My first week here I was out in the garden and I heard a hello from the neighboring driveway. Samia works as the housekeeper for Rich next door and we introduced ourselves. Everyone here has a housekeeper and these women rely on it for a living. While my reputation as a housecleaner is, ahem, well-known (hey, I'm good at other things!), I just couldn't hire someone to clean my house while I laid on the couch and drank my iced tea. But I would pay someone in a heartbeat to teach me Arabic so when Samia offered, I gladly accepted. Samia is funny and generous and her English is quite good....I think she's going to be a great teacher and, I hope, a friend as well.
A few days ago, she taught me how to make maschi, a rice dish she makes. It has onions and a tomato sauce with cilantro and dill. She usually stuffs the rice in grape leaves, peppers, or slices of eggplant. But David and I just like it plain....it's SO good.
3 comments:
That looks really good. Minus the egg plantpart.
Delicious. I will take Ken's eggplant. (: Art says leave out the cilantro. I'll take that too. Do you feel any pressure to wear a scarf when you are out? What about typical summer-time western dress? Lots of skin revealed? Any guidelines? Official? Conscience? In a country where I was guarded with soldiers carrying LARGE weapons I would really want to blend in...even if only from a distance. P.S. I would have no trouble paying someone to clean my house when I was there. Observing happily. My Mom shares your tender feelings. She always leaves when her cleaning people show up. Arabic compromise with your conscience is cool. (:
Suzy--
As far as the scarves go, I'm learning that Muslim women wear them; Coptic Christians don't. So if I see an unscarved Egyptian woman, I assume she's Christian. If I see a scarved foreigner, my guess is she's Muslim. So, as a Christian, there's no pressure. :) I do think they're quite beautiful though.
Clothes are different. I'm very conscious of what I wear. Even when I'm wearing pants and a short-sleeved shirt (which is usually fine), I get looks from men and women alike. Stares from men, I've even gotten a few glares from women with a "Cover it up, Missy!" sort of look. At least, that was the message I received....maybe they were just having a bad day. It depends on what part of Cairo, or Egypt, you're in and I think, for the most part, they give a lot of leeway to foreigners. To truly blend in, you'd have to wear an outfit like Samia's....long skirt, multi-layered top, and headscarf. It's funny how quickly I've assimilated bc when we went to the Egyptian museum, there were LOTS of foreigners in pretty skimpy clothing....shorts, tanktops or camisoles....it seemed sort of shocking!! :)
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