I've become friends with a group of girls who are all 22-25, un-veiled (all but one are christian), and have had private french educations their whole lives. They all work or have worked at the bookstore in the Museum. None of them speak very good English, and I speak very very bad Arabic, but that doesn't stop us from communicating, and we're learning from each other. The ones I'm closest to are Rita, Sarah, Maha, Heidi and Iman. Of the 6 of us, 3 of us are married, and 3 are not.
Last week Sarah, who is recently married to a man who doesn't live in Egypt and thus lives at home with her mother, invited 10 of us over to her (new, un-lived in) apartment for dinner. As Wahied was the only man surrounded by 11 women, and I was the only person whose husband actually lives with her, we got a lot teasing and mildly lewd attention.
After a great deal of teasing, Rita took this photo of me and Wahied with her mobile:
It was a fun evening, and the girls told Wahied that they're going to take me out for girls-only events.
With the beginning of September Wahied has started working a lot, particularly on overnight trips to Sinai and Alexandria. Since he's been away I've started spending time at the bookstore with the girls, chit-chatting in 3 languages (two of which I don't speak), drinking coffee, and selling books. On Friday the girls who were there (Heidi works elsewhere and Maha had a day off) came to my apartment after the bookshop closed. We sat on my balcony until Wahied came home, who, dismayed that I hadn't been the perfect Egyptian hostess by overloading them with food and beverages, took us all out to Pizza Hut.
From left to right: Rita, Sarah, Iman and me. (Note: Sarah is the one giving the bunny ears to Iman)
Last night, when Wahied was in Sinai, I went to Rita's house after she finished work. She, Heidi and I went out for dinner and for a stroll around the neighborhood, and then I stayed at Rita's house.
Rita, Heidi and Sarah all live within a couple of blocks of each other in a predominantly Christian neighborhood in the middle of downtown Cairo. Not knowing the word "neighborhood" Rita called it her "village", which is the perfect word for it. It was exactly like an Egyptian village and was totally alive. In Rita's building, directly underneath her apartment, was a shop full of live Chickens. Many were in cages, more were not. People would come up outside the shop, pass in some money, there would be some wild clucking and flapping, and a plastic-wrapped package of fresh chicken meat would be passed out of the shop. The streets were very narrow, and were in a state of permanent traffic-jam because the cars couldn't squeeze past the donkey carts selling fresh vegetables parked along them, and would be blocked in by an infinitely long line of cars behind them. There were nearly as many donkeys as cars (though the mean age of the donkeys was probably 30 years younger than the cars), and, most importantly, everyone knew everyone. We stopped to talk to maybe 10 or 15 girls our age who had known Rita and Heidi for years, and at one point even ran into Sarah and her mother!
Rita's family was lovely. Her mother was very very sweet, very cute, lovely, attentive, and funny. At one point, when Rita and I were playing cards and listening to music she burst into the room and started shaking her booty--egyptian style--better than any belly dancer I've ever seen. Rita and I clapped and cat-called as she danced through the whole song, and at the moment it ended she said "I'm sorry" and ducked back out of the room. Rita, her mother and I spent hours gossiping and teasing, and her mother's questions were made all the funnier by the language barrier which led her to ask (using some of the few arabic words I know) if I enjoyed my "southern Egyptian cucumber".
Rita's younger brother (who Rita describes as 'very sexy' and I'll have to disagree) was also a blast, and he, Rita and I stayed up playing cards until nearly 1:30 in the morning. Though his English was also limited, he surprised me by pronouncing "You LOSE" and "p0wned!" perfectly. His game-speak is perfect, apparently, because he is a hardcore WoW player. I can't escape them anywhere!
I was incredibly good at politely declining invitations to food and beverages, yet they still managed to feed me an incredible amount of food (seriously, I don't know how these Egyptians do it!) Throughout my stay I drank lemonade, water, nescafe, tea, hot spiced milk, and peach juice. And I ate a chocolate roll, 4 guavas, a fajita sandwich, chocolate and nutella filled crepes, biscuits, sunflower seeds, two cheese sandwiches, and a pastry with dates in it. And I was only there for about 16 hours!
This morning Rita had to go back to work, and I got to come home and blog about how much fun I had, and plans have already been set for handbag shopping expeditions and more sleep-overs. Yay friends!
(Sorry! I don't have photos of Maha, Heidi or Rita's family)
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