Fun with electricity

We've experienced power cuts in Egypt for as long as we've lived here, but they were usually one-off problems.  Since coming back this academic year the power situation has been much worse. Part of it is to do with us living in a much more densely packed residential area (and so brown-outs were more common than in our last apartment) but mainly it's to do with Egypt just not generating enough electricity.  Over the past week things really took a nosedive.  Rolling power cuts - which we'd tolerated for an hour or two a week over the past couple of months - were happening multiple times a day.  On the worst day this week there were a total of 9 outages for up to an hour each in a 24 hour period.

Backin September Alice bought an emergency lamp.  It plugs into the mains and charges a battery, and when the power goes out it comes on automatically.  It's great, but obviously isn't enough to cover the whole apartment.  Therefore a few days ago Alice went to the electrical shops on Road 233 to buy another one.  It's not as practical as the other one as it's shaped as a long rectangle rather than a tilly lamp, so I've mounted it on the wall in the living room where it provides plenty of light.  This frees the other lamp up to be carried around to wherever it's needed.

We've also got a set of solar-powered LED lights on our balcony that MummyP bought us in our first year in Egypt.  However, the harsh sunlight has made the wire very brittle and so I spent some time this mornign with a soldering iron and soem insulation tape to fix the breaks so that all the lights work.  The next phase is to position the light-sensor so that they only come on at night and when the streetlights go off (i.e. in a power cut).

However, things have improved a little over the past couple of days thanks to huge protests that the government needed to step in and increase fuel supplies to the power stations.  Yesterday, for example, we only had one blackout.  But today we had a weird experience - the power was on in part of the apartment but not in another.

This struck me as strange.  Whenever power cuts have hit previously the entire street has gone out.  It was weird that only part of the apartment would go.  A test in the apartment block showed that the communal lighting was still working, but the lift had lost power...so at least it was the building and not just us.  Alice sensibly went to check with the boawab who was aware of the problem, and so we just carried on as normal - the power was out at the back of the apartment, so our living room was unaffected.

However, as the time for Leila's bed and bath time approached it was becoming clear that we needed to think of a plan.  It's getting so hot now that Leila needs the air conditioner to be on overnight, but the one in her room didn't have power.  We got a 'Plan A' of moving her cot in to our room where the lights didn't work but the air conditioner curiously did, but as we were eating tea I thought it might be worth looking at the main fuse box and seeing if I could rewire it.

Plan B was simple enough - if part of the apartment has power, and part doesn't, then we just move the cable from one to another.  Alice and I had gone through all the different fuse switches when we first arrived, so we knew what each one covered and so it should be easy to work out which was Leila's air conditioner, and swap it with the switch for something we didn't need.

Our fuse box - complete with the labels we wrote in September showing what each switch is for

Identifying the right switch, thanks to us having done the testing when we first moved in, was indeed very straightforward.  Having taken off the faceplate to the fuse box so I could see all the 'behind the scenes' wiring, I could also trace each feed cable.  This was my first experience of seeing three-phase wiring in a domestic electrical feed, but it explained why some parts of the apartment had power while others didn't - the switches for the parts of the apartment that didn't work were all being fed by one mains feeds, while the parts that did have power were on different feeds.  Clearly there was a problem with one of the feeds coming into the building.


Spaghetti Junction

So I'd identified the switches and cables for Leila's room, and also earmarked some switches on a different mains feed that we didn't need.  My plan was just to swap them.  However, actually accessing the terminals would prove difficult as I'd probably need to pull out more wires than I needed to, and so I moved to Plan C.  This consisted of me swapping the whole input feed so that the areas of the apartment where we didn't need power were put onto the broken feed, and the ones where we did need power got a working feed.  All the terminals were easily accessible...it just meant turning off the master breaker to the apartment for a few minutes while I changed the cables over in order to avoid frying myself.

I spoke through Plan C with Alice, as much for my benefit as for hers, and we got ready by turning off the air conditioner and computer to avoid problems on the electronics when I turned off the breaker.

And so, screwdriver in hand, I flicked the switch.  All the power to the apartment went off as planned.  I used my electrical screwdriver to check that the terminals I was going to unscrew were safe - the screwdriver didn't light up, so all was good.  And so I unscrewed the mains cables.  It only took a couple of seconds to realise the problem that would stop this plan from working - the mains feed cables were only long enough to go as far as their original terminals.  There wasn't enough length of wire for me to swap them over.  So Plan C failed.

Feeling a bit disappointed, I put everything back together and flicked the main breaker to bring back power to the apartment while we worked out a Plan D.  Nothing happened.  I flicked the breaker again.  Still nothing.  No power to the whole apartment - not even the bits that were working just a couple of minutes before.

I went into the corridor.  The communal lights, which were working a few minutes ago, didn't come on.  The lift still didn't have power.

Alice went downstairs to see if the rest of the apartment had power.  Nothing.  The entire street was out.

For a few painful moments I ran through what had happened - had I somehow managed to unscrew two wires and cut off power to the whole street?  I just couldn't understand how I'd done it.  In a country where we've had guys run electric drills off an extension cable made of computer cable jammed into an electrical socket, how could flicking a breaker, unscrewing two wires, and putting everything back exactly where it had come from cut off power to an entire street?

A few minutes later the power came back on.

By pure, hilarious, heart-stoppingly terrible coincidence the street had a power cut that started in the tiny window of time when I was fiddling about.  An extra minute either way and it would have been clear it wasn't connected to what I was doing.  But for those few painful moments, I was convinced I'd blown up the street.

Leila's seventh month

After last month's 'quiet' month with Leila, this month has been one of holidays and smiles.  At the start of the month Leila had just learnt how to sit up by herself and throughout the month she has got better and better at sitting.  Now it is her favourite way to play, but she still enjoys a good amount of tummy time.  We have been on holiday twice this month and been on various excursions out and so it has been really nice to have some family time together.

Eating  Leila is getting very quick at feeding now and most days spaces her feedings out between naps well.  There are some off days though, and she still struggles to feed at Baby Group or if I am talking.  Although she has started solids now she won't reduce her milk intake for a good while yet as BLW means it takes longer before babies get their fill from food.  BLW is going well and she seems to be enjoying it which is the main thing (her favourite part of the meal though might be the 'wet flannel' we use to wipe her face and hands with at the end! She loves sucking on this afterwards and we have to wrestle it off her!).  She has three 'meals' a day; breakfast once dad has gone to work, then lunch after he second nap and tea around 5pm before her evening bottle and bedtime routine.  We are looking forward to when she has a range of foods established and we can try recipes with her (rather than plain foods) and it's going to be fun when we go to the UK in the summer.

Sleeping  Leila's sleep was a little disturbed by the holidays this month, but she is generally in a good pattern of one night-time waking (between 1am and 3am, although if it is an early waking then sometimes she will wake again after 3 hours).  We are trying to gradually push back her bedtime (which has been 6.30pm) so that she sleeps a little longer in the mornings as she is always up before 6am.  Leila will nap in the sling if we are out and she is tired, and similarly she will nap in the buggy if she is tired and the shade is down.  She is usually very happy to nap in her cot and has three naps a day, although sometimes finds it hard to wind down ready for a nap.  If she has woken up from her third nap earlier than 2.30pm then I will take her for a walk in the buggy around 4.30pm to try and give her a little snooze to avoid her becoming over tired in the evening.

Playing  Play time has changed  lot this month now that Leila is sitting up on her own.  She no longer lies under the arches on her play mat, but will sit at them and play with toys that dangle in front of her.  Leila still enjoys music time and is starting to join in by holding the guitar strings as dad plays, or even strumming a few notes herself.  Leila has just learnt how to roll from her back to her front.  This has taken a long time as she seems quite happy to play on her side, rather than finish the roll!  So now she can roll both ways, but doesn't do this often.  She is getting more proficient at 'moving' whether this is a gradual roll, a lean forward from sitting for a toy, or a lunge from one of us to the other!  Crawling (or something like it) will probably develop soon.

Health  Health-wise Leila seems to be happy and smiley and doing different poos these days now that I am off dairy and eggs and she is on solids. The doc reckons we will need to keep dairy free for another 3 months before starting to reintroduce anything.  We obviously spoke too soon when last month we thought that her teeth must be arriving soon, as there is still no sign.

A weekend on the Titanic for a salty swim

This weekend was the annual 'Hurghada aqua park' trip and so Leila and I met Scotty at work to go to the airport for our short flight there.  We went with a dozen friends which was really nice, but did make us realise how different our lives our now one year on!

Leila was happy on the flight and was very good considering how tired she was by the time we got into the hotel room and were able to put her to bed.  We had a bit of a faff with her sleeping over the weekend as the cot didn't arrive in the room until over an hour after we had arrived so we had to put her to sleep in one of our beds. When we did transfer her to the cost she wasn't too happy because the matress was so hard and so we ended up co-sleeping the first night.  For the rest of the weekend though we ingenuiously turned the sofa (bed) round so that the front was against a wall and managed to create a more comfortable cot for her that way.

During the week I had found a baby rubber ring in the toy shop on Road 233 and this proved to be a real hit with Leila.  She enjoyed kicking her legs and sending herself round in circles but she was still curious about the water and so would lunge forward in the ring to look at it (and grab a spluttering taste every now and then!).

I think I like this!

The hotel we were staying in went out onto the beach and so we took the opportunity to give Leila her first dip in the sea.  It's only right really that her first salty dip was in the Red Sea - our little Egyptian baby!  We managed to dodge the jellyfish by the shore (well, almost! I noticed a sting on my armpit later) and get onto the warm, sandy shallows - it was just lovely! 

This is a very big bath, Mummy

Safety first!

 

 

It was a nice weekend and a good reminder of how spoilt we can be living out here, and that a weekend away is still possible now that we are a family of three.  It would be great to do another weekend (or just a day!) at a hotel with a pool, or somewhere on the coast, but we'll just have to see.  Plenty of time for swimming in the UK in the summer.... although maybe a little cooler!

 

BLW - one month on

Our friends the Dudleys did Baby Led Weaning (BLW) with both of their children and recommended it to us for Leila.  We read up about it and knew that we wanted to give it a go because a) it sounded fun b) it meant we wouldn’t need to prepare separate meals for Leila and c) we hoped that it would encourage her not to be a fussy eater.

BLW is basically means that your baby feeds themselves from the outset and you don’t do any purees.  It also means messy meals and weaning off breast milk takes a lot longer.

We’re two weeks in to BLW now and are really loving it – and Leila seems to be too!  Here are a few highlights so far:

Leila’s first food was sweet potato. We chose this because it is a sweet vegetable and could be easily cut into sticks.  She was pretty bemused when she realised that the toy she was playing with a) had a taste and b) fell apart when she put it in her mouth!

We haven’t had her choke on anything (fingers crossed it stays this way!) but we have had a few gags and the first few days involved quite a bit of coughing. When she very first started BLW she was good at ‘gumming’ chunks off the ‘chips’ but once these chunks were in her mouth she didn’t know what to do with them.  For a good few minutes of her first meal she sat there with her mouth open and a chunk of sweet potato sitting on the back of her tongue before we decided to help her out and scoop it out with our fingers.  Now a few weeks in and she is using her tongue to move food around and is chewing with her gums.

Leila might turn into Banana Girl at the rate she goes through them.  We’re lucky that she does like them because they have been the staple ‘BLW breakfast’ when we are away from home (as they are an easy fruit to cut and peel).  We didn’t realise at first though how easily banana can stain if not soaked out, and so now Leila has a ‘banana dress’ that she wears to breakfast on holiday so that all her clothes don’t end up the same way!

A favourite of Leila’s already is courgette.  We think this is because it can be soft to eat but doesn’t fall apart in her mouth.  Leila prefers to suck the courgette like a lolly rather than chew it.

Our first true ‘BLW’ meal was in Luxor when we ordered a lunch and then took food from our plate and gave it directly to Leila.  Our meal was served with a spicy tomato ragu that had green beans in (great finger food) and so we sucked off the ragu and then put the beans in front of her. She loved gumming away at them!

Broccoli is meant to be a ‘classic’ first finger food with BLW and despite it being the end of the broccoli season in Cairo we were determined to let Leila loose on the mini trees! The first time that she tried it though she didn’t munch away at the tree like a giant, but instead held the ‘top’ and sucked away at the stalk!!

sunnies in the sun!

Leila's visit to the Tentmaker's Market

We've always known that we wanted to get her name designed in Arabic calligraphy and sewn as a hanging at the Tentmaker's Market, but it's taken us a while to get ourselves in gear to sort it.  At first I think we were worried about the journey and walk to get into the backstreets of Islamic Cairo where we needed to go, and more recently we have been rather busy so it's only now that she is six months old that we have made it down there.  Finding the time to go down has definitly been a factor, but also on our mind is not wanting to be hassled, nor taking her on a trip to somewhere without places for feeding or changing!  Today though we did make it down and we had a brilliant time and are so glad that we have finally done it.

We did cheat slightly by getting a car there and back, but we figure that taking Leila on the Metro is an adventure in itself (and probably one that can wait until the heat of the summer has subsided).  However, we still had a good 10-15 minute walk from the main road to where we needed to go.  Leila was very happy in the hip-carry sling, dodging between tuk-tuks and cars, waiting behind donkey carts, and walking past the smells, noises and colours of the street.  The road begins with shops selling gardening/small farm supplies but then gradually moves through metalwork and woodwork until it reaches Bab Zuweila and the Tentmaker's Market opposite.

Emptying the freshly roasted beans.

A few weeks ago we ran out of the coffee we drink, and so got a replacement from the supermaket.  However, it's nowhere near as good as the locally roasted and ground stuff so we had already decided that we would stop off at a coffee roastery we know while we were nearby.  We've been there before, and their coffee is lovely.  It may be because it's the first ground coffee we had when we got our AeroPress and started making 'real' coffee at the weekends, but the flavour is wonderful.  We arrived while they were roasting some beans, and Leila seemed to enjoy watching the man empty the finished beans into a large vat that stirred them around to cool.  He, in return, enjoyed making faces and noises at Leila, and he was lucky enough to get a couple of nice smiles out of her.  While this was going on, another man was grinding the freshly roasted beans to the exact size we wanted (his standard grind is more for Turkish coffee so doesn't work in a press).  When we got the packets from him - 500g for 20LE - they were still hot from the roasting.  Wonderful.



"Where's that man who made me smile?"

It wasn't far to then get the the Tentmaker's Market itself, a wonderful covered market dating back the best part of a millenium.  What struck us on this visit was the lack of hassle.  Our assumption is that it's quite off the beaten track, and as tourism has taken such a hit following the revolution people just don't go there any more.  In these circumstances you'd probably expect to receive more hassle than normal, like in Luxor, but here we think the traders - because they are primarily artisans and tourists are just one of their customers - have accepted (or come to terms with) the change in business a bit quicker.

We knew where we wanted to go, which may have had some bearing on our 'acceptance' (if you can call it that), but even with Leila we were left alone.  As we walked along looking into the different shops we realised we couldn't remember exactly which shop we needed.  We knew the man's name is Ashraf, as he's created not only our 10th Anniversary hanging but also the one we got for Fabia and Sam's wedding.  However, reaching the end of the main street we saw a man in a shop stitching a design, while three other men sat on chairs having a chat with him.  "Welcome back!" said the man who was stitching.  This is often a sneaky technique used to get you to go into a shop you've never been in before, but in this case we stopped and looked at the man.  He wasn't Ashraf, but we were sure we recognised him.  "You want Ashraf?" he said.  Hah!  So it was the right place.  Even though it had been the best part of a year since we'd last been there, we were still recognised.  Amazing...and maybe a bit weird!

The three other men disappeared, and about a minute later a smiley older guy in a shirt, suit trousers, and sandals appeared.  He had a massive smile and lovely teeth.  This was Ashraf.

"Welcome back!  Welcome back my friends!" he beamed.  "And - oh! - mabruck!  Congratulation!  What is his name?"

Without having her ears pierced, Leila is often assumed to be a boy (even when wearing a dress) but Ashraf quickly switched the gender once we told him her name.  "Leila, very beautiful," he said.  He began sucking his lips in a kiss and tilting his head upwards, which Leila absolutely loved.  He was rewarded with a huge smile.

"You want a drink?"  We both asked for a karkadei.  He summoned a boy with a tray apparently out of thin air, and ordered the drinks.

We explained that we wanted him to make her a hanging, just as he had done before for us, and he was really happy.  "It will be beautiful.  Beautiful for beautiful baby.  You will have beautiful work Leila my friend.  A flower?" he asked.

We explaiend that we wanted it in a teardrop.  He may have been a bit confused, but didn't argue, but we knew we wanted this design.  The logo for El Nada hospital where she was born features a teardrop, and we wanted to use this in her hanging.

"And what colour you want, Leila?"

Leila stared blankly at him.  I suggested green, not for any reason other than we both like green, so he went to get a hanging predominantly green, with bits of red.  We liked the combination and agreed to go for it.

Our drinks arrived and Ashraf set to work.  He got an old plank of wood to lean on, a scrap of paper, and a biro that didn't work very well.  As we drank our karkadei and looked at the other embroideries in his shop, Ashraf designed a calligraphic design of Leila's name in the shape of a teardrop.  The look of concentration on his face was only broken by his occasional air kisses to Leila.

Leila watches as Ashraf sketches her calligraphic design...

...in between blowing air-kisses to make her smile.

We agreed the design, and finished our drinks.  Ashraf was keen to get some photos of us all on his mobile phone, and we took the opportunity to get some pictures for ourselves.  Walking away when we had finished and paid in advance for the hanging, we had a real bounce in our step.  It's experiences like this that make us feel very lucky to live here.

Luxor

We finally made it to the end of term two and were really ready for the (over a week of!) holiday.  We wanted to have some time at home in Cairo to decompress a bit together, but we also wanted to get away within Egypt for a bit.  Our initial plan had been Dahab, but a lot of the places there were booked up when we looked and so we thought that we could spend our money a little better elsewhere (Dahab, and Siwa, are on our 'must do next year' list though!).  We therefore decided to head down to Luxor for five days and stay at the hotel we'd stayed in in January 2011 when we were there for the run and the 'revolution' started.  We thought this would be a good plan as the hotel is on a private island, and so it is very self-contained which would allow us to avoid the hassle of 'proper' Luxor, but also have enough to keep us busy.

Leila was good on the hour-long flights that we took there and back and didn't have any trouble with the pressure as we took-off/landed because we fed her to keep her swallowing.  With the short flights it didn't matter that she was so interested in everything that was going on that she didn't sleep.  She was tired at the end of both flights, though, and fell asleep as we landed and then again in the car as we left the airport.  As she doesn't have a rigid routine it was fine for her to stay awake a little longer than at home, as she could get herself to sleep when she was tired.

By the pool on the first evening.

Our room was about 50m away from the pool, and so Leila had her first swim on this trip!

We managed two swims most days we were there while avoiding the midday heat and Leila's nap times.  At first she didn't seem too fussed by the 'big bath' that we had her in, but on the second swim she started to show signs of enjoyment rather than just indifference!  She would smile if we pulled her along on her tummy (head out of the water...most of the time!) and the smiles would get bigger the faster we could go.  She was fascinated by the water and although we tried to keep her mouth out of it, we would find her dipping her head so that she could taste it!  On the third day she worked out how to splash and seemed to enjoy this too.

Scotty's girls just chillin' by the pool.

The Infinity Pool on the Nile

"I think I like this!"

Relaxing after a swim

We knew that we wanted to get out of the hotel and visit some of the sights whilst we were there with Leila.  However, we really didn't want to have to deal with any hassle so opted for booking a private tour rather than just taking a taxi ourselves. This worked out really well and we were very pleased that we spent the money on doing it this way.  First we went to Karnak Temple and then on to Luxor Temple.  Leila was awake for the three hour trip (!) but fell asleep in the car on the way home.  She was really well behaved in her buggy and didn't fuss with the heat (even though we went before the midday sun) and she tolerated us getting her out for photos.  We hope that we can visit a few more sights in Egypt with her, but know that it will be a good few years before they are more than just a photo opportunity!

On the offering table in the inner sanctum of Karnak

Obelisk of Thothmes I

Having a rest with dad

Take a look at THIS!

The hypostyle hall in Karnak

Beneath a large freize in the hypostyle hall

Left leg forward...

Being on an island, the hotel had their own jetty and mooring for a few boats, so one afternoon we took Leila out on a felucca.  Leila wasn't too fussed at first, and was happy to sit on the side and play with her toys (her default playing position now is sitting up and she is getting really good at it). Once she saw all the rope and wooden poles involved in sailing the boat though she wanted to touch and have a chew of everything. It would be nice to do another felucca sometime in Cairo although we'll need to balance the heat of the day with the need for bed in the cooler evening!

Leila rules the waves!

Wanting to explore a little bit one morning, we decided to take the buggy and see if we could walk all of the way around the island.  About half of the island is dedicated to the hotel accommodation and restaurants, pools and grounds, but a significant part of the island we discovered is fields.  There was a dirt track around this part and we could see farmers growing crops on the land and even a small Nubian village. It was pretty hot and Leila fell asleep in her buggy - a great extra nap for our little girl who seemed to enjoy waking up early but not napping for longer than 35 minutes at a time this holiday!

Don't wake the baby!

Our holiday coincided with the second week of BLW and so we were giving Leila some new foods to try.  We gave her banana for breakfast most days but then also tried her on some apple (which she enjoyed but we now think gives her reflux as she tends to be sick quite a lot of the days she has had apple).  The breakfast buffet included a fruit salad, but the pieces were cut too small for her, so each day we had to ask the waiters for a whole banana for her.  They were great at getting what we wanted and also getting the high chair for her.  Things did get a bit messy but her clothes that fared worse than the floor (why didn't we think to bring a bib??!!) as her summer dress now has banana stains on it.  One the last day they couldn't find us any fruit to give her and so we just gave her some green beans from the ragu/ratatouille that we had with our meal.  It was really very cool to be able to just give her food off our plate - this is something about BLW that we are really enjoying.

Banana sticks for breakfast

Yum!

Getting distracted

Green beans from Mum and Dad's lunch

When we booked the holiday we thought that five nights would be enough but we easily filled our days on the island and could have stayed a lot longer! It was lovely though to have a few extra days either side of the holiday at home to have some family-time in Cairo too though. We managed a BLW lunch out at Dishes (a decent enough restaurant a block away from home), a family sing-a-long at Bounce and Rhyme, a trip to the Khan and the obligatory holiday ice-cream (well, a sorbet for the dairy-free Ali!) at Stavolta.