Egypt - anyone live there with children?

[ammy1]

has anyone spent any time living in egypt (rather than just holiday) with children? any observations good or bad welcome...

My kids are half Egyptian and we are planning to move there in the near future too. We are going to Luxor, where are you looking at moving to?

A good friend of mine is English, married to an egyptian man and has two young children (third on the way). They moved to Cairo from London 1.5 years ago and are absolutely happy that they made the move. She is a teacher and teaches in an exclusive private school that her children also attend.

it would probably have to be to cairo..., which i love but not sure about with small children. though of course thousands of egyptian children manage!! i am not sure if we will go, depends on lots of things but now that it is a possiblility rather than a maybe it is going round and round in my head more... how do you cope with arabic?

Hi Ammy1,

I lived in Cairo for many years, my father is Egyptian, my mother British. Although I learned Arabic I conversed mainly in English. I taught in a private international school and most of my friends spoke in English anyway. Have lots of friends out there with children - one friend has just moved there with her little ones and knows no Arabic at all - she's really happy.

Pinkmagic1 - hello [waves] Hope you and the little ones are all well x

Grounhogs, so sorry to hear about your experience.

But I can only find one explanation. You must be one arrogant fart to get so many bad vibes from the locals.

"but it is the 'inhabitants' that ruin it. I used to love it, but now that i have seen how they live and treat us foreigners, I loathe and detest the place. It is an insane asylum, they are all nuts, and quite beyond salvation, but above all they are the most unjustifiably arrogant people you will ever meet. If you have more than 2 brass farthings, take care, cos there's 80 million of them just itching to take some or all of if off you. Anyone like a maid that comes to help you will steal anything they can given the chance."

Honey, come on, who are you kidding?
And I'm the one who should not have been so judgemental and insulting?

PS: really sorry you had to end up in hospital.
But does not change my mind in view of the above quote.

Groundhogs, don't take it to heart. No one can really understand a situation without experiencing it for themselves. There seems to be a clique of troublemakers on here though who enjoy taking the mickey out of people.

How insensetive.

slim22, don't you have anything better to do?

Pinata, honestly I'm no troublemaker.
I was born in North Africa & raised in Europe mainly. I know exactly what she is saying but I'm sorry, I can't sympathise with this is very very offensive language.

groundhogs, maybe some people are too lazy to turn on the television or go and read the paper. There was a 15 year old boy who was raped in Dubai. The doctors insinuated he was a homosexual. He could get time in prison in Dubai, when he did nothing wrong. One of the men had HIV too. As I said, some people have no idea at all.........they just want a power trip so they can pretend to have what they lack, intelligence, understanding and sympathy.

??????????
Anymore earth shattering insight to share?

Groundhogs, I'm with you. No one knows what things are really like and they are too selfish to listen to anyone else's problems. Don't worry, what goes around, comes around.

Just think of it this way: The more obstacles you overcome, the stronger you will be. None of the most talented people I know had an easy time in their lives, yet they managed to excel.

The next time someone tries stealing your money, ask them if THEY have any money. Can you speak a bit of Arabic?

Oh I see........troll with multiple personnality disorder.......time to get back on the medication I guess?
Have a nice day

Well see I can see two sides here.

Before I became an expat I had great plans for how I would live overseas and interact with the locals etc etc.

Then I moved abroad. Firstly to Bangkok where I found it fabulous and frustrating all at the same time. Were there for 2.5 years and loved it.

Then we moved to Vietnam. HCMC to be precise. Well I hated it and everyone in it. I used to phone DH on a regular basis at work moaning and groaning - usually valid moans tbh. At that stage I could well have posted just like groundhogs did. Living where I did had me depressed and frustrated and angry with everyone.

What we did was try and remove as many of the negatives from our situation as we could. One of our main issues was that we live in a predominately Vietnamese area with not many expats around and it was the middle of a building boom and every 2nd house were either building or extending and it was miserable for us. 2 of our neighbours had karaoke machines which they played really loudly either late at night or early on Sunday morning. I could go on.

We moved into an apartment in town and were much happier. But we were lucky in that we COULD remove the negatives.

And I have visited Egypt and I did feel vulnerable there as a foreigner. I did feel that people were out to get as much out of me as possible. I have lived in/visited many countries and usually enjoy the whole bargaining thing while shopping. But I have to say I felt intimidated by it in Egypt. I am not sure I could live there.

Buda, I lived in Vietnam as well. I couldn't wait to leave. It was horrible. I thought things would improve once I learned the language, they didn't.

I couldn't imagine living in Egypt.

I didn't hate it. In fact after the first bad two years we stayed for another four! Yes there were frustrations but on the whole we enjoyed it. Made some great friends there - other expats.

I lived in a place with no expats and it drove me mad. The Vietnamese have a BERY interesting way of doing things. After I had learned Vietnamese, I thought I would be able to understand them better. But just when you think you've understood, they do something completely unexpected. You can never trust them. I felt very vulnerable.

Sorry had to go do school run.

Where did you live in Vietnam?

We wanted to set up a school in Ha Giang.

It was quite an endeaver. We couldn't get permission in the end and immigration wouldn't renew our visas.

as an egyptian myself i find groundhogs comments appalling and frankly just plain racist. what an arrogant imperialist viewpoint showing a complete lack of humanity and empathy. what do you expect from a country where the majority of the population is just stuggling to get by? and how disgusting to call your own babies little angels and call the local babies brats. what a racist.

Egyptianprincess, thanks!
Would not go so far as "imperialist viewpoint" but yes you used the right word, that was plain racist.
We all have different thresholds on different issues and for me a line was clearly crossed here thus my my less than subtle reply.

Buda & soakedinwine (love the name) apreciate your input, just like I understood perfectly where groundhog was coming from, but thanks anyway for sharing your frustration in a sensible manner.

OP, really sorry about hijack!

slim and ep, I also found those comments very offensive. The "brats" that groundhog refers to could be my children too, as ex is from this part of the world as well (not egypt).

I can see that groundhog is wound up, and as an immigrant myself, I know how isolated you can feel - but that post was out of order.