Stuff I miss…

Lots of people ask, “So what do you miss most, now that you are in Cairo?”

That is a very difficult question to answer. There are silly things that I was used to in the States that I can’t find here. For example:

• Half and half for my coffee – we’ve resorted to buying milk and whipping cream and combining them
• Snack bars – I used to eat Zone Bars almost daily as a snack to keep me going. Now I eat dried figs – like Fig Newtons, without the Newton
• Good coffee – I moved from Seattle where coffee is everywhere, here, Nescafe is everywhere. There is some good coffee (and the Turkish coffee will curl your toes!) but it is substantially harder to find. Even finding places to buy beans is a challenge
• WINE!!!!! There is wine here, but it is….horrible. This is coming from a person who was perfectly happy drinking two-buck Chuck! The wine here is mostly from imported Lebanese grapes, but the making of the wine leaves A LOT to be desired. Many of the wines have a chemical-y aftertaste, and cause my GI tract to rebel after one glass.
• My chair-and-a-half and hassock (sp?). Our furniture is functional. It is not pretty, nor particular comfortable. We do not have foot stools. We are working to rectify the situation, however (see below) we need to figure out the process.

Then there are the less tangible things that I’m realizing I miss from “Home”. (I have also had to broaden my idea of Home – It is not just Seattle, nor just the US, it is all my life experience – thus, it now is beginning to include Cairo)

• My weekly chats with my family. We can still talk, but the days/times are much more difficult to arrange. The quality of the connection is always questionable. I guess this is, more broadly, a feeling of connection. In a new city, knowing few people, connectedness is lacking. I know that as we are here longer, the connections will form – but so far, it makes me miss the familiarity of “Home”
• Understanding the processes for getting things done (and having the process be EFFICIENT)
• I am currently embroiled in a 4 week struggle with the bank. I opened my account the day after we arrived (August 23rd). Jack and I filled out forms to apply for ATM cards. We were told 2 to 3 weeks to get the cards. After 2 weeks, I went to the bank and was told “Three weeks – insha’allah” I went in at 3 weeks and was told, “Not yet, soon, insha’allah” I have been going in EVERY DAY when the bank opens to find out what is going on with my DAMN cards. After another week (now 4 weeks since applying) I was told that we had filled out the application WRONG (we followed the directions of the bank official) and that the bank had been trying to call us! Well, neither Jack nor I had received calls, either on our mobile phones, or home phone, so I don’t know WHO they were calling, but it wasn’t ME. So we filled out ANOTHER application. When we asked “How Long?” we were told……You guessed it! Two weeks! Considering that we can’t access our money without the cards, or me going to the bank and waiting in line for 30 or so minutes to fill out a withdrawal slip, it is, shall we say, less than convenient to be waiting 6 weeks for ATM cards.
• Routine. There is a pattern that life falls into, once you’ve been somewhere for a while. This pattern is familiar and comfortable. It is flexible, and variation keeps life interesting, but there are still “constants”. We have not been here long enough to establish a pattern. We wake up on the weekends (Friday and Saturday here) and grapple with a vaguely lost feeling as to what we “should” or “need to” do, AND HOW TO DO IT. I know that time will form patterns. I do not enjoy the unsettled feeling in the meantime.