nights are considerably chilly now – though not as cold as the UK of course, but it seems quite a drop from the warmth of the daytime. Its warm bedclothes and a light blanket at the moment, but last night I was still feeling a tad chilly so it might be time to get the heavier blanket out soon.
Noor is coming on well. He is having some 'difficulty' in speaking – his little niece who is a couple of months older than him is saying quite a bit now and has been for quite a few weeks, but Noor still only says the odd word now and again, or practices the same one over and over (like Mama or Daddy) but he uses one manner of speech – namely 'da-da-eh' for almost everything, when he wants you to look at something or something is out of his reach and he wants you to pick it up and give it to him. I remember reading though that when a child is being taught 2 different languages from birth, they usually take a little longer in learning to speak initially, but that once they get the hang of it they soon catch up with other children of their own age. He can also say a couple of Arabic words, or at least we think they are his attempt at Arabic words as they are not 'spot on'. That said, he doesn't always say them when that thing is in sight, so we're not sure if he understands what the words actually mean. Of course he has been walking for a while now, he can also walk backwards, and he likes to run. He also loves to climb up things whenever he can, but of course it's always somewhere dangerous (!).
Reda has been quite keen recently for us to invest in a flat in the nearest city, to do it up and then sell it on at a profit. Though I like the idea, I told him that now was not a good time to do it because of the economic crisis, as the price of property even in is bound to fall. Of course being a typical man he thought he knew best and that it would still be a good investment. Thank God, however, one day when he was looking at a flat in a particular block, he met a man who lives in the same block, who was kind enough to offer him a cup of tea and while he was chatting with him, it turned out that he too invests in land and flats, and he advised Reda to be cautious as the price of property is continuing to drop, and that quite a few people in the city were trying to sell their flats at inflated prices to 'foreigners' who don't know the market. Even those who weren't out to 'cheat' people in such a way were looking for a price that was above what they had paid for the property, but of course in many cases that price is now higher than the current market price. Reda realized that this man was talking a lot of sense, and Reda did at least apologise to me and say that he now realized what it was I had been trying to advise him about. We have agreed that he will use the time over the next few months to really do his 'homework' and study the market etc and see what prices things are really selling for, and if prices are continuing to drop. It seems to me that we should wait until prices have stopped falling and even start to rise a little before we buy anything – once prices start coming back up then that should be a good time to buy and to then be able to make an income from what we are investing in. Well that's the idea anyway! As having said that, he came home Friday after praying in the mosque and told me someone who knew he had been looking to invest in land knew of somewhere that was for sale at quite a 'reasonable' price. I wasn't too chuffed about him going to look at it – Reda said 'oh I'll only look I know it's not a good time to buy' - but it's easy to get interested. The price did seem quite reasonable I must confess, but I think if things continue like they are at the moment, we could get it (or somewhere like it) even cheaper. Luckily that's when it started to rain again, and it put him off. Then yesterday he had a call from someone about flats in Alexandria. He has a brother there and says he'd been looking at flats for Reda to see what might be a good investment. He went to the coffee shop to have a chat with him, and they spoke to his brother in Alexandria on the phone. I am pleased to say, however, that his brother advised waiting a few months as he said that the prices are still high and fluctuating, and it would probably be better to wait 3 or 4 months and see how things settle. I was pleased that this person was honest enough to say this and not try to talk Reda into buying something now at an inflated price.
Believe it or not, but I actually miss shopping in Asda! Here, apart from the fact that the nearest supermarket is in the nearest city (about 10km away), it's also more expensive to shop in the supermarket – so my Mum in Law shops here in the village and buys all the food for both our families, which sounds good but of course I have to eat and/or cook whatever she has bought that day rather than get to choose for myself. That said, I can of course put in a 'special' request for something I particularly want, but it just isn't the same. That said, about every 6 weeks or so we do go into the city to the supermarket, and I am able to buy some things that we aren't able to get at all in the village, which I enjoy doing. Reda has gone a couple of times on his own, but I insisted I go last time with him, firstly because it's a chance to get out of the village for a while, and secondly because being a typical man, when I get him a list of things I want, he misses some things off and quite a few of the things that he does buy aren't actually exactly what I wanted (like buying shampoo for me for blond hair when my hair is now brown – I'm not bothering with the highlights anymore, as what's the point when I have to keep my head covered a lot of the time anyway!)
I've finally gone back on a diet. I thought when I came here I would easily lose weight, as I thought that the heat would help me lose my appetite. Whilst that is true when one is on holiday, of course a typical holiday is only 2 weeks. After a while, one starts to acclimatize and by about the 4th or 5th week my appetite was back to normal. On top of that, the food his Mum makes, though tasty, is typically very high in fat. Add to that the fact that apart from housework I'm not getting all that much exercise here, and that adds up to weight gain. A few weeks ago we went to the supermarket and I bought a pair of bathroom scales. I was pleasantly surprised in that I had not put on as much weight as I thought I had – though of course I still weigh FAR too much. This is my 3rd week on a diet. I lost 1kg my first week and only half a kilo my second week. I'm hoping this week will see at least a 1kg loss. One of the hardest things here about dieting is that it's impossible to buy a lot of the things I used to buy in the UK which made a diet more appetizing/interesting etc. There are no low calories squashes here, no low fat stock cubes, no cottage cheese, no extra lean cuts of meat, no diet cakes or biscuits, no low cal soups etc etc, so cooking has been quite a challenge. Not that I can't cook anything but it's harder to make it tasty. I need to experiment more with herbs and spices I think.
Just over a week ago we had our first 'proper' rain that I've ever experienced here in Egypt. Boy did the heavens open or what ??!!! It really chucked it down. The problem here is that the roofs are flat – the idea being that 1) when they have enough money they can build another level on the top and – as most people don't have gardens then 2) in the meantime they can keep their chickens and ducks there, and use it as outside space to sit in the sun, hang their washing or whatever. This is all well and good in the summer, but when it rains what happens – the roof gets wet! Of course they don't build the floor with a slight lean in it, so that the water can drain off – as I guess that this isn't really what people want when they build another floor on the top. In addition to that, the stairwells are open at the top, not only because they don't want a roof there if they are going to build another level, but also to let light in.
But we have reached the limit of how many floors we can have – so why didn't they have the sense to add more concrete on the top so as to make it uneven so that the water drains down towards the drain up there? And they should have built a roof on the top of the stairwell surely? Yes it would have made things a little darker, but there are windows on the side of the stairs, so it wouldn't be too bad. That said, I really hadn't realized what the consequence of this would be until it rained. Well of course what happened was that the rain came running down the stairs, and threatened to get high enough to come into our flat, thank God my sister in law bless her came up and helped us to 1) she used a cloth to help re-direct some of it on down the stairs and 2) mopped up the rain as it fell. Reda and I took it in turns to help her, as we also had Noor to look after and of course we didn't want him getting soaked. Once the rain finished, we went up onto the roof and then with our brush and these things they use in the toilets here to 'push' water down the drains, we began to push the water down towards the drain. Then someone clicked on the idea of using the pans from a dustpan and brush to scoop up the water and put it into a bucket, then we took the bucket over to the drain and poured it down. One thing is that it was jolly good exercise, which I could certainly use more of. It did rain again on Friday but luckily it was just a short shower, though there were still some dodgy clouds about it stayed dry after that.
Had I told you about the cats here? The village is full of half-tame/half-feral cats. We have a cat which had a litter of 6 kittens who was coming here for food, and once her kittens were a bit older she brought them here for food too. At one point, she was 'housing' the kittens in the chicken house on the roof, but my MuminLaw kept 'turfing' them out. A few of them still go there on their own now they are older, though. They are older kittens now, but 3 of them still regularly come to me for food, and I let them into the flat when Noor is downstairs with his Gran. She thinks I shouldn't let them in, but you know what a big softie I am. So far they haven't been any problem. There are 2 in here at the moment, just sitting quietly on the mat not too far from me. Yesterday when my MinLaw brought Noor back upstairs, she shooed the cats away but one of them – unbeknown to either of us – ran into the living room, so after she left me with Noor I shut the front door (as I don't dare keep it open as Noor runs off out and I don't want him falling down the stairs – could do with a stair gate there really- anyway) and of course she was shut in. Noor loved seeing her, as he really seems to take after me and adore cats. She was a bit scared though, and ran out onto the balcony, so we left her alone to come back in, then once she was back in I opened the front door and Noor and I 'hid' out of her view and after a little while she ran out. It hasn't put her off coming here, I'm glad to say. I can't help wondering what happened to the other 3 kittens though, as I haven't seen them for at least 2 weeks now. I hope they have just found somewhere better to get their food from, rather than anything nasty having happened to them.
And this is one sent just a day or 2 before Xmas :-
" ………………………….. Ramadan was absolutely fine, really. It's really not that bad and after the first few days one really does get used to it. For one thing, one gets to eat 2 meals per day, for as well as the one as soon as the sun starts to set we also have a small meal before the sun rises (yep!!) and at both meals I made sure that I had plenty of water to drink. Even so, I did find that some days I really did start to get pretty thirsty by about 4pm or so, but really it was no hardship at all.
Noor's talking is starting to come along at long last, albeit slowly. But then he is having to learn 2 languages. Some words he says in Arabic and some he says in English, and a few he can say in both (like cat). He's getting quite tall now and really looks more like a little boy now rather than a baby. He walks very well now of course and can run quite well too, though he falls alot ! He also tends to not look where he is going. Unfortunately I don't have any recent photos of him as our flippin' digital camera broke !!! I am really miffed! Because of the make of camera that it is, the nearest place we can take it to for repair is Cairo, but I am a bit miffed at Reda about it, as he keeps putting off us going there until we have another reason to go to Cairo to, to 'justify the expense'. Frankly I would be quite happy to have a day out !!!
To a large degree our 'plans' for investment here in Egypt etc have been put on hold, as though the economic downturn hasn't affected Egypt yet in quite the same way as the US and Europe, nevertheless house prices etc have been falling, so I've convinced Reda to play it safe for now and not buy until prices are more stable, and maybe even start to rise again.
Well, that's all for now. I hope to have some news in the next month or 2 about our building our new home on the land we bought, but for the time being its fingers crossed in that regard and 'watch this space'. "
sorry that was so long guyz, wikk try 2 do better by being more regular in t future .............. oooooooo er :-)
Monday, September 1, 2008
Ramadam Kareem
RAMADAN KAREEM
At the time of typing this, it is the evening of the first day of Ramadan here – I am pleased to say that I have 'survived' my first day of fasting in a very hot country. We had sahoor (the meal before dawn) at 3:30 am this morning (fool and bread plus lots of water) and then slept until Noor woke at 7am. Luckily after his bottle he did, after a little coaxing, go back to sleep in the bed with us and we slept until about 10 am. I took things pretty easy I must say, and did only light housework, which I stopped when the electricity went down (yes again!) though luckily it was only off for about an hour. While I was doing this, Reda had taken Noor out to see his cousins and then another friend, so it was nice and peaceful and when the electric went off and I started to feel too flippin' hot, I went and lay down on the bed. Not very long after this, at around 12 ish or so, Reda returned but he left Noor downstairs with this granny. However, I think she too was feeling the heat, as it were, and she brought him up after about half an hour or so; but luckily after playing for a while he seemed sleepy and sure enough after a little cuddle he fell asleep in my arms and I put him in his cot for a rest. Reda then went out to visit another cousin, while I put out the washing and then, I am pleased to say as I was feeling very hot, I relaxed and went to sleep myself. I slept for about 90 minutes, maybe more, before Noor woke us both up, and I felt very refreshed after that, as I hadn't slept too well during the night. After I woke, Reda took Noor downstairs to his gran, and I was able to read some Koran for a while, before she returned him. Then we took Noor up onto the roof to enjoy the cool air, before getting ready for Magrib time and breaking the fast. My mum in law, bless here, had prepared the meal and what a lovely meal it was. It was a 'simple' meal of chicken, with rice and beans, but it was delicious. We also had a drink made from soaking dates and for dessert we had kanaffa and grapes. Kanaffa is a strange kind of 'cake' if you can call it that – it is basically this kind of stringy stuff which is soaked in sugar water and then baked, but it is actually quite nice.
Well anyway, after we went outside into the street, where the children were setting off little 'bombs' – a kind of firework that they do here, and we bought some more fireworks for them to play with – relatively innocent ones, which you light and then throw onto the floor and they let of a stream of little bits of hot white fire; sounds dangerous, but as long as its an adult lighting it and throwing it safely to an area where no-one is, they are fine. Well of course there were whoops of delight all round; and even Noor who didn't really understand what was going on, enjoyed it.
I'm enjoying some quiet time on the PC while Reda is out again, he's taken Noor with him to visit a cousin in the nearby street who has a little girl Noor's age. I shall prepare what I can for Sahoor in the early hours of tomorrow morning, and enjoy doing the same again. The atmosphere here is very different from that in the UK during Ramadan, and so far – despite the heat and feeling very thirsty – I have positive vibes for an enjoyable Ramadan.
Over and out;
Stella xxxxx
At the time of typing this, it is the evening of the first day of Ramadan here – I am pleased to say that I have 'survived' my first day of fasting in a very hot country. We had sahoor (the meal before dawn) at 3:30 am this morning (fool and bread plus lots of water) and then slept until Noor woke at 7am. Luckily after his bottle he did, after a little coaxing, go back to sleep in the bed with us and we slept until about 10 am. I took things pretty easy I must say, and did only light housework, which I stopped when the electricity went down (yes again!) though luckily it was only off for about an hour. While I was doing this, Reda had taken Noor out to see his cousins and then another friend, so it was nice and peaceful and when the electric went off and I started to feel too flippin' hot, I went and lay down on the bed. Not very long after this, at around 12 ish or so, Reda returned but he left Noor downstairs with this granny. However, I think she too was feeling the heat, as it were, and she brought him up after about half an hour or so; but luckily after playing for a while he seemed sleepy and sure enough after a little cuddle he fell asleep in my arms and I put him in his cot for a rest. Reda then went out to visit another cousin, while I put out the washing and then, I am pleased to say as I was feeling very hot, I relaxed and went to sleep myself. I slept for about 90 minutes, maybe more, before Noor woke us both up, and I felt very refreshed after that, as I hadn't slept too well during the night. After I woke, Reda took Noor downstairs to his gran, and I was able to read some Koran for a while, before she returned him. Then we took Noor up onto the roof to enjoy the cool air, before getting ready for Magrib time and breaking the fast. My mum in law, bless here, had prepared the meal and what a lovely meal it was. It was a 'simple' meal of chicken, with rice and beans, but it was delicious. We also had a drink made from soaking dates and for dessert we had kanaffa and grapes. Kanaffa is a strange kind of 'cake' if you can call it that – it is basically this kind of stringy stuff which is soaked in sugar water and then baked, but it is actually quite nice.
Well anyway, after we went outside into the street, where the children were setting off little 'bombs' – a kind of firework that they do here, and we bought some more fireworks for them to play with – relatively innocent ones, which you light and then throw onto the floor and they let of a stream of little bits of hot white fire; sounds dangerous, but as long as its an adult lighting it and throwing it safely to an area where no-one is, they are fine. Well of course there were whoops of delight all round; and even Noor who didn't really understand what was going on, enjoyed it.
I'm enjoying some quiet time on the PC while Reda is out again, he's taken Noor with him to visit a cousin in the nearby street who has a little girl Noor's age. I shall prepare what I can for Sahoor in the early hours of tomorrow morning, and enjoy doing the same again. The atmosphere here is very different from that in the UK during Ramadan, and so far – despite the heat and feeling very thirsty – I have positive vibes for an enjoyable Ramadan.
Over and out;
Stella xxxxx
Saturday, August 23, 2008
update, noor walking, cats etc
Apologies for yet again not updating my blog as regularly as I had anticipated when I started it. Unfortunately living in Egypt, I have discovered, can be a bit like living in the back of beyond. The electric goes off most days, sometimes for an hour and sometimes for 4 or 5 hours! Then when that's working and I go online, I find that the ****** server isn't working. Or the other day both were working but for some reason the yahoo site was down! Talk about frustrating! So it's good to finally have it all working and be able to post on here again.
I must confess I do feel a bit superstitious now about telling people anything we have planned to do, as whenever I do things seem to go pear shaped, but for our latest venture which I just said on email that I hope to have some good news for you, it went pear shaped anyway!!! It's a very long story and I am not going to bore you with all the details, but let's just say that we went into the 'minibus' business with my husband's brother-in-law, but unfortunately we learnt the hard way that Reda's brother-in-law is at best an idiot and at worst not to be trusted, and we ended up losing quite a lot of money and clearly we are no longer in the minibus business. In hindsight, we too were very naïve and too trusting, so it has taught us a lesson too. We have sold the minibus now, but of course although it was bought brand new it is now of course second hand, so the price we got for it was well short of what we paid for it. Still it could have been worse and we could have lost the lot, so in some respects we are counting our blessings.
To make matters worse, while all this was going on, my Father-in-Law was taken ill. He has had a bad cough for a long time, but now he was coughing up blood! He was taken into hospital and they did a lot of tests, because of course it could have been something very serious. However, in the end they just said it was the result of a very bad chest infection as all the other tests have come back negative, and they have given him the all clear and he has come back home. I am glad to say that he has given up smoking – at least for the time being – and I hope he is able to stay off it, as his chest really is in a very bad way, though I know that it is very, very difficult to give up and stay off the ciggies. Though I am concerned that in fact he does have something more serious, and either they didn’t find it, or he has decided he wants to keep it a secret from us, I just have this bad feeling about it all; though of course I hope that I am wrong.
Noor is Walking !
I am very happy to report that Noor has started to walk unaided. He really is a clever little soul, too clever by half in fact J !!
Reda has a cousin who has a little girl (Melek) who is 3 months older than Noor (Noor is now one year and one month) and he was quite upset to find that Noor had started to walk before his little girl. In fact I was quite surprised, as I was sure that Melek would be the first, as she is able to stand very well, unsupported, and even dances a little when music is played, but so far she can at best managed 2 or 3 little steps before falling down, or purposely getting down, so I think for some reason she doesn't have the confidence to walk further. Noor started with just a few steps of course, but he can now walk quite a bit on his own, his favourite situation is when there are several people around him and he can walk from one to the other, i.e. then hold on to the person he is with before setting off for the next person. His balance is still a little off, but he doesn't let that stop him and he has plopping down onto his bum when he's tired/off balance etc down to a fine art! (smiley)
Cats
We have a lot of cats around here which are domestic cats, but who are live 'feral' though they do come around for food and we feed them bits and pieces. One female cat that is a real darling has had a little of 6 kittens, the kittens have been kept on a nearby roof, but we discovered yesterday that she had moved them all into my mother-in-law's 'hen house'! Unfortunately my M-in-Law isn't the cat lover that I am, and she moved them all out – she says that if she left them in there, all the other female cats would start bringing their litters onto our roof too, as they would see it as a safe place to leave their kittens while they go out in search of food. She also insists that the kittens eat the chickens' food. Frankly I doubt it, though it is true that the cats here eat things that the cats back home wouldn't touch, like bread and pasta. I'm not sure if the cat will bring them back to our roof or not, will just have to wait and see I guess. I managed to hold one of the little darlings for a short while, they are much less trusting of humans than kittens are back home, but she was quite well behaved with me and I only put her down because everyone kept saying that she will bite me or scratch me and that as a 'wild' cat they carry diseases etc, and of course I wouldn't want to catch anything that I could pass onto Noor.
Hot, Hot, Hot
No surprises, but boy is it flippin' hot here or what ?? The temperature indoors even with the fans on at full blast is up to 32.4 C and the temps out in the sun I don't even like to contemplate – in fact I popped the thermometer out there on a chair (fabric covered chair so should be a reasonably accurate reading) and it was just over 46 C !!! Phew!!!!!!! Most evenings it starts to cool down, around about 6:30 ish or so I go up onto the roof and make the most of the coolish breeze that usually starts up around that time of day. Mind you, some days it doesn't, which can be a bit disappointing, but that's what you get for living in Egypt I guess!!! (smiley)
I must confess I do feel a bit superstitious now about telling people anything we have planned to do, as whenever I do things seem to go pear shaped, but for our latest venture which I just said on email that I hope to have some good news for you, it went pear shaped anyway!!! It's a very long story and I am not going to bore you with all the details, but let's just say that we went into the 'minibus' business with my husband's brother-in-law, but unfortunately we learnt the hard way that Reda's brother-in-law is at best an idiot and at worst not to be trusted, and we ended up losing quite a lot of money and clearly we are no longer in the minibus business. In hindsight, we too were very naïve and too trusting, so it has taught us a lesson too. We have sold the minibus now, but of course although it was bought brand new it is now of course second hand, so the price we got for it was well short of what we paid for it. Still it could have been worse and we could have lost the lot, so in some respects we are counting our blessings.
To make matters worse, while all this was going on, my Father-in-Law was taken ill. He has had a bad cough for a long time, but now he was coughing up blood! He was taken into hospital and they did a lot of tests, because of course it could have been something very serious. However, in the end they just said it was the result of a very bad chest infection as all the other tests have come back negative, and they have given him the all clear and he has come back home. I am glad to say that he has given up smoking – at least for the time being – and I hope he is able to stay off it, as his chest really is in a very bad way, though I know that it is very, very difficult to give up and stay off the ciggies. Though I am concerned that in fact he does have something more serious, and either they didn’t find it, or he has decided he wants to keep it a secret from us, I just have this bad feeling about it all; though of course I hope that I am wrong.
Noor is Walking !
I am very happy to report that Noor has started to walk unaided. He really is a clever little soul, too clever by half in fact J !!
Reda has a cousin who has a little girl (Melek) who is 3 months older than Noor (Noor is now one year and one month) and he was quite upset to find that Noor had started to walk before his little girl. In fact I was quite surprised, as I was sure that Melek would be the first, as she is able to stand very well, unsupported, and even dances a little when music is played, but so far she can at best managed 2 or 3 little steps before falling down, or purposely getting down, so I think for some reason she doesn't have the confidence to walk further. Noor started with just a few steps of course, but he can now walk quite a bit on his own, his favourite situation is when there are several people around him and he can walk from one to the other, i.e. then hold on to the person he is with before setting off for the next person. His balance is still a little off, but he doesn't let that stop him and he has plopping down onto his bum when he's tired/off balance etc down to a fine art! (smiley)
Cats
We have a lot of cats around here which are domestic cats, but who are live 'feral' though they do come around for food and we feed them bits and pieces. One female cat that is a real darling has had a little of 6 kittens, the kittens have been kept on a nearby roof, but we discovered yesterday that she had moved them all into my mother-in-law's 'hen house'! Unfortunately my M-in-Law isn't the cat lover that I am, and she moved them all out – she says that if she left them in there, all the other female cats would start bringing their litters onto our roof too, as they would see it as a safe place to leave their kittens while they go out in search of food. She also insists that the kittens eat the chickens' food. Frankly I doubt it, though it is true that the cats here eat things that the cats back home wouldn't touch, like bread and pasta. I'm not sure if the cat will bring them back to our roof or not, will just have to wait and see I guess. I managed to hold one of the little darlings for a short while, they are much less trusting of humans than kittens are back home, but she was quite well behaved with me and I only put her down because everyone kept saying that she will bite me or scratch me and that as a 'wild' cat they carry diseases etc, and of course I wouldn't want to catch anything that I could pass onto Noor.
Hot, Hot, Hot
No surprises, but boy is it flippin' hot here or what ?? The temperature indoors even with the fans on at full blast is up to 32.4 C and the temps out in the sun I don't even like to contemplate – in fact I popped the thermometer out there on a chair (fabric covered chair so should be a reasonably accurate reading) and it was just over 46 C !!! Phew!!!!!!! Most evenings it starts to cool down, around about 6:30 ish or so I go up onto the roof and make the most of the coolish breeze that usually starts up around that time of day. Mind you, some days it doesn't, which can be a bit disappointing, but that's what you get for living in Egypt I guess!!! (smiley)
Sunday, July 27, 2008
Update - land bought
I can finally post that we eventually have gone ahead and bought some land. It cost us 300,000 egyptian pounds (about 29,000 UK pounds) and is large enough to build a good sized building on with a garden at the back. We had planned to build on it for ourselves, but another opportunity has arisen, so its on the backburner at the mo ............ will post on that other subject depending on what happens over the next few days. Interestingly, we have already had an offer of 350,000 egyptian pounds for our land!!! We have declined for now, but it at least makes me feel reasonably comfortable that its a good investment.
Should have some news on the potato investment in the next few weeks, certainly when I last spoken to our cousin on the subject, the price of potatos had risen sufficiently to cover our investment costs etc, so God willing the price has continued to rise and we will have made a healthy profit.
Noor had his first b'day party earlier this month - he didn't understand of course what was going on but he enjoyed the atmosphere, the company of all the other children and the fuss - though it was all too much for him in a way as later that night after I gave him his bottle before bedtime, he brought up a good amount of the cake he had eaten!!! Oh well.............
Well that's all for now folks. hope to be able to post again soon.
Take care all .................................
Love Stella x
Should have some news on the potato investment in the next few weeks, certainly when I last spoken to our cousin on the subject, the price of potatos had risen sufficiently to cover our investment costs etc, so God willing the price has continued to rise and we will have made a healthy profit.
Noor had his first b'day party earlier this month - he didn't understand of course what was going on but he enjoyed the atmosphere, the company of all the other children and the fuss - though it was all too much for him in a way as later that night after I gave him his bottle before bedtime, he brought up a good amount of the cake he had eaten!!! Oh well.............
Well that's all for now folks. hope to be able to post again soon.
Take care all .................................
Love Stella x
Friday, June 6, 2008
Help in posting pics
BTW - if anyone can give me any tips for posting pics quickly I would be eternally grateful, as the few pics that I have here have taken an ETERNITY to download . . . . . . . or can anyone recommend an alternative site for posting pics quickly ?????
Update - posted 6 June
30 May
Buying Land – The Saga Continues – Reda met briefly with the person contracted by the owner of the land to sell it on his behalf, and he wasn't even interested in our initial offer of 350,000 EGP. Reda, thanks to Ahmed Ismael, made a top offer of 400,000 EGP – so we shall just have to wait and see if that is accepted or not. I have seen the land and it certainly is in a prime location, I'm just not sure if I want us to spend a whole stack of money on it, as to really obtain its potential we need to have some money to use to build on it, then at least if we have – for example – two shops and flats there we will have rental income from it. We could of course just rent it out for parking or storage, but the income that would generate would be peanuts. The main purpose of buying the land of course is investment for the future, to maybe sell it in 15 or 20 years – in the same way as the person selling it now – he bought it 15 years ago for only 5,500 EGP – but we believe that there is still some potential there for more growth.
31 May
Potatoes / Kingfishers – We went this morning to the area where the potatoes are being pre-stored and partly 'dried' prior to being sorted, the bad potatoes and small potatoes removed and sold separately, and the good potatoes bagged up and moved to the 'fridge' for storage over the next 3 months. I know it sounds boring, but really it was quite interesting to watch and it was lovely to be out in the Egyptian countryside, under the shadow of the trees with a cool(ish) breeze blowing. We were right by the river too, and again I heard the noise of a bird which we hear a lot during the nighttime here, and I finally got to see them – they are kingfishers. They really are very beautiful birds, with gorgeous blue plumage and it was lovely to watch them 'in their natural habitat'. Also saw some white herons and there were a few small lizards about, all of which made the morning that bit more interesting.
On a more boring note, today we also painted the side of our flat – as now that the hotter weather is coming we do find that the side wall which catches the sun heats up during the day and then releases its heat during the evening/nighttime – right into our bedroom and the 2nd bedroom. Obviously this is the last thing we want! So earlier this year we asked my father-in-law to get the side wall plastered, which has helped some, but today we finished the job and had it painted white. In fact they are just finishing off the job now while I type this up. The following day I felt the inside walls and they were beautifully cool – a job well done!
2 June
Cairo Trip – Residency – We went to Cairo today, but not as tourists to enjoy ourselves (sadly). We went to the Government offices to input my request for Egyptian residency. We set off early morning, taking a 'micro-bus' to Tanta, and then another micro-bus from Tanta to Cairo. When we reached the outskirts of Cairo, the traffic was unbelievably busy, almost at standstill – the driver estimated it would probably take a further hour to reach the bus station, and from there we would need to take the underground or a taxi to get to central Cairo where the Government office is; to we alighted at that point by a metro station (the first on that line) which takes you right into central Cairo to the place we needed to be. That was an experience (a good one). We made good time and arrived outside the offices at around 10:30 am. Clearly it was going to be another hot day, as already the temperature was around 320 C, so in a way it was good to go into the offices which were cooler as there were like hundreds of fans all over the place…….. All went fine at first, the form was filled in and the chap behind the desk told us which documents he wanted us to make photocopies of etc etc. Then when he started to go through everything he made an issue of our family name of El Khenizy, which he said was not Egyptian as he had never come across it before! Frankly I could not see the issue anyway as he had both my husband's birth certificate and his Father's birth certificate, so even if the family name were not Egyptian what was the issue as clearly both my husband and his Father have been born in Egypt???!! As far as him never coming across the name before, well OK the name is probably most prominent here in the Delta and not in Cairo, and as far as we know no-one before my husband has married a non-Egyptian, so therefore no-one from the family would have been to that particular office to apply for residency for his wife. Not that that logic worked with this 'jobs worth'. Anyway, he told Reda to go to a Police station where they could print a birth certificate from the computer. Off poor Reda traipsed, leaving me in the cool office rather than having to traipse about with him in the heat. Well of course when he returned he had no birth certificate because – of course – his Grandfather was not on the computer system. I was not surprised as after all, why would they put someone born so long ago, who died quite some time ago, on the computer system? Anyway, after some argy bargy with this man in the office they agreed to process the application as much as possible, but 'hold' it for 7 days, for Reda to obtain his Grandfather's birth certificate and return with it to them within the 7 days. They also advised that if there was any difficulty in obtaining the birth certificate, they would accept the birth certificates of his Father's 2 eldest siblings. What a fiasco. But that's Egypt for you. It certainly does have its own unique way of handling red tape. Anyway, after that Reda then had to go to another part of the office to pay for the application, whereupon he was given 2 receipts, he then had to take these 2 receipts to another part of the office to obtain some official 'stamps' which he could then bring back to the man handling the application to stick onto the application! Finally, we were finished for the day, it was now around 1:30 pm, so we decided to go and get some lunch. There are quite a few 'fast food' outlets in Central Cairo, and as Reda absolutely adores KFC then that was where we went. Yes, KFC in Egypt. In fact, its all over in the major towns and cities of Egypt. Of course by Egyptian 'standards' it is rather costly – their meal deals are not the same as in the UK but they are similar – for example a £10.99 meal deal in the UK has an equivalent here which costs 98 Egyptian pounds – so pretty expensive! I had a wrap with fries, Reda had 2 pieces of chicken with fries, and we each had a coke and it cost us 45 Egyptian pounds. Of course if you look at it in English money, then it was reasonable, as that comes to about £4.30, but of course we are not on holiday now so we can't really go spending our money as if we were, but it was a nice treat and a bit of a 'one-off'. That said, food is more expensive here than it used to be but then the price of food has risen around the world substantially, and it was perhaps naïve of us to not realize that it would have gone up in Egypt too. Of course most things don’t cost as much as in the UK, but they are expensive given that many poorer people have to live on maybe just 400 EGP per month. That's one reason why most people in the villages raise their own chickens, as a bought chicken can cost around 30 pounds. A kilo of tomatoes costs around 2-3 pounds depending on the season and so on. So as I say in English money it's cheap (as the exchange rate is around 10 EGP to one English pound) but in comparison to the average wage, its quite pricey. That said, for us it's not too much of an issue. I certainly haven't budgeted for us to live on UK 'wages' as we would get through the money we brought with us far too quickly and of course I want it to last us, but at the same time we have more than simply/only 400 EGP to live on each month too, and hopefully if we manage to make some good investments we can continue to live life at a good level. God willing. And of course we don't have to worry about having a mortgage to pay here, or running a car, or car insurance and all the other related costs that we had in the UK which we don't have here – so certainly one can live on a lot less money here than in the UK and still enjoy life. Well I must stop blabbing on about the cost of living mustn't I????!!!! After we had our KFC, we took a leisurely walk to the metro and caught the underground to the main railway station, so that we could catch the train back to Tanta. We were very lucky with the timing of it, as we were able to catch a train after waiting only 10 minutes, and we got a 2nd class air-conditioned for only 10 pounds each, which I thought was quite a good deal. We were both very, very thirsty and the drinks on board were a tad pricey (e.g. a coke was five pounds, and bear in mind they make the coke sold in Egypt in Egypt, its not imported) but hey that's life. When we got to Tanta it’s a long way to the bus station, so we took a stroll around the shops first and then got a taxi, and we were again lucky as we got on a microbus and departed within 5 minutes of our arrival. It was nice to be out, but it was also nice to get home and relax.
3/4 June
Birth Certificates etc – I am pleased to say that after a bit of to-ing and fro-ing, Reda was able to get 2 birth certificates for his Father's eldest brothers, and the following day he went to Cairo and delivered them to the office. These will now be kept on file until the 2 years is up, whereupon Reda has to go back to Cairo to complete the residency application for me. He was told in the office in Tanta that he has to go to Tanta every 6 months to sign a document to confirm that we are still together, but in the office in Cairo they told him that he does not need to do that. Frankly I don't trust any of them, so I think we had better do some of our own research to find out what needs to be done, as if we don't sign anything every 6 months I don't want us to find in 2 years time that my application is turned down because of this. That would be typical. Or am I being a cynic?
5 June
Potatoes – One of my uncle's investors has pulled out, and he is short of cash to pay the potato farmers, so it would seem that we are to invest in buying a further 75 tonnes of potatoes after all. Lets hope the market goes up!! Inshallah. I have a hum dinger of a summer cold, but hey, at least its not raining! No news on the buying land front. We're not sure if he is playing hard to get or simply not interested in our offer. We are going to wait a bit longer and see, as we don't want him to think that we are especially keen, as he is bound to put the price up. Part of me thinks that maybe we should wait until the Autumn, as if there does end up being a world wide recession then if anything land prices should fall in the short-term, even here. We're going to play it by ear for now . . . . . . .
Buying Land – The Saga Continues – Reda met briefly with the person contracted by the owner of the land to sell it on his behalf, and he wasn't even interested in our initial offer of 350,000 EGP. Reda, thanks to Ahmed Ismael, made a top offer of 400,000 EGP – so we shall just have to wait and see if that is accepted or not. I have seen the land and it certainly is in a prime location, I'm just not sure if I want us to spend a whole stack of money on it, as to really obtain its potential we need to have some money to use to build on it, then at least if we have – for example – two shops and flats there we will have rental income from it. We could of course just rent it out for parking or storage, but the income that would generate would be peanuts. The main purpose of buying the land of course is investment for the future, to maybe sell it in 15 or 20 years – in the same way as the person selling it now – he bought it 15 years ago for only 5,500 EGP – but we believe that there is still some potential there for more growth.
31 May
Potatoes / Kingfishers – We went this morning to the area where the potatoes are being pre-stored and partly 'dried' prior to being sorted, the bad potatoes and small potatoes removed and sold separately, and the good potatoes bagged up and moved to the 'fridge' for storage over the next 3 months. I know it sounds boring, but really it was quite interesting to watch and it was lovely to be out in the Egyptian countryside, under the shadow of the trees with a cool(ish) breeze blowing. We were right by the river too, and again I heard the noise of a bird which we hear a lot during the nighttime here, and I finally got to see them – they are kingfishers. They really are very beautiful birds, with gorgeous blue plumage and it was lovely to watch them 'in their natural habitat'. Also saw some white herons and there were a few small lizards about, all of which made the morning that bit more interesting.
On a more boring note, today we also painted the side of our flat – as now that the hotter weather is coming we do find that the side wall which catches the sun heats up during the day and then releases its heat during the evening/nighttime – right into our bedroom and the 2nd bedroom. Obviously this is the last thing we want! So earlier this year we asked my father-in-law to get the side wall plastered, which has helped some, but today we finished the job and had it painted white. In fact they are just finishing off the job now while I type this up. The following day I felt the inside walls and they were beautifully cool – a job well done!
2 June
Cairo Trip – Residency – We went to Cairo today, but not as tourists to enjoy ourselves (sadly). We went to the Government offices to input my request for Egyptian residency. We set off early morning, taking a 'micro-bus' to Tanta, and then another micro-bus from Tanta to Cairo. When we reached the outskirts of Cairo, the traffic was unbelievably busy, almost at standstill – the driver estimated it would probably take a further hour to reach the bus station, and from there we would need to take the underground or a taxi to get to central Cairo where the Government office is; to we alighted at that point by a metro station (the first on that line) which takes you right into central Cairo to the place we needed to be. That was an experience (a good one). We made good time and arrived outside the offices at around 10:30 am. Clearly it was going to be another hot day, as already the temperature was around 320 C, so in a way it was good to go into the offices which were cooler as there were like hundreds of fans all over the place…….. All went fine at first, the form was filled in and the chap behind the desk told us which documents he wanted us to make photocopies of etc etc. Then when he started to go through everything he made an issue of our family name of El Khenizy, which he said was not Egyptian as he had never come across it before! Frankly I could not see the issue anyway as he had both my husband's birth certificate and his Father's birth certificate, so even if the family name were not Egyptian what was the issue as clearly both my husband and his Father have been born in Egypt???!! As far as him never coming across the name before, well OK the name is probably most prominent here in the Delta and not in Cairo, and as far as we know no-one before my husband has married a non-Egyptian, so therefore no-one from the family would have been to that particular office to apply for residency for his wife. Not that that logic worked with this 'jobs worth'. Anyway, he told Reda to go to a Police station where they could print a birth certificate from the computer. Off poor Reda traipsed, leaving me in the cool office rather than having to traipse about with him in the heat. Well of course when he returned he had no birth certificate because – of course – his Grandfather was not on the computer system. I was not surprised as after all, why would they put someone born so long ago, who died quite some time ago, on the computer system? Anyway, after some argy bargy with this man in the office they agreed to process the application as much as possible, but 'hold' it for 7 days, for Reda to obtain his Grandfather's birth certificate and return with it to them within the 7 days. They also advised that if there was any difficulty in obtaining the birth certificate, they would accept the birth certificates of his Father's 2 eldest siblings. What a fiasco. But that's Egypt for you. It certainly does have its own unique way of handling red tape. Anyway, after that Reda then had to go to another part of the office to pay for the application, whereupon he was given 2 receipts, he then had to take these 2 receipts to another part of the office to obtain some official 'stamps' which he could then bring back to the man handling the application to stick onto the application! Finally, we were finished for the day, it was now around 1:30 pm, so we decided to go and get some lunch. There are quite a few 'fast food' outlets in Central Cairo, and as Reda absolutely adores KFC then that was where we went. Yes, KFC in Egypt. In fact, its all over in the major towns and cities of Egypt. Of course by Egyptian 'standards' it is rather costly – their meal deals are not the same as in the UK but they are similar – for example a £10.99 meal deal in the UK has an equivalent here which costs 98 Egyptian pounds – so pretty expensive! I had a wrap with fries, Reda had 2 pieces of chicken with fries, and we each had a coke and it cost us 45 Egyptian pounds. Of course if you look at it in English money, then it was reasonable, as that comes to about £4.30, but of course we are not on holiday now so we can't really go spending our money as if we were, but it was a nice treat and a bit of a 'one-off'. That said, food is more expensive here than it used to be but then the price of food has risen around the world substantially, and it was perhaps naïve of us to not realize that it would have gone up in Egypt too. Of course most things don’t cost as much as in the UK, but they are expensive given that many poorer people have to live on maybe just 400 EGP per month. That's one reason why most people in the villages raise their own chickens, as a bought chicken can cost around 30 pounds. A kilo of tomatoes costs around 2-3 pounds depending on the season and so on. So as I say in English money it's cheap (as the exchange rate is around 10 EGP to one English pound) but in comparison to the average wage, its quite pricey. That said, for us it's not too much of an issue. I certainly haven't budgeted for us to live on UK 'wages' as we would get through the money we brought with us far too quickly and of course I want it to last us, but at the same time we have more than simply/only 400 EGP to live on each month too, and hopefully if we manage to make some good investments we can continue to live life at a good level. God willing. And of course we don't have to worry about having a mortgage to pay here, or running a car, or car insurance and all the other related costs that we had in the UK which we don't have here – so certainly one can live on a lot less money here than in the UK and still enjoy life. Well I must stop blabbing on about the cost of living mustn't I????!!!! After we had our KFC, we took a leisurely walk to the metro and caught the underground to the main railway station, so that we could catch the train back to Tanta. We were very lucky with the timing of it, as we were able to catch a train after waiting only 10 minutes, and we got a 2nd class air-conditioned for only 10 pounds each, which I thought was quite a good deal. We were both very, very thirsty and the drinks on board were a tad pricey (e.g. a coke was five pounds, and bear in mind they make the coke sold in Egypt in Egypt, its not imported) but hey that's life. When we got to Tanta it’s a long way to the bus station, so we took a stroll around the shops first and then got a taxi, and we were again lucky as we got on a microbus and departed within 5 minutes of our arrival. It was nice to be out, but it was also nice to get home and relax.
3/4 June
Birth Certificates etc – I am pleased to say that after a bit of to-ing and fro-ing, Reda was able to get 2 birth certificates for his Father's eldest brothers, and the following day he went to Cairo and delivered them to the office. These will now be kept on file until the 2 years is up, whereupon Reda has to go back to Cairo to complete the residency application for me. He was told in the office in Tanta that he has to go to Tanta every 6 months to sign a document to confirm that we are still together, but in the office in Cairo they told him that he does not need to do that. Frankly I don't trust any of them, so I think we had better do some of our own research to find out what needs to be done, as if we don't sign anything every 6 months I don't want us to find in 2 years time that my application is turned down because of this. That would be typical. Or am I being a cynic?
5 June
Potatoes – One of my uncle's investors has pulled out, and he is short of cash to pay the potato farmers, so it would seem that we are to invest in buying a further 75 tonnes of potatoes after all. Lets hope the market goes up!! Inshallah. I have a hum dinger of a summer cold, but hey, at least its not raining! No news on the buying land front. We're not sure if he is playing hard to get or simply not interested in our offer. We are going to wait a bit longer and see, as we don't want him to think that we are especially keen, as he is bound to put the price up. Part of me thinks that maybe we should wait until the Autumn, as if there does end up being a world wide recession then if anything land prices should fall in the short-term, even here. We're going to play it by ear for now . . . . . . .
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