Yep, just like we expected Mom and Dad were awoken at 4:00 A.M. with the dawn call to prayer, not to mention all the other noises around here. We did warn them, in fact, I think that’s one of our first descriptive words we use when anyone asks us about living in Egypt…NOISY.
We got a kick out of how many times Mom and Dad would be shocked about something they saw or did and Seth and I would just say, “We’ve been telling you that for months!” and their reply was always, “I know you’ve been telling us but you just don’t understand it until you see/experience it for yourself.” Guess that just goes to prove what Seth and I keep saying….YOU ALL NEED TO COME OUT AND VISIT US.
Anyways, there is a Call To Prayer five times a day and it’s all based around the position of the sun. Every Mosque has a minaret, which until recently, a man would walk up to the top and sing out the Call To Prayer at the appropriate times. However, now a days, every Mosque has (a low quality) speaker system on the top of each minaret and a guy on a microphone (not a recording) sings out the Call To Prayer. It can be quite peaceful if there was only one Mosque with a man who can actually sing well. However, where we live, we are literally in the middle of a two block radius of five Mosques which all blare their speakers at the same time, over one another, and not always is the guy a very good singer. So it just becomes a whole lot of noise. After being here for months, you start to tune it out and it doesn’t always bother you as much…but it took awhile to get used to it. Sometimes it still wakes us up, but usually we can roll over and go back to sleep.
Seth and I would laugh, because we didn’t realize how use to we got to some of these noises until Mom and Dad would get startled, and ask, “What’s that!” and Seth and I would look at each other and look around straining our ears for something odd and Mom and Dad would then proclaim, “Oh my gosh, they don’t even here it, they are used to that noise.” Then Seth and I would realize what they were talking about and say, “Oh, that! That’s just the onion guy.” Which is a guy that goes around with his donkey cart filled with onions and garlic and has a megaphone hooked up to a car battery and yells some indistinguishable phrase that even the locals can’t understand, about coming to buy his onions. Or, “Oh that’s just the train.” Referring to the god awful screeching, which I imagine to be the same sound an ancient Pterodactyl would cry as he hunted, train that runs behind our school.
We hadn’t planned much to do today since we knew they would be jet lagged and tired. We gave them a tour of our school’s campus. They got to see Seth’s and mine classrooms and office and realize just what we mean when Seth and I sometimes say that there are days that we don’t ever get more than 100 yards apart from each other the entire day. They also saw the apartment that we will be moving into next year; a bit of an upgrade with a second bedroom and a bigger/nicer kitchen.
After lunch, I took Mom and Dad to an Armenian Easter Bazaar. Our high school secretary, and my friend Karen is Armenian and she invited us to come to the Armenian Club for the Bazaar. Jane, the librarian whom I work with all day long, came along with us. The Armenian Club is just a multipurpose building with a very nice enclosed garden for social events. Alexandria has a large Expat community. Expat stands for Ex-patriot and means anyone who does not live and work in their country of birth. Seth and I are Expats here. There are large populations of Armenian’s, Greeks, and Italians here and they have their own communities within Alexandria with their own schools, clubs, and restaurants. The large communities formed between World War I World War II when they came here to escape their own countries which were not safe at the time and many have stayed and have fourth generations here now. Usually expats of other nationalities can also go to their clubs and restaurants but not many let Egyptians in. We go to the Greek and Protégées club a lot. Anyways, there wasn’t much to the Easter Bazaar, no handmade crafts like we were hoping but we did by some food. We spent an hour relaxing in their beautiful garden and meeting Karen’s family and friends. They had a HUGE poinsettia plant, I didn’t even know they could grow bigger than the normal little potted Christmas plants.
That evening Mom stayed home with me and I showed off what I’ve been learning about digital scrapbooking (thank you Sarah), while Seth and Dad took Sokkwi to the vet for his second round of shots. We have to get all of his vaccinations in before we bring him home with us this summer. Our cat will actually have a kitty passport to prove his health records. Our vet is actually the brother of someone we work with, we like and trust him, although his clinic in not exactly anything like you would find in the states. It’s just a single room off of their house and not the cleanliness or up-to-date you would find back home. This was the first time that Dad took a taxi in Egypt rather than a driver, although he didn’t get the usual thrill-ride as expected. They actually managed to find a cab driver who spoke fluent English and drove really safely as he politely talked with Dad about his beloved home Alex. Not, to worry, Mom and Dad got to experience many more typical cab rides the rest of their trip.
When they got back we all went to San Stefano, the huge new mall and Four Seasons Hotel that is within walking distance of the school, to eat at Fresca, a nice relaxing upscale café that we like, which looks out over the Cornish and the Mediterranean Sea. This means another walk through real life Egypt and crossing Horraha Street, a major four lane (six cars across) road. It’s hard walking through town with Mom, even though I tell her to keep up and never to hesitate when I go, I would still look back every once in awhile and realize that she was 50 yards behind me, too scared to walk in between two cars. The other hard part was that I’ve always told everyone that I think Egypt is very safe and friendly and that I never get harassed on the street by men, which is true. However, my mom with her bright blond hair which is quite unique here got all sorts of attention on the streets. Nothing too bad just a few, “Hey California Blondie.”, “I like your hair.”, “Hey pretty lady.” , “Hey blond hair woman.”. I had more of a hard time with it than Mom did. It’s a sad day when you realize your roles with your parents have reversed. You have to hold your mother’s hand to cross the street, and your Mom is that one that get the cat calls from the men.
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