Whirlwind visit to UK

Between Luke and I, we have a lot of family and friends to visit when we pop to the UK for 5 days… So it ended up being one of those trips where we needed a holiday to recover from our holiday…

We jumped on a plane and headed to Heathrow on 29 April, where we promptly missed our bus to Southampton (do not trust Egypt Air – actually do trust that they will run at least 2 hours late, no matter where they fly to). So at midnight, we had to mission around and hire a car and figure out directions to mum’s house in Hamble. This was actually surprisingly easy – it’s amazing how accustomed you get to things being incredibly difficult in Cairo (I didn’t even suffer one sense of humour failure – surprising, considering the highway that we had mapped out on a large piece of paper with the help of a very patient dude at Avis, had been closed, and then Luke decided to show me “an amazing British institution”  (a petrol station) en route – which meant we got in at about 2am).

We arrived to a beautiful house over looking Hamble river filled with 4 people on about bottle of wine number 5. No problem – we joined in, and managed to get enough wine down our gullets to ensure a headache the next day…

Hamble is the most beautiful little village – completely dedicated to yachting (I had the best chocolate brownie at the yacht club cafe – a little room filled with yachties covered in water-proof everything, as it was bucketing down, and they insisted on pretending that they didn’t notice). I managed to get my hair done and have a facial without having to get in the car! 

Mum lives next door to some famous football players from Portsmouth (sorry, wish I could tell you their names, but I’m just not that into it), and thought it was quite funny that Mike regularly craps on them for parking outside his front door!

Luke disappeared to visit some of his family the next day, and I went with mum and Mike to be officially introduced to Tom. Tom (or Tim, as some like to call him for no particular reason other than to wind various people up) is Stu’s horse – who is really cute! Stu popped him around some cross country jumps, and then stuck him back into his pink and grey lorry (it even has a double bed, kitchenette and dining room table) and took him home.

Then we popped off to check out Badminton - which is amazing! We watched some of the dressage, and walked the cross country course – which is just beautiful! I have never seen such fairy tale grounds before in my life – Vergelegen looks like my back yard in comparison! Absolutely breath taking, and really quite exciting to be shown around by someone in the know (not sure how Stu does it, but everyone that looked sort of official would say hi…) I also managed to purchase the most beautiful pair of woolly leather boots / wellies – and can’t wait to go somewhere cold enough for me to wear them!

Then we dashed to a pub for dinner with…. wait for it – Luke’s dad, stepmum, two half brothers, my brother, mum and mike…. So much easier to lump everyone together – and it was fairly festive.

I spent the night with Luke’s family. We went go-carting the next day (I whipped Luke’s ass – he will deny that), and then proceeded to play with Luke’s brother’s ferrets with them while Luke went to a meeting.

And then (phew, I’m getting tired just writing this down) we headed to London – picked up Dave en route in Oxford, and arrived at Brussels’ house in time to be very fashionably late for dinner with a whole crew of mates!

We ended up having the most enormous night (we both let our hair down properly – hadn’t done anything like that for a while, and it was just too much fun to be around mates again!). We were a very sorry sight heading to the airport the next day (don’t drive in London – it is not advisable if you love the person you are going to fight with when you get lost), and perhaps even sorrier when we arrived at work the next day!

But what fun!

 

 

Sharm with Dad

I am battling to get back into the swing of things, and so many things can change so quickly when you are not watching…

Dad and Margs came to visit – we spent 4 days being tour guides in Cairo (well, 2 days and 2 evenings being tour guides). It’s quite strange having to do that – I wasn’t sure what to show them – there’s just so much out there. We ended up sending them to the Egyptian Museum, where they managed to pick up a good tour guide by chance, and then sent them to the Pyramids for the day with a tour guide that was recommended to us (note a day at the Pyramids is not for those scared of heat and dust!)

The rest of the time we went to our favourite restuarants, had a picnic sailing down the Nile, and played some golf.

Then we were treated by Dad to a week at the Four Seasons in Sharm el Sheikh – sheer bliss! It is a green oasis of an hotel in the middle of a vast desert, with views from the rooms through palm trees onto a sea that is such a startling blue that it doesn’t look like a sea at all.

We spent our time scuba diving and lounging at the pool and eating and drinking and sleeping.  

I never thought I actaully liked scuba diving (thought the effort of getting to the bottom of the ocean far outweighed the enjoyment once down there), but I have never experienced such hassle free diving with such a large reward at the end of the rainbow (rays, amazing gulleys of colourful corral on either side, stone fish, lion fish, glass fish - all things that look cool to an amateur diver)

It also helps that at the Four Seasons they make diving so hassle free – all you have to do is walk to the beach and present yourself so that someone can pull your wetsuit on for you and gently lower you onto the bottom of the ocean.

We spent a day as the Ras Mohammed national park on board the Four Seasons boat (I will remember her name – I will, I will). It was the most opulent day ever – and I loved it!

But generally a brilliant week, with lots of down time to relax and take stock of things…

(I can’t remember exactly what I meant by saying that things change so quickly – probably something along the lines of the fact that I came back to a new boss… Apologies, this post was started a while ago, and never published – and now I am playing catch up again!)

 

Women and Relationships in Egypt

I want to tell you the story of two of my Egyptian friends – because it epitomises how women in this country are still seen as second rate citizens. This story is particularly interesting because these friends of mine have lived abroad (in Europe) and according to me, are exactly the same as me – we like to do the same things, we talk about interesting topics, we are from the same LSM, we travel, we go night-clubbing until early hours of the morning etc etc.

Let me start with Reham’s story (not her real name):

She is a divorced single mother aged 30. She got engaged to her previous husband, and with that was given an apartment (in her name) by her mother (who is Egyptian, but lives in Edinborough with her second husband). Up until then, Reham had been living with her grandparents.

When she started to notice signs that perhaps this guy wasn’t her night in shining armour, she told her mother that she didn’t want to marry him after all. Her mother’s response was “You will marry him, otherwise you will not be given your apartment”.

So they got married (that was the only way she was going to be allowed to move out of her grandparents house), had a baby and a month later he walked out (after being an absolute psycho and someone that I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy).

Since then, Reham has been living in her own apartment and bringing up her son on her own. She is frowned upon by neighbours because she lives alone, but her mother lives abroad and her grandparents have downgraded, so there is no other option (luckily for her). 

She cannot take her son out of the country without getting the father’s permission – which he refuses to give – so she is stuck in Egypt. The father used to pay LE500 per month (about R700) for the son, but hasn’t paid anything for at least a year now. The law is of no use, and cannoy help Reham in any way – these things cannot be changed.

On top of this, for the first time in ages, the father has contacted Reham’s uncle and said he wants to see his son for 15 minutes on Thursday. She was completely against it, but her uncle said it was the father’s right, and she had to let him see his son. She went ballistic and maintained that the father had no rights to his son considering his past behaviour. Reham then had to take Thursday off from work, so that she could watch over her son (who is looked after by a nanny at her house) because she thinks her uncle would let her ex-husband see his son behind her back. (I mean wtf!!!)

Reham then met a friend of mine (we’ll call him Karim) at a dinner party at my house. They hit it off, went on a couple of dates – and then last Thursday they broke up becuase they had a fight (he got annoyed because she wanted to come out for dinner with a bunch of us and he couldn’t make it, so he wanted her to stay at home and wait for him).

By the Saturday, they were back together and …. engaged!  

This, to me, is just absurd! But Reham has said that Karim is willing to wait for her as long as it takes, so they have set the wedding for October – WHAT???? That is 6 months away – which means that she is going to get marrried again (pressured by their families) within 8 months of first clapping eyes on the guy! (and this is after they broke up after their first fight!)

Well, this is absolute madness according to me! And I have actually said as much to Reham (you will remember that she is a very good friend, and we go partying together), and she says yes, she knows, but this is the Egyptian way…

Well, what can you say to that other than I wish you the best, and may you guys be happy ever after…

 

 

 

Moon Beach

I wish I had the discipline to update my blog more often, but life in Egypt is starting to feel normal, and with normal life comes busy-ness and less time to write!

We had our first major adventure (I call it an adventure, because it entailed us driving ourselves) when we went to Moon Beach for the weekend about two weeks ago.

Moon Beach is a seriously cool place – and is famous for it’s kite surfing. Apparently it’s because the wind blows constantly in one direction, and there are masssive lagoons so the water is as flat as a pancake – great kite surfing conditions by all accounts. If anyone is interested in a cheap outdoorsy holiday, I can highly recommend it (check out www.moonbeachretreat.com for more details). You can sail, winsurf, do yoga, kite surf, paddle – all in a sea that is clear blue and laps onto the beach. (Still very strange to get used to the desert joining the sea – absolutely no greenery to be seen!)

What is really interesting about Moon Beach is that it is only a 2.5 hour drive out of Cairo, and expats that live in Cairo spend almost every weekend there. There is a little bar on the beach which is like expatville! They all keep their sail boats and canoes on the beach, and they know all the other expats working there, as well as the dogs! Kids seem to think it’s their second home, and they run around independantly and in complete safety! I met more expats living in Cairo at the Moon Beach bar than I ever have in Cairo!

But the most exciting part of our weekend was the driving! We got Amr to drive us out of Cairo, and to stop on the Sinai road. Cairo is really confusing, and the traffic is hair-raising, so we thpought we’d spare ourselves that trauma on the way out. (He just pulled up on the side of the highway, and jumped out to catch a taxi home!)

Once on the Sinai road it was fairly easy going in terms of direction – straight! The other cars on the road drive so badly, that I shrieked all the way there! When it got dark (big mistake) it looked as though there were cars in our lane coming towards us. There were also a lack of lines on the roads, and some roads were one way (there would be another road parallel to the one we were on, except it would be on the other side of the sand dune, so we wouldn’t see it) , and some were two ways – we were never entirely comfortable about whether we were driving on the right road, never mind the right side of the road!

The way home got more interesting when we decided to try to navigate our way home through Cairo. We got so hopelessly lost that we ended up having to stop a taxi and explain that we wanted him to drive us home, but that we would just follow him (not such an easy task to explain that to someone who doesn’t speak a word of English!)

But we did it, and for the most part we were smiling

We are heading back to Moon Beach this weekend to continue with kite surfing school. Let’s hope the drive is not quite as traumatic (or maybe I will be more numb to the oncoming traffic!)