HOME SWEET HOME

Since getting married more than a decade ago, we have moved around a lot.  About every 2 to 3 years we get the itch to seek out a new adventure.  I like moving.  Well, not the packing up and getting settled part, but the opportunity to live in new places.  Nowadays, we find ourselves living in a spacious apartment in the megalopolis of Cairo and it is the largest home we have ever lived in.  I estimate that it probably around 2700 square feet.  I love the space.

As expats with the American Embassy, we could choose to live in an American-owned compound (apartment complex with walls around it and guards) or we could live "on-the-economy" (an Egyptian apartment).  We chose an Egyptian apartment and are for the most part happy with our choice.  A big advantage to the compounds is that they have generators that automatically turn on whenever the local power is cut.  Little did we know back when we had to make our choice that Egypt would experience a terrible energy crunch, the worst in years resulting in multiple power cuts a day, sometimes as many as 6 times a day, sometimes every day for weeks at a time.  Ugh.  It's after a day like that when I wish I had a back-up generator to keep my house operating.  Cold food sitting in a frying pan waiting to be cooked and a stalled laundry cycle only 5 minutes after starting are no longer uncommon in my new world.  It's strange to say, but I've already almost gotten accustomed to it.  Almost. ;-)  

So here's the tour of our Egyptian home . . .

I love having a foyer.  In the past we have had homes that enter into the living room but I prefer a space to take off shoes and set down bags.  When you walk in, to the right is a large living room and to the left is a half bath and the hall leading to the rest of the apartment.  I love the wood floors.  The rug is from Iran.  Our flag is from Philadelphia.  The black box in the bottom right of the photo is one of several air purifiers.  Cairo is terribly polluted, so we need all the help we can get.

We brought only a few items of furniture from home.  This side table is from New Mexico.  We bought many of our baskets in New Mexico.  Although they fit in really well with Native American designs, I think they were made in Pakistan.  So they happen to fit nicely into our Middle Eastern home, too.

The main living space is very large with areas to sit and visit, play, read, run (up and down the length of the room for my girls and on the treadmill for me) and learn. We only brought a few pieces of furniture from home.  Most of it is provided from the Embassy furniture pool.  We were able to pick out what furniture we wanted from the warehouse and fortunately most of it is new.

My favorite area in our apartment is our homeschool area.  I love the big windows that flood the space with lots of natural light.  It also helps to have the light from outside when our power goes off.  I am fortunate where our apartment is situated in the building and in the neighborhood.  When I look out my windows, I actually get to see plenty of green trees and even large swaths of blue sky - not just more apartment buildings.  We have room for tables, chairs, a white board, word wall, games and more.  Probably the reason why I love this space so much is because this is where I am teaching my children to read and understand the world around them. 


Balconies are nice because they give us a small bit of outside space we can call our own.  When we first moved in I told my husband that I wanted to get some fresh air on our balcony.  Well, in Cairo that is not going to happen because the air is so polluted.  It's actually cleaner inside our apartment.  Stepping onto the patio or even just opening the windows introduces a cacophony of indigenous noises - the honking horn primary among them.  I actually enjoy watching the world pass by below me; it's fun to "people watch" in this exotic part of the world. 

 

This is the little guest bathroom.  We are not fans of the "bum gun."  It is very typical for Egyptian bathrooms to have a hose with a sprayer attachment, a bidet, or a toilet with a built in bidet feature.

I like having a formal dining room.  I would prefer an eat-in-kitchen plus a formal dining room . . . maybe in our next home.  Notice our homemade lanterns hanging from our chandelier that our girls made during Ramadan.  


In our china cabinet we have some local art (Egyptian clay nativity, painted ostrich egg and wooden bowl) and a couple beautiful wooden nativities from Jordan.


We love our wall map (from IKEA in the USA).  We use it all the time as we dream about where in the world we want to go next. 

It's tough to go from practically my dream kitchen in our last house to this one, but this is still nice.  I do miss natural light and being able to look outside while cooking.  I like all the counter space and island.  I love having granite counter tops.  The cabinet space is sufficient. 


It's nice to have hot water and an extra freezer.  Cairo is a large enough American Post that we're fortunate to have access to a commissary.  It's like a small grocery store that sells American products for cost.  Here they import fruits, vegetables and some dairy from Europe.  We only go to the commissary about once a month.  When we do, we literally stock up.  I was used to grocery shopping once or twice a week.  It's quite a spectacle when we pull up to the apartment with our loads and loads of groceries.  Our freezer is often full of frozen meals, meat, concentrated orange juice . . . and rarely ice cream.  Unfortunately (or not?), we have yet to find any ice cream at the commissary that isn't gross and unrecognizable after transit.  We have quite a few of the electrical converters, like the one on the right corner of the counter, since here we use 220 voltage.

I prefer a walk-in pantry but that would really be an American standard since there are not any walk-in type closets in our apartment.  When my girls were very young this kitchen would have been tough since I cannot see what they are doing in other rooms while I am inside making dinner or doing dishes.  But they are old enough to do their own thing while I work and this way I can shut out the noise and watch a little Netflix.  


Our family room is a comfortable place to watch a movie or work on the computer.  It also has a door.  I used to think that open living spaces were ideal but I am really enjoying doors to keep noise contained or out.  It is neat to have a small view of the Nile River from a couple of our balconies.  The view from this room is my husband's favorite.

We have a large Master Suite with an attached balcony and partial Nile River view.  Although I miss having a large walk-in closet, our wall of built-in-closets provide plenty of shelves and some hanging space.  Our decorative pillow cases and quilt on our bed were handmade in Luxor.  Notice that we have air purifiers in each room...thank goodness.  Have I metioned how poor the air quality is here?  ;-)


Although the bidet is still a mostly foreign concept to the American home, my husband now swears by it.  He wonders why America has not embraced this "clean technology."  I have no comment on my conversion process.   

These are the two guest rooms that our girls are using.  The allure of the top bunk wore off after a few weeks so one of my daughters now sleeps on the queen bed in the other room.  But it can transform easily into a guest room again . . . any takers?

For a family of girls, I think we would have preferred pink over blue, but the girls enjoy their bathroom and it's more than sufficient for the chaos of each nightly routine.  I had to teach my girls to take showers because the little water heater isn't big enough to fill the tub with warm water.  Our apartment has four of these little water heaters (master, guest, kitchen and laundry room).  

The thing that I miss most is not having a yard.  In the past it was a joy to have the option to tell my kids to “go outside and play.”  Here . . . they do go outside but it is never to just play and run around freely (unless we walk to the club that we joined and then it is still a supervised play).  Sometimes we blow bubbles on our balcony but it really is not the same as having a yard . . . and we can only dream of our own play set.

Also, I miss our attached garage.  At least we have a garage but I cannot park our minivan into our spot.  We have to push in our side mirrors and cannot have passengers in the vehicle on the passenger side when we park because we have to squeeze to within about one inch of the cement wall.  The driver cannot open their door the whole way but must wiggle between our minivan and another parked car.  Luckily our boabs (doormen) will park our vehicle for us.  They also keep it clean. I was really stressing out about parking here before my husband came up with the solution to use their help.  I don't know how they have not yet damaged our vehicle in such a tight spot. 

Overall, we feel very blessed to live in such a beautiful apartment.  We enjoy American standards of refrigeration, stand-alone freezer, full size washer and dryer, air conditioning, air filtration, water filters, hot water, Internet, and comfortable furniture.  Now if only they could do something about increasing the bandwidth . . . .