Zoë of Arabia
Written By Brett Paesel
print
comments
A horizon-expanding epic of a toddler with more passport stamps than teeth, a dad with chronic wanderlust, and a sister in awe.
I shuffle forward in the customs line at Cairo International Airport with four pounds of white powder buried in my suitcase. My brother has assured me this won't land me in an Egyptian jail. Even so, I've spent the flight picturing myself in a windowless cell, writing to my congressman on matchbooks smuggled through an intricate underground system run by a terrifying Swedish drug trafficker named Magda.
Before leaving Los Angeles, I e-mailed my brother Keir my concern that bringing this powder might mean I'd never see my husband and two boys again. Keir wrote back that if customs asked about it, I should just say it's for washing diapers and they'd wave me through.
I look at an impassive customs agent. He seems unlikely to believe it's only baking soda. Keir and his wife Robyn say it's the best cleaning agent for their baby's cloth diapers, and in Egypt they can't get it in bulk.
I wish I could relax. Keir and Robyn know what they're doing. They've climbed to the base camp of Mount Everest. They've been swimming with hammerhead sharks in the Red Sea. They were among the last Americans to evacuate the Ivory Coast during a coup. Surely they know a thing or two about getting me through Egyptian customs.
But that was before their daughter Zoë was born 14 months ago. Babies change things. I know because I'm a mother of two. Babies make our brains fuzzy with sleep deprivation and tedium. Oh my God, maybe when Keir sent that message he'd been up all night comforting his inconsolable daughter. Maybe through the cottony haze of worry and fatigue he wrote, "Say it's for washing diapers and they'll wave you on through," when he really meant to write, "Say it's for washing diapers and you're through."
One of the many reasons I came on this trip was to see if having a baby has slowed Keir and Robyn down. They've sent photos of their family of three pitching a tent in front of Roman ruins in Egypt and peering over the shoulder of a giant cutout of Muammar Qaddfi in Libya. When my son Spencer was a baby, it took me an entire morning to plan our progress to the Walgreens at the end of the block.
I've come all this way to see my beloved brother, his wife and child, and this rugged country. And I've come to accompany them on a camping trip into the Sahara Desert. But I've also come to see what's not in the photos. Because it can't be as easy as they make it look.
I glance over at a clump of men holding signs and stop at one that says PAESEL. Keir wrote me that he'd send an "expediter," but I thought that would be someone waiting for me once I'd gotten all the way through customs.
I walk up to the man, who looks like a nervous pencil pusher like a CPA for the mob. "Give me your passport," he says. "I will get your visa, and you won't have to stay in this line."Within minutes, he whisks me through customs and I don't have to declare a thing, especially not the two boxes of white powder rolled in a thick towel in my suitcase.
So far, it appears that my brother and his wife know exactly what they're doing.
Friendly Planet
Keir and Robyn live and teach at an international school in Maadi, a suburb of Cairo with a large population of expats. My first night there, we sit on their large balcony under an open sky overlooking a bustling street. Zoë is fast asleep in spite of the clamor of iftar, the breaking of the fast that Muslims observe every day throughout the month of Ramadan. When the sun goes down and iftar begins, Egyptians spill into the streets, eating and celebrating. This ebullience isn't hard for me to understand: There was no beverage or snack service for two hours after takeoff on the way over. When the flight attendant finally handed me a bag of peanuts, I had to resist the urge to weep and sing.
In some ways, Keir and Robyn's experience raising a child in Egypt is easier than mine in the United States. Even on their teachers' salaries, they can afford a nanny who also cleans their apartment and preps their dinners. But in many ways, it's more difficult. There aren't as many baby amenities. And there are fewer child safety features, especially when they're traveling.
"Doesn't that mean you have to carry all the gear with you — the car seat and all that stuff?" I ask.
Keir laughs and jumps up to retrieve what looks like an adult seat belt with a very short tether. He "borrowed" the seat belt from the plane they took to Libya last year, and shortened it to fit around Zoë 's waist so he could belt her to him during sketchy cab rides. He's always been a minimalist on the road, and apparently not much has changed.
Keir and Robyn carry only two backpacks, one to hold Zoë and one for all their stuff. Robyn rolls her eyes. "He's got a system. We each get two pairs of pants and five T-shirts. Zoë gets five outfits and diapers. We use paper ones for long trips and cloth ones on short trips."
"No toys," adds Keir.
"Then what does Zoë play with?" I said. I remember trips we took to the Midwest when the boys were infants, and I'd insist that we pack a plastic musical bus, a bouncy seat that took up a whole suitcase, and a few other toys that rang or lit up. What Zoë likes best are credit cards, says Keir, especially the one with his picture on it. The camera case is another favorite. She likes to pop the cards into it, Velcro it shut, and then rip it open, over and over.
I've used the old credit-card trick myself, but that can't possibly last through the 33-hour cross-country bus trips Keir and Robyn used to take. He says they've had to cut down the time they spend on buses; they do only four to six hours a day now.
Aha, I think. Having a baby has slowed them down. I ask them what other changes they've made.
"I'll only go to places that have doctors now," says Robyn. "Keir wants to take her to Gilf Kebir, and I don't want to because it takes four days through the desert. And there are no doctors along the way."
Keir leans forward, filled with enthusiasm. "In Gilf Kebir there's the great sand sea. It's where The English Patient was set. A meteor or comet hit one area and turned the sand to glass. It's one of the least-explored places on earth."
I remember a few months ago, when I was home in Los Angeles, Keir e-mailed me to ask where he could get a solar-powered baby monitor. I admire the passion with which he talks about exploring such remote places with his child — but I agree with Robyn on this one.
Even on the beaten path, Keir and Robyn admit, travel is different with a baby in tow. "You're tied to the hotel room after 8," Keir says. As far as I'm concerned, he uses the term "hotel room" very loosely: This can mean anything from a closet with a creaky mattress and one hanging lightbulb to a bed in someone's home. "So you miss the nightlife. And we have to do our exploring in increments. It's get up, rush around and see stuff, back to the hotel to nap, then get up and rush around again before the next nap."
Robyn says there are also some wonderful things that happen solely because of Zoë , who can be a real icebreaker. In Luxor, one family was so taken with her that they invited the three of them to dinner. Robyn says Zoë was particularly interested in their goats.
They've also gotten some terrific baby advice. Keir tells me that when Zoë was about 4 months old, she got congested while they were traveling through a small town at the edge of the desert. They'd forgotten the bulb that gets the mucus out of her nostrils, and a local woman showed Keir how to suck it out with his mouth. "It worked a lot better than the bulb," Robyn says.
I assume this is the way people have been removing mucus from babies' noses for thousands of years. Still, I imagine the reactions I'd get back home if I leaned over my son and sucked out his snot.
I look up at the cobalt sky, listening to the busy street below. It's midnight, but during Ramadan everything is flipped. Night becomes day. Day becomes night. I think about my children at home. We're 11 hours ahead here. Grandma is picking my youngest up from preschool right now. Maybe she'll take him out for a milkshake, one of our favorite after-school activities. The rhythms and routines of my family's daily lives are so stamped on my psyche that, whole continents away, I find myself charting where my kids are at any given moment. I e-mailed Spence a reminder to study for his spelling test before I left this morning.
Comforted by the knowledge that my sons are going through the familiar pattern of their days, I'm about to find out what it's like to parent in the desert, where the schedule is dictated only by sunlight and hunger.
Into the Dunes
The terrain of the Sahara is at once rugged and smooth, windy and still. We drive in a Jeep through dry riverbeds known as wadis. At first I find it impossible to believe that we're driving along what was once the floor of a deep river. But the evidence is here, gradations in monolithic rock formations, indicating the changing water level over millions of years.
Our party is made up of four vehicles that ferry three other families, with kids ranging from 6 to 10. One does not go deep into the desert in only one Jeep. I get a bit of a thrill knowing I'm heading into country so dangerous that we have to take precautions like bringing walkie-talkies, GPS navigators, vast amounts of water. The journey is so bumpy it allows for little but concentration on driving.
Keir tells me that because they stop so often, Zoë's not confined to her rear-facing child seat for too long. She's mostly entertained by the constant jostling, or she falls asleep. This, I think, is the extreme version of what a mommy friend in Los Angeles calls "nap drives."
I soon discover the main reason for the periodic stops: One of the SUVs gets stuck in the sand. As the drivers get out to assess the situation, Robyn shakes out a stiff blanket and sits in the shadow of the SUV to nurse. I join Robyn and Zoë on the blanket as Keir and a couple of guys bring out ropes, shovels, and sand plates.
"Keir loves this," she says. "They all do. Look at them, figuring it all out."
I look over at a couple of men who now lie on their bellies, peering under the SUV. Keir is tying a rope to the front. Later he'll confirm what Robyn tells me: "Getting stuck is part of the whole adventure. Those are your war stories."
Watching the men toil in sandy 110-degree heat has its charms for an unfettered visitor like me, but would be a royal pain in the ass if it happened every weekend while I was holding a 1-year-old child at my breast. My patience for standing in line at an air-conditioned bank while jiggling a toddler on my hip runs out at about four minutes. I ask Robyn if she likes getting stuck as much as Keir does.
"Not so much," she says. "But it gives Zoë a chance to run around."
See, this is the glass-is-half-full attitude I lack. I'll keep this in mind next time our transmission gives out on the highway instead of doing what I usually do: burst into tears and tell the kids that Mommy and Daddy are really upset right now, so they should find an activity that doesn't involve talking or moving.
Nomad's Land
We get stuck three more times before finding a campsite. As the adults strap windbreaks to the SUVs to keep everything from blowing over, the kids explore. Zoë pats sand with a shovel. Robyn says kids love the desert: There's endless space and tons of stuff to examine.
She tells me that a friend with older kids brings a shoe box that they fill with rocks and other finds. He says he won't bring anything home that doesn't fit in the box.
Later I realize I should impose the shoe box rule on myself. I fill Keir's glove compartment with shells of sand snails, petrified wood, and a couple of pieces of flint. I can't wait to show my hoard to my sons. As the sun sets, Keir tells me he has a friend whose two teenage daughters now refuse to go into the desert with him, preferring instead to meet up with their posse.
"It would kill me if Zoë didn't love the desert like I do," he says.
Welcome to parenthood, old man, I think but don't say. If you're successful at developing your child's independence and confidence, it's entirely likely that she'll make different choices than you have. But I watch Zoë squealing as she darts in and out of a tent and assure Keir he's years away from that possibility.
When it gets dark and the air grows cooler, a fat, bright moon shines on the sand. The kids play a safe distance from the fire, stopping sometimes to watch it dance. Zoë sits on Robyn's lap, transfixed.
Keir watches Zoë 's rapt face. "Desert TV," he says.
I want to describe what it's like to fall asleep under the Egyptian sky. But all that comes to my mind are clichés with words like peace, moonlight, vast, profound. I stare into the night inspired by the way Keir and Robyn share all this beauty with their child. I promise myself to take my sons camping near the ocean instead of hanging a blanket from the top bunk and announcing, "It's a tent!" And I promise to respect natural beauty more. If Keir and Robyn can manage in the Sahara with cloth diapers, surely I can cut out juice boxes.
The Road Less Traveled
The next day, we visit the ruins of Dimeh, a Roman town built in the fourth century BCE, then head back to Cairo. It takes four hours of driving before we hit paved road. Zoë holds up like a champ. After we get home and shower off the sand, we collapse and watch Zoë take the books off the shelves.
I remind Keir of the times he and Robyn said they didn't plan to have kids because they might impede his lifelong goal of seeing every country in the world. I ask him what changed his mind.
"I guess I realized," he says, "that having a child is the ultimate adventure."
"That's corny," I say. "You sound too heroic. I'm talking about the down days. The times when you're at a total loss."
Keir looks at Robyn. "Oh yeah," he says, with such conviction I realize there have been many of those times. "This summer. In Mexico."
Robyn nods. "It was a horrid little room with bugs buzzing around one lightbulb. Zoë threw up all night. We'd wash her clothes in the sink, and she'd throw up again."
"She had a fever," Keir says. "The sheets had all been vomited on."
"None of us slept," Robyn says. "I told Keir I wanted to fly back to the States."
"You didn't just tell me," he says to Robyn.
He turns back to me. "She was yelling and crying. She wanted to fly out the next day."
"See?" I say. "Stories like that. Aren't there times when you want to chuck it all and settle down?" "Oh, not really," Robyn says. "In the morning Zoë was better, and we went on. That was just a bad night."
I think about what's stopped me from being more adventurous with my children — that very fear of getting stuck, even if it's in the bathroom of The Cheesecake Factory after Murphy's had an accident and I've forgotten the auxiliary pair of pants. Keir and Robyn don't seem to fear getting stuck half as much as they enjoy getting unstuck. If I carry that same spirit of adventurousness home with me, who knows what might lie ahead?
About the Author: Brett Paesel has written for Wondertime about lies (Sept/Oct 2007), greed (Dec/Jan 2008), and sloth (March 2008). Now she can check envy off the list. Keir, Robyn, and Zoë are moving to India next year, so stay tuned for "Toddler Takes Delhi."
