Meeting the First Lady

Last night I went to the palace.

I love those first seven words. As one of my friends said on hearing them “as I say all the time…”, but then she has a very sharp, sometimes even sarcastic, sense of humour....

You know, none of this is routine for me either. I can still be awed by the week I have had. Life here is all ups and downs. A present I had bought for my son’s birthday was deemed too heavy for the diplomatic bag, so he will not have any mail from me. It sounds like nothing, but I am miserable about it. It is odd that such small things can take on a huge importance. I had assumed that we were permitted the same two kilos going out of the post that we are allowed to bring in – but we are not permitted any parcels at all!

However, the up-side is enormous. Not only the privilege of living in another country and learning its ways, but the amazing gift of moving in circles that would be inaccessible to the graying, middle-aged, overweight lady who quilts and lives in Garran, in Canberra, in an ordinary suburban home with a husband who works for the government, two adult children, a cat, a dog, and three chooks. I sometimes feel as if I will find that it has all been a mistake, and that someone important was meant to come here.

I guess that also means that maybe other people in high places occasionally wonder too if they came sideways off life’s trampoline.

Last night I went to the Palace to meet Mrs Mubarak. She had invited all the male Ambassador’s wives, and many of the Egyptian ministers who were female to come to a reception. We were to arrive an hour early. For things like this I use an Embassy driver, and because we are often short of cars and drivers at the Embassy, Bob came home early so I could use his driver.

The invitation was for 7.00pm so I left here at 5.00pm. It takes nearly an hour to drive to Heliopolis at this time, though it is actually not all that far.

We walked through a security gate, just like the ones at airports. In fact, you do this at every hotel here, and usually a handbag has to be handed over and is quickly searched. It often amazes me though, that many women here wear such large amounts of jewelery that the security barriers frequently bleep. At the palace bleeps were taken seriously. My mobile and camera (why did I take that with me – how dumb can you get?) were taken out of my bag, and I was given a number for them. Later someone searched for me and returned the mobile. I think they probably realised that it doesn’t take photos.

We were given a card with a number on it and shown into a small side reception room.

These rooms were stunning. All the floors were marble, but laid with beautiful Persian carpets, most in the Nain and Isfahan style which is predominantly blue and cream and aqua. The ceilings were very high, and trimmed with inlaid stone work in many traditional patchwork patterns around the edges. Furniture here tends to me more ornate than in Australia. Wooden parts are elaborately carved and gold leafed, and the upholstery often in satins and flocked velvets. There is an effect of pattern on pattern on pattern. This was sumptuous, but most of the colours were light, in the creams, green, aqua and blue ranges, so though it was rich it was not heavy.

At about 6.30, when most of us had been there for about half an hour, we were taken into a much larger reception area. This was very high, with an open central area and two floors, so one was a mezzanine that wrapped right around the main room. The balcony was all marble, but very heavily veined in olive and deep green. It had an inlaid stone border that went right around the room which was just exquisite, about six patchwork patterns on top of each other in cream and tan and terracotta and black. Add to this a beautiful piece of edgework that dropped like a hand stitched lace edging below the balcony – but was all carved white stone. Most of the furniture in this room was striped gold and white, still with the gold leaf covering on the arms and legs, so it was rich but subtle and oddly not over the top for such a huge and stately room. We were served fresh juices, orange, lemon, strawberry (still my favourite), guava and mango.

A few minutes before seven doors were opened in the hall outside. Mrs Mubarak arrived with escort vehicles. She is slim and attractive, and looks in her fifties or younger, though my mathematics tells me that that cannot be right. She is very, very elegant, in a slim cream dress and longish loose coat that looked like a silky crocheted lace in a heavy cream, almost caramel colour. She was warm and friendly. She moved quickly through the group, and shook hands with all of us.

We now moved after her into a reception area with tables, and this is when we realised what the numbers on our cards were for, as they signified our tables. I must admit, I was impressed with the Egyptian skill with protocol. Each of us was seated according to diplomatic rank, which dates, not from how important your country is (wouldn’t that be a can of worms?) but according to how long it is since your husband arrived in the country.

This put me at table ten – but even though we have been here only a few months, there was still a table eleven. A harp, with ornate gilding and a wider base than I remember on those I have seen elsewhere, was set up on the entrance area, which also acted as a stage. A young girl sat and played it through the reception, working her way through Andrew Lloyd Webber tunes and an occasional movie theme.

Best of all, there were two long wall sections which held Wissa Wassef tapestries. They were the best I have ever seen. I shouldn’t be surprised, but the ones I have seen have been so good that I didn’t realise they could be better. One was about eight metres long, woven in three sections, and moved down through every possible phase of Egyptian life. The other wall had two smaller pieces, both based on the Nile and traditional plants and flowers.

Ramses Wissa Wassef started the weaving school in 1952. He was convinced that all children have art within them, and just need a way to let it out. He believed that if children where given the skill to weave, and were not interfered with by adults telling them what they should do or criticising their work, that they would make beautiful things. Some of the original weavers still work there, though many are grandparents, and their children are often trained in the second generation. I hope to see the school in the next week, and it is something I have wanted to see again ever since 1991 when I went the first time.

Have a look at the website. I love the work for its exuberance and beauty. I would rather you looked yourself than say too much else about it.

We helped ourselves to a buffet of cocktail party snacks, smoked salmon, prawns, fruit on skewers, and tiny exquisite petits fours. We sat at our tables to eat, and tea and coffee were served. Mrs Mubarak spoke, though it was obvious that she had recently lost her voice. She asked us to consider approaching our local libraries in Egypt to give talks about our countries, with maps and posters and things to help children in Egypt appreciate the rest of the world.

After an hour she left, going through the same system of a handshake each, and working her way around the room. We followed her out.

It took about half and hour to have every car file past the main steps to collect the relevant wife. It made me appreciate the fact that we have a white car, where almost all the others were black. It also made me realise how useful it is to have the flag on the car as we do if I am out with Bob. They say all cats are black in the dark. From the top of a flight of stairs in the dark all black Mercedes look absolutely identical. It was really very funny hearing all those around me trying to work out which car was theirs.

There were only about ten cars which were white, and I had arranged with my driver that he would ring me on my mobile as he was close to the stairs. He did that, and it made my pick up very easy.

It was a really interesting night, and I felt very honoured to have met Mrs Mubarak so early in the posting.

Today I have a Women’s Association lunch – the last for the year since most of the women go home for summer – and my friend, Mary McKinnon, the Canadian Ambassador’s wife, will launch her book, the Global Staircase, on international relocating! I think I should have read it years ago.

Three Little Kittens and Richard Gere

I am starting to really love Egypt. This is a fascinating country, and the richness of its culture is as fascinating as its history. It is still not always easy, and I am still struggling with the frustrations of basic stuff like shopping, but coming back from Damascus and the Gulf really felt like coming home.

This is a first post for me without any of my children. My eldest is now 37, nearly 38. That is a lot of years to have children with you, and I have really missed the company and the busy-ness of an active house with two young adults raiding the frig at intervals. I have had to stop cooking too much, as no-one eats the leftovers. I still can’t believe how little food I buy.

Having cats in the garden is nice – as I feel that even an occasional meal thrown their way is making me a bit more necessary to someone. I am not trying to sound miserable as I am not – but it has been an adjustment that I have had to make.

Now for a bit about the absolutely lovely night we had the other night. While I have already told many friends, I decided for security reasons to wait until today before this went to the blog.

If you hate name dropping stop reading now!!

I had dinner with Richard Gere. I have a smile a mile wide at the thought.

Even without Richard Gere it would have been a very special night. The Grand Hyatt has a boat – a huge, glossy, two story, beautiful boat. Think Manly ferry done up as a palace and you are getting close, but this boat is even so quiet that we had been moving for ten minutes before I realised that we had left the dock..

Something magical happens to Cairo when it gets dark. The city becomes a Cinderella. The dust, and the boring brown apartment blocks and the huge brick tenements and the dirt and rubble of the streets all disappears. As the lights come out the river reflects them in rippling gold, the best of the buildings are the ones most lit, and the appearance of the city changes in half an hour. While Cinderella may have been the same girl in rags as she was in a beautiful gown and carriage and glass slippers, I would bet that she carried herself taller and prouder and with more confidence. As does Cairo.

On the waterfront facing the river are all the best hotels, and the Grand Hyatt is the most beautiful. As we boarded the boat we moved straight to the deck, with was covered in dark red and gold Persian carpets. The rails are the thinnest of wires, so it felt as if we stood on carpet hovering over the water. The shopping malls and public areas of the hotel have a totally glass wall, and are about five storeys high. It looked like an illustration in a children’s cutaway book. There is a strangely voyeuristic feeling in watching people moving around and making purchases.

As we reached the deck I heard our friend Garry Friend’s voice behind me – he is the General Manager of the Hyatt. I turned to say hello, and realised that the man brushing my shoulder as I turned was Richard Gere.

We were immediately introduced, and I had the honour of being the first of an intimate group (only about fifteen other guests) to talk to him.

He is absolutely utterly nice. He doesn’t have the polished and groomed look of many of his movies, but was far more approachable. He was, of course, quite gorgeous, and wearing jeans, a dark grey shirt and a seriously beautiful jacket for the casual dinner. His silvery grey hair flopped over his face. He was asking local women who crowded around him in the next five seconds what was the Western world’s worst misconception of Egypt. It was a thoughtful question, and provoked thoughtful answers and some very interesting conversations. I would have thought that the perception of danger in the Middle East was the worst – but these ladies came up with many others. Most hurtful seemed to be the idea that the west saw them as veiled and backward and controlled by their men.

Hors d’oevres were passed with drinks, including a particularly delicious egg shaped sushi with rice, smoked salmon and caviar.

We moved downstairs to the formal dining room for dinner and the windows were left clear so we could watch the waterfront drifting by. The table cloth was gold brocade, and the room was just beautiful. One large table was in the middle of the room, and I was almost opposite Richard. Bob was even closer, and he and Richard talked Middle East Politics for a good part of the meal.

We ate a delicious salad with roasted sweet potatoes, then Tasmanian Salmon on a bed of lemon and asparagus risotto and a fried and crunchy shredding of leeks on top. Richard is Buddhist and doesn’t eat meat, but fish is okay.

Dessert was the most decadent chocolate tart and thick with hazelnuts and served with real vanilla ice cream. Everyone commented on the spectacular food. I have one poor photo. We had been asked not to take them, as Richard did not want cameras in his face on what was a day off. However, they talked him into posing at the end. I was still uncomfortable but took one sideways shot – a bad angle but with Bob in the foreground. Just for proof.

Scratch the surface and I am just a star-stuck teenager.

Fayoum Oasis

Yesterday I went with Johanna Freeman and Joseph Hannah out to Kom Oshim, 30 kilometers from Fayoum. Jo is Australian and has been working with a development group here for 3 ½ years. Her husband Joseph is Manager of Marketing and Administration in the trade area of the Australian Embassy (Austrade). Jo is involved with setting up an export business based around local pottery - simple pots, most of them unglazed, some very big indeed. Next time you shop at Northcote Pots in Melbourne, look carefully at the pots and remember how far they have traveled, in every way.

I left the house at ten and walked up to the nearby supermarket which was my pickup point. Bob was somewhat off-colour – unless your favourite colour is a delicate green – thanks to a bug picked up in his recent travels. He was confined to the house for the day. I had spent the day before driving around Zamalek in the Cherokee in case I had to drive, but was relieved when told that there was enough space without my vehicle. I had had a face-to-face encounter with a Humvee in a very narrow street with cars parked down each side, which meant I had had to back out of the street through such a narrow hole that I was a bit astounded that the Humvee could get through without denting every car it passed.

Seven of us from the embassy piled into two vehicles and left. Our driver was Hercules, a good looking young Nubian. There was a brief moment where I didn’t believe that I had heard his name correctly, but apparently it is quite a common name in the Sudan.
I was lucky. I was in a car with a working air conditioner and two friends from the Embassy. After about half an hour we started the long slow climb up to the desert escarpment level. Usually in a car we barely notice that we are even going up. Today we did, as Hercules was clearly struggling to get it up the hills. We tried turning the air conditioning off, and that didn’t help much – certainly not with climate control with the temperature in the desert well up in the late thirties. By the last third of the hill I was mentally urging the car on with the “I think I can, I think I can” mantra.

Things seemed to improve a little as we leveled out, but then up we went again and the car slowed and slowed. Back on a flat stretch again Hercules pulled over. He got out, walked ahead of the car a little way and picked up a piece of wood. Next minute he was wedging something to do with the petrol pump, roaring the accelerator, and it sounded a little better. It was actually quite an interesting place to stop. Not because of the desert, as in this place it simply stretched away with gravel as far as the eye could see. There had obviously been a problem here, and some truck had lost a large load of packed cheese, of the circular, wedge-packed kind. Not only that, but it had been on fire. Beside the road, for several metres out into the desert, stretched a pile of cheese packs in varying levels of disintegration and charcoal. It must have smelt like grilled cheese for days after this lot went up.

We took off again. It didn’t take long for us to realise that this car was not going to get to Fayoum today.

A phone call to the other car had them waiting for us to limp to them. Then all of us piled into one car. It was, luckily, a big car – a long station wagon with a third row of seats in the very back, but it was hot (no air-conditioning) and especially for those in the very back. It was fun though – with that rather hectic fun that happens when everyone decides to relax and just see what will happen. Chocolate bars and icy cold boxed drinks probably helped. We had the windows open, and because we were together Jo could brief us on the project as she drove. At one point we were overtaken by a pickup truck full of cows. I turned as they went past to see the passenger in the front climbing out through the window at speed, to check on the bovines in the back.

Egypt is never, ever, boring.

We turned off the highway and bumped over rough dirt tracks to the pottery. This is a hired property, with Ahmed, who runs the pottery, paying for the use of old chicken houses. These were simply walled, and in many places the walls had been made out of broken pots. The roof was wooden support beams – very flimsy – with woven bamboo roofing, often with loose leaves hanging down. It was surprisingly cool inside compared with the heat outside.

We watched a potter (I didn’t get his name) take a lump of clay, plunk it down expertly in the very centre of his wheel, and proceed to pull and smooth it into a large pot. I have seen it many times before, but never quite get over the awe at watching something appear from a lump of mud – and it seems so quick to a quilter.

We were walked through the process – the clay cleaned, mixed with water and left to dry down to just cracking stage in large outdoor pans.

Then the clay is brought in, stacked in large piles, stacked and coated with a thick dusting of charcoal which, we were told, strengthens the clay. Then a barefooted man walks around and around on top of it as part of the initial wedging process. He forces his feet down into it to mix in the charcoal and it creams up between large splayed toes. The men’s clothes were almost rags, and I was briefly worried that that was all they had - but I guess I wouldn’t wear my best to work in a pottery either.

We watched several pots made, and I was fascinated by the obvious love of handling the slick wet clay, and the half smile on the potter as he watched our reactions to different parts of the process. The big wheel under his feet drove the wheel with the pot on it, so he kept one foot on the wheel stroking it around as his hands formed the clay. He was so proud of his work – as were all the men at the different parts of the process. They start at simpler things like the wedging and unloading kilns, and there are now thirty potters who work on wheels, and another twenty with Mohammed at his special process.

We inspected the kilns, and watched as men using only a small piece of corrugated cardboard to protect their hands, and with bare feet despite the piles of cracked and broken reject pottery everywhere, unloaded obviously hot large pots from a very fully stacked kiln.

This was the equivalent of our Saturday, and so not many potters were there. One man, Mohammed, had come in especially for our visit. Jo hinted that his work was really interesting as we headed for a separate hut.

Mohammed sat on the dirt, and with a round hollow in the dirt in front of him. He used fine chaff in the hollow in the way that we would dust a surface with flour before kneading bread, and dropped a piece of clay onto it. He then used a round hammer – which looked just like the fuller we used to grind pigments in art school (before giving up and going out to buy paint in tubes from the shop). He kept a hand under the clay and belted it with the hammer rhythmically – and we watched in amazement as a pot grew and curled up over his hand and the hammer – almost perfectly spherical, if only he hadn’t needed to get his hand and hammer into it. He would stop from time to time to dust with more chaff, then reached for a long flat strap and moved to slapping from the outside with his hand inside.

He was making vessels which would hold fire. We had noticed the men boiling a pot on a small fire in a pottery vessel back in the other hut – and this was one of Mohammed’s. Apparently you can’t light fires in wheel-turned clay, or it cracks and breaks. This way of making a vessel with the chaff and hammer results in a much stronger pot which can take heat. They make a range of chimney vessels for outside heating with a large oval hole in the base. The holes are not wasted either – they are fired after they are cut out and used in building walls. They also make a range of very clever deep round bowls which are used as small barbecues, with a metal grill on top.

Ahmed in the pot, Mohammed and Jo

Check the Fayoum Oasis site.

Ahmed showed us around. He lost his job when potteries in Old Cairo were closed down as people objected to the wood smoke of the kilns. He moved north and set up the pottery in the poorest region of one of the poorest governorates of all of Egypt. He started to teach people to make pots. Jo and her group made contact with him to help with the development and the export of his products. He is an unusual man – a real entrepreneur with vision to see that things can change, and the will to try to be the person to make the changes. Mohammed runs the other side of the business as the number two. Usually fifteen people work with Mohammed, and about thirty on the wheels with Ahmed. They have also set up a candle making venture, making candles to go into small square posts, in beautiful golds and reds and this is work that they have been able to get women to do.

We had a late lunch (though three is not late by local standards) at a beautiful resort hotel on a lake in Shak Bouk. It was a really interesting day.

Krak des Chevaliers

There is a magical castle in Syria –the best of the Crusader castles in the world. The Crusader occupation and the main building of the castle was about 1120 and succeeding groups added to it. Most of what is there now was built in the first half of the thirteenth century. It is three quarters of an hour’s drive from Homs in Syria, and stands on a hill which controls access to the Homs Gap and the rich farmlands from Turkey through to the Mediterranean on one side, and Jordan on the other.

Ok. That is the history bit. When you first see the Krak there is no realisation of the size of it. As you start to wind up the hill through the village –twist after turn after hairpin, you begin to realise how enormous the castle is. Walk in to the Krak and your hair lifts in the breeze, but there is also a tingle in the back of your neck, and the hair lifting on your arms that is nothing to do with the wind that swirls down through the long curved passages between the outer defences and the inner walls. You walk in shadow through honey coloured stone walls, on honey coloured stone slabs, and the wide and steep entrance twists and bends to the right as you are coming in, so the swing of an intruder’s sword arm was limited by the wall.

Inside there is almost a suggestion of a theme park, as the preservation of this castle is so perfect. Arrow slits in the walls let in narrow shafts of air and light, with dust swirling in the fingers of wind that reach even through these narrow slits. Small square openings in the roof light the areas below, and there are also square opening in the floor to pass some of the light to rooms below. These have a metal grid over the top stop unwary tourists from falling through.

I am starting to think that pictures just might do this better than I can. There is just too much.

The last photo on the right is the bread ovens - there could be up to three thousand people in the castle, and that is a lot of bread.

The toilets from Crusader times. Anything deposited here ran down the outside walls to the moat.

This game in the photo at the bottom right is carved into the windowsill, and is widely played in Islamic countries and in Africa. It is a wonderful game, and can be played at many different levels. My children introduced it into their schools in Australia on maths project days.

Remains of a $4 mezze. Unfortunately we scoffed the hummus and the best-ever baba ghannouj - there was more than three of us could eat.

The Lebanese ranges, complete with snow, were to the left.

The view along the only existing moat showing the inner defensive walls.

A farewell glimpse from a higher point.

Springtime in the Garden

We have babies. We have three little kittens who have appeared with their mother in our garden. They are far too thin. They are little scraps of bone and fur and for the last two days I have been putting out food for them. They disappear after eating, and don’t reappear until late afternoon, and I have no idea where they go or how the little mother keeps them so well hidden.

She is such a good mother. She is so thin, but a wonderful colour like very milky tea. She is a soft slick shadow of a cat, flitting quickly out of sight if she thinks her babies are threatened. She has long large ears, and a long thin face, and looks exactly like every cat on a Pharonic tomb painting. She was curled quietly under the arch that is the entrance from our drive to the garden feeding the babies, though she looks half starved herself. She was cleaning them with long slow licks. My gardener told me that he didn’t think she would survive having them because she was so weak.

They must have been there at least six weeks as even the babies eat anything I give them voraciously.

One is ginger and white – almost as if the back section was dipped in the ginger pot, one is ginger, and one is the wonderful pale apricot of the mother.

I am giving them at least one good meal a day. I really want them to survive – but I would like it even better if they were friendly. One had climbed onto the sill of a basement window that is ground level to the garden. Obviously it assumed I couldn’t get through the bars. I picked it up.

BIG mistake. It immediately turned into a whipping slashing SCREECHING machine. What looked like a soft little animal was hard and whippy muscle and the sensation was like picking up a thin pincushion with too firm a grip.

As a protective technique it was very effective because I put it straight down very fast.

Now I wish I hadn’t tried it because I have frightened it.

We also have one of Egypt’s beautiful coppery pigeons nesting in the gap between our bathroom shutter and the glass of the window – in full, if frosted, view of the bathroom. The nest is built, the eggs are laid and there she sits.

So - more babies are due. She has been sitting for three days and I have no idea how long they will take to hatch.

Thank you all for my lovely comments. I have regulars I hear from often, and even the occasional complete stranger – which means, not even a quilter! I now have a counter on the blog. It is really encouraging to see that many people check it every day.

Some have complained that they can’t work out how to leave a comment. You need to click on Comments. Then put your comment in the box. Then tick the anonymous box unless you have a Blogger ID. Then click on Publish. It is pretty quick really. The comment is on the site, but it is also emailed to me, so even if it disappears somehow, I have it. However, I can’t answer them, so please don’t think me rude if you asked a question and I didn’t answer.