Every Egyptian Woman........

.......dreams of a knight in shining amour. This is the conclusion I have come up with after several discussions with colleagues, students and friends, as well as 3 weddings.

Egyptian women have a strong need for someone to accept them as they are, to allow them to follow their dreams and to feel loved, someone willing to sacrifice for them and be with them. They need to escape from their parent's clasp and have a life of their own. They think that the only way of doing this is through marriage, and thus from an early age start searching for their MAN!

In my opinion only about 1% of the Egyptian women realize this dream, if not 0.000001%. Here in Egypt the fathers are the ones who decide if the husband is good or bad for the girl. And the fathers decide whether the girl is fit to marry their son. The couple have little say. Obviously, in the modern Egyptian world, the opinion of the daughter is asked, but even if the daughter says no, she is charmed by money and romance (and who knows maybe also some verbal violence from her father) into liking the guy.

Very often though, the woman ends up saying yes to the guy who stepped forward and wanted her hand in marriage. Why, I wonder, does she do that??? Is it the strong longing for a person to care for her?, is it the need to escape her parent's home, and finally have her own life?, The want to make love for the first time and get rid of her virginity?, Or the hope that the dream of the knight in shining amour will eventually come out of this man!!!!? Who knows?

Speaking to these women has also made me wonder what exactly is love, how do you define it, who exactly is the right man, is there anyone you can call the right man? or just like every Egyptian woman is he only in our dreams???

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THREE Weddings in TWO Days

This weekend, as the title suggests has been a very eventful weekend!!!! Probably the most interesting in a very long time!!!! Can you believe it! I got to experience, Three different weddings in 24hours!!!! These weddings were extremely unique, since the three were of different social classes.

Wedding ONE

This was of, what I may call an acquaintance. The high rich social class. Everyone was mega dressed up, and the wedding reception was held in a Grand Posh Place. The Food was fantastic! A massive area with about 10 big tables with a total of 100 or more plates!!! I did not even get to taste half of the food there was there. One extremely amazing thing, for an Egyptian wedding was that there was alcohol secretly served. There were not on display but secretly hidden in sports bags which Tom and I luckily discovered. The bride and the groom were obviously the center of attraction, the bride, who got her dress from either Paris, New York or Thailand (cannot remember) looked glamorous. Cameras were all over the place filming the two, which was shown on a big screen for everyone to see!!! A DJ was what you may call the 'chair' of the evening, and the bride and groom danced all night (how they managed I have no clue) and the people stood round them in a circle, dancing and clapping and doing this funny sound the women do on special occasions. Unfortunately I missed the grand entrance as we were stuck in traffic, but apparently the bride and groom were welcomed with fireworks and a big ceremony. Very grand reception, but not much fun, and not too impressive. I guess everyone had a reputation to preserve and did not let themselves go. The area was massive, and although there were over 800 people it seemed as though there were much less.

Wedding TWO

This wedding was different, the families were from a middle social class. It was not the actual reception, but it was the mosque wedding. For one's information, the bride and groom are not officially married until they have had their reception. This couple (the bride, one of my work colleagues) decided to get married by the mosque but will not have their wedding before a year's time! Thus they are not allowed to live together or do anything alone!!!!! Strange ha!

Anyway, this ceremony, in my opinion was much more interesting than the wedding of the night before. We were in a mosque, seated in a circle, with not more than 50 people. The ceremony took about 20mins, with the fathers being the center of attraction (the bride did not have a father so the uncle was his substitution) The fathers sat round a table, with the 'priest' and some other guy, they gave out their details and signed a contract saying that they will give their children to each other. The priest says a couple of prayers to which only the men in the circle replied, and then the fathers shook hands with a handkerchief over their hands on which there was the names of the couple, thus symbolizing the joining of the two families. After that they distributed sugared almonds and chocolates!! :) Definitely very different from our weddings!!!! And although I did not understand a word, definitely very interesting.

Wedding THREE

This wedding was definitely the best of the three. We were not invited to this, but we sort of gate crashed. Anyhow, Tom and I decided we wanted to go for a walk and buy something to drink. On the way we saw these bright lights and loud music and decided to see what was going on. It was a wedding of the poor people, thus done in the streets. We walked in from behind this massive stage where the sister and mother of groom were sitting, and as soon as they saw us they invited us to sit down next to them. At first we hesitated as it was pretty rude to invite ourselves in, but the people kept on insisting. It was amazing! mega chaos, poor people running all over the place, almost naked belly dancers, people screaming and shouting, people jumping on the stage and being thrown off, Tom and I were in total shock!!! the funniest thing though is that this woman the sister of the groom insisted that I go up on stage and greet the couple!!! She kept on insisting so I agreed to do it! It was nice to let yourself go for a bit, and nobody knew me anyway so why not!!!! I haven't had so much fun in ages! The woman was super friendly, and in broken English and Arabic we communicated and explained the wedding to me, although I could not understand half of what she said!!!! She wanted my number so she could invite me to dinner and to her house!!! but, stupid me I was scared to give her my details and told her I have no phone.

The rest of the events were painting our apartment which finally looks nice and clean as well as hanging out with Mongy which I love doing\!!!

I have loads more I would love to write, but I guess I could keep it for next time!

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Sursar Almost Khallas!!!!

Translated into English it means Cockroaches almost (don't know the meaning of almost in Arabic) finished!!! So the plan of extinguishing all the cockroaches in our flat is working!!!! We buy about Two to Three cans of Baygon every day and spray EVERYWHERE!!!! I sleep with one right by my bed! just in case there is another attack in the middle of the night.

On Monday my flat mates decided to give me a heart attack, and decided they did not want to live in that flat anymore!!!! Uff, why move again after all that hassle?? Why miss out on the beautiful sea breeze and waves waking you up in the morning???? Besides, how am I going to take all my stuff down 6 flights of stairs without a lift!!!! No Way!!!

So after some propaganda from me and Nelly (50 yr old Brazilian lady married to an Egyptian who she met over the internet) as well as a house meeting at 3am after murdering some more cockroaches we came up with our plan of attack!!!!

On Friday we will be painting the whole house - God help us!!! And then mega cleaning and finally poison for those 'injustice' creatures (as Tom would call them!). Still don't know how I'm going to do this considering I have a wedding on Thursday night!!!! Thank God its a Muslim wedding so I am guaranteed a non-hangover!!!! Though I will not guarantee I won't end up painting the doors or the people helping out!!

Finding paint for the house is not as easy as I thought!! Here nobody paints their house, they get it painted, so the paint shops are in the most random places where only workers go!!!! We should be attempting that street tonight!!! Two foreign girls, who only speak basic Arabic and who don't have a clue about painting will be going on their adventure to the Painters street tonight!!!! If you don't hear from me again it means I did not come out of there alive!!!!!!

My room is finally starting to look like home!!! I put up my usual collage of pictures and the things I have carried around with me for the past 2 years so everywhere I go it would look like home!!! :D This time I do not have the Top of the Grand Place view from my window, but I have an even nicer one of the sea, the horizon, sunset and waves!

The 1st step of settling in Egypt is almost over! After the cockroach extermination and house painting I guess I can move on to the next step and start getting myself a social life. I have not really made the effort in these past few months, cause the Americans were always around, but now its time I get into the old Thea, the one who would organize things to go out, have fun, have people over, cook.

There are so many things I need to do and discover about this culture! I need to improve on my Arabic, go walking on the corniche, go to the library, sort out my life! ;)

Today my nightmare class is finally over!!! They have their exam yeah, which means Egyptian goodies for me, when the course is over we usually have a little party!!!! My last students were the best! they decided they wanted to make an Egyptian party and they prepared Mahxi (vegetable stuffed in rice and some spices) and Molokeja (Green yakki thing made of I don't know what - imagine the texture of sperm but green - YAK the Egyptians say all the foreigners like it! I don't know where they got that idea from!) and many more Egyptian delights!!!! Then they gave me a really nice jewelry box!!! Ohh how I miss them!!!

I guess I wrote enough for the day!!!!

Cocroach Attack

After all the hussle and bussle of the last week, I have finally got myself a new appartment!! It is pretty dingy, and the building seems to be falling apart! But the best feature of all is that it is right overlooking the sea, i get to see sunset and i get to have the sound of the waves and smell of the sea waking me up in the morning!!!!!!! It is fantastic!!!

The building is a SIGHT!!!! the falls of the appartment are falling to pieces, the curtains are a gaudy disgusting yellow, with pink walls and peach sofa covers!!! the only excuse i can find is that the landlord is probably colour blind!!!

Yesterday was the 1st day in the appartment!!! We spent ages scrubbing the floor (further realising that the floor cannot get cleaner as its all stained and the grey colour is actually its natural colour!!!) and furniture and trying the make the place livable!!! The bathroom and kitchen are next!!! It is impossible to beleive that the people before us actually managed to live in this disater!!

PETRA, WHERE ARE YOU??? I NEED TO PAINT THOSE WALLS!! Though i guess. Pet. they might take longer than our kitchen took! ;)

Finally, the cherry on the cake!!! Last night we got infested by cocroaches!!!! Where the hell do these monsters come from!!!! At 2am one of my housemates comes screaming into my room to tell me she has a cocoroach in her room!!! Little did i know they turned out to be 5 monsters!!! So i equipped myself with a big bottle of Baygon spray, the broom and the spade, but as soon as i walked into her room i ran out screaming!!!! These are the ugliest creatures i saw in my life!!!! Anyway, after a bottle of baygon spray and a couple of boom shoves these being were massacred and trown out!!!

We just have to pray to God that no other infest our territory again!!!

KATE i missed your cocroach killing abilities!!!! need some lesssons!!!

Anyway, today finally i only have one lesson!!! so all my morning is free, getting updated on the internet life!! ;)

ma salaama everyone

Life without the Americans

In the last month, the Americans were trickling down, until there was only me and Kait
left in Alex for these past two weeks!

Surprisingly enough I might say I miss them!!!!! The house is way quieter and cleaner now, but it also much more boring! it was cool coming home from work and seeing everyone lying on the couch smoking and drinking and laughing!!! The laughs are still echoing in the living room!!! Although i must say that Holly's foot prints are still there to remind me of the time she decided she was spider woman
and that she could walk all over the wall!!!!

Eric, Kait, Marianne, Izaz, Scott , Mel, Holly, believe it or not i miss you all!!!

I guess i got to realise that my sterotype of Americans is not exactly accurate!!!!

Mel i will never forget our Agamy flasher ( mel and i were walking the street in Agamy and this guy got his thing out and starting wanking it was the most disgusting thing ever!!!) - most shocking experience here! and the time you ran after the man to throw him off the bike!!!!! You made me laugh so much!!!

Marianne and Kait, you two are the sweetest!!!! it was an honour to meet Marianne! i never met a sorority girl before!!! but now my TV characters have come to live!!!

Kait the last week spent with you was great!!!! Our house cleaning day did not turn out to be extreeemly successful though cause the house is as dirty as it was before we started! Hehe that was a day!!! With the night in the police station and stuff!!!! and Never forget Kait, you are my
Cocroach hero!!!!

Holly, i did not get to know you that well, but i promise I DO NOT HATE YOU!

Eric, you rule!!! I miss you and your sense of humour so much!! sorry havent replaced the coffee yet, though i promise i will not eat your mashed potatoes!!!

Scott and Izaz, i did not get to know you guys that well!!! Though i miss walking in the house and not finding Izaz there lazing on the couch, or his Fatta's still in the fridge, and his cool relaxed way of
being!!! Scott, i do miss you too, you used to be one of the noisiest people in the house, and the craziest, hope life in China is great!!!!

Guys whenever you want to come back to Egypt you are more than welcome, and even if you want to come to Malta, Kait, love, i promise i will try finding that island for you!!!

Off to work now!!!