Updated photos of our villa

I wrote about our villa in 2014 before we moved in and thought I would post photos of what it looks like now. This home is our absolute favorite domicile in our nearly 30 years of marriage. It's 100 years old with 18 foot ceilings, huge windows, great air flow, beautiful garden, and an extraordinary private driveway. It is, however, close to the police station and we have a barricade at the corner that you have to squeeze by. It looks intimidating with the military recruits and their rifles. The barricade was created more than a year ago to keep vehicles with bombs from reaching the police station and exploding. I have to admit that that sort of thing happens in Egypt now. But I'm not concerned. The bombs are small and our walls are 20 inches thick and made of concrete blocks. Really, you get used to things here. Cairo is a huge city, spread out over a wide area, with 17 million people.

We made some upgrades to the villa when we moved in, the most important of which is the brand new kitchen that we designed and the outdoor sidewalks and patio. Our home is a sanctuary for us. We get to forget about all the crazy stuff going on outside our villa walls. We are lucky to have this opportunity to live here and hope to stay a while longer. By the way, I use an iphone to take photos and they are always dark. grr.

Our bowab Ahmed with two military recruits outside our villa. Ahmed decorated for Ramadan and at night it's really pretty with lights all around the fence. This area is usually busy with lots of people hanging around, drinking tea, and visiting with one another. I provide tea, sugar, coffee, chairs, tables, electricity to the kiosk (phone charging!) and cable TV. One of these days I will get a photo of my night bowab, Mohammad. Such a wonderful man and excellent employee.

The view once you step through the gates. I used a panorama setting for this photo to try to capture everything. Our driveway is very unusual for Maadi and having instant access to our kitchen is also a gift. Can you see the large fanoose hanging just above the car? It's beautiful at night.

Our kitchen which looks kind of small in this photo but can hold a lot of people when we have parties. We love our kitchen and I LOVE that big window by my sink with the huge windowsill. I get to put all my favorite little things on the windowsill and enjoy them when I'm cleaning vegetables and slogging in the kitchen. I'm NOT a cook!! Dave does the majority of the cooking because he likes it and he's better than me.

The hallway from the kitchen. That's the front door ahead. There is a lovely breeze when the kitchen and front doors are open, which I open every morning to get fresh air. All the villas have bars on the doors and windows. You get so used to the bars that you don't notice them anymore.

Here's my living room. Can you see the tall windows? Most of the furniture is mine, brought from Houston. I am eclectic. I love a variety of things, especially old things. Old and wooden? Crazy for it. If it's handcarved with bits of old paint on it and not too expensive, it's mine.  I also love almost anything Asian and have a lot of Chinese things. And I've never been to China! I love Indian things also. I l-o-v-e poking around in antiques stores, junk shops, and architectural junk yards and shops.

 

Here's our dining room. One of the reasons we love the villa is the charming doorway carvings. Can you see how thick the doorways are? The walls are 20 inches thick. I've had trouble trying to fill the walls with art. The framed art I brought with us is swallowed up on these big walls.

Just off the dining room is my cubby. I was inspired during a visit to Istanbul. I had the furniture made locally which is a very common thing to do. Not too expensive either.



Villas and apartments have a lot of terraces. Our villa has a large one on the roof and two on the second floor. The terraces usually are connected to a bedroom. I'm certain this was to help with the Cairo heat. This is my terrace on the second floor by my bathroom and laundry room. I love to sit out here when the weather is nice. And I also love the bamboo furniture made here in Egypt. When I first moved here I bought outdoor made of palm fronds but they weathered too quickly, got bugs, and created splinters when they dried out.

Here's a panorama of our back garden. I hope it looks OK. We put in the walkway and patio. I don't know if you can see the furniture on the right side but most people cover their outdoor stuff because of the dust, cats, and bat poop that rains down. David loves his garden and spent a lot of time wrangling with the gardener (I call  him the waterer) to get it to look like this. We have several banana trees that produce small bananas that my Filipino maid said are just like the ones back home. You can also see my covered terrace on the second level.



My husband David LOVES flowers. These pots are his creations.

Some of the wonderful people I know in Maadi

I love my relationships with Egyptians: friends, drivers, employees, shop keepers, leg waxers at Josys salon, apache staff, delivery men, and so many others.

 

This is Lordes my wonderful maid (Filipino, not Egyptian). She's awesome and takes good care of everything. She's like an energizer bunny and is very kind to the outside staff, which is important to me because we have a happy villa community.  She's the only one with a key to the villa and takes over when I'm away. 



A selfie with my driver Mohammad (blue shirt), Ahmed, and Moustafa the gardener's son.
I love the people who help us with our lives in Cairo.



This is my gardener Mohammad in the center. Moustafa his assistant is on the left and Ahmed on the right. Mohammad and his crew comes six days a week in the morning to take care of the garden. The bicycle is his only mode of transportation. Sometimes the cats get into his food that he puts in the blue crate. See the unsure look on their faces (besides Ahmed who's a ham)? They are not used to madams wanting to take their photos or even talking to them. There's a caste system in Egypt but I treat everyone the same. Why shouldn't I say hello to the gardener's assistant?

 

Miriam's Market is my favorite store in Maadi. They carry a lot of items that Americans like and the store is clean with wide aisles. The people are so so friendly and treat you like family. They loved meeting Sydney and Jared when they visited as well as Patricia and Alexandria. Instant family! Pictured here is Kamal (left) the produce manager and one of his assistants.

This is the butcher at Miriam Market. He's right next to the produce section and everytime I walk down the steps to go into the produce section I am greeted with a big smile and recommendations for meat. I buy chicken, turkey legs, and sometimes lamb from him.

Introducing Azza. She is so beautiful to me!! Azza sits in a wheelchair all day and people give her money and food. I give her money when I see her and she's on my list for ramadan bags. There are a lot of people like her in Egypt, men, women, and children.

I love these boys!! They help me when I go to buy flower pots. I love Egyptian children!! They love to make friends with you and ask your name and take photos.



I don't know his name but he helps sell the beautiful outdoor bamboo furniture I have in the garden. Isn't his smile amazing? He was so happy that day because he was soon to leave for his trip to Mecca for his lifetime Hajj.

 

 

Kitties everywhere

There are usually several cats that live in the gardens of villas here in Maadi. I noticed a few when we moved in in March of 2014 but didn't pay too much attention to them because I was distracted with getting the house in order. They generally stay hidden in the bushes or walk the streets looking for food.

David, who grew up in a decidedly non-cat family and has allergies to them, first noticed how charming cats can be at our friend Jane's house. She has beautiful Persians. We came home from dinner at their house soon after moving into the villa and he said "wow Jane's cat was so friendly and sweet. Maybe we could get a cat..." which of course surprised me after 28 years of anti-cat talk. Then, lo and behold, a devoted cat lady sent an email around the expat community asking if anyone would like to adopt a sweet cat who fell, injured his diaphragm, and needed an indoor home. I decided to see the cat and when I sat on the floor Clementine came right up to me and climbed onto me like a dog. I couldn't believe it. A cat that was acting like a dog. Clementine is our indoor/outdoor cat and even though it's officially a male cat, she/he has a female name cause we are used to female animals. And she is so sweet. We added our very balady Ruby within weeks so that Clem wouldn't be lonely. After two months of watching them sit at the doors and windows pining to be outside with the other cats, they became the very lucky indoor/outdoor kitties of the villa.

Clementine and baby Ruby. Clem is very cuddly when it's her idea and Ruby has grown into a very skittish cat and would never perch on my legs again. They love each other very much.

Crookedy and Oscar in the old days. They were our only two back door cats
and we took care of them the best we could. I still miss Crookedy.

The first cat I noticed at our villa was "mama cat" who had four, then three, then two, then just one kitten within a week's time. Then I noticed all the other cats. I started feeding the cats and getting them neutered/spayed with a local vet. There weren't many cats then, maybe 8-10. And there were three people in the area feeding the cats so it was manageable for quite a while. Well now it's only me and we have a horde of kitties at dinner time. We try to feed them every other day but I usually see one of my favorites--"three legged!! where have you been?"--and then feed them.

 

Feeding time. Only 14 cats today--couldn't get Baby into the picture. We have counted as many as 30 cats!!Wth! Three-legged is the kitty in the top right corner, Bandit is the white kitty in the top left corner. Broken leg is there but you can't see her. The one just below Bandit is MEAN to the other cats and I'm trying to decide what to do about that.

It has been a huge surprise to us that we enjoy our garden cats with their distinctive personalities. "Crookedy," so named because she had a funny twitch to her hind legs when she walked, was pure white with beautiful light blue eyes and constant scratches and sores. We loved Crookedy but she died in a horrible manner last autumn. Oscar came to our back door two years ago as a baby--no mama in sight--and is always trying to run into the villa to get a quick bite of cat food. Last June a sweet little brown cat joined the growing crowd. We call her "brown cat". Another favorite is "Three-legged mama" so named because she has only three legs and, because of an eye infection last summer, has only one eye now. She also has an unfortunate spot of black fur around her eyes and looks like a bandito. A face only a mother could love. Other cats that we are fond of include "Baby," "mama cat," "broken leg," and a new teenager we call "bandit" that we were sure was going to die as a kitten. I completely understand now how some people end up with a lot of cats!!

I will admit that the cats are pesky. The majority of them keep their distance but some desperately want a human touch (I always give "baby" a pet) and mill about your feet when you're walking. Which causes problems for everyone, especially the bowab when he's carrying a tray of tea for the policemen!! The cats are also in various stages of health though none of them have rabies. Mostly they suffer from eye infections and a raspy cough. Brown cat doesn't look well these days but Crookedy used to look like she was dying and would recover. It breaks my heart that to survive they have to find food in the garbage or catch the occasional bird or rat. Actually what breaks my heart even more is that there is no animal control except for putting out poisoned meat for the dogs. That's why the city is filled with unwanted cats and dogs.

Ramadan in Maadi, Egypt

It's Ramadan in Egypt, June 6 through approximately July 6. This is my third Ramadan and I enjoy being around for the sights and sounds. The lack of sounds to be precise! Everything slows down during Ramadan: the traffic, the people, businesses tend to open later in the day and restaurants stay closed until the evening until it's time for Iftar. This year I think it's been a bit more difficult for the people fasting because of the unusually hot daily temperatures of 100+ degrees. As much as 112 degrees so far this Ramadan! With no food or water or cigarettes for nearly 16 hours!

Here's a typical day during Ramadan for a Muslim. Even during normal times there are five prayers a day and the call to prayer is announced at the mosques using a loudspeaker. There are thousands of mosques and it's an interesting sound to hear several of them all at once. During Ramadan, before the first prayer of the day around 3:30 a.m., the people eat sohoor, or what we would call breakfast. Eggs, beans, bread, cheese, leftovers from the previous Iftar but no meat because it's hard to digest. The call to prayer is heard soon afterwards and everyone either goes to the mosque to pray or prays at home. Most people will then try to sleep a bit.

During the next 15-16 hours they cannot eat, drink, or smoke tobacco. Most people still go to work but are allowed to arrive a bit later and leave earlier, usually around 3:00 p.m. Around 7:00 p.m. the fourth call to prayer signals that they can eat and drink. They start slowly with a few sugary dates, some fruit juice, sips of water. They go to pray and then it's time for their big meal called Iftar. It's a time of joy and celebration and commonly includes extended family. If you don't know this, Egypt is a country of night owls and especially so during Ramadan! People visit, pray, read the Holy Koran, and watch the newly released movies and soap operas on television. You will also never ever hear a Muslim complain about fasting. It is their joy to do this for Allah. Muslims love Ramadan.

A display of nuts, dried fruit, figs, raisins, etc. for Ramadan.

My bowab loves to decorate the villa for Ramadan and it looks quite festive with the lights and bunting. This year I bought two large fanooses (lanterns) to add to the decor. The shops with all the Ramadan lamps, lights, and decorations are so fun! Fanooses are a very important part of Ramadan and it's my understanding that long ago, before electricity, children were given fanooses so they could play outside at night. Fanooses are also given as gifts and I was lucky enough to receive two this year! I will keep them forever.

Ramadan fanooses at Alfa Market.

Ramadan is also the time of giving to poor people, both food and money. To help with this many people buy pre-made Ramadan bags from grocery stores or make their own Ramadan bags. These bags (boxes also) contain basic food items for Egyptian cooking: oil, ghee, tomato sauce, rice, several types of pasta, sugar, tea, dates, beans, and anything else you might like to add. I give Ramadan bags to my employees, the workers around my villa, a few of the policemen and military guys that work outside the villa, Egyptian friends, and poor people. My driver and I stopped at a busy intersection one day to give bags to the poor ladies with their children. Within a blink there were tons of people running to the car to get a bag, even a guy on his bicycle. They seemed to appear out of nowhere! I said "quick Mohammad we have to go!"

Typical Ramadan bag.

In keeping with the tradition of helping the poor during Ramadan, businesses sponsor free Iftars that are held inside decorated tents throughout the city.

Iftar tent. There are some really beautiful ones and I will try to get a photo.

Inside the tent. 

My twin sister and niece visited me in Cairo

I finally convinced my fraternal twin sister Patricia to visit me in Cairo!

I was sneaky--after nearly three years of begging it finally occurred to me that if I could get my sweet travel-crazy niece Alexandria to visit then she would hound her mother and the deal would be done! My plan went perfectly. We had so much fun! Nine days of sightseeing, shopping for souvenirs, and a three-day trip to see the temples in Luxor. Like all our guests, they were really sad to leave. A funny side note is that Patricia named my niece after Alexandria, Egypt. Who knew? It never occurs to you while growing up in Louisville, Kentucky that you would ever have a twin sister living in Egypt.



Visiting a mosque in Cairo and wearing hijabs.  

There were two delightful Muslim women
at the mosque who answered
all our questions about what it's like
being a muslim woman.

What I've learned is that most people are afraid to visit but once they get here they have a wonder-full time and quickly see how kind the people are and how interesting everything is. Life is so different here and I love the adventure and sharing it with others. Although you try to describe what life is like here to family and friends people don't understand it until they experience it for themselves. 

Patricia and Alex loved the community of my villa--my bowabs, driver, and gardener treating them like family. I loved taking them to the local shops to meet the people I see throughout the week. They were overwhelmed at the friendliness of everyone and for me that's the most special thing about visiting Egypt. I love showing people that part of Egypt that doesn't exist in Houston, Texas or Louisville, Kentucky.

During their visit we managed to get interviewed for an Egyptian talk show while shopping in the Khan; got ripped off by a souvenir seller in Luxor; ride camels at the Giza pyramids, see King Tut's exhibit at the Egyptian museum; and sit by the pool at King Farouk's Winter Palace hotel.

And the best part of their visit is that now I can share my ongoing adventures with them here in Cairo and they get it!

Just normal tourist stuff. See how much fun we were having? I miss them! They were perfect guests.

Being interviewed. I was asked "What makes Egyptian men better than all the other men in the world?" My friend Penni was watching the chaos and getting a good laugh. How do you answer that? How does she suppose that I know about all the other men in the world?

Our other visitors were our children Ben and Sydney in December 2013 and then Sydney and Jared in January 2016. They loved Egypt also!! Sydney and Jared were lucky enough to go on a Nile cruise. They loved everything I described above, our villa, the people. Jared got to go mountain bike riding in the Wadi as well. I wish they could visit for a month!! My only regret with Patricia and Alexandria was not going on a Nile cruise. Staying in Luxor for three days paled in comparison to the wonderful cruises. Sorry Patricia and Alex!

My bowab Ahmed

Dave and I live in a villa and employ several people to help us with it. We hired most of the people already working at the villa including the maid Beth, the day bowab Ahmed, and the night bowab Mohammad. We hired a full-time gardener named Mohammad. I have a driver name Mohammad and Dave has a company-provided driver named Mohammad. If your first name isn't Mohammad then your second name is! 

Everything runs relatively smoothly at our villa and I love the early mornings with the bustle of gardeners, bowabs, and drivers milling about. They visit with one another and drink tea and I love the community of it all. Egyptians are very very social and always stop to greet one another and ask how they are doing. 

R to L: gardener Mustafa, main gardener Mohammad, and Ahmed. Our gardener does not have a vehicle and gets around town on the style of bikes you see on the left. So interesting to see gardeners on bicycles holding brooms, rakes, and even lawn mowers. Very inventive. 

Ahmed and his son Mohammad outside bowab hut. 

I will quickly describe everyone but Ahmed as he's our most interesting employee. I will save him for last. 

Bowab is the word used here for essentially the doorman and watchman--some prefer to be called Security--who stays either just inside your villa walls or just outside and watches over everything. They work 12 hour shifts, six days a week. Our bowabs open/close the gate, help bring packages from the car to the back door, wash down outdoor furniture, wash the car if asked, change outdoor lightbulbs, and let us know when we have visitors. They are the guardians of our gate and help keep us safe. Some bowabs are more helpful than others and ours are really great. 

Our gardener Mohammad has a crew of about three men, one of him his son, and they come to the villa every morning, six days a week, to water, weed, trim, and whatever else we ask of them. Our night bowab Mohammad is awesome and we appreciate him so much for being outside all night. My driver Mohammad is, I believe, the 5th driver I've had and I'm just so happy he's my driver. Safe, respectuful, and drives slow for me.

Ahmed our day bowab holding his tea tray.
He's got his pants rolled up ready to wash some outdoor chairs for me.

Our day bowab Ahmed is 45 years old and has a family with four children. We attended his daughter's wedding a year ago and that was a fun cultural experience. Of all our employees he is the least content to mind his own business and not create problems. He loves drama and is quite good in the role of passive-aggressive instigator. Generally I find it to be funny and I almost never see it coming although now I'm half-wise to his antics. He is very jealous of the other employees and watches how Dave and I treat each and every one. Which is why he is different than all our other employees. Everyone else does their jobs and don't get involved in drama or gossip. Unfortunately, from time to time, our other employees and even madam (!) become entangled in Ahmed's drama and then everything is a kerfuffle. Then it passes and everyone waits for the next scene in the drama of Ahmed because we all know it's just a matter of time. 

Quite possibly the most irritating thing that Ahmed does is he goes through my garbage. I thought this was a normal behavior for bowabs in Egypt because they don't make a lot of money. But this is not true. It's just Ahmed. He has been told repeatedly by me and my favorite Apache driver Nasser to stay out of madams garbage. But he's stubborn as a mule. I see bits of my garbage in his little bowab hut outside the gate and in the area where he makes tea and coffee. I've given up trying to change that behavior. But it creeps me out.

Last spring everyone at the villa had just HAD IT with Ahmed and I set out to replace him. We couldn't find anyone and I decided that I had to look on the bright side. I do like the shock effect of his antics. It is expanding my horizons by creating new pathways in my brain because it's always something new and different. I've learned how to better manage his drama and feel myself becoming less of a push-over. I still get ripped off but am getting better about it. lol

This view is from my second floor window and I enjoy watching all the activity below. Here Ahmed is holding his tea tray and yapping to the military recruits. 

What I appreciate about Ahmed is that he will do almost anything for us. We are "family" as he loves to say. He gestures wildly and has an actor's persona about him. He loves center stage and as bowab at our villa he is the master of ceremonies and conductor for all. Our street gets a lot of vehicle and pedestrian traffic because of our proximity to the police station. And Ahmed is in the middle of it all, giving directions, directing traffic, and negotiating unbelievable traffic jams. He loves it. And the icing on his cake was the police setting up a barricade on the street just outside our villa to better manage the flow of people and vehicles around the police station. Every day, all day there are several policemen and military recruits outside the villa watching guard along the street. Ahmed is a grand host and loves helping them in any way he can. He makes tea and coffee for them and entertains with his love of talk and gestures. I love to watch everyone out my second floor window--there is always something going on. And Ahmed is always always talking their heads off. As a capitive audience they sit and stare at him with a glazed look in their eyes. I don't know what they think of him because he's a conniver for sure. But an entertaining one that serves tea and coffee. 

I asked Ahmed if I could take their picture and he happily obliged, grabbing one of the rifles hanging around. The man in the white uniform is a policeman and the one in the black uniform is a young military recruit. Most of the recruits come from villages outside of Cairo and don't seem to have a lot of experience with foreigners because they stare at me and David like we are aliens.
By the way, the small gray cylinder in front of the men is an old air filter that I threw into the garbage a week ago. They use it as a tea table.
And another funny thing is that Ahmed has a pecking order. The policemen reign supreme, not so with the recruits. I bought a small table for everyone to use at Iftar and now it seems only the policemen are allowed to use it. Ahmed makes the recruits eat their meals sitting on the curb. It is hilarious. 

Ahmed loves his job so much. I would feel terrible if I took that from him. He provides a service to the community around the villa and makes it interesting and bearable to the policemen and recruits who sit there all day long under the hot Egyptian sun.

My first humseen, winter vegetables, and the bread man on Canal Street

I cannot believe it is the month of March and today was the first day that I could tell that the seasons are changing. We are experiencing the first humseen, or dust storm, of the season. I have been dreading the humseens because I thought they were windy and wild with sand and dirt clogging your mouth and nose but it's just a yellowish cloud over the city. No grit in my mouth, didn't need to breathe through my scarf. March and April are the months for these storms. If I experience anything more exciting then I will be sure to share.

It was a dingy, overcast day. Dave is silly and said it feels like armageddon. I am used to the sun shining and am surprised at how much I miss it when it's gone for even a day.

With the passing of winter also comes the end of winter vegetables as vegetables are not grown here out of season. For me this means the loss of spinach, chard, and kale, my three favorite vegetables. The tomatoes are perfect right now and taste like the tomatoes of my childhood.


I don't know if you can tell but this is wilty, sad spinach. I buy 5-10 packages at a time when available, spend an hour (or more!) cleaning it, then stuffing it into ziploc bags for the freezer. I am still freaky about amoebas and clean my own vegetables just to make sure I kill everything. Then I spray my beloved diluted bleach spray everywhere to make sure I kill everything that might have come off the vegetables!

Forget jewelry! Here are my prized possessions: SWISS CHARD and SPINACH! Almost out of kale, which was woody and tasted strangely of fish. I will never ever EVER take triple-washed spinach, baby kale, and swiss chard from HEB for granted again! I told Dave it is GOLD and he is forbidden to use more than one package at a time. When he comes in the door in the evening and I am cleaning and drying vegetables I tell him that I'm earning my keep.

I love this sculpture! It celebrates the local bread sellers who use bicycles to carry and sell the local bread called balady bread. The statue is also on one of our favorite streets called Canal street, where we fell in love with a house with the orange door that didn't work out. This beautiful street gets its name from an actual water-filled canal that ran through this area more than 50 years ago. I was told that families would go to the canal on weekends for picnics and boating and fishing. I would LOVE to have a photo or drawing of the Canal during that time! Maadi is a very leafy suburb and Canal street with its broad expanse and beautiful tall trees is like the center of Maadi's beauty. Maadi is a very busy place now; we hear all the time how quiet it used to be and how much it has changed. How there used to be so few cars, which is really hard to imagine because it is packed with cars, taxis, scooters, even a Dodge Ram! That thing is HUGE on these streets! I bet he doesn't yield to anyone. Even the crazy taxi drivers.



The balady bread man. They really do ride around the city with a screen holding bread.

Canal Street. The photographer is standing in the middle of what once was a canal.

Things are moving quickly now and we are so excited. We are moving into our villa on Saturday and really begin settling in. Dave cannot wait to start gardening and we have a lot of yard to take care of. We are going to Prague and Vienna in April and then our daughter Sydney is coming for 10 days in May. I am trying to talk Ben into coming before his summer internship...I would be the happiest mom on the planet!