ramadan party: shisha yes, beer no

It's been an interesting first week of Ramadan, and I am sorry I have not had a chance to write about it until now. I have not posted for a few days because of my shorter work hours (still have things to get done, less hours to do them). Still, I am really enjoying the schedule.

After iftar at around 6:30 p.m., people generally stay up reeeeaaally late (or take a short nap), and then eat again for sohour, the meal before fasting again that can take place anytime between midnight-4 a.m. After this meal, some people go directly to the mosques for prayer (mosques have a call at around 4 telling people to stop eating and come pray). Work is from around 9-2, then home for a nap. Most of the people I work with are Muslim, so even though I am not fasting for Ramadan I still want to be respectful and not eat or drink in front of them when I know they can't.

Since people tend to be up late, there is a lot of special entertainment around the city -- tents of traditional Egyptian music, all kinds of special food for sale, etc. This is seen as a time to be generous, so we often see big tables set up outdoors where people have donated food for the less fortunate to be able to have iftar as well. The atmosphere all around the city is quite festive; I was walking around downtown with some friends on Friday night and everything around Tahrir Square in downtown was all lit up. People go to 'ahwas (kind of like baladi coffee shops) and sit drinking tea and smoking shisha in the streets, stores and restaurants are open late, and there are many people out walking after iftar. It might seem odd to have much of the daytime pass and the nighttime so vibrant, but I think it's kind of fun; it's part of the reason the month feels so special, I guess. I certainly enjoy the shorter working hours, though I am sad that I have to wake up earlier and then can't have coffee. Do you see the inherent problem?

My company recently entered into a partnership with a large corporation in Egypt, and that bigger company invited us to attend a large sohour party they were throwing for their employees. It was at this gorgeous place a little outside the city called the Arabella Country Club, and they had the whole outdoor courtyard all done up so that different areas of the party were decorated like the different cities of Egypt, each with its own theme and food. You could eat shawerma, koshary or fiteer in the Cairo and Giza section, have mango juice in Luxor, or get bowls of nuts and dates in Sinai. I have not had the opportunity to visit a lot of these places yet, but I am certainly looking forward to it. The party also had dance performances, belly-dancing puppets (yes, they were awesome), live sufi music from Upper Egypt, plenty of shisha, and lots of areas to sit and lounge. But since it was Ramadan, no alcohol.

I have spent most of the week doing wholesome things to pass the evening hours until sohour, including shisha on a rooftop bar (foreigners could buy alcohol but not Egyptians, and yes they checked IDs), poker night (won a few hands, ultimately lost...luckily no actual money was gambled away), many movies, etc. A1, N and I cooked an iftar together one night (we did the legit fast for the day and then called it girls iftar), which was good, and my flatmates have made sobya, a sweet Ramadan drink that looks like milk. H, who is quite the prankster, told me it was goat's milk. I am so gullible that I actually believed this (I know, I know... gullible is written on the ceiling, hardy har har), decided to try it anyway (I figured I like goat cheese, so why not), and then promptly realized that it was not, in fact, milk of any kind. So H and M had a good laugh, but at least I got to enjoy plenty of sobya.

So that's been my Cairene Ramadan so far, I will try to post more updates this week. Hopefully with photos!