Sabrina CP#5

April 15th, 3pm to 7pm
@ Killarn Circle, at my friend's house.

For our fifth conversation meeting, I invited Rehab to come with me to my friend's house! My friend met Rehab for the first time at the gathering at my house and had gotten quite acquainted with her. So when my friend invited me for lunch to her house on Saturday, she asked me if I had Rehab's phone number. So I talked with Rehab and she was invited to my friend's home with me.

My friend lives in Killarn Circle, which is kind of out of the city of Tallahassee. The area she lives in is closer to the border of Georgia. It was a good 30 minutes drive from our place. I asked Rehab if she wanted to come withe me but she had to drop her kids off at a different gathering. I arrived to my friend's house and Rehab arrived almost 30 minutes later. She told me she had gotten lost as she had not visited this part of the town before.

My friend had a wonderful lunch prepared for us and we all enjoyed it together while talking. Rehab told me that in Egypt the tradition is to have a moderate amount of dishes for the main meal but explode with many different types of dishes for dessert. She shared that it was custom in Egypt to prepare huge amount of food even if there was only one guest coming. We then talked about how there is a tradition in the Asian culture where the mother-in-law cooks specially a lot for her son-in-laws. Rehab said they had the same culture but she personally does not like the very formal relationship between son-in-laws and mother-in-laws. I also agreed with her opinion. I also feel like there should be a warmer, more causal relationship.

Rehab usually wears very beautiful long dresses. I asked her where she buys such nice long dresses. She shared that she got some from friends and some from the mall. It is difficult to find long dresses of Rehab's height in Egypt. Rehab is very tall. She said the average height of Egyptian women were similar to mine (and I am not tall!). Growing up, Rehab's clothes never fully reached below her ankle. She shared that you can find all kinds of western clothing in Egypt and women wear them out and about as well. It is not restricted like Saudi Arabia. Rehab also didn't like wear skirts because they never reached below her ankle. So she grew up wearing pants and tunics, tops, and shirts. This was not something her family members liked, but Rehab thought this styled suited her the best.

We had tea in the afternoon and my friend presented a variety of home-made sweets she had made. Rehab loves sweets and she indulged in them. While having tea, Rehab shared that the Arabic language in Egypt is changing now. People are integrating so much slang and additions to the original pure Arabic-- that the current new generation is growing up not learning pure Arabic. This was something interesting. Overall, it was a great fun gathering and I learned a lot from Rehab about her Egyptian culture.