23rd March Honoured Guests

 

Yesterday one of the two maths matrons Shehira invited Amira, Maddy and me to the signing of her wedding contract! Muslim weddings are completely different to UK weddings. Today was the signing of the wedding contract but it will be another 2 weeks before they move in together.

Our first adventure was getting there (and I’m still not sure where there was). Tara, the other maths matron, came and collected us and took us to the metro. Now you need to understand that Tara speaks as much English as I do Arabic so when she called to say she was on her way I phoned Amira to get her to phone Tara to get a translation and then call me back to tell me what she had said! We managed the metro and a change at Saadat, catching a train towards Giza. and getting off at Boohoth. We walked down a street, over a railway bride and then caught a tut-tut to the top of Shehira’s street.

 

There was a giant inflatable clown at the top of the street and some more inflatables as we walked down. Then we came across the mattresses with the bedding on top. As I understand it they were stuffed with cotton this morning and are part of what we would call the trousseau. Shehira provides this as her part of the contract along with crockery, pots and pans, bins, . . and the husband provides the wooden furniture. We saw everything on tables waiting to be taken into her apartment lining one part of the street, with the blankets hanging between the houses.

Shehira met us and was so pleased to see us even though there must have been over 100 people sat in the street. She took us on a tour of her new apartment. It is on the top floor and has 2 bedrooms,

 

Tara, me, Maddy, Shehira and Malak at the bottom. Tara is Malak’s aunt but her brother died and the mother left Malak to be raised with her.

Then it was time to go downstairs and up into a flat on the other side for some food it seemed had been prepared especially for us. Lamb, rice and various vegetable dishes very on the table for us. It was wonderful to eat Egyptian food, everything was so tasty.

 

Then there was a bit of sitting around, women sat at one end and men at the other,  and taking pictures of the children until it was time to go to the mosque and see Shehira’s signing of the contract, As we sat a gun kept going off to herald each stage, prayers, his signing of the contract,  . . . .

Shehira changed outfits for this bit.

Shoes off and hair modestly covered we went in to see what happened. Finger prints go on each page on top of a passport photo as well as a signature . He had already signed so we just got to see Shehira. Then it was back out into the sunshine for congratulations to the now married couple and pictures.

After this the bride and groom danced together and they were joined by 2 men with big sticks and what can only be described as a pantomime horse. The pictures were taken into the sun so were pretty dreadful. I had said I needed to be at church by 5 so we left everyone to the partying. Maddison had found the music too loud, they did have a lot of speakers in the street. Our reverse journey followed the same path, tut-tut, walk down the alley,  metro. This time we bought some strawberries as the season is coming to an end, the street vendor is cheaper the Carrefour. 5LE a kilo, this is 50 pence a kilo in UK terms (1 New Zealand dollar, a bargain?). 

We didn’t get to church in time, in fact we didn’t get home until 6pm and then it was McDonalds and strawberries for tea.

I shall take the photos to the shop tomorrow and get some prints to give Shehira, I can’t decide whether to scrap them or not, I’ll wait and see it there is a book to put then in first before I decide.

The next celebration is the actual wedding, but I think there is a girls night on the 5th April first that involves henna . . . . . we have been invited so I shall pass on the information.