8 Days of “Happy”…and Then…

Unfortunately, there are some things in this world that you will never understand, no matter how hard you try. We experienced such an event Valentine’s Day 2009. Dakarai became sluggish over the weekend, we thought due to a late night with Seth sleeping on the couch. However, we quickly noticed his condition worsen. Without going into details, we took him to the vet and were told to nurse him with a syringe every 2 hours with electrolytes & water since he couldn’t even swallow for himself. At 8:30, Dakarai left us during a fit of being sick. Seth was holding him up since he had no body strength at all and didn’t even notice at first. We both cried and cried trying to make sense of what had just happened. How could something so happy and kind and friendly be gone so quickly? Why was this little guy gone after only 8 days of being in a loving home while mangy cats on the street live for years? These are but a couple of the things we still struggle with and will never quite understand. The staff here was WONDERFUL. They helped us find a place to bury Dakarai the very next afternoon. Even though most don’t speak a bit of English, many of the workers passed along their sorrow that our kitty had died. Work that day just flat sucked. We didn’t want to be there and were thinking of our lost Dakarai all the time. He truly lived up to the meaning of his name…HAPPY! He brought us joy and good times in our 8 days together. You have never met a more loving cat who had such a wonderful personality and was amazingly domesticated from the start! WE WILL MISS OUR DAKARAI!!!

While we were mourning, we discussed the idea of getting another cat. We agreed that we would eventually, but it was too soon right away and we didn’t want to betray Dakarai’s memory. That afternoon, while Seth had basketball practice (yes, he actually has a team!), a staff member was having trouble getting a small kitten out from his car – it had climbed inside of the wheels and wouldn’t come out. And it was loud!! Seth checked him out after practice on his way to a meeting and wasn’t going to mention anything to Kristal about him. But when he came back to the apartment, what should he find? Kristal was sitting out on the balcony with a pretty little grey and white kitten asleep wrapped up inside a shirt. Her excuse was that she couldn’t resist going down to look at the kitty but then none of the students down there were going to be able to keep him, so she brought him up. How can you say “no” to a defenseless little kitty? We sure couldn’t. Did Dakarai send him our way knowing how upset we were? Can we do justice to his memory with this new little guy? All we can say is we have another little kitty in our lives. We’ve decided to name him Sokkwi (SOH-kwee) which is Egyptian for “little fool.” Sokkwi had a good first check-up at the vet and loves to play and spastically pounce on his knitted mouse toy. However, he is not a quick learner, being taken off the bed a minimum of 20 times per day. We’ll write more about him later. We just wanted to let you all know of our transition.

Dakarai

Last night, walking home from a movie and dinner out with friends we found a little kitten out on the streets. Now this isn't anything special since in Egypt you can't walk five feet with out seeing a cat but this little kitten caught our attention and immediately wanted to be petted and picked up. We had been talking about getting a cat here since we miss our dog Desiree so much and Kristal is still very saddened by the loss of her cat Moonshine.

So we brought the kitten home and it was very happy to be along for the ride. Kristal went back out to the store to get some cat supplies and food and then we gave him a bath. An hour long bath! He didn't like it but he didn't put up much of a fight either and let us get him squeaky clean.

He is the friendliest, happiest, and most loving cat I have ever seen. He purrs constantly and wants to be with you at all time, preferably right up close and cuddling. He's already adjusted pretty well to his new home and to love it.

We chose the name Dakarai (Da-car-e) because it's an Egyptian name that means "happy" which defiantly describes this little guy pretty well.

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He's already learned that my knitting yarn is a lot of fun to play with.



Dakarai's first bath.



Seth's already trying to get him to the Dark Side.


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Knitting Knight

Did you know I can knit? ....I know, it surprises me too. Honestly, if someone would have told me three years ago that I would be a teacher, living in Egypt, and love knitting...I would have laughed.

But seriously, Seth's mom knitted me a scarf for Christmas when Seth and I were first together. I was so impresses with it that the next year for Christmas I asked if she'd teach me to knit. She didn't think she knew enough to teach so she got me an hour of knitting lessons. Suppose ably at the lesson I learned the basics of casting on, knit stitch, and binding off...but I was horrible at it and by far the worst in the class.

When we were moving to Egypt I wanted to bring a hobby along that wouldn't take up much room or cost too much. So I bought two "Knitting for Beginners" books and packed the one pair of knitting needles I had. I figured since I should be able to find all sorts of fancy Egyptian Cotton yarns that you're always hearing about, plus the fact that they have tons of sheep and lamas and other sources to make yarn out of; I thought it was the ideal hobby to do. But I soon to learned that you really can't find much Egyptian Cotton in Egypt (it's all exported). But after a lot of looking and asking I did finally find three decent little yarn shops in an area of town called Manchyae (market area). They have a decent selection and even some novelty yarns. They have several brands from Turkey, France and Germany, which is great because a lot of those brands are mega bucks back in the states and here they are supper cheap. I think the most expensive skein of yarn I've bought so far was about $2.50. However, it's nearly impossible to find needles and other knitting supplies here. So I just started practicing with some basic projects, reading the books and watching very helpful knitting video clips that I found on-line and I got better and better and started enjoying knitting a lot.

When we went home over Christmas I stocked up on knitting supplies. Seth's mom helped a lot, she knew a knitting store that was going out of business and got me a lot of great stuff for great deals. She also sewed me knitting needle holders for my straight and circular needles. I also got a lot of time to practice while hanging out at the hospital during Seth's dad surgery. I have now finished a couple scarves, a baby blanket, some baby hats, a purse, and a dog sweater.

I found out that a few other girls here also "kind of" know how to knit/crochet so I've started a Knitting Knight Club! There are five of us and we are meeting on Monday nights and we just started last week . I showed them my books, needles, projects, and some on-line sites that are very helpful and have free patterns. I also gave them a quick refresher course on the basics of knitting since they haven't done it for awhile and only knew a little. They each picked out a project that they want to start and this past weekend we all took the tram, which is a story in it's self, to the market area and got some yarn.

I was also watching baby Malcolm that night since his mom was sick and his dad was in Holland with the Model United Nations students. I felt very "domestic" knitting with a baby on my lap.

I'm really excited about our little group, we're all really good friends to begin with and it's great to have an excuse to have a girls night. Our husbands all like it too because they get together and play video games while we knit.

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Dahshur

Last weekend a group of us rented a van with a driver and took a trip to Dahshur. Dahshur is a little bit south of Cairo and is where the Bent Pyramid and the Red Pyramid are. These are believed to be some of the first pyramids constructed in Egypt. They were build almost 5,000 years ago by pharaoh Senfru who ruled during the 4th dynasty. These are two very unique pyramids due to the fact that the Bent pyramid sharply changes angles half way up in it's construction and the Red pyramid has a subtle sheen of red in the sun light due to the limestone that was quarried for it's construction. Egyptologists are not sure if the Bent pyramid changed shape due to the fact of the inexperience of the engineers and they were afraid is was going to cave in or due to the lack of time and needing to finish quickly.

The Bent Pyramid is actually on Egyptian military ground and you can not get very close to it, however, we were able to climb up and go inside the Red Pyramid. This was not as great of an experience as it sounds though. The entrance is about half way up the pyramid and is about 1 meter by 1 meter wide. It has about a 60 degree incline down with no stairs but only little metal poles going across every so often to help you down. So you are very cramped and hunched over and squatting going at a very steep uncomfortable incline. Did I mention that people were trying to come up at the same time. There is only one light about halfway down which doesn't provide much light so it is very dark most of the way and you can't see the bottom at all and we had no clue how far down it was. The further you went the hotter and stuffier the air got, not to mention the very bad smell of ammonia that made you gag. At the bottom there are three rooms that you can view and also got a very good look at the stacking of blocks on the ceiling. Here is a link that has a very good picture of the entrance.

After our pyramid excursion we went back to Cairo and to the CityStars mall which is a huge 7 story mall with tons of restaurants, theater, and entertainment.

By the way, our legs hurt so bad for several days after that steep incline down and back up the pyramid all hunched over and squatting like that.




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Super Bowl Party

While you guys got to watch the Super Bowl on Sunday, they just showed it here last night (Tuesday), so we hosted a small Super Bowl Party in our apartment for anyone that wanted to watch. Seth did not want to find out the final score so for the last two days he has not gotten on the internet or watched the news so it would still be a fun game for him to watch. They just showed the game without any commercials so those of us that were more interested in Super Bowl commercials had to watch them on-line. Sad, I know.

Also last night, I got a massage. There is a nice local lady that has been coming to the school for years to give massages. She comes right to your apartment and does a full body hour long massage for only 50 Egyptian pounds (LE)! Fifty Egyptian pounds equals $9.00! She is a really good masseuse too, I can't believe I can get a full body hour long massage in the comfort of my own home for less than ten bucks! I have scheduled a weekly appointment with her.

Hot News

We made the newspaper! Ok, it might not be the hottest news in town since they do a story on all the new teachers each year. The newspaper is called The Gate, which our journalism class puts every few months and the picture at the top is the front gate to our school which has been a important symbol of the school and surrounding community for 80 years. It is also posted online here for you to read. It was a nice article, although not entirely true...Seth and I were surprised to learn that we knew how to scuba dive when we read the article. The upper school girls had a lot of fun looking through our wedding pictures and choosing one for the article.