Will you start the fans, please?

We've been very good of late when it comes to 'charity shop buys'.

If you read my Read the Casbah book blog then you might have spotted a pattern; that I'm catching up with reading books bought in charity shops ages ago and I'm not buying so many more these days. We've been trying to curb back on the number of books we're buying, lugging over to Egypt in our hand luggage, reading, deciding that we like, and therefore lugging them back to the UK to 'keep'. I think it is all the 'lugging' that is making us change our habits. And the kindle.

But this holiday we did do the Charity Shop run along Spring Gardens in Buxton to see what they had in store. After taking a look at the books and the bric-a-brac I spied this top-shelf beauty along with the puzzles and board games. We 'umm-ed and ahh-ed' a while but it just looked too kitsch to be true so we decided to cave in and buy it.

£3 later at home we open it up and discover that while all the pieces of plastic are there, there are no rules! The instructions on how to set the board up where on the inside of the lid so we followed those and were able to get the gist of the games in the four different zones, but we still weren't able to quite work out how you moved between the zones, selected the games or played the final Crystal Dome game.

It was a lot of fun to set up and we're just going to keep our eyes open for a set of the rules on ebay or something in the next few months. Once we've played the game we'll probably be done with it and can return it to the charity shop for someone else to enjoy!

A little trip out

We had a little trip out today, which means we went out of Maadi both days this weekend! 

On Friday we were out for brunch with the Prebs and Flossie and her Andy.  Not that we needed much of an excuse to have a brunch, but it was meant to be a belated birthday brunch.  I managed five courses which is well below my usual average.

First course was salads and dips (while we were waiting for Flossie and Andy to arrive). Second course was warm mezze which was really delicious. Next time I think I'll skip the cold salads (especially as I wasn't eating smoked salmon or cheese at the moment) and so two plates of this. They had a really good minced meat baklava, great samousak and moussaka. I also had something I'd not had before which was a layer of rice, a layer of cooked chicken breast bits and then a layer of white sauce. Pretty tasty and sort of like a left-over turkey dinner meal!  Next I had some of the Thai green chicken curry which I had been warned was very hot. It was good and maybe I could have had a larger serving.  My last 'main' dish was some of the braised beef which Scotty had been going on about all day (he'd had two servings already!) along with vegetarian lasagna which was also very nice.  We had dessert envy when we saw someone with a large chocolate bomb, but in the end I didn't go for that, but went for a chocolate cup, a small tartlet of apple crumble and a creme brule.  All were very good (the creme brulee was far better than the 'parmesan creme brule that I'd had as a starter which was just a bit odd, and the apple crumble was pretty tasty and sweet), but by this point I was feeling very full.  I wanted to have room for a crepe, but knew it wasn't really possible without dire consequences.

We left the buffet at about half four, but we were in no rush to leave as the weather outside was pretty miserable (for Cairo, of course).  The wind had been lashing away all afternoon and it was drizzling and cold.  We took a taxi back to Maadi with the Prebbles and all vowed that now we had eaten that much there was no need to leave the house, or even the couch, for the rest of the day.

(We did actually end up leaving the flat to go shopping at about 8pm as they say it is always a good idea to go food shopping when you aren't hungry... and we really were not hungry! We ended up buying cereal and popcorn and then going to the Prebbles to eat it - not really sure how that happened!)

So on to Saturday (today) and after yesterday's excursion this should have been a day of 'apartment time', especially as the weather hadn't changed too drastically.  However I wanted to try and get out to the Khan and take some photos for someone in the UK who wants photos of staircases (and apparently there are two prime examples of staircases in Islamic Cairo). We check on a map where we were going and decided that rather than getting a taxi to the place we were going to (which we were not very familiar with), we would get a taxi to the place we were very familiar with and then walk. This turned out well and it was a really nice walk north of Midan Hussein towards Bab al Nasr.  On our way we took some photos for the new website project.  The streets were really nice and quiet as it was only just noon. 

When we got to Bab al Nasr we found that it was being renovated and the outside stair access looked pretty good. This was a good sign, but the bad sign was the positioning of the port-a-cabin in front of the stairs.  This to us was a strong indication that they might have the Gate renovated, but they didn't want anyone visiting it just yet.  Some boys running a near-by stall showed us how you could squeeze past the cabin or jump over the low wall, but we decided that we would wait another month until it looked a bit more open.

Our walk back to the heart of the Khan took us on the road parallel to Sharia Muezziz.  We'd never been along here before and it was a really lovely walk. The street was being renovated as Muezziz had been and so long stretches were dug up (up to 1m below street level) to lay pipes, then other areas were being prepared for new flagstones.  One block had also been renovated into traditionally fronted workshop spaces.  We kept straight and managed to find our way back into the Khan proper (via our favourite 'electronic weighing scales' district) and then into a taxi back home. 

The trip didn't take us too long all in all. On one hand we didn't achieve very much as we were unable to get into the Gate to see the stairs properly and we only took a few photos for the website project. But on the other hand it was good to get out and remind ourselves how easy it is to get into an interesting part of town, how nice it is to explore and how much we enjoy it!

You want to watch you don't get blocked in, mate!

We walked out today to discover that the army were back on the street. They weren't all over Cairo by any means, in fact, this army vehical was the only one we saw all day. We figure that the are out and about because this weekend is the anniversary of Mubarak stepping down and various strikes and marches have been called.

Our first thought though on seeing that they had backed up onto the pavement outside the Grand Mall was that they were going to get fenced in later on once all the taxis and Grand Mall shoppers turned up and started parking on the street!

Specially sourced mead

W've been keeping these special ingredients for a mead and today we made one!

Our special ingredients were; Siwa water, honey from Siwa and honey from a monestry that the P's visited last year.  To these we added the juice of an orange, one orange cut into eigths, two dozen sultanas and yeast reclaimed from our recently brewed stout.

It's sitting in the kitchen at the moment for the first stage of fermentation as we think that the back room is actually going to be too cold for it for the time being!

Making Help for Deaf & Mute

It must have been some time last year when this guy first knocked on our door.  He was Deaf/Mute and came with a piece of paper / flier which asked for a donation of 1LE in return.  We of course gave him the money and smiled nicely.  He then would come back every now and then; knocking on the doors in the building and near by to ask for money in this way as he could not get any other way of earning a living. We would always smile and be welcoming and sometimes we would see a friend of his in the street by the Grand Mall doing the same thing to whoever would pass him by.

He comes by pretty regularly now and every time I try to have a bit of a conversation with him. I only know a few signs in BSL, but it isn't likely that these (or the finger alphabet) would translate for Arabic Sign Language, so it is mainly through gesture that we communicate on our door step. Past conversation s have included him asking after Scott (he points to his ring finger and then shrugs his shoulders and looks quizzically at me), him asking if we have been away (making the sign of an airplane taking off and then hugging himself indicating the cold of England!), his questioning if we have any children (him pointing to his ring finger and then making to rock a baby and using his hand to show increasing height and then looking quizzical whilst shrugging his shoulders) and talking about the weather (whether is be the rain, too cold or too hot through various gestures).  

One of the more interesting conversations was when he had visited about half a dozen times and this time he rang the bell as Scott was practising the guitar. When I opened the door and we started to talk, he gestured playing the guitar and pointed at me to ask if I played. I thought this was a bit suspicious at first (!) but then realised that the guitar was now lying on the chair behind me for him to see. He told me that he played the drums. He came by with his daughter once too, but I wasn't here then.

A few months ago though when the outside door was properly installed to the building we came across a slight hitch in the arrangement - he could very well buzz for our flat, but couldn't communicate with us on the intercom to know he was there.  The first time this problem arose the bowab was around and he buzzed us. But this wasn't much help as obviously he was saying 'that deaf/mute guy who always comes round to your flat is here for you' but in Arabic and hence I had no idea what he was on about! The bowab brought him up for us (I think this was partially the bowab being a bit over-protective) and we had only a little chat this time. During the conversation we worked out a code; he gestured to me that pushing the bell two times would mean it was him - system sorted!

Our most recent conversation when he visited today was interesting as it was about the football violence and tragedy that occurred last night. He started off by miming kicking a ball and then punching to ask if I knew what had happened. I nodded and made a sad face to confirm that it was a tragedy that this had happened. I had to ask him to repeat a few signs then to get the next part of the story, but he was describing to me how the army had stood by and let this happen and maybe they were involved (the sign for army is stroking your shoulder / epaulet, but he clarified this for me by also doing a salute).  He said that the people were crazy and that someone had lit a firework and put it in a child's face. I mimed to him that I heard that fireworks had been thrown on the pitch. We both agreed that people were crazy and that football should be about happiness and not fighting.

So, there you go - an interesting conversation this evening about yesterday's events!  We wish we could do something more than just give this guy money when he comes round, but there doesn't seem to be. I think it is just good that we can be nice to him and he said today that he walks up and down the street and the houses, but he likes coming here. 

Here is one of the leaflets that he gives us each time. Maybe I should try and learn some of the signs. I do the 'love' one to show friendship, but what I enjoy about this leaflet is the fascinating choice of signs / words!