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Published: March 6th 2006
Mmm, Egyptian food
Our homemade lunch of maashi (in the middle - seasoned rice rolled in cabbage), salad, soup, huge bread, bread dip (red sauce) and not yet on the table - 4 roasted ducks! For this trip, a group of us (Debbie and Christine from CISE, and a lovely lady named Kathy from Narmer School) were treated to a really personal trip to the Fayoum region of Egypt. Fayoum is to the South of Cairo. It is full of fields and fields of plants. The drive there is amazing, as you see fields that have been hand planted, and every plant is in perfect alignment with the others in the row. You also go past a few pyramids/prototype pyramids here and there. Our "tour guide" was my fruit and vegetable man, Ali, who is originally from Fayoum. His friend and our taxi driver is also from there. This trip was truly one I hope to never forget.
As mentioned, the drive is visually wonderful. It took about an hour and a half to get to the region. As we progressed further and further into the region, the roads became less and less like actual roads, and became only dirt paths with wheel grooves. Our first stop was at one of Ali's cousins. We were welcomed into the sitting room by a smiling woman, who offered us fresh milk (right from the cow that morning!) and soft drinks. She opened a window I was sitting near and when I looked out, I came face to face with a huge cow! There was also a baby cow out back, too. Next, we went to another village to see more of Ali's family. We were brought inside to have, yes, more drinks, and then Ali took us for a little walk around. We were the local celebrities that day, and we had about 40 or so kids following us around, wanting to walk and talk with us. Debbie even had a large number of them doing the hokey pokey:-) Almost every kid wanted their picture taken, even though they knew they would likely never see them (though we have all decided to get a set of pictures from the day made to give Ali to pass on to the people we took pictures of). We left this place with all the kids running after the car, and then we drove to our taxi driver's daughter's house. She and her husband brought us inside and gave us a tour of their humble but comfy and cosy house. They, too, gave us soft drinks and some fresh veggies to munch on. After visiting with them for a bit, we drove on to our final desitination in yet another village. Here we were treated to lunch, and what a lunch! First, fresh salad and other veggies were given to us, along with soup with noodles, huge flat round bread, maashi (similar to little cabbage rolls), and some type of spicy bean dip. This alone seemed like a nice meal, and then the husband of the house entered with something else...four roasted ducks! It's sort of funny that we had duck, as the day before the media announced that the avian flu had been found in birds in Cairo (they told us that these ducks only lived in closed quarters, anyway). This meal was wonderful and very much unexpected. I knew Ali wanted to give us something, but none of us expected this. We continued driving around the region, ending at a lovely large lake, and then getting into Cairo before nightfall.
This trip let us see how people in the countryside live their daily lives. Some people we saw in the villages here and there did not have much at all, but they still greeted us with smiles. I guess if you never had certain things, you don't know what you are missing in the first place. I bet they almost never get non-Egyptian visitors, so we were the big event of the week. Egyptian hospitality is amazing. Anyway, I am grateful to Ali for showing us his area of Egypt in such a personal way. This was one of my favourite day trips ever.
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Andrew
non-member comment
wonderful
Melissa, What a wonderful experience, I'm so happy that you had it, and shared it with us. Thank you. Hoping all is well with you, Ahmed, and everyone there, Andrew