With the utilities secured, we took a shopping trip to the nearby Spinney's on Pyramids street and stocked up on food and then turned to secondary arrival tasks.
Although we hired professional help to repair the dining room ceiling medallion, Roshdy thought that the two of us could easily fix the powder-room light. The water damage to the ceiling must have resulted in the crashing of the glass fixture onto the floor. All that we saw were the wires from the fixture cut and hanging free.
Roshdy showed up with a socket and bulb, a circuit tester and some yellow electrical tape. Checking the circuit breakers, we soon discovered which one controlled the powder-room light - it was the last one I tried; of course - it's always the last one!
It was good that we disconnected the breaker since Roshdy's circuit tester revealed that the original electrical installer put the switch in the neutral wire rather than the hot wire. (Remember that Egypt, like most of the world operates on 220 volts, not 110. The "bite" is much worse.)
Roshdy did the wiring after I stripped the insulation on the new wires. I have tried to introduce "wire nuts" to Egyptians but even the professionals prefer the old fashioned "twist and tape" method.
We soon had the socket in place, but without reliable light! I correctly guessed the bulb Roshdy had brought along had an intermittent problem and replaced it with an operating spare from one of our fixtures. In the end we had a nice bright temporary light in place until we deal with the larger ceiling issues. It's definitely not the attractive style Linda has in mind for the room.
Linda had immediate cellphone service upon arrival. Her economically priced Egypt phone stays here over the summer, on loan to a friend. In addition, her U.S. carrier, T-Mobile works here, albeit at a high price per minute. I had switched to one of the lower-priced U.S. carriers, Pure Talk; this saves considerable money at home but I have no service in Cairo.
With a copy of my passport and about $25, I was able to purchase a new sim card for my phone down the street at the neighborhood Vodafone store. That store is conveniently located on the high traffic street at the end of our block. A visit there usually involves taking a number upon entry and waiting ten minutes to a half hour to advance to the service counter. This time I waited about 15 minutes. The new sim gives me lots of phone minutes and lots of Gigabytes of data good for a month and can be recharged on-line. They also install the sim card in the phone and test it. My Nokia G10 has dual sim slots so I will have access to both carriers, as needed, during the trip home.
The next thing that needed fixing was my beautiful gold Rolex watch that I had purchased last March in downtown Cairo for $7. I was disappointed when the battery failed last July after just four months use! Worse than the failure was my inability to open the watch up and replace the battery. I also had been unable to remove a couple of links in the watchband in order for the watch to fit my wrist. I have never had these problems with an Egyptian watch before.
Fortunately, Roshdy knows a "watch man" in his neighborhood. For $4, he changed the battery - reporting that it was, indeed, very difficult to open the watch - and he took out the links. I was so pleased that I gave him an additional $1.50 tip.
One final fix was a new battery for our emergency light that comes on automatically when the power goes out, which is a common occurrence. See it in action below.
We have only lost power for ten to thirty minutes at a time on four or five occasions, so far this year. But the emergency light battery dies after about ten minutes. We have had this light for about ten years now and replaced the battery one time before. This time it was an expensive repair requiring a trip downtown and about $8.
With all of that accomplished, it appears we are in good shape for our winter stay - except for dealing with the ceiling water damage issue. More on that at a later date.
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