Obsessed with washing my hands

It's dusty in Cairo because we live in the Sahara desert. It is dirty because Egypt has different views about cleanliness and hygiene and dirt and germs and everything germaphobes think is important. I am a moderate germaphobe and although I think I will be OK and not progress to crazy-person level for now I am obsessed with washing my hands. If it involves money or food I am washing my hands before and after. And nagging Dave to do the same.

Money
It is a cash-based economy with little use of ATM and credit cards. That means money passes through a LOT of, ahem, dirty hands. It is only half jokingly called poopy hands and you can figure that out for yourself. My friend Jennifer who lived in Cairo 13 years ago told me that Dave would have to bring his own tp to work. Things have progressed and there is tp at his office I am happy to report.

The money is called Egyptian pounds, LE, and the exchange rate makes my head spin: 7 US dollars to the LE. 7? Really? Who easily divides 340 LE into 7s? NOT ME. So I am trying to remember that 70.00 LE is 10 US dollars and go up/down from there. For expats it is cheap to live in Cairo.

Food
Last night I was reading about the local customs and dos and don'ts. The first rule about food:

If you can't peel it or cook it, don't eat it.

Apparently lettuce is a risky food to eat, even if you buy it yourself and sanitize with bleach (1 tbls bleach to a big bowl of water for 10 minutes to kill things) BECAUSE apparently noticeable parasites can be found in the veins of lettuce--they advised cutting out the large veins. Dave laughed at me because he knows by the time I get finished with removing every vein (better get the little ones too) that it wouldn't be recognizable as lettuce. But I do know people who eat lettuce so we will see. Right now I'm in the parasite-microbe freaked-out stage so no lettuce for the Jennettes!

I am trying my best to be careful but I can already feel the twinges of stomach stuff. I am hopeful that I will adjust to the different intestinal flora in Egypt.

p.s. It's not just Egypt. I managed to get an intestinal bug within 2 days of travelling to Europe for a week! I had a stomachache for 5 days and I wasn't even in Egypt. I was so mad!!

Egyptian pounds. The smaller denominations like the 5 LE note at the bottom are usually dirty and well used.