Cairo Time

The house is big, at least by the standards of the places we have lived so far: five bedrooms, four bathrooms.  Our stuff hasn't arrived yet so we are living with the so-called "welcome kit" which is much better than nothing but somewhat incomplete.  Five bedrooms, four bathrooms, three pillows and two towels.

Maadi is south of Cairo and has trees.  It also has rabid dogs.  Sometimes city officials deal with the dogs by placing strychnine-laced meat in the streets.

We have a few cockroach friends.  Well, you know, the kind of friends you swat with a shoe.  (Friends?  Friends slow down.  Friends stop. [Just move on if you didn't catch that]).  Unrinsed dishes left in the sink overnight will bring ant friends.  These are not ants I am familiar with from the United States.  These are pyramid ants.  And they're mad.  I can't really defend the statement that they are mad, I just assume that being big, and an ant, and in my kitchen sink means you're mad.

We hired help.  Freed from cooking and cleaning obligations, adjusting to overseas life is a breeze.  Also, while we're waiting for our car to arrive, we've hired essentially a chauffeur service to drive us everywhere, which feels kind of better than having a car to me but I think it is driving Katie a little bonkers.

The kids go off to the Maadi House to swim most days.  This club for diplomats (I get lumped in with this group even though I hardly consider myself diplomatic) has a nice pool, tennis courts, super cheesy pizza, and a giant bouncy house slide thing.  Unfortunately, they just started summer camps there.  Our kids are not in the camp and thus cannot enter until camp is over.  Next week, the kids start their camp at Cairo American College, so take that Maadi House. 

The Journey

The brilliant travel agent gave us 33 minutes to get off the plane in Salt Lake with three kids, four carry on bags, five backpacks and three pillow pets and transfer to the flight to Paris. So we were trying to go double time. We made it and all the kids did their share pretty well.

The first real glitch of the trip was the revelation once on board the international flight that there were no TV screens. I especially enjoyed Katie's exchange with a stewardess:

There are no TVs?

No, ma'am.

Seriously?

Um, yes ma'am. Seriously.

For a twelve hour flight with three kids, you're telling me there are no TV screens?

Um, yes ma'am.

Anyway, I've never been so grateful for the legacy of Steve Jobs. IPods to the rescue. And Benadryl may have been involved somewhere along the way.

Then we arrived in Paris. Turns out it's charming. Who knew?

We just walked around a little and did double decker bus tour from Notre Dame through Champs Élysées and then past the Invalides. Maddie and Caleb mostly enjoyed pretending they were launching missiles from the top of the bus.

Then we slept for a long time and went to the airport.

The Same Sociality

I am home.  Much is different but most of the material things are the same.  Katie and I are still in love and we still bicker over everything.

I never thought this would be true before getting married, but my perfect marriage includes abundant arguing and I love it.

After expressing some emotional pain too personal and sacred to share here, the kids seem to be more or less adjusted to my return and recovered from my absence.  Four days in, Caleb concluded: "It's like dad never left."  Perfect.

The Help

It did not take me long to ascertain that there are quite a few folks in Pakistan looking for work.  That's what they call "situational awareness."

So that keen insight met up with a sort of double indemnity moral obligation that I feel quite deeply every day:  First, it is by the grace of God that I have anything at all; second, it is by the hard work of U.S. taxpayers that I have a job.

Thus I found myself praying for God's will regarding how I might serve a community that is nearly impossible for me to interact with in a normal way.  It was strange to me that what I felt in response was to hire help.

I'm an Idaho boy.  I wasn't raised on a farm or anything but still, growing up in Idaho unavoidably brings certain guilts, such as the shame of not being able to cook one's own food and wash one's own laundry.  Second, it seemed selfish, not unselfish to hire household staff (especially with Katie suffering as a single mom).  Right?

But it was what I felt.  Sure I can do my own laundry (at which point Katie rolls her eyes and thinks, Prove it!).  But there are a lot of street beggars in Islamabad; a lot of homeless folks; a lot of people looking for work.  And then I had a new and strange insight about the morality of being frugal and the economics of so-called self-reliance.  Cheap is the greedy version of thrifty.

"They did not set their hearts upon riches; therefore they were liberal to all (Alma 1:30)."  I had previously been inclined to perceive the hiring of household staff as having one's heart set upon riches.  Now I see that it is quite the opposite.  If my heart is set upon riches, I will not be liberal to all but will retain my riches and perform these tasks myself, selfishly.  My heart is not set upon riches and therefore, within the bounds of prudence, I should liberally purchase the goods and services of all.

I hired the president of the local LDS branch and his wife as housekeeper and cook.  At first it was a cultural adventure.  I gave instructions that I thought were super specific only to learn that mopping is not intuitive to someone with a dirt floor.  And it was a little weird the first morning when they brought me a bowl of Cheerios with warm milk.

In due time they figured out the cultural quirks of persnickety Americans.  I found them others to work for in the diplomatic community to increase their income and enable continuity of work upon my departure.  I coached them in dealing with their other bosses.  And we became friends.

They have suffered much.  I cannot tell their stories here for they are not mine to tell.  My life is easy.  In their eyes, I am wealthy beyond measure.  Yet I allow myself to feel poor.  How foolish of me.

No Justice for My Favorite Author

Orson Scott Card is my favorite author.  Ender's Game is my favorite book.  So it was wicked awesome when I found out the movie version will be released in 2013 (Harrison Ford, Hailee Steinfeld, Ben Kingsley).  I have never been so geeked out in my life.

Then I saw a release date for a movie entitled The Seventh Son, which is the title (minus the "the") of my second favorite book, also by Mr. Card.  Could it be?  I read the plot summary for the movie.  It is the general idea of the book by Mr. Card.  But then it said, based on the novel by Joseph Delaney.

So I looked up this Delaney loser.  And indeed he is a book idea thief.  I know all writing is derivative, but come on, same title, same plot outline.  How can this be legal?  And how could he get the movie deal before Prentice Alvin?  I call foul, to all five of you reading my blog: Foul!

Yesterday at Our (Former) House

The van that will carry our stuff to Cairo?

His Father's Son

My mother has often lamented that there are no straight-faced photos of me until about age 25.

The apple doesn't fall far from the tree.

By A Thread

I am finding it incredibly difficult to do anything useful or productive other than running.  Any chance I get I am running.  Perhaps it gets me closer to home.  With under three weeks to go my impatience is unbearable.  I have never felt anything like it.

I am making every possible effort to remain focused at work.  Otherwise, I just sort of wander around the house.  All my stuff is in a pile to be shipped to Cairo early next week.  Wicked, really to ship things two weeks before I depart.  I suppose it means my things will likely be there when I arrive but it quite shatters any hopes of remaining in the moment.

So I am living out of a suitcase and wandering an empty house.  Netflix is my friend.  Anything to pass the time.  Though the nature of the Internet connection here is such that I can only watch in 7 minute intervals before having to wait 15 minutes to reload.

My shower head broke a week or so ago.  The replacement provides only a trickle and I can no longer mix hot and cold.  I just have to choose one or the other.

I watched Moneyball for the fourth time today.  I love that movie.  But really, four times?

I want to blog about children, like I used to, but I get bits and pieces of their stories second hand.  Their stories are not my stories.  I wept quite pitifully over this fact a few nights ago.

I should call my mother more often.

Sewage and Roses

They "cleaned" my water tank today. Somehow, please do not ask me to explain the causal chain, this led to a flooding of the basement.

I am told it was "just water." Aquafina is just water. This water is much more than just water.

Have you seen the movie Labyrinth?  I now live in the Bog of Eternal Stench.

The housekeeper helpfully attempted to cover the odor with rose air freshener. It's like drinking apple juice right after you brushed your teeth. Roses and putrid water just don't mix well.

How soon am I going home?

Easter Morning

My children, while you decorate and hunt for eggs, while you eat chocolate bunnies and jelly beans, I hope you will remember what it's all for.

Just like our joyful reunion in 30 days, so will be our reunions in heaven.

They Hate Mules!