Hospital care, Egyptian style and other ramblings

Sorry so long between blogs. I have a goal to do it weekly, but we just moved into the new house/flat and we only have dial-up connection so it is VERY slow on the internet (that means no pictures for awhile!). I am waiting for the DSL man to come, but as I said before, patience seems to be a very important virtue here....plus I don't know enough Arabic to call him up and tell him to hurry!

Here is what we have been up to:
Today Sarah and I went on a tour of two local health clinics and a very large hospital in downtown Cairo. We traveled by bus with a group organized from the expat community. It was very enlightening. At all the places, they were very excited to show us their laser skin treatment options. Gives you a view into what they think of "westerners". The hospital facilities were ok, but very outdated. They are still in the 70's in some ways. I don't think I would want a major surgery here or major illness for that matter. If you are hospitalized, you need to bring your own water and toilet paper with you! Also, there is a bank in the lobby and for the most part you have to pay before they will help you....."they are a business after all" (direct quote by guest relations department giving us the tour of the hospital). There isn't really a "911" service, so you can call the private hospital and they will dispatch their ambulance with a doctor in it, depending on the seriousness of need. They do remind you that, with traffic being what it is and the fact that cars don't move out of the way of an ambulance here, they may take anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour to arrive! So, better to jump in a taxi and take yourself than wait for the ambulance.
The health clinics here are a group of specialists all jammed into one office building. You can get a plastic surgery consultation, pap smear, see an ENT and have some stem cells frozen (seriously) all in one place. The head of the clinic was really excited that he is the first clinic in the whole Middle East with the stem cell capability. I don't know if he is Muslim or not....I wanted to ask what Muslims believe about that issue, but didn't. After that tour, I was glad that we can go to the doctor at the US Embassy and that they will medivac you to Germany for anything major.

Sunday was spent unpacking our luggage into our new place.

Saturday I got to ride in a felucca on the Nile with the ladies in our church. That is how they celebrate the Relief Society birthday here:) It was nice, relaxing and interesting. I saw a palatial palace right along side a crumbling hovel with women and children washing their dishes in the polluted river. I saw a man cutting the reeds along the bank, hauling them on his back to a small boat, and crossing back to the other side. I also saw some big factories billowing out smoke and an old-fashioned ferry boat hauling a lot of people between the shores. There was also some purple wildflowers growing among the reeds and they were beautiful. I imagined they were the same reeds that guided Moses safely downriver to the Pharaoh’s wife.

Friday we all gave the talks in church. It was funny and so sweet to see the children each get up and take their turn. When Brent was introducing our family and got to talking about Sarah, she just started giggling like crazy and pretty soon everyone in the room was laughing. It was great. Emma knocked the microphone down with a loud "clunk" but then redeemed herself by speaking clearly and slowly. Josh noticed the microphone was a bit too high and he couldn't get it lower, so you saw him slowly rise up on his tippy toes and then at the end of his talk, you saw him slowly sink back down:) I loved watching it and I was reminded again what a great thing it is to be a mom and to be together as a family, no matter where in the world we are. Rebekah and Elisabeth talked like pros and Brent and I just followed them the best we could.

Thursday afternoon we saw our place for the first time. I like it about 80%, which I guess is livable. The 20% that I don't like is the view from the front (which literally is the front of the hotel across the street and a fairly busy road out front), the view from the side (which is concrete walls) and the amount of light, which isn't great and it has a few beams in the center of open spaces, which make it not "connected" or a great family space in some aspects.
The 70% I like is big, 12 ft. ceilings, 5 bedrooms, the views from the bedrooms, location: close to stuff, across the street from 4 restaurants, overlooks church from back windows, and is close to some of the people we have met. Also loving the washer and dryer, the upright freezer and the beautiful furniture. So---considering the pain it is to find a 5 bedroom place, all the special work the embassy does to the interior to make it safe and ready(coating the windows with latex, installing proper air filters/water filters, making a “safe” room, bringing it up to US code essentially)----I probably will just focus on enjoying the 80%, try not to be annoyed. We will see. Currently, I am giving myself a few weeks to adjust to the space and then decide if I can live with it or not:)

The biggest problem I am having is knowing that I am complaining, while I can literally look outside and see people so much worse off.....and reconciling myself with the now obvious notion that I really might be an ungrateful, hypocritical "westerner"...all the while still wishing I could magically find a way to like my house 100%.
Whatever happens, we are having a grand adventure and learning a lot about ourselves and the world. I am very grateful to be here in the "near east" as they call it. And I did feel a bit like Cleopatra on the felucca ride:)