Its a little strange being part of the US embassy community right now. While the world has gone a little crazy since February 28th, we have continued to see the myriad of ways in which God has watched over our family. Way back in the fall of 2023, ALL of the following countries were on our bid list: Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, UAE (specifically, Dubai), Israel, Oman, and Jordan. We ranked almost all of them high–FIVE of them were even in our top 10! Meaning that, except for the decision of one person in the US government back in December 2023, our family could have been living in any one of those countries today. Meaning that right now, I would be evacuating from the Middle East, all four kids in tow, while Don stayed behind. Thank goodness we are in Africa, where it’s (ironically) safe! God of course, knew where we needed to be…and where we didn’t.
Also, quite providential that we managed to sneak in our Egypt trip just over a month before the Middle East fell apart! Now, I’ve already had family/friends say they are envious of all the incredible experiences we get to have. And YES, I still cannot believe the places we get to go and will never take for granted how fortunate we are to have these opportunities! But, before you get TOO jealous, I want to share the nitty gritty of traveling the world with 4 young kids, as its not always awe and bliss 😂.
Starting with day 1. We got to the airport in Accra no problem. Even enjoyed the high life chilling in one of the private lounges before it was time to board. But then things quickly took a turn for the worse. Julianna had been sniffling and sneezing all morning, and fell asleep in the boarding area chair waiting for our flight. I was mildly concerned that she may be getting sick, but tried to convince myself I was overthinking it. So we boarded the plane, Don taking two kids in one row and me taking the other two on the opposite side. (Pro tip: Have 4 kids, it’s the best when your family is exactly the right size to take up a whole row!). We settled in and then about 2 minutes after takeoff…Julianna (our 7 year old) threw up everywhere. And I’m an idiot. While packing the day before, I had had the thought that I should pack each kid a change of clothes in their carry on backpacks. Nah, that’s overkill, we hadn’t had a kid throw up on a plane for 9 years! So I naively only packed extra clothes for the 4 year old. Ya’ll, I KNEW better. Of course, I was the adult sitting right next to Julianna, so with a hundred baby wipes (which luckily I did have), I cleaned her up as best I could and made her use her jacket as a new shirt. Much to our dismay, she proceeded to throw up twice more over the next hour. I was better prepared both of those times, but still wondered what hell we were in for over the next few hours…or next few days? Why do we ever even leave the house?? With this many kids someone is ALWAYS sick. We should just stop even trying to have cool experiences.
Anyway, we finally made it to Cairo, and eventually all the way to our hotel…at midnight. By the time we fed everybody room service and got them all to bed, it was 1 AM. Don and I desperately tried to get a few hours of sleep, but for some unknown reason there were very loud dogs barking right outside our hotel…for hours and hours and hours. We both lay there in the bed, contemplating murdering the dog(s) and realizing that the next day would be a tough one. But, finally, we did manage to fall asleep.
Until 5 AM. When our eyes snapped open at the unmistakeable, undulating, haunting sound of the Muslim call to prayer as it came blasting into our ears from the mosque directly across the street. Of course, Don and I both immediately knew what it was. We had neglected, however, to mention that such a thing existed to our children. We lay there waiting for the stampede of little feet to enter our room, demanding to know “WHAT IS THAT?” But they must have been utterly exhausted from the flight, because miraculously, they stayed in their beds!
And so, bleary eyed from our 1 hour of sleep, we chugged our morning coffee and tried to summon the energy to go sight seeing in Egypt while also keeping 4 children alive, fed, entertained, and at least reasonably happy. Pro tip #2…always make your first day after the travel day an easy/light one! We luckily, HAD planned it this way, only having one museum on the docket for the day…the Egyptian Museum in downtown Cairo. This is the “old” Egyptian museum, which until recently housed the most extensive collection of Egyptian artifacts in the world. In 2024, a new museum, the Great Egyptian Museum (GEM) was completed near the pyramids, and many artifacts were moved to this new one (we visited that one a different day).
It turned out to be a good day full of sarcophagi, mummies, and treasures from the tombs of Pharaohs! A couple interesting things we learned…the Pharaohs were buried in 3 coffins of increasing size (think like Russian nesting dolls), then those coffins were in turn placed in three sarcophagi of increasing size. I always thought the coffins were called sarcophagi, but turns out they are 2 different things! Also, rulers of Egypt weren’t actually called Pharaohs. It was used as a term of respect, but it came to be used as the title for all Egyptian kings only because the term was used that way in the Hebrew Bible! Here’s a few pics from the museum:
Bottom left: A statue that our kids named “Shrek’s wife”
Bottom right: One of only 8 chariots surviving from ancient Egypt!
These two were rough housing/playfully shoving each other. First time I’ve ever had to yell the words “Stop messing around, you’re going to break the sarcophagi!!!” (Also, those are coffins, I hadn’t yet learned the difference, woops)
We managed to sleep better on the second night (no dogs, but yes, more 5 AM Muslim wake up calls). This day was the big one…the famous pyramids of Giza!!!! Followed by the aforementioned 2nd museum, the GEM. Also on this day, our kid catastrophes #2, #3, and #4. Starting with Julianna randomly throwing up again INSIDE in the line to get into the pyramid area (catastrophe #2). Why? No clue. Just to make us panic and scramble.
We did eventually make it into the pyramids. Now, I had been excited about riding camels at the pyramids for weeks!! I had convinced the kids that this would be an epic adventure, and all of them had agreed to ride with me (Don adamantly refuses to EVER get on even a horse, let alone a camel. Party pooper). But when the kids saw how big the camels were and heard their grunting/snorting noises, 3 of them immediately balked. Evelyn stayed brave all the way until she was getting on the camel, then promptly burst into tears. She did tough it out, however, and reluctantly enjoyed a camel ride at the pyramids with her enthusiastic mother!
We then got to see all 3 pyramids up close and personal. The Great Pyramid was built around 2580-2560 BC by Khufu. It is the oldest of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, and the one that remains the most intact. And we got to TOUCH it!!!!! The other two pyramids were built shortly after the Great Pyramid by Kings Khafre and Menkaure. All of them are over 4500 years old, meaning they were already ancient at the time of the Roman empire!
And, of course, the famous Sphinx! Carved directly from the bedrock, it is one of the world’s largest monolith statues. It is also about 4500 years old, though scholars are not certain which Pharoah had it built. It was meant to serve as a guardian to the tombs and temples at Giza, and may originally have been painted.
At some point while wandering around Giza, our 9 year old tripped and scraped her knees and hands (catastrophe #3). Also, while parents were not looking, the above pictured 11 year old boy picked up a “rock” that was most likely a piece of one of these ancient wonders of the world at some point…and put it in his jacket pocket.
After exploring the pyramids, we went to the new museum, the GEM. While riding the elevator in this museum with other museum patrons, Dominic whips out the aforementioned “rock.” Don’s eyes got big and through gritted teeth, he tried to covertly tell Dominic to put. that. away. It is against Egyptian law to take any artifacts from the sites. Turns out we have a budding international smuggler on our hands (catastrophe #4). Now, we DO have diplomatic immunity in Ghana, meaning we cannot be arrested there. We do NOT, however, qualify for that in Egypt 😂. Don’t worry, we did make him leave it in Egypt…we’re just thankful he decided to show us his treasure before we were in line at the airport!
Of course, SO many cool things to see at the GEM, but this is already getting long, so I’ll just show a few of them!
This is one of the “Khufu ships” discovered in 1954 buried at the base of the Great Pyramid at Giza. It is also over 4500 years old and was intended for the Pharoah to use in his journey in the afterlife. It was found disassembled in 1224 pieces and took 10 years to re-assemble!
And that, my friends, is what it is like to travel with 4 small children to Egypt! Firsthand glimpses into the most beautiful and awe-inspiring feats of ancient humanity, mixed with vomit, blood, tears (we thankfully were able to leave the sweat in Ghana), and the occasional breaking of international law. It is stressful, exhausting, and messy. And full of moments that brought tears to my eyes from the sheer joy of watching our children experience the richness of life in ways that used to be beyond my wildest dreams for them. Looking at them sitting on the steps of the most ancient of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, crawling through tunnels built over 4500 years ago by a people so different from us they seem to be almost alien now, answering their questions about the artifacts they are seeing, precious artifacts that lay buried for thousands of years, just waiting for someone to rediscover them. Kid catastrophes, 5 AM Muslim calls to prayer and all, we’d do it all over again in a heartbeat. ❤️