Weddings, Relationships, Sex and Porn

I attended my first Egyptian wedding this weekend. There were all sorts of interesting superficial notes: for example, instead of guys and girls dancing together at the party, the guys all stood in one circle and proceeded to grind on each other, and the girls did the same at the other end of the ballroom. Even married couples didn’t dance with each other. Only the couple getting married danced together. (An aside: given how much Egyptians love sugar, I really shouldn’t have been surprised to see several people serve themselves eight pieces of cake unabashedly. But it was still funny.)

The wedding was certainly an interesting experience, but it got me thinking about how each of our cultures has determined one should find a mate. It’s almost like different cultures just have different “mating dances,” with clearly defined rules and expectations.

In Egypt, especially outside of Cairo and Alexandria, couples are often set up by their parents. They may meet a few times – probably with a chaperone – before the big day. But for the most part the two kids (I say kids because many are younger than me) are total strangers when they wed. Divorces happen but are not encouraged, and it’s difficult for a woman to initiate a divorce unless she can prove her husband has been unfaithful. So you get married, and you’re kind of stuck. And yet, that’s how entire populations do it.

Conversely, in America, you are groomed to find someone on your own. As an adolescent you are taught to search for someone with similar values, a personality that stretches yours, and maybe someone who induces a Disney-like sense of “love.” Parents offer feedback when they meet their children’s significant others to try to condition their children into picking acceptable mates, but most parents wouldn’t dream of trying to “veto” an adult child’s choice in a spouse – at least not explicitly. If anything, there is pressure to approve outwardly of anyone your child chooses. There are a number of things can kill a relationship before you ever walk down the aisle. If one of those things happens, you move on and find someone else.

Now, I must admit, I love having choices, especially regarding whom I will marry. I have seen American friends enter into truly remarkable marriages that likely never would have happened if their parents had been responsible for finding their children's partners. Egyptian parents are also much less likely to choose appropriate mates for our LGBT brothers and sisters. I'm glad I grew up in the American context. But maybe there’s something to be said for sucking up your pride and deciding that you’re going to be happy with someone because you don’t have a choice.

I remember when I first arrived in Chinguetti with Peace Corps. I didn’t know my sitemate at all. I think she and I would both admit that we had some major personality clashes early on. But neither Jessica nor I had any say in who our sitemates would be, so we just quit feeling sorry for ourselves, and before long we became best friends. We provided each other with support on tough days, we saw each other cry, and we celebrated victories together. We endured all that Mauritania could throw at us – and believe me, it was a lot – and we came to respect each other in the process. By halfway through my year in Chinguetti, I was already dreading the day that Jessica would leave. In my 15 months since leaving Chinguetti, I have kept in contact with Jessica regularly, and I miss her dearly.

It’s amazing how much you can come to value someone just by deciding you have to. When you spend enough time with someone, you find things to value in that person. When you find enough things to value in a person (even if you have to remind yourself of those things often), you find intimacy, companionship, and even “love.”

Now I have been assigned a new sitemate on the other end of the Sahara. Nick and I planned to live together before ever having a conversation with each other. And, once again, it’s been totally great. We have different personalities, different living styles (somehow he hasn’t killed me for my messiness yet), and we are even at different points in our lives. He’s just out of college: the world is his oyster. I’m a couple years out of college, I’ve worked in three vastly different settings, and I have a definite plan for after Fulbright. But we can still relate.

Experiences like this make me think that if we had no choice about who we spent our lives with, maybe we would make it work, just for sanity’s sake. Maybe there isn’t something morally superior about searching around for your “soulmate” for years. Maybe there’s wisdom in sucking up one’s pride and just deciding to be happy. Maybe this is just another style of “mating dance” that humans have developed to foster intimacy… or at least to propagate the species.

That all said, I’ve also seen some marriages fall to shreds here. But marriages fall apart in the States too, and I’m not willing to chalk up all Egypt’s marital problems to a flawed Egyptian “mating dance.” Furthermore, I only spent one year with Jessica, and I will only spend one year with Nick – hardly the same as spending the rest of my life with someone. Sometimes there are very legitimate reasons for ending a marriage, and I don't mean to downplay those. I also don't want to make it sound like a relationship that lasts forever is "successful" while one that doesn't is not. I think these are important notes because I don’t want to sound like I’m idolizing the Egyptian method of selecting a spouse. This was just a theory. I’m still trying to figure out how much I believe it myself.

The rest of this entry will be filled with random notes on friendship, dating, and sex and (dare I say it?) pornography in Egypt:

It bothers me that when Nick and I hang out with friends here, we are always hanging out with just guys. It wouldn’t be appropriate for girls to join our group. How could Egyptians go through their entire life without being friends with anyone of the opposite sex? In the words of one friend here, “We don’t know what we’re missing, so it doesn’t really bother us.” Other Egyptians will insist that guys and girls can be friends here, but the examples they give of other-gendered friends are often co-workers that they never see outside of work. “We can work together without any problems – see, guys and girls can be friends!” When I try to explain that some of my dearest friends are women, and that there’s nothing romantic between us, they usually either don’t believe me, or they insist it could never work in Egypt.

An interesting note is that in Cairo and Alexandria, the largest cities in Egypt, it’s becoming increasingly popular for couples to date, even with their parents’ blessing, before they get married. When I arrived, I chalked this up to the superiority of the Western system for finding a mate. As different systems entered the “marketplace of ideas,” our system was emerging as victorious. Condescending? You betcha. But aren’t most holders of progressive ideas at least a little condescending?

Also interesting has been observing how frequently groups of guys will discuss sex here, often very explicitly. Maybe guys really are the same everywhere in the world. One wonders whether these discussions are merely reflections of their high school counterparts in America – I think back to awkward conversations where guys not only offered up any insights they had gained through experience (or at least watching explicit movies), but also tentatively waffled on meatier topics because they didn’t want to say something that might be called out as a lie. How many of our guy friends here are as experienced as they say? How many really have nine girlfriends? And do these men really just view their current (secret) girlfriends as sex objects to be enjoyed until their parents set them up with someone respectable? Or is there an emotional connection there too? More likely, are they just trying to show off by seeming experienced, when in reality they haven’t spent an hour alone with anyone of the opposite sex in their entire lives?

A final noteworthy bit is the prevalence of pornography here. I noticed this same phenomenon on the other end of the desert. Mauritanian men watch porn together. A lot. Sometimes at work. So it shouldn’t have been too shocking when my Egyptian guard (see: two entries back) whipped out his cell phone to show me pictures of two naked women having sex with props. He did not understand when I recoiled in shock. So apparently, Allah doesn’t care about porn, but guys and girls aren’t allowed to be friends. Makes total sense.

Really, what all this emphasizes is how impressed I am with anyone who dates or marries someone from another culture. I’m not talking about when an American dates a Western European, either. There are cultural differences there too, sure. But when even the processes of meeting significant others are culturally defined, and those processes are defined very differently, how does one even begin? Somehow people from totally different cultures date, get married, have kids, and live happily ever after. It happens. Last month we met a former Fulbrighter who married an Egyptian man and now wears a niqab (full body covering for women). Could I ever do that? Well, thank Allah I wouldn’t have to don a niqab, but would I make any sort of similar commitment/sacrifice? She also moved to a small village; could I contentedly spend the rest of my life in such a setting? I’d like to think I’m open-minded enough – but frankly, I doubt it. And, since I’ve been groomed in our Western tradition of having a choice about who my spouse will be, if I don’t want to marry someone from a culture totally different from mine, I probably never will.

That said, I left the wedding this weekend with a rose from the wedding bouquet – a sign that I will get married soon. Maybe I shouldn’t rule anything out. :)

Camel liver, brains, and a really spicy pepper

Egypt’s food situation isn’t too terribly exciting. The common dishes are totally adequate and a definite improvement on Mauritanian cuisine, but for an aspiring foodie, Egypt leaves something to be desired. Even expensive restaurants in Cairo aren’t that impressive. I stopped trying after discovering that one of the “best” Italian joints in town really just served bland-ish pasta. Common foods here: Tameyya – felafel’s less-flavorful and more stringy cousin, stuffed in a bland pita; foul – refried fava beans, also stuffed in a bland pita; koshary – plan pasta and rice with a dash of tomato sause and a spattering of lentils. Again, these foods are totally adequate and a definite step up from sandy couscous. But sometimes one just craves something that will entertain the taste buds.

I like trying new food. Over the years I have gotten to try some fun stuff: chicken hearts in Brazil (turns out they're delicious), intestines in Argentina (though I must admit I never really “loved” those), really spicy food in Ethiopia and India, raw meat in Minneapolis, “ass butter” in RIM (milk fermented and then turned into butter – it never spoils, but always smells like the maker forgot to wash her hands after using the bathroom)... Heck, up until about four years ago, I didn’t even really like wine, olives, or tomatoes. Now they are staples of my diet.

When Egyptians feel adventurous with their consumption patterns, occasionally they venture into liver. I really like liver. Last night a friend asked if I had ever tried camel liver, ostensibly the “best” liver in the world. I figured his bias had more to do with the Arab’s love of all things camel than with the actual quality of camel liver. I mean, I get it: camels were the primary status symbol, and they were great pack animals, for thousands of years. Linguistically, Arab's love of camels is reflected in several hilarious verbs, likely millions. Why yes, actually, I DO need a single word to describe having tied my camel up at a rival tribe’s watering hole so that it could go into labor and then getting in a fight with the local tribe over who owned the baby camel. Really, it’s useful vocabulary.

In Mauritania, camels were similarly revered. Camel milk was considered “better” than its bovine counterpart, its meat a symbol of wealth. Heck, even dowry’s are paid in camels.

So when my friend asked if I had tried camel liver, and he subsequently raved about how amazing it was, I figured I should take his praises with a grain of salt. I was sure it was probably fine, but worth the adulation usually reserved for wines too expensive to justify? Surely not. But then he asked if I had tried “brains.” Hmm. “Nope.” My immediate impulse was to say, “And I don’t really want to.” But thinking back to delicious chicken hearts, I inquired further: were they stringy? rubbery? Nope, very “soft.” They’re cooked, right? "Of course!"

I was going to try brains. A wave of jitters and excitement took hold of me when walking to the restaurant. My thoughts ranged from, “I wonder if I’ll like them” to “Gosh I hope I don’t get some weird disease and die.”

Camel liver was unsurprisingly underwhelming. It’s flavorful, sure, but it’s also the toughest and most rubbery liver I’ve ever encountered.

Watching the cooks bring out fresh brains, bread them in front of me, and then drop them in a vat of boiling oil, was pretty exciting. Sure enough, brains are really “soft.” A better word might be “gooey.” They aren’t quite chicken hearts, but they were fun to try.

The highlight of the night though was when my sitemate, Nick, decided to eat a plate full of veggies covered in crushed red pepper. “They aren’t bad.” Sure enough, the tomatoes and cucumbers weren’t nearly as spicy as they should have been considering the layer of spice smothering them. A minute later, the server brought out a medium-sized pepper sliced into strips. Much as I like spicy food, I get scared of random peppers that are set in front of me, especially in foreign countries. Nick unhesitatingly grabbed the biggest piece of pepper on the plate and stuck nearly the whole thing in his mouth. I tried to squeak in before it was too late: “Dude – is that a hot pepper?” He was already chewing. “Nah…” And then, something almost cartoon-like happened. After about 5 seconds of confidently chewing and rubbing those little seeds all over his tongue, he gasped, “Oh no…” His face became red (and perhaps a little swollen), tears welled in his eyes, and he was nearly hyperventilating. Everyone in the restaurant thought it was pretty funny (I might have too...). The restaurant owners were very accommodating – they brought him bread and milk, chuckling at the American who actually ate the spicy pepper.

We decided on the walk home that from a utilitarian perspective, his five minutes of extreme suffering were likely outweighed by the joy that it brought everyone in the restaurant, myself included. I promptly offered to douse all his food in random spices, and he politely declined.

What the Egyptian food scene lacks in flavor, it makes up for in stories like this one.

I always wanted a personal security force?

Egypt puts a lot of money into its military and police. Well, the US gives Egypt a lot of money to put into its military and police, but that’s not the point. The point is that, sometimes, in the name of “security” (i.e. keeping an eye on foreigners?) private security officers are assigned to follow foreigners everywhere. Nick and I were the lucky recipients of a string of gun-wielding “friends” to “show us around.” In their defense, they were often quite friendly and engaging, and they thought it was pretty fun to teach us inappropriate phrases in Arabic. But the whole situation has been a little bizarre.

The first night we had a guard Nick and I were a little confused. A man just started following us, and he had a gun. When we tried to get into our friend’s car to go to a restaurant, the man motioned to join us. Our friend and the new security officer exchanged a couple words. The officer whipped out a badge. “Apparently someone in Cairo told him to go everywhere with you.”

Fortunately this guard was quite friendly. Sure, it was inconvenient to have to check in with guards every time we went to the supermarket, but we had heard stories of similar incidents all over the country, so for some reason we weren’t too concerned. It almost became “normal.”

...until time came to travel. A few weeks back, I visited an oasis west of Alexandria with Fulbright. We had told our security officers where I was going, so I was pretty surprised when I received four phone calls on the road from Egyptian friends. “Where are you? Your security officer is crying.” I’m going to Siwa with Fulbright, I told him that. “Saad knows you’re not going to Siwa – he heard you are going to Sinai. Why did you lie to him?” Ummm… I didn’t lie. I’m really going to Siwa. “You must report back with the name of the bus company you’re traveling with, the names of all your drivers, a list of every hotel you’re staying at, and how many security officers you’ll have with you at all times.”

This was getting excessive. So I told Fulbright. Turns out Nick and I probably shouldn’t have gotten used to having an armed guard with us at all times. Turns out that’s likely not appropriate at all.

This began one of the most complicated, political, and offensive series of encounters we’ve had yet. People at our English center were mad that Fulbright had gotten involved. “Why didn’t you tell us – why did you report us to Fulbright?” The security officers backed off for a night or two, but then began following us everywhere again. Some security officers – some of the most friendly, actually – were “let go.”

But our security situation didn’t entirely end there. One night a friend called us and asked if we wanted to go to a wedding. Yes, of course we did. He told us we would leave at 8 pm. At 7:30, our security officer showed up, asking what our plans were for the evening. “We’re going to a wedding with Bassim.” Our security officer said goodbye and wished us a pleasant evening. Ten minutes later, we got a call from Bassim, “Your security officer stopped by. He said you can’t go to the wedding because it’s in Cairo and you aren’t allowed to leave Zagazig.”

1- Cairo’s only an hour from Zagazig.
2- There is absolutely no rule “confining” us to Zagazig.
3- Our security officer didn’t confront us about it, he just told our friend not to take us. And our friend, being scared of the security forces in Egypt, listened.

We walked out of our front door later that evening to discover our security guard waiting for us. “When are you going to the wedding?” I still can't believe he had the cajones to ask us that. He then followed us around the rest of the evening, and we complained once again. Since then, we have not had a guard follow us anywhere, but not for lack of effort. Fortunately the guards have grown to accept that we are perfectly safe in Zagazig. Funny encounters still occur though. Here’s one:

This morning I rolled out of bed at a lazy 11 am. It’s Saturday and I had been up too late talking with friends online. Feeling terribly hungry, but not having much to consume around the house, I barely dressed myself and, hair still disheveled, I went to buy some bread from a bakery around the corner. Any friends who have seen me in the first five minutes after I wake know I’m hardly coherent and usually not fit for public viewing.

When I stepped off the elevator, I was greeted by a guard. “Are you going to the university now?” I looked down at my barely-appropriate attire and shot back a confused look. It’s Saturday. No, I’m not going to the university. “Where are you going?” To the bakery. “Just the bakery?” Yes. “Do you want me to come with you?” That’s not necessary.

When I arrived, the bakery was out of bread. It was, after all, already 11 am. So, I swung by a boutique next door and purchased a package of ramen noodles. I walked back toward our apartment building, where the guard was waiting for me. “Where did you go?” The bakery. [He looked down at my package of ramen noodles and pointed at it, accusingly.] The bakery was out of bread, so I went to the boutique – you know, the one between here and the bakery – and bought this instead. “The bakery was out of bread?” [More accusing glares.] Yes. The bakery was out of bread. “Okay, where are you going now? To the university?” No. It’s Saturday. I’m not going to the university. “Are you going downtown?” No, I’m going back to the apartment. “Just to your apartment?” Yes. “Will you go anywhere later today?” I don’t know, probably? “Where is Nick? Did he go downtown?” No, Nick is sleeping upstairs. “Sleeping?” Yes, sleeping. “Why is he sleeping?” Because he’s tired? “Will he go anywhere later?” I’m really not sure.

That was an extreme example. Usually we just tell them where we’re going, they ask us if they should come, and we say, “No.” It’s kind of funny to think that several people are employed just to sit by our apartment building and ask us where we’re going. But I guess these are jobs people need, and it’s a result of a bloated security force propped up by a foreign superpower. Thanks US government, once again, I totally agree with the things you spend money on.