"Baba Gat Mos"

It has not been long since my last post but the past 48 hrs have included some interesting events I feel compelled to comment on; although, I am uncertain whether I should put this in my blog or not. Some of these instances bring up some controversial topics. Either way, on Friday we left for a resort town on the Red Sea. A Cairo AIESECer, Omar, has family friends with a villa there so 11 of us, half Egyptians and half foreigners/interns, piled into two cars and made our way to the coast. In fact the original plan had been to leave at 9pm in time to barbeque and relax, but this turned into 11pm and then 1am... Honestly, it didn't matter to me at all because I have adjusted to the late schedule, yet this event serves as a prime example of "Egyptian time". The schedule here is much more flexible and you learn that when someone says 10am they probably mean a couple hours later depending on the traffic, the weather, and how they feel! Needless to say we needed food for our BBQ so after we met around 1030pm we still had to fight the crowds as everyone and their brother was in the local supermarket. Another hour or so later and we emerged with burgers, hotdogs, watermelon, and a soccer ball ready to start our journey. Of course, leaving Cairo inevitably includes traffic jams at every single junction and so our drive was significantly longer.
We arrived at the villa around 3am with everyone wide awake and starving. Grilling began and we sat around outside enjoying the quiet, cool evening. The eating over we walked out to the beach and talked until the sun came up about culture, AIESEC, and religion. We manged to cover some serious controversies in our discussion including Israel and Palestine, women and the veil, and Christianity and Islam. There were bound to be some contentious points as we were a group of Muslims and Christians, males and females, and Arabs and Americans. In particular, "us" foreign women were questioning the prescence of the veil in Egyptian society and assessing the stance of male Muslims, many of whom have mothers or sisters who wear the veil. It was suggested by someone that perhaps most girls wear the veil simply because it is the norm and it is easier to conform with the rest of their friends than to be singled out for exposing oneself. There is definitely a debate to be had over how much pressure comes from Islam and how much is purely societal. Each person had a slightly different perspective for each of these issues and even though no one's opinions was altered dramatically we agreed that each of us can learn from the other. The discussion would have been enhanced if we had a Muslim woman to speak with as opinions divided clearly between the men and the women, and the Egyptians and the foreigners, but I hope to have this chance in the future.
The next day at the beach provided an interesting situation related to our discussion and it is the inspiration for my post's title, which literally means "Dad brought bananas." It is a slang expression that people here use for an awkward situation or moment. Nothing could be more awkward than our experience at the beach the next day. Rhiannon, Coline, Akanksha, and Cathleen were the girls of the group and are respectively American, French, Indian, and American. So, generally we go to the beach to swim and sun ourselves. When we arrived there and looked out across the crowd I realized that a) there were only men in the sea and b) that all of the women were sitting on the beach completely covered. "Baba gat mos" There was even a family of burqa clad women sitting nearby with 5 women head to toe in black. I have to say they were as strange a sight to us as we were to them! We stood there for a while weighing up the situation and then decided that it was a public beach afterall and we had gone there to swim so we might aswell just go for it. It must have been quite a picture though. Under one umbrella the women are shrouded in black with only their eyes visible and 50 ft to the left there are 5 girls in bikinis and swimsuits tanning.
Our day at the beach was not long enough and in July I hope to go to the North Coast and Alexandria to visit the Mediterranean for 3 or 4 days. The chemistry of this group was really dynamic though, and I left with a feeling that I had gained more than just a tan from our short trip. We had to leave that night in order to get everyone back for work on Sunday. I am unusual as my weekend is Saturday and Sunday but everyone else is off on Friday and Saturday according to the Islamic calendar. It was a fabulous weekend rounded off with a warm reception and a meal from Fatima, my host mother, who was on holiday last week. She returned bearing gifts for Akanksha and I, some shell necklaces and bracelets and of course tons of food! Some of which was delicious such as the sweet, coconut desert called fiteer with lots of raisins and dates on a flaky pastry. Other dishes, for example chicken livers are not so appealing to me, but I will try anything once!