Culture Shock

The CD player, which we had packed into one of our six suitcases (each weighing slightly less than 50 lbs), loaded into Jenn's folks' car, drove to the Austin airport, and sent on its way by air through Houston and Frankfurt before finally reaching Cairo, actually played a couple bars of my favorite Gourds song before making a popping sound and fizzling in a small puff of acrid smelling smoke. I suppose the plug adapter wasn't quite enough to change the voltage and save our beloved jam box. Jenn and I both looked nervously at this freshly plugged in lap top and simultaneously lunged to yank the cord from the wall.

In the United States I have never had much need for Radio Shack. I really don't even know how it continues to exist. I suppose they have useful plugs and doodads for the rapidly aging, and increasingly lonely HAM radio enthusiasts. But here in Egypt Radio Shack is a beacon of light to those of us who are sadly addicted to technology that we can't even begin to understand. I don't even want to imagine how little the brilliant, helpful, competent, and highly educated young men who work there are getting paid. In perfect English they explained to me about voltage input. Apparently, some things are very particular about how much voltage they receive... like our radio. Other electronics can handle a wide range. The smart young man showed me how to determine the voltage input capacity based on what is written on the back of electronic devices. Some will work fine. Others will flame out mid song.

And I wondered about this. Do I have variable voltage input capacity? Does Jenn? Do the kids? Will we adjust to the madness of Egypt. Or will we pop and flame out? I was already smelling strangely of burning wires and discontent - sparking more than usual before we left. But what about Jenn... the kids?

And so, after checking the alarm clock and computer monitor for their voltage input, as the nice young man at Radio Shack taught me, I quietly crept into the room of my sleeping girls and gently looked behind their ears, on the backs of their precious necks for some sign... some written verification that they would handle the extra voltage, and slip as seamlessly as my laptop from the safe predictability of 110 volts to this strange and powerful world of 220, where we now reside....