It’s Happy New Year!

That’s what the boys say whenever they see their traditional Ethiopian outfits or photos of themselves wearing traditional Ethiopian outfits, which they wore to school one day last week in honor of the Ethiopian millennium.

Giggle wants to wear his Happy New Year clothes all the time now. And, really, what goes better with a traditional outfit than an engineer’s hat?

Speaking of Ethiopia… we’ve been eating lots of Ethiopian food lately, at least two or three times a week, so much that Mr. Four and I each noticed a fingernail with semi-permanent yellow stains (from the curry powder, I guess).

Don’t worry: we’re still fitting in the ocassional Egyptian meal as well.

Beer

After work this evening, I innocently stopped into a market to look for some cold water before the taxi ride home. The back corner beckoned, and, lo and behold: beer! I nearly fainted from the sight of it. And next to the beer? Shelves of liquor!

We’ve had not a drop since the night before we left the US. We haven’t sought it out, because (I’ll confess), we’re both beer snobs of a sort and we’ve been told that the beer here is either Bud or Bud-like. And we’ve been warned off the liquor as well (apparently there have been deaths from locally made liquor, and not from over-consumption).

My first thought when I saw the beer was, “Ohmygawd! Am I allowed to buy that?” And then I remembered I was in Egypt not Saudi Arabia or Swain County. (Little joke for you BC folks.)

And then I remembered another important bit of advice I was recently given: “If you see it, buy it.” Especially with Ramadan coming, it’s going to get very difficult to find any alcohol around.

And never has a beer looked so tempting as those Heinekens. I bought two. I had mine before dinner, and Mr. Four enjoyed his with pizza. Yum. I also bought a bottle of gin. If it kills us, at least we’ll die happy.

Giggle and Bug go to school

Much to my surprise, both Bug and Giggle are now enrolled in school. And enjoying it immensely.

Giggle started on Sunday. Despite his enthusiasm for the concept of school, he freaked out when he realized Mommy wouldn’t be at school with him. Much to my horror, I realized that as far as he was concerned, we were abandoning him all over again. So I stayed with him there, but in a different room, for about an hour (while he played on the computer and actually had fun), and then we went home.

On Monday, Mr. Four took Giggle to school while Bug stayed home with me. Last year, when Bug started daycare, he did much better when Mr. Four dropped him off, so we decided to try this approach with Giggle. Who then proceeded to scream bloddy murder when Mr. Four left. Mr. Four returned an hour or two later to a happy little boy who, it turned out, had calmed down after about a minute.

Tuesday went off without a hitch, and Giggle came home full of excitement about his day. Then Bug announced he wanted to go to school. We hemmed and hawed. After all, one of the big appeals of this move was that Mr. Four could stay home with the kids. Over the summer, it became clear that Giggle wanted and needed school, and so we thought it’d be just Bug at home full-time. But here in Cairo, it’s hard to find parks and other local outdoor spaces for kids. Plus the other kids are at school already.

So Mr. Four brought both boys on Wednesday. And they were both fine. I was sure Bug was going to have a hard time with a new space and new teachers, but it seemed Giggle’s presence was all he needed.

Mr. Four and I went off and did our errands and came back later to pick up two very happy boys. Bug took a good long nap in the afternoon, and Giggle, who doesn’t usually nap, crashed out on the floor in the living room.

They’re both at school again today.

The regular school day goes to 1pm, and there’s an optional extended day til 3pm. For now, we’re going to have Giggle go every day til 1pm, and Bug will go three days a week til 1pm. Then they’ll nap at home (if Giggle continues to nap, which it seems he might since he’s actually getting tired at school).

The big surprises were Giggle’s initial reluctance (though in retrospect it makes perfect sense-he had to learn we’d always come back for him) and Bug’s instant comfort in his new school. My boys amaze me–I was so sure they’d be home with Mr. Four, slowly transitioning to life here in Cairo, and here they are, already settled into school.

I’m really excited that the school provides Arabic lessons. So we’ll all be taking Arabic this year. Any guesses on who learns the fastest?