Traffic Scenes

The girl's don't make it out as often as I would like them to. We experienced a heat wave that lasted two months... wait, I think we call this summer. Right!

I mean I just couldn't bring myself on going out in the heat, also the dust. Oh and did I mention the traffic? Our neighborhood is quite barren, and getting offers from random caretakers of gated gardens didn't sit well in my gut. What Can I say, I am paranoid. So ending our first week of homeschooling, I am ashamed to say that we went out, three times. My girls are used to going out for several times every single day.

So today I had pity on them, and we got everyone ready early enough to beat the heat (also the weather cooled a little) and headed to our private sporting club, and you know what. Yes it takes an hour going and coming, but they have a play area, kids who speak English, and and a very shallow swimming pool. We are going swimming tomorrow with God's will.

I keep asking Mei if she prefers homeschooling over Baba's fancy school, and she just won't budge. She's developing so beautifully. She's very social. She's struggling with Arabic but is doing her best. And her drawing skills are just wonderful.

(Dinosaur drawing by Mei)

Grabby's chest is getting slightly better, she's more active and is going back to climbing everything in sight as opposed to lying there on any surface she could find-- she was laboring to breath. Everyone is comfortable with homeschooling except for the going out part.

Today heading there, I got stuck in traffic for an hour. I didn't mind. Both girls were asleep, and I got to listen to this.

Driving in Egypt is so surreal and real at the same time. There are no sugar coatings, what you see is what you get, or maybe you get a little less.

There are people jammed in tiny buses, sticking their heads out the window for some air. There is a young school boy lugging a bag his size and probably his weight, running through the highway trying to make it to the other side without getting squished by one of the cars. There is a hundred flying pages, and another hundred torn booklets scattered over one side of the highway-- a hundred yards ahead there's a motorcycle lying sideways and a man running, hands over his head, looking at the commotion. Desperation... there are so many little scenes, so many stories behind each scene, and so much chaos to stop and notice. Carry on...

***

Heading back I got stuck in more traffic, I made sure to look at faces this time, details, people. I was in that same street where my legs cramped after the storm, there are people living with the dead. In the graveyards. Where I am currently stuck. There is a clothes line pinned between an alley, the clothes flying by with the dust. There are old doors, Young boys kicking a sock ball, and women all in black, round in shape fixing lunch on a gas burner, dark skin from sitting in the sun, deep facial lines from everything else. Car's horns seep through my rolled up windows, and lurk in the background. Whatever it was that created the jam get resolved. We move.


(And this is how other people deal with Cairo traffic)

Peace.