As a shepherd putteth on his garment

I have found my trip here in Egypt to be strenuous, although as I've said before, not overly so. I have found that I have really had to rely on the Spirit to get me through. I have felt, for whatever reason, a drive to take scriptural references to Egypt and apply them to my trip.

At first two different possibilities for defining my trip: the children of Israel enduring captivity in Egypt before being delivered to the promised land and Christ and his earthly parents fleeing into Egypt to escape the persecution of the Romans. The first in my mind represented Egypt as something to be survived and the second as a "realworld" location to escape the bubble of Provo. I've seen both of these attitudes by others in the program, but neither of them really fit what I wanted out of this trip.

Then I found this scripture in Jeremiah 43:12: "...and he shall array himself with the land of Egypt, as a shepherd putteth on his garment; and he shall go from thence in peace."

That's what I want. I don't want to lose myself, but I want to immerse myself enough that I can put on Egypt as a garment. I want to take what I learn here and make myself a better, more complete person. And most of all, I want to go from here in peace.

If you tell one lie...

it leads to another.

Then you tell two lies... you're really in trouble.

You should ask my sister Lauren to sing that for you one day. It's incredibly adorable.

Lying to a spouse is the topic of this blog post. There's been a situation on hand, with accompanying discussion around these parts lately. FYI, it does not involve us. We are brutally honest with each other actually.

And for us, lying to a spouse is potentially worse than what you're actually lying about. Trust is fundamental to a healthy relationship. It must be maintained. Lying in order to keep the spouse happy or unworried or thinking you are better than you are, even then, not healthy.

But the real discussion around here involves intervening when you know someone else is lying to their spouse. Would you tattle on someone?

According to us, yes. I would want to know if Tim was lying to me. So, naturally, I assume that a person feels the same. But, according to quite a few of our real-live friends, it's absolutely inappropriate to intervene in marital issues. We turn to our blog friends for their opinions:

Would you want to know if your spouse was lying to you? Would you want to hear it from a third party? And would you intervene and tell someone their spouse was lying? Or is it all none of our business?

Motherhood: An Eternal Partnership with God

Lately I've been feeling kind of blah with stay-at-home mommyhood. I love my baby, but I'm not sure I like being a mom. And it's frustrating, because I thought I would love it. It is so much harder than I ever expected, especially now that we are here and have no sort of set schedule and are constantly participating in activities that are not exactly baby-friendly. We have no friends with babies, and although the other wives and students love Amir, it's not the same as going over to a house where there is someone who a) understands you, and b) has toys and a baby-proof apartment. I miss being in a ward with dozens of friends with babies, with regularly scheduled playgroups. I miss hanging out at the park and chatting with other BYU moms and seeing friends from the ward. We miss Camille and Benson, Melissa and AB, Elisse and Reid, Cecilia and Eliza, Lina and Esteia. I'm going to appreciate having mommy friends around SO MUCH when we get back!

Ok ok ok, enough reminiscing about Provo. What brought me to writing this post was watching this video by an apostle in the LDS Church, Elder Jeffrey R. Holland:



I know I'm a new mother and only have one child, and I know it's only going to get so much harder, but I needed to watch this right now in my life. I needed to know and remember what I'm doing raising Amir is important and valued. All the middle of the nights and the frustrating break-downs and the exhaustion and the destruction of friends' personal property -- all totally worth it.



And speaking of missing home, this video is so quintessentially Provo I could cry yet again.

Upcycling and book reviews

Here are some things for you to check out:

Our friend Wendy upcycles and is generally crafty. I want you to check out her site and see if you can't find something you want to give yourself or some significant female in your life, or male, if you have any into headbands.

Go Here: Some kind of bird and some type of fabric

And to the right of my page, I have links to reviews of books, so I don't feel obligated to post them here.

That is all.

In de-nile

This either grants Atticus great fertility or immunity from the plague. Either way, we'll take it.

This post is about produce

I'm amazed at how many students eat out here. There are some people who have eaten every single meal not at home all summer. Besides the fact we simply can't afford to do that, I'm at a loss for why people are not taking advantage of the unbelievable produce you can get! I know some are nervous about getting sick from street food, but I'm totally willing to risk it if I can walk two blocks down the street to a little farmer's market-esque produce market, and pick up pounds of tomatoes, eggplant, peppers, carrots, potatoes, onions, zucchini, okra, cabbage, you name it-- for about 20 cents a pound. There is also plenty of fruit stands everywhere as well, and again, I can get bananas, mangoes, grapes, watermelon, cantaloupe, apples, peaches, apricots for incredibly low prices. Everything is flavorful, fresh, and free of chemicals (I think, I'm making this assumption based on the fact that everything goes bad way faster than I'm used to). We've been eating loads of pasta with tomatoes and zucchini, lentils and rice with mixed veggies, veggie-fried rice, homemade french fries (not as healthy, but for some reason we are addicted to these now...), and for lunch almost every day I eat about four tomatoes with soft cheese on delicious fresh bakery bread.

And we definitely eat our share of koshary and falafel (very, very cheap street food) when we're too lazy or it's too hot to cook, but I want to take full advantage of veggies before the dearth during the winter in Provo.

Halfway through

By Tim:

I wanted to write a post about my feelings about Egypt now that we're halfway through and haven't had our 5 day spring break vacation yet. Two words:

Utterly predictable.

The last thing you'd expect from a hastily planned, poorly prepared for, super-intensive language immersion study abroad is having it go exactly as expected. I worked really hard not to put any preconceptions on what Egypt would be like, so I suppose that rather than having predicted this trip accurately I've just substituted observations for predictions. But in some things I've been, if not let down, then surprised:

Heat: It's not really super hot here. Sure there have been some really warm days, but most top out at mid 90's which is just like Utah or my mission. The heat just came really early here and some days are really hot, up to 110 degrees.

Difficulty: Arabic has always been hard, and it is more intensive here, but I feel like I've made a lot of progress and kept up on my schoolwork without losing sleep or neglecting other duties.

Family problems: I was worried about bringing a family here, but we've all adapted well. Cait, after being disoriented for a couple of weeks is now thriving and Amir is taking to Egypt better than most Egyptian babies. For example, we were pretty worried about taking him with us for the 7 hour non-stop mosque tour yesterday, but he gave us no problems at all.

The Spirit: I've felt it here very strongly, but I'll talk about that in another post.

In fact, I struggle a lot more with the predictability of the days here than the unpredictability. I guess that's something to be grateful for though. Here's a picture:

Gotta go, gotta go, gotta go right now

Atticus is a mover and a shaker. The kid is constantly squirming, scooting, cruising, pulling up, tearing up, and messing up. I can't seem to keep tabs on him from one minute to the next. He is fast these days. Not only is he fast, he loves ripping things that are important, biting things not meant to be bitten (like our friend's furniture... eek), eating anything that looks unappetizing, and falling on things that will hurt. We decided the only way to keep him content is if we create a room where everything is plastic/soft, very colorful and noisy, with lots of non-electrical cords/curtains/edible paper, that is constantly changing and where there is no way to fall over on to a hard floor. Then maybe, just maybe, I would get a moment's peace that does not involve him napping (oh, blessed sacred naptime, how I love thee).

I'm nervous about the damage to be done in the next few months (and years for that matter). Not only to possessions, but mostly to him. He gets hurt on a regular basis. Toppling off of chairs on to the hard floor, bumping his head on sharp edges, rolling off the bed on to a semi-cushioned rug. I hope the damage will not be permanent. I see no way in curbing the injuries, unless I stand next to him with one hand on him for the rest of his life. And sometimes, you just gotta pee! And eat!! And blog!!!!

How does a mother do it? I'm totally exasperated. Just let him get hurt a few times. Submit to the crazy kid and bring a book while I'm monitoring his actions? I feel like my whole day is spent wrestling and chasing and putting things out of reach and kissing owies. Can I trust it will get better when I have my own apartment and can baby-proof? Please tell me this is not my fate for more than the next few months here in Egypt in a very un-baby-proofed apartment. I will go absolutely crazy.

Also on the table: keeping him content for three weeks of bus rides and one LOOOOONG trip back around the world. I am so dreading August...

Father's Day

We're usually not so into Hallmark-invented holidays around these parts, but I'll take any opportunity to express a little appreciation to a certain man in my life.

You know the one: my dad. Good old Dad. He's funny, he's laid-back, he always provided both financially and emotionally, he was around for us, he listened to us, and he loves my mom (even if I've never seen two adults drive each other crazy like they do). He's a pretty stellar guy when it comes down to it. When I was younger, we went on a few road trips, just the two of us. I remember one vividly: we ate a 20-pack of McNuggets and slept on the water bed at Grandma and Papa's apartment in Atlanta. Looking back, I really should've taken the opportunity to hang out with my dad more often when I lived at home. But some teenagers think their parents are the worst possible people in the entire world. I was not immune from that ridiculous perspective. Fortunately, I've matured, he's matured, and we're back to being friends because I think he's pretty swell.

Speaking of great fathers, you all know I could go on and on and on about how I married and procreated well, but I won't. Let's leave it at this: my husband rocks. Amir is crazy about his father, and so am I.

Our flat

This is not a complaining post. It's more so I can remember, and laugh about it in the future.

We live in a really nice apartment. One day, I'll post the pictures I took the first day. We have a fairly absentee landlord. He's a nice enough guy though, especially compared to other Egyptian landlords. He keeps trying to send his maid to clean, but we're always gone (but this week is the magic week, I think it will come together!) But... no matter how nice he is, he's kind of a slacker fixer landlord. Meaning, many things broken, few things fixed. So far, these have happened:

1. Our washer broke (fixed once, broken again)
2. Our light in our bedroom broke (still not fixed)
3. Our bedroom door broke and we still can't shut it, which makes for awkward roommate moments
4. Our bathroom door is sort of broken, still can be shut, but sometimes needs to be opened from the outside
5. Our air conditioner now leaks water continually, onto our bed so we have a bucket to catch it all night long (drip. drip. drip. you get the picture)

The most annoying things are the bedroom door and the A/C. The washer is usable still, if you stand next to it the whole cycle and make sure a part doesn't come loose (I usually have to stand next to it the whole cycle for fear of forgetting the water is on and flooding it, which happens pretty much once a week). The light in our bedroom almost feels normal because it stopped working the first week we moved in. The bathroom door thing isn't that annoying as long as someone is close to open it when you bang on it. I never shut it when I'm home alone.

Something else that happens frequently: we lose power. And it's SO. HOT. It usually comes on within the hour, but occasionally will be off for longer. That's when I jump in the cold shower with my PJs on and hop into bed completely wet. It works.

I like to think I'm living authentically Egyptian, albeit upper-middle-class Egyptian. I often have to repeat this to myself when the frustration mounts.







Things that work great in our flat: the TV.