This weekend the NYTimes had an article on expatriate renovation blogs, featuring a few bloggers who post their ongoing renovation sagas in various "exotic" locales (i.e. France, Italy). I love the idea of independently building or renovating a house, even though I know it's probably one of those things that is fun in theory and a nightmare in real life. Probably part of the reason I like daydreaming about remodeling and renovating is because we don't have the option to do much to our own place - a rented, furnished apartment in a faraway country that we live in temporarily. And without flea markets, garage sales, Craigslist or Ikea, sources redecorating are pretty limited as well.

Milo guarding his plants

However, Alex and I are lucky enough to have a housing budget that allowed us to rent a place that lacks the worst offenders in Egyptian-style furnishing (think gold-lined couches, tile floors and framed fake papyrus), and in the year that we've been in our Maadi apartment, we've found ways to personalize it. Here are a few pictures:

The balcony is my favorite part of the apartment, and most of the year it's warm enough to spend a lot of time out there. The green trellis  helps hide the ugly air conditioners on one side and our clothes racks on the other, and extends across the front of the balcony in an arch. One of my favorite weekend pastimes is gardening, which for me mostly entails buying plants to replace the ones that have died, then pulling the dead ones out of the clay plots and transferring in the latest victims. Between the dust that coats their leaves, Milo treating them as his personal litterbox collection, and our vacations and weekends away, only the strong survive - but the ones that do, flourish.

Alex found these barrel chairs and tables at one of the neighborhood plant nurseries last summer when I was away. They were in a sorry condition, but he was able to reinforce them and give them a few coats of varnish. We mostly use it as a breakfast spot.

This side of the living room hasn't changed much, aside from Alex's big TV (also purchased when I was away) and that bizarre painting (neon-green water and an olive sky) that we found in a framing shop. I believe that the elderly lady working in the shop claimed responsibility for the masterpiece, but as communication skills were limited on both sides, who knows. The snowflakes are decorations from a holiday party a short five months ago.

Wilbur snoozing

We created a separate sitting area on the other side of the living room, which is mostly used for sunbathing by Wilbur and Milo. The cool Moroccan cushions, table and chair all belong to our landlady, and we picked up the wicker seat in a home accents store. The seat opens up on a storage area where we keep Wilbur's toys when we're trying to be tidy.






Dining room (on the other side of the living room couch): the hanging plant is a cool chandelier, though sadly it prevents the use of the dining room lights. The pictures on the wall are actually from a surrealist french children's book Rosa gave me, "A is for Rhinoceros". The rest of the alphabet is across the room, above a bookshelf.

Milo's tree is next to the front door. At the sound of the elevator arriving he runs over and jumps into position on the right-most shelf, waiting to be pet while Wilbur prances around just underneath.

Hallway leading to bedrooms and bathroom, which are sadly not up to photo standards. At any rate, now you've got the general idea. Anybody who wants to come do a closer, in-person inspection is more than welcome to visit!

ya killer beebs, i'm back y'all!

Alex and Wilbur on a Friday afternoon at the Sakkara Club

 Hello sweet readers! It's been a long while since I last updated this blog, but I plan to start up again- or at least give it the old college try. Over the past year things have changed, and they haven't, both personally and on a larger scale, so I'll use this entry to try to cover the big differences as I see them.

Quiet night at home

 Alex and I are still living in the leafy Cairo suburb of Maadi, where we moved last spring after the revolution. Milo has grown from a fluffy kitten to a feathery 'Cairo white' (read: dusty-looking) cat with a bit of a pouch. Life with a dog has given him some excellent canine qualities like coming when called, chasing after toys and, well, I guess that's it. But he's a very friendly, funny cat and a great friend/admirer of Wilbur and mankind. And Wilbur!! Wilbur is the greatest. Sweet and affectionate, full of joy and always up for a walk, a snuggle, tug of war, snack, training session, trip to the beach, hide and seek, and generalized rough-housing... The two of them are at attention the minute they hear the elevator door click open and ready to provide all the entertainment we could ask for. In addition, they've made our apartment a home and made us feel like a family, which as I've gotten older has becoming increasingly important to me.

On the beach at Ras Sudr

I only wish (like any pet owner and probably everyone else) that we had more time at home with them. Alex and I leave for work at around 7:10am (in theory, anyway) and most days I get home about 7pm and him closer to 8. Since last October I've been working at an international school in Zahraa El-Maadi, a dusty strip of hastily-constructed buildings that stretches out into the desert about 15 minutes away from our place, and then after school I give English lessons to three French families in the neighborhood. Alex is still working on the railroad (the first five stations on the new line opened last month) and thanks to a promotion earlier this year has additional responsibilities and a lot more employees under his control, keeping him busier and more engaged. I'm happy with my work too: after leaving my third magazine job last May I made the hard choice to not look for another editing position, as I probably wouldn't be able to make a career of it in America or France without a journalism degree (...or even with one - curse you, death of print media!). So when I came back from six weeks in the states last summer I took on daily tutoring work and after a couple of months found my current position in the admissions department of a French private school, which is great preparation for a career in educational administration - something I can hope to make a go of wherever we end up, maybe even without having to go to grad school(!!).  My main responsibilities are doing evaluations of prospective students and editing documents in English and translating them from French. I like both: interacting with toddlers and young kids is easy and for the most part a lot of fun, and the translation and editing work keeps my mind active and improves my French. Working in French, though a struggle at first, has been a really great experience and helps relieve the monotony of office work. There are two other ladies in my department, Dalia is 27 and Italian-Egyptian and Cherine is 29 and Algerian, and they are good company. In fact, virtually all of my coworkers (aside from the revolving door of snotty French interns) are a pleasure to work with. Although the school management, like that of jobs everywhere, has its issues, I'm happy with the work both day-to-day and with the experience it gives me.

  Hiking trip in the Eastern Desert last fall: Alex, Mathieu, Tori, me, Jessica, Lindsey

"Beds are so overrated when you've got a slab r

Life as an expat means saying goodbye to close friends and we've had a couple of major losses recently. Tori, my former roommate and closest friend for the past three years, just moved to France a couple weeks ago with Mathieu, Alex's roommate, coworker, and - again - best friend. We're happy for them and excited to keep up with their new adventures, but of course we miss them terribly. Mathieu is working for the company headquarters in Paris and Tori, whose visa prohibits work, is taking French classes. There's also Mike, Alex's diving buddy, who is incredibly multi-talented and our closest Egyptian friend, who is leaving for Quebec at the end of the week. This past year, Alex and I were considering a move to France ourselves, seriously enough for me to apply to (and get awarded) a teaching assistant program in Bordeaux, but we've decided to stay in Egypt until his contract is up at the end of 2013. I'm secure in the knowledge that it's the right decision for us, but seeing friends move on makes me think about all the paths not taken.

Milo, desert warrior

It'll be interesting to be here to see what's in store for the country- the fall of the regime gave us (and the other expats who've stayed) a much deeper interest - and investment - in Egypt and its people. It hasn't been easy to watch, though: the hopes that so many people had for a better future have so far not been realized. The Mubarak government, the police state and the military were all deeply imbedded in the country and have not been easy to roust out. Continual protests have been put down with much violence and personal liberties in many ways have become fewer. The new government inherited many problems and has not been quick to solve them. The enormous decline in tourism and investment has led to serious job loss and unemployment, and average Egyptians have become poorer. Presidential elections have yet to occur and the constitution is still being written, but for the most part the great optimism that swept everyone up has disappeared, replaced by frustration and anxiety. This has affected day-to-day life as well: it seems like most people I know have been personally affected by a wave of crime: friends getting pick-pocketed in the street and held up at knife-point in a cab, apartments broken into... Alex's sneakers were stolen from his car, which was funny in a way but still served to drive the point home. While before the revolution I never worried for my personal safety, now I hesitate to walk Wilbur after dark and try not to carry much money or use my phone in taxis. Stories of mugging, car-jacking, kidnapping and even murder travel through the grapevine, along with tips on how to protect ourselves. Although I do feel like I appreciated Cairo's safety before, its absence puts things in grim perspective.

Under the hot Hurghada sun on a dive trip in April

Fret not, dear readers, it's not all doom and gloom. Alex, our friends and I all try to be careful and nothing seriously bad has happened to us. And daily life is pretty great: walks to the park with Wilbur and occasional trips to the Wadi Degla reserve with him and Milo, yoga, shisha, movie nights, weekends at the beach in Ras Sudr, adventures hiking and diving with our gang, vacations in Greece and the Netherlands, all which I'll write about in upcoming posts. But for now I'll stop here, with a promise to return to occasionally-scheduled programming. :D

Another Hurghada trip last fall: Julien, Mike, Aladin, Lindsey, Mathieu standing; Alex, me, Wilbur and Tori seated.