With A Little Help From My Friends

I'm sitting at home this July and really, really at home for a change. I built my home to provide shelter for me from the sun and wind, to be a place to sleep in, and to be small and easy to care for. I have two small steps that go from the house to the garden, installed with the thinking that as I get older, the last thing I want is to have to deal with a bunch of stairs. There are no steps inside the house and everything inside is within easy hobbling distance. All of this is really useful right now because I had a bilateral knee replacement last week and I am not allowed to even tackle the little stairs to the garden until my staples come out.
The decision to do a knee replacement was a difficult one. On one hand, I began suffering serious pain in my knees last fall and walking was becoming torture. If walking on the smooth sidewalks of New York in June was bad, one can just imagine what it was like on the uneven ground of my farm. And if I couldn't walk comfortably to see my horses and to move around....what was the point of having legs anyway? Oddly enough, riding was the one thing that I could do for hours without any pain at all...but you can't live on a horse, no matter how much it might seem like a good idea.

I started doing research on knee replacement, talking to friends and family who have had it done. My younger brother had his done, which made me suspect that part of the problem was genetic, a malformation of the knees that my doctor had noticed when he looked at my xrays last fall. He said that I needed to do them both but we could either do them one at a time or at the same time. The real issue for doing two at once was aftercare. Friends here asked in astonishment "You are going to do a surgery like this in Egypt?" But the surgery itself wasn't nearly the concern that managing for the first two weeks after surgery was. We have some very good hospitals here and excellent doctors, though our nursing leaves me homesick for Canada. But on the other hand, the hospitals are set up here with the understanding that you will have a friend or family member staying with you to assist you. I decided that a lot of pain once was better than a lot of pain twice and opted for the bilateral surgery.

The surgery itself was in a relatively new hospital in Medinat Nasr with a very nicely equipped operating theatre. I was having an epidural with some interesting goofy juice to keep me out of the doctors' way. It was a long surgery, about 6 hours or so, and I recall coming to some incomplete consciousness (no pain...and I wouldn't swear about the consciousness) to be aware of the sounds of hammers, drills, and other power tools. I exited the semi-consciousness as quickly as possible as power tools should never be associated with someone's body....EVER. The first few days after surgery are best not remembered much....catheters, drains, yuck. But they were fine with the pain meds and we coped ok. The day after the surgery, I was given a walker to practice standing up and walking a bit, but it was the much anticipated removal of the tubes that provided the stimulus to get up and walk to the bathroom. Little triumphs, like washing my hair over the sink in the bathroom so that at least part of my body felt fresh, made huge differences to me. I was in the hospital for 5 days including the day of surgery and friends stayed with me in shifts for the time.

Finally I was sprung to go home to my vast relief...and the relief of my staff and friend Kelly who came here for a holiday and found herself dogsitting. The staff shut the dogs into the back garden while I arrived so that I could maneuver myself into a chair in peace, then we barricaded my knees with the walker and loosed the hounds. A walker is a terrific fence. After about 5 minutes of insanity on the part of the dog pack, they settled down to the reality that I was really back and not going anywhere soon. They'd never seen a walker before but very quickly learned to get out of the way as I was hobbling around the house. We'd made some helpful adjustments to the house, like adding a twin mattress on top of my king-sized mattress so that my bed was at an easier height for me to get in and out by myself, and getting a toilet seat extender to put on top of the toilet for the same reason. When your legs are functioning in a pretty funky manner, you really appreciate having a tall toilet and bed. Another friend had donated an old lazyboy chair to the living room and that has really been a lifesaver as I can adjust my body to stay comfortable.

The first "setback" was actually a very useful lesson for me. After I'd been home about 24 hours and the residual pain meds from the hospital had worn off, I had a really tough early morning with muscle cramps running up and down my right leg. I was in tears and called Kelly in the guesthouse. A friend of mine who is a massage therapist was staying there for my first week home, and she came over and massaged the muscles in my leg until I could relax enough to sleep again. The lesson learned was that while the orthopods can give you pretty shiny new knees to work with, it's your old muscles who are going to be doing the work, and probably not without complaint at first. While I expected pain from the surgery site, I was unprepared for the muscle cramps. Magnesium supplements, massage, and a mild anti-inflammtory took care of that issue and I was humbled before my 60 yr old muscles.

Now I have about 3 days before the staples come out of my knees and I will be given the go ahead to hobble around my garden where I should be hobbling and to begin my serious physiotherapy. The movement in the new knees is a wonder to me. After what I realise has been very long time of pain and discomfort, these new bionic knees slide so smoothly with my leg movement that I am in awe and remember the joy of free movement again. I've been resting a lot between wanders around my tiny house...my body is quite happy to tell me to remember my age and not push things too hard. Pushing things too hard is part of what got me here in the first place.

Would I do the surgery here again? In a heartbeat. My doctor did a beautiful job on the surgery and my friends have been so amazingly supportive of me, popping by with gazpacho soup, fruit cake and fresh cherries and helping with the few summer clients that come by, my staff have been there to handle all my responsibilities, and the core group of nurses (the two Mona's, Kelly and Sabine) who have been so very helpful in my post-operative care. I am amazed at the love and care that have surrounded me. I went in to fix my knees, but came out with a new appreciation for my life.

copyright 2010 Maryanne Stroud Gabbani

A Walk Along A Mameluke Street

A couple of weeks ago a close friend of mine, Patricia Canfield, decided to take one of the walks in Cairo sponsored by ARCE (The American Research Center in Egypt). ARCE offers some amazing tours of Cairo and sites further afield for very reasonable prices. You do have register with ARCE beforehand and to show up on time for the bus as they absolutely depart at the advertised hour, but the tours are some of the best in Egypt. Pat is a freelance writer living here for some twenty odd years and when she showed me the photographs and told me about the places she'd seen, I begged her to write it up for me for my blog. These days my arthritic knees have taken me away from any ideas I have of three hour walks, although knee replacement surgery scheduled for this summer should have me back pounding the pavements, however gingerly, in the fall. Here is her story:

Al Mu’izz Li Din Allah Street

One of the highlights of tours to Cairo is the Khan El Khalili which is an intricate warren of over 1,000 shops, craftsmen and workshops and an astonishing group of Medieval and Islamic monuments which have occupied the same cramped area for well over 1,000 years.
The most spectacular group of these monuments is on Al Mu’izz Street which is part of the main thoroughfare that ran through the Medieval walled city. It is an area called Bayn El Qasrayn (Between the Two Palaces). This was the Mameluke (1250 – 1517 AD) ceremonial parade route which ran between the two palaces of the Royal complex. At that time it was said to be wide enough for 10,000 troops on horseback to pass. These palaces were built on the site of the earlier Fatimid (969 – 1171 AD) era buildings which were the heart of what was then the city of Al Qahira (Cairo).
An extraordinary group of these monuments was painstakingly restored and has recently been reopened to the public. These three adjacent complexes below were built by Mamluke Sultans who traveled extensively during military campaigns and incorporated much of what they saw into their own buildings.
The oldest complex was built by Sultan Al-Mansour Qalawun (1279 – 1290) and is a magnificent grouping of the highest examples of Islamic architecture. It included a Maristan or hospital that handled hundreds of patients each day with a highly specialized medical staff and surrounded the patients with beautiful gardens and soothing musicians. An eye hospital still exists on the site. There was a Madrasa or religious school. However, the most spectacular feature is the Mausoleum which is an absolute treasure trove of marble inlay, intricately carved gilded wood, Islamic calligraphy and stucco that looks like lacework and which houses a cenotaph with several royal burials.
The next building was constructed by Qalawun’s son, Sultan Al-Nasir Mohamed, who was one of the most prolific builders in Cairo’s history. A white marble Gothic style doorway that was brought from Syria opens into the passage which separates the Madrasa from the Mausoleum. The door to the entrance is well-aged silver and marble inlaid floors form a carpet like passage between areas. Colored stained glass windows play with light and color throughout the buildings.
The third building of this contiguous façade is the Khanqah (Sufi monastery) and Madrasa of Sultan Al-Zahir Barquq (1382 – 1399). There are exquisite examples of gilded Arabesque stalactites on the domed ceiling and bands of Koranic inscriptions stretching across the walls of marble inlay and carved Mashrabiyya wood. Colored glass mosque lamps are hung from chains in graceful groupings.
From the street, you can see the interplay of light and form in the recesses which give so much texture to the buildings and the minarets that top the structures are a study in different styles of design and calligraphy. It is a place that constantly affords you a new sight to study and a new treasure at which to marvel.








copyright 2010 Maryanne Stroud Gabbani

Earth Calling the University of Oregon...

Arabic Literature (In English) is a wonderful blog about what Arabic literature can be found for those of us who love it but don't read Arabic well enough to be able to read it in the original. The title here links to one of those head scratching posts about people and places whose logical processes seem to be missing a few cogs. The University of Oregon has an Arabic language department that is being moved to the Religous Studies school. Huh? I live all day in Arabic and never talk about religion at all. You can follow the connection in the blog post to the original student news report about the switch and the confusion it has engendered.

Arabic is a language spoken in many, many dialects and accents in many countries in this world. Classical Arabic is the form that is the Arabic of the Quran and the Arabic that all countries recognise as being the purest form. It is, however, not just a language of religion. The comment from the university that "Arabic is being folded into the religious studies department because the department can support Arabic students reading advanced literature and documents, most of which are Islamic in nature" totally ignores the fact that Egyptian author Naguib Mahfouz was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature and that there are many marvelous novels being written and published in Arabic all the time. To assume that "advanced texts" are religious in nature demonstrates a total lack of comprehension of the the Arab world.

Gongratulations, University of Oregon. You win this month's dolt award.


copyright 2010 Maryanne Stroud Gabbani

Working together?

I've recently found a very nice blog about Arabic literature in translation. This morning I read a post that exemplifies much of the discussion on the list regarding raising reading in Egypt to an acceptable activity. Reading is not high on the list of things to do to relax here. Most Egyptian students are so traumatised by the school system that they are happy never to read anything more complex than a road sign for the rest of their lives. And there is no culture of parents reading stories to their children in the evening to encourage kids to think that reading can be a pleasurable activity.

Now we have lawyers (do they read for fun?) wanting to sue to have the classic 1001 Arabian Nights and a prize winning novel Azazeel banned for being a bad influence on society and insulting Christians respectively. There is something seriously wrong with people's priorities here. A novel is, after all, just a story. No one ever has claimed one to be fact although many novelists like Salman Rushdie have fallen afoul of critics (many of whom have obviously never read the books) who don't want anything untoward to appear in print.

I would suggest seriously that since 99.9999% of the population here spend a vast amount of time watching television and much less reading that the lawyers start their crusade elsewhere. Can I nominate Sex In The City and/or Desperate Housewives or Weeds as being far more detrimental to public values and probably much more widely viewed than anything in print. Of course that would mean taking up the lances against Orbit Showtime Network which is based in the UAE I believe, that liberal country where giving your wife a peck on the cheek in public can result in police action.

Sometimes life simply is too weird.

copyright 2010 Maryanne Stroud Gabbani

Evolution

About five years ago my farm was a flat pepper field...enough cayenne to launch a rocket but little else. I began building with the paddocks for the horses, since they were the most important inhabitants here, and the fence to keep the dogs in away from the neighbour's chickens. As I built I tried to visualise how I could see the farm developing, and I must say that life is much more inventive than imagination.

I'd started taking clients out riding in the desert and countryside before I built, but now we have companies in Europe and North America sending us people. We even have a tourism schedule of a week on/week off but happily the companies aren't filling the time. I'd really rather they don't. Mohamed has branched out from being the driver and assistant manager here into cooking and photography, both things that he's found to his surprise he's very good at...so good at the cooking part that our clients are now begging us to write a cookbook so that they can make some of his amazing recipes at home. That sounds like a summer project.

We've provided a base for workshops for trainers, Zsuzsu Illes came to do work with riders at the farm and to teach us how to make the most of the saddles that we have with the right pads last fall and this spring Steve Edwards came to show us how to use his mule saddle on Amira and to film a training video with her. And Maggie and Nelson Mieske made their first (of hopefully many) trips from Qatar to work with our farriers here. Nelson was delighted to find them so eager for lessons and feedback, and already quite proficient despite the fact that there are no schools for farriers in the Middle East as far as we know. We'd love to remedy that, but everything must be done in increments.

One of the things that I had in mind for my farm was for it to be a place where people of any age could just come to enjoy animals and nature. We made sure that the plant life is nontoxic, that the animals are friendly and well-cared for, and over the years more and more people are coming just to enjoy that.

This spring was our second Cairo Girl Scout camp out. About 30 girls from a number of different schools in Cairo came to spend the night in tents on the garden lawn, to learn about camping skills in workshops, to play with goats and donkeys, to try riding horses, and to ride in the donkey cart. A hike through a neighbouring landscape nursery gave them a chance to appreciate the plants that we grow out here and they all had a great time around the campfire in the evening.

My plan in building my farm is for me to have a home for myself and my animals and to have a place that welcomes visitors, so that (very selfishly) I don't have to schlep myself into town all the time to see my friends. It's a lovely thing to see a project grow with its own energy in the way that you want.





copyright 2010 Maryanne Stroud Gabbani

Busyness

It's the day after Shem el Nessimand we are all sitting around feeling entirely too well fed. This year the Coptic and Western Easters fell on the same day with Shem el Nessim the day after..three Easters in two days is definitely a record. Shem el Nessim is the official start to summer here and the mannequins at the malls are showing signs of summer readiness. All of this catches me a bit by surprise since we really didn't have a winter this year.

It's been a winter full of riding, mostly in tshirts with just the odd light jacket. No winter winds whistling down the dunes from the North Coast this year, although we did get a spectacular sound and light show one night when a thunderstorm brought the first hail in about 20 years to Cairo. We had a lot of internet issues after the storm, I suspect brought on by lightning strikes to the monster palm trees that are used to disguise relay towers here.

We've had our share of interesting visitors this spring. Steve Edwards who trains mules in Arizona came to visit my friend Bill the mule man here. Bill attended clinics at Steve's place and brought a saddle for our mule Amira. This saddle is so much more complicated than a horse saddle that we were all delighted to have Steve come out to show us how to use and adjust it properly. He also gave us mule-training tips and taught the staff how to make three and four strand rope out of old baling twine.

Steve and his wife Susan were filming the action here to be shown on RFD-TV in the US and to use on a cd about mule training. I rode out to the pyramids of Abu Sir on Figgy while Steve rode Amira, so now Figgy gets to join his big brother in being a film star. Next week I have some endurance friends from Michigan joining us, Maggie and Nelson Mieske, who are currently in Qatar where Maggie is teaching English at the university in Doha while Nelson works with horses there. Maggie is planning to do some riding with me as I have a mother and daughter visiting Egypt on a riding holiday here, while Nelson will be set up with some of the local farriers to help them hone their skills. Life is fun.
copyright 2010 Maryanne Stroud Gabbani

Harder To Call Home?

A recent article on TheNextWeb says that Telecom Egypt is blocking Skype after March 13. Whether this will include Skype on computers as well as on iPhones and mobiles remains to be seen. As someone with a couple of kids in North America, I'm sure not happy about it. I'll be interested in hearing comments from people who find that this is true...and even more interested if it isn't.




copyright 2010 Maryanne Stroud Gabbani