My long-time readers may recall vague references to my flight from Cairo to JFK last summer, a flight so terrible I actually decided not to blog about so as not to think about it anymore.

Early on Friday morning (in the US; it was Friday afternoon in Cairo), after about 14 hours of traveling, I told the friendly, helpful flight attendant that I appreciated her friendliness and helpfulness (after last year, I always make a point of thanking good flight attendants). “It was my pleasure,” she said. “Your kids have been great. It’s always a pleasure to work with kids with good manners.”

That was nice, though I didn’t think much of it until we were leaving the plane (we were about the last out), when another filght attendant started gushing about Giggle. “He’s going to be famous someday,” he said. “He’s so smart and he is so well-mannered. American kids just don’t seem to have good manners, but he does.”

I looked around for Ashton Kutcher and the hidden cameras. Then I passed out from shock.

My kids were good on the plane, mostly because we left in the middle of the night and they slept much of the way, and because Mr. Four was with us this year, and because I prepared better plane activities for them.

Still, it’s nice to hear. I adore my kids, but they can be a little crazy at times. And after last year’s flight, which included perhaps the lowest moment of my life, when I cried while arguing with the flight attendant, while Bug cried and wept for me to read him a book, well, let me just say this: what a difference a year makes.

Mr. Puppy did surprisingly well too. He didn’t exactly enjoy the flight, but aside from a huge puddle of pee he left in JFK (which we cleaned up–and, really, where else was he supposed to go after flying for 13 hours?), he behaved perfectly. And he’s been his charming sweet since then as well.

We’re having a great visit with Mr. Four’s family. They are great with the kids, pretty low key but also interested in what they’re saying, and the kids have warmed up to them quickly. Because of a graduation party, we visited today with a bunch of Mr. Four’s old friends, and tomorrow we have a big family picnic at my brother-in-law’s house.

We also managed to squeeze in a visit to Old Navy and Target, to catch up on our big-box shopping.

Plus it’s been raining quite a bit lately, and we are surrounded by green: green grass, green hills, green trees. It’s gorgeous.

You might be able to tell from this post that my eyes are drooping. More later, when I can remember how to spell.

Since last September, Bug has had a little play chant: “I’m going to the mountains, I’m going to the mountains.”

Tonight, we finally are. (Sorta.)

We leave in a few hours for the airport, and we’ll fly into Mr. Four’s hometown, where we’ll visit with his family. It will be Giggle’s first time meeting Grandpop, Uncle D, Aunt C, and some cousins. Bug has met them all but doesn’t remember everyone. They are excited for that, and also for the new sandals that are waiting at Grandpop’s house.

After a few days with Mr. Four’s family, we’ll head towards our most recent home state, which we’ll crisscross to visit my dad, College Town, and our house in the mountains.

Once again my internet access will be inconsistent, but I will have more time. Your guess is as good as mine as to how much I’ll be blogging.

In any case, tonight, think of us as we soar over the Mediterranean, Europe (hello R!), and the Atlantic Ocean.

So H1N1 has come to Egypt, not from pigs, but from plain ol’ Americans. It seems a few students at the American University in Cairo now have the dreaded swine flu (they have all recovered or are asymptomatic) and now their dorm, which houses over 200 students and faculty, is quarantined for a week. A week!

Can you imagine the parent who’s just sent off their kid to Cairo hearing that they’re in a building surrounded by armed police in masks? Fun times indeed. At least they’re allowing in pizza delivery.

Police quarantine the AUC dorm in Zamalek, Cairo

You can follow all the (lack of) excitement as written by Jack and Kaddee, an AUC faculty couple who was supposed to be in Dahab this week before moving back to the US.

The best part is that, according to Jack, the Egyptian government doctors have been going into and out of the building and wearing no gloves, no masks, nothing. So much for a quarantine, eh?

We are scheduled to leave on a US carrier, direct to the US, early Friday morning. I just hope we can get out of here before mass hysteria ensues.

Photo by Flickr user jmtimages

President Obama will be speaking in Cairo on Thursday, and the whole city is aflutter. In the past few weeks, the city has seen major painting and cleaning projects, especially in the area around Cairo University, where Obama is scheduled to speak around 12:30 local time. T-shirt hawkers downtown are offering an array of options, including one which says “Obama is the new King Tutankhamun.” Much of the city will be shut down–roads will be closed, and some businesses won’t open. And plenty of people won’t go to work regardless of whether anything is officially closed.

When I first learned Obama was coming to Egypt, I was thrilled as I hoped this would be my chance to see him speak in person. But it’s not to be. Obama isn’t coming to Cairo to chat with expats but instead to address the so-called Muslim world (which is far more diverse than that phrase suggests).

Some Egyptians are frustrated at the inconveniences around town, but an awful lot are quite proud Obama chose Egypt.

I’ll be working tomorrow–that is, if I don’t get stuck in any major traffic snarls on the way to work–and Mr. Four will be working as well. But, I am quite eager to hear what my president has to say, and am delighted my employer is setting up some TVs at work so we can watch the speech live.

Photo by flickr user Paxie

While the rest of the world moves on from H1N1 (aka swine flu), Egypt continues its slaughter of pigs, though so far they’ve only killed about 20,000 or so out of an estimated 300,000 to 400,000 pigs.

This blog post is a bit old, but an Egyptian blogger named Mostafa provides a local perspective here.

And an article yesterday from Reuters discusses how the mass slaughter is flaming sectarian tension. Reuters says that Cairo’s Christian garbage collectors and pig farmers are being paid only 100LE (about $17.79) per pig, rather than the 1000LE originally promised.

Photo by flickr user be_khe

Swine flu fever is sweeping the world, and Egypt has its own version of this insanity. You may have seen the news reports of the mass slaughter of pigs now happening here in Egypt. (The New York Times has a good story which gives some context for this slaughter.) The latest news is that some farmers are fighting back; there have been several injuries and arrests.

The World Health Organization has criticized this slaughter, and they and the CDC assure us that people can’t get swine flu from pigs. In fact, they renamed swine flu to Influenza A to avoid the impression that people are catching this thing from pigs. So why the slaughter?

It has to do with religion, class, and politics here in Egypt. The pig farmers are also the Christian minority, the underclass. And many of these pigs are owned and raised by the Zebaleen, the Christian garbage collectors. Muslims don’t (usually) eat pork (well, some do, with gusto, but you know what I mean). Some of the Gulf Countries actually ban pigs completely, but not Egypt. But, many Muslims regard pigs as unclean–and not just unclean but nasty and filthy.

Some folks are chattering that this is just an excuse to ban pigs. And many Egyptians seem truly to believe that you can catch this thing from pigs–I heard this from a well-educated person just today. The government has responded to some of the criticism by suggesting this is just a health precaution rather than a swine flu preventative, but the damage is done.

Pigs are dying, and not necessarily in humane ways, and Christian pig farmers are losing their livelihood.

I don’t even eat pork. But it’s impossible to see how slaughtering 400,000 pigs is making Egypt a better place.

My dad emailed the other day and speculated that because I hadn’t blogged in a while, I must be busy. This is only partly true. I’m not especially busier than usual, but I do Twitter a lot, which apparently satisfies many of my communication needs.

I also get impatient uploading photos to both Facebook and Flickr (where I host photos for this blog), with my slow internet, so sometimes I stop after Facebook. And I always feel I owe you all some photos, from Ethiopia and now from our recent beach trip, which means sometimes I don’t blog rather than blog without photos (silly I know).

I also lost some steam last fall, when some important people in life got pretty angry with me over some stuff they had read on my blog (don’t bother looking for it; it won’t be obvious). Even though I plunged into NaBloPoMo, I felt a bit gun shy. I started a blog to keep folks up-to-date on our life in Egypt, but it also means that people don’t necessarily have to be in touch with me directly to know what’s going on. And this was bad last fall.

And, frankly, now that we’re pretty settled, both in Egypt and with our kids, there’s a lot less to say. Most of the time.

Explanations aside, here’s what’s going on.

Our puppy is growing and doing really well. We went back to visit his mother a few weeks ago, and I was surprised that he’s almost as big as she is. He now weighs in at a robust eight pounds (or so). Earlier this week, we met his father, and Mister Puppy looks just like his Jack Russell terrier dad except Mister Puppy’s coloring is a bit lighter. He’s sweet, healthy, fun, and pretty easy. Bug and Giggle adore him. Sometimes too much. For example, right now, Giggle is hugging Mister Puppy and “helping” him dance.

“Why does the puppy like you best, Mommy?” they ask. I wonder.

It’s beach weather in Egypt, and the boys and I spent Easter Sunday at Ain Soukhna with some good friends (Mr. Four had to work). Bug got stung by a jellyfish. He screamed for probably 20 minutes or more. He appears to have gained a lifelong hatred of jellyfish.

Over the long weekend of Coptic Easter (a week after the western Easter), we went with some other friends to a beach near Ras Sudr, Egypt. We brought Mister Puppy. Turns out that Mister Puppy loves playing in the sand as much as Bug and Giggle do.

In other news: we have now booked our plane tickets for our home leave to the US this summer. We’ll be visiting Mr. Four’s family in his hometown, plus dashing all over our home state, to College Town, the beach, and the mountains. Mister Puppy will be joining us.

Booking those tickets meant accepting we’ll be back in Egypt a third year. Which is good, mostly, but a bit disappointing given that this spring it looked like we might have the opportunity to move this summer either to southern Africa or the Caribbean–neither panned out. Which is all for the best, but, you know.

Coming up: Pigs! Swine flu! Windsurfing!

I drink a lot of tea, usually black tea with milk, and Bug and Giggle always want sips. They often request and make their own versions, anything from warm water with honey to milk and sugar and probably a dozen other concoctions they have neglected to share with us.

When Bug and I were in Ethiopia in December, we’d eat breakfast each day at the hotel, usually sharing a meal. Each morning I’d order tea, which came with lots of sugar and rarely milk. Even with milk, it still needed some sugar. Not surprisingly, Bug really liked it. So he wanted his own. I eventually obliged. He enjoyed the ritual of adding the sugar and stirring the tea as much as actually drinking it: he’d usually stop after a few sips and I’d finish his tea and mine.

At lunch I’d often order a coke, and soon Bug decided he wanted a soda as well. I’m not a big fan of giving my kids soda, but it was a special trip, we were pretty active, and I didn’t want to keep fighting him… so I gave in. As parents, Mr. Four is usually a bit stricter than I am, but I tend to be more concerned about their nutrition, so I was a bit chagrined to think I’d get home with a kid demanding tea for breakfast and Fanta for lunch.

But you know what? It didn’t happen. At all. Bug hasn’t even asked. I suspect he returned to his regularly routines so quickly he forgot about the good life of tea and soda.

I haven’t blogged much about Ethiopia, but I will do more eventually. In the meantime, some photos.

A farmer at the market in Bahir Dar gathers his teff, the grain in injera.

Beans and grains for sale at the market in Bahir Dar.

Despite grand plans to take the trip of a lifetime through East Africa this summer, it looks like we’ll be heading to the US for the summer–and then back to Cairo this fall.

I could say it was because I read in the book Third Culture Kids that it’s important for kids who live overseas to have a home base to return to each summer. But it’s also in part because I have been feeling homesick. Also, the boys are growing out of their clothes. And, Tanzania and Kenya are looking to be more expensive than putzing around in the US.

Most importantly, the boys have been asking to go to the US. Giggle talks about visiting “America” and Bug really wants to go to the mountains. Sometimes he’s so distraught that we’re not leaving right away that we have to talk about what we’ll pack for our trip and what we’ll do once we get there (pick blackberries, play with the neighbor’s dog, go tubing).

The slightly troublesome logistics include Mr. Four’s vacation time, which is less than mine, which means we either spend more time in Cairo as a family, or I figure out something to do with the boys for about a week or two. I’ve been daydreaming about a European layover, which would be really expensive, which is why it’ll probably remain a daydream. But Mr. Four and I want the boys out of the city if we can afford it, since the air here is just so awful. Their little lungs need the break. And I really want to maximize my time away from Cairo, which helps me appreciate it all the more once I get back.

This is definitely a first-world problem however.

Last year at this time I was having another problem of the privileged: I was pretty unhappy in Cairo. I can’t pinpoint exactly what’s changed, except I’m pretty sure it’s me and not this place, but this spring I’m doing okay.

And, now, I need to get back to my daydreams. Prague, anyone?

We Fours have a new tradition-in-the-making, inspired by the Obama family.

A few weeks ago, listening to Slate’s Political Gabfest podcast, I learned that each night the Obamas individually share a rose, something good, and a thorn, something difficult, from their day. (For more information, the Washington Post mentioned it here.)

Mr. Four, Bug, Giggle, and I have dinner together at home usually at least four nights a week, and often more (though sometimes we eat dinner at our club on the weekends). But the boys often acted silly through much of dinner, and while I tried to engage the boys about their day at school, I wasn’t always successful.

But now we’ve started our own roses and thorns, and it’s going great. In fact, the boys remember it at dinner before I do. Bug even wanted to talk roses and thorns at breakfast this morning.

It’s a great way to have some structured conversation, and I’m learning a lot more about what the boys are up to at school. Thorns often focus on difficulty with a friend. (In Bug’s renditions, usually his entire school is in time out except for him and his best buddy B.)

Mr. Four and I usually talk about work stuff, and I think this could be a good way for the boys to learn more about adult life.

And, I realized as I writing this, the boys’ dinner table behavior is much better now that they have something to talk about and share.

I’ve been wanting us to have some family traditions, and so far this is a great one.