Fast Friendships, Inshallah

We arrived back at Hotel Longchamps in Cairo around noon on Friday 3 July. Sondos sent a taxi to take us to her family home that night -- which is the Muslim equivalent of Saturday night. It is maybe 10 miles from Zamalek , but the traffic is so bad it took 45 minutes to get there. This suburb was built in the 60s and central Cairo has grown out to meet it. There are big wide boulevards with large median strips, and parallel access streets along side. Large facades of 8-10 story buildings line the frontage streets, and our driver pointed out the correct address. We walked in and the doorman accompanied us in the elevator to the floor he selected. All the lights were off in the hallway as we stepped out of the elevator. He fumbled around a bit and then knocked on a door. We were hoping we got the building right, and that Sondos' last name was the same as her family. It was the right door.

I mentioned the Middle Eastern formal interior design aesthetic among the upper middle class after visiting homes in Beirut. It is Louis IV inspired, and Sondos ' family home is decorated in the same vein, however, her mother has added a lot of wonderful twists of bright color and interesting pattern in her rugs and lamp shades. The typical layout is a great room with a dining section, two seating areas, and in this case a home office area as well.

Sondos had prevailed on her whole busy family, plus her fiance, to be present -- her younger brothers even managed to say hello to us and pose for pictures before they were off to their own events. Her lively maternal grandmother and I kidded non-verbally with each other, since we didn't speak a common tongue. She "dared" me to tackle the universal gym at one end of their large balcony, after which I defeated her at arm wrestling.

Sondo's parents are educated vibrant people. Her father is a book publisher, and her mother a college professor with a Ph.D in communications. Middle Eastern hospitality -- we've seen this with our own American friends from the Middle East too, is lavish. It is easy to fill up on all that is offered, long before sitting down to dinner, and if you have a sweet tooth you are sunk, between the juices, fruits, candy, and sweet honeyed pastries.

I was surprised at the revealing depth of our conversations with Egyptian friends because they are all new friendships -- mostly begun online. We quickly moved into meaningful discussions about politics, religion, and our cultural experiences. It was refreshing to be objects of interest. Jim and I have noticed over the years, that frequently we will meet new people who do not ask us a single question about ourselves. That can be true with family members too. Here, our Egyptian friends, Sondos, Mustafa and their families and friends were very interested in our views on American politics, their Muslim religion, our own faith lives and particularly the subject of democracy.

We were served another Egyptian favorite, fiteer. Starting with a wonderful lemon broth vegetable soup we then dug into plates with slices of both savory and sweet filled fiteer, which are layers of stuffed pastry. Apparently fiteer is challenging to make -- the dough gets shaped by being tossed into the air -- and challenging to the waistline as well. I loved it.

After dinner they threw open the double doors to their huge balcony facing the broad street below. It was cool and comfortable and we all went out and just visited and hung out. We felt so welcome. There was no music, no television, nothing more then their undivided attention and rich conversation as we shared our lives and tea and sweets.

Sondos, her sister and their mother all dress with a flair. Her mother, Manar, pulled out a new hijab -- my guess is she bought it for herself -- and they proceeded to teach me how to wrap it. I am always game to wear local dress -- last summer when Jim and I went to Bangladesh-in-the-Bronx, I wore the sari my friends dressed me in on the three-train subway ride back to Manhattan. So, I wore the beautiful mauve hijab Sondos and Marwa pinned on me. It worked well with the olive green I was wearing. They all agreed that I looked younger -- a refreshing description, since in student situations, I'm usually the oldest person in the room by a long shot. They probably had a point since the gray in my hair and my 57 year old neck were both covered. Their compliments, however, did not appeal to my vanity enough to get me to accessorize with a hijab. Walking around in 100+ degree heat for days, I had continually wondered if it wasn't stiflingly hot to dress so modestly, although I saw the wisdom of protecting one's skin from the sun. The women all agreed that they are used to their wardrobes in the heat. They will not have the sun damage I do from spending pre-sunscreen days as a teenager on Southern California beaches. As we left, Manar handed me another new brown scarf, shot through with silver -- exactly what I would have bought for myself. I have already worn it a bunch and love it, and the memory of that evening. She gave me two books she wrote on cognitive response to media. I plan to take Arabic lessons, and will use them for practice when I get proficient enough to read. It was easy to feel like we had known our Egyptian friends for a long time. I hope we can convince them to visit us in California at some point. Inshallah.