Dinner on the Nile

It is 8pm and I am sitting on my patio typing…there is a breeze blowing and it is probably about 78 degrees outside…it is perfect. I just finished eating a pita bread and peanut butter sandwich (no stove yet, and I don’t think that would have made a huge impact on my dinner choice).

Yesterday, my work had Iftar meal on a restaurant on a boat that floats on the Nile. Our bus picked us all up around 4pm and drove us out to the boat. We were quite surprised to find the how nice the atmosphere was. There was good house music playing in the background as we watched the sunset and started our Iftar feast. I had the best fresh homemade pita bread I have ever tasted, I wanted to shove some in my purse. There were breads, meats, vegetable mixes, fish, and breaded desserts. I was so surprised because everything was delicious, I was expecting everything to have drastic, bold flavors, but I really did enjoy everything. After dinner and conversations, there was an optional hour boat ride.

Somehow I ended up not going on the boat ride, and instead found myself with a handful of Egyptian women smoking hookah on shore. So far most of my time has been spent with other foreigners, with random Egyptians mixed in. But this time, I was the random foreigner mixed in…I was in heaven. They were talking with me in English and I was asking them tons of questions about their culture, Islam, and relationships between men and women. Their sense of humor is hilarious, very straightforward and blunt. (as I type a mosque is singing) Here is a random list of things that I learned from our conversation (most of these things are the desired tradition, but because of the economy, norms are bent) :

· The man pays for the wedding

· The man’s family will pay for the apartment for the couple to live in

· If a woman works, that paycheck is for her own personal disposal, she is not required to use that for the family bills, just for herself

· The children will be raised in the father’s religion. So a man must convert to Islam (if he is not already) if he wants to marry an Islamic woman, or her family will not allow it

· If the husband dies, none of the money goes to the wife, rather all to his side of the family

· A man can have up to 4 wives. They will not all live in the same house

· The family works more as a unit when making money. If there is a woman in the family, and her husband dies, then some other man in her family will then support her. You are allowed (and encouraged) to marry first cousins because then the money will stay in the family. Women can only “unveil” if they are around men that they could never marry: her son, husband, farther. Not her husband’s brother cause she could end up marrying him one day

· You can only marry within your same social class, there are no exceptions

· My favorite one: there is a nightclub where all of the “veiled” women go. There they take off their veils, belly dance, and get henna drawn on them and really let loose. All of the staff are woman: waitresses, the dj, everyone. Then when the lights go on and it is time to go home, they all cover themselves up and head home. Don’t worry: they promised to take me there.

This conversation was one of those moments when my heart was just smiling inside. I was sitting on the Nile, smoking hookah, surrounded by women in their natural culture, and they were letting me experience it with them. After the boat ride, several people came back and joined our conversation. It then changed to 5 people talking at once across the table, constant laughter, and random shouting…pretty typical.

My meal, and the best pita bread ever.

Me and The Nile

Work Folks