El Aazelle el Aarousa

There was another pre-wedding celebration Wednesday. Not surprising considering engagements and weddings happen here every 2.5 seconds. When I arrived at the school today, I found myself weaving through large silver trays laden with shiny dishes and pots & pans, fuzzy blankets, boxes of mugs, buckets filled with brooms, and baskets of laundry detergent and dish soap. All of these things, save the blankets spread across chairs and outdoor wooden sofas, were spread out on the dusty ground in wait of the parade of trucks that would carry all of the bride's pre-purchased wares to her future husband's villa. This pairing, in particular, was one of the richer ones. This is tradition here. The groom's family provides the finished apartment, and the bride's family provides every tiny little thing that goes in it. A week before the nuptials, all of her things take up residence in his house and every extended family member and available truck goes along to attend the moving in. There's beating of drums (pots turned upside down into makeshift instruments), children throwing noisemakers and small handheld fireworks, and a middle aged man in a gallabeya shooting a pistol into the air. The latter somewhat alarming considering the amount of children and people in general milling around. 

After the first ten minutes of novelty wore off, I and the rest of the teachers moved inside to listen to the chaos from our wooden kiddy chairs. Some of the teachers then asked me if I wanted to get married so I could have something like this, and if we do things like this in America. I laughed. 

"No way," I said. "All of the presents come from everyone else, all the people that come to the wedding. We actually go into stores, decide what we want, mark it down on a list, and then send that list to all of our family and friends." 

"Really?" they said, incredulous. 

"Yeap. It's kind of awesome." All of them just looked at me and then broke into quick, chatty Arabic as they discussed how cool that idea was and how they would have liked to have gotten married like that. 

"It's a beautiful thought," said Hannan, the one I've deemed the most spunky. I've seen her give as good as she gets, especially to the older boys who have since graduated the school but come back occasionally to volunteer. One of them accidentally hit her in the head with a soccer ball once, so she waited about half an hour until he wasn't paying attention and threw one right back at him. I laughed so hard and instantly added her to my list of favorites. 

The hubbub outside gradually diminished and all the attendees boarded vehicles and drove away to continue the celebration at the home of future wedded bliss. The only traces left of the party by the time I was walking home were a few glittery pieces of confetti, and some round, tray-shaped indentions in the muddy earth. Just another day. 

Hummus

Not just your average, run of the mill, wonderful garlicky spread in a small plastic tub, this is also the Arabic word for chickpeas themselves. Often, if not always, sprinkled in with Koshary and as I found out tonight, one can also steep them in hot water and drink it like tea. What??? I have had many firsts here, and tonight was my first time drinking chickpea water. They even serve it with small cups of salt, hot pepper powder (when the wind blew too hard, said tiny pepper flakes decided to lodge themselves in my eyeballs... NOT a pleasant experience), and half a lemon to add some zest. I literally sipped on spicy chickpea broth as my after dinner beverage. It's 2 hours later, and I'm still not sure how I feel about the experience, but wanted to share. I think in the future I'll be sticking to my hot tea with milk. Safe and warm and fuzzy in my tummy leaving no place for invasive, partying garbanzo beans. 

The 6th Food Group

My apologies in advance for a rather meaningless post about potato chips. Bygones : )

I looked at my bag of chips yesterday and found that the list of ingredients read as follows: cut potatoes, palm oil, lemon, salt, and cumin. Oh my wonderful. My first bag of chips without hydrogenated fats, random chemicals I can't pronounce and who knows what else mixed in. Or maybe these Arabic food companies are just lying to me. All I know is, they are fantastic at making fried potato products from scratch. I've lost count of the number of times I've seen french fries bubbling in a huge pot of oil on the stove. They have a strange affinity for creating sandwiches out of french fries (literally french fries and maybe some scraps of lettuce and tomato in a pita) and they can add a bag of potato chips to any meal, especially breakfast. It's not uncommon to see a table spread with bowls of mixed eggs, a plate of white cheese, some chopped tomatoes and cucumbers, and a large, silver lined bag of chips ripped down the middle and set among the plates for general consumption. At first, I thought this incredibly odd. Now, since potato chips are one of my favorite food groups, I find myself grateful for a culture that eats them with almost anything. My favorite flavor is Seasoned Cheese, but I won't turn down Tomato or Chili & Lemon. The Kabob flavored ones still make me pause as I can't wrap my head around chips that taste like meat, but if I'm in a bind and hungry, as I recently was on my 9 hour bus trip back from the South Sinai coast, I may end up finishing a bag of Sish Tawook flavor despite myself. YUM.