Friday, Oct. 29 again

Well, we just got back from our iftar dinner/breakfast (depends what culture you come from, I guess). The food was great. Of course, Emily's vegetarianism caused us more problems. (sarcasm) It is really rather amusing. The idea of not eating any meat is a difficult concept for Egyptians to understand. Anyway, they had several traditional Ramadan dishes. Some are difficult to explain, but many of the more common dishes contain a combination of squash, cabbage, rice, or lamb.

After dinner, we watched some t.v. and talked as best we could. The daughter has to translate a lot of what we say, but the landlord and his wife do speak some English. The youngest boy really came around and actually started talking to me. He wanted to show me the English words that he was learning in school. Nothing difficult. Stuff like book and pen. I have found that really young kids are usually the best teachers when trying to learn another language.

We did have a bit of a problem though. When it came time that we thought we should leave, I used taking out the dog as an exit. However, as soon as I said this, the oldest boy begged us to stay and the mother reiterated this by asking us to return after we take out the dog. We finally complied, but then they all said good-bye, which we naturally understood as good night, or see you some other time. We got Leia and took her outside where we began to contemplate whether or not they want us to come back. Within a couple of minutes, we ran into the dad who was returning from running an errand and asked us, "Where are you going?" We told him, "Taking the dog to go toilet." We were really confused now. We came back upstairs to our apartment and spent the next 15 minutes contemplating whether it is better to return and be annoying or not go back and be rude. We concluded that being annoying is better than being rude. We went back next door and as soon as the boy answered the door it became obvious that they didn't expect us to return. They invited us it, but due to Emily's quick thinking, we told them that we had only returned to say thank-you to the dad who we missed due to his errand running. There are many instances similar to this one where they insist or beg you to accept some type of service when in reality, they do not want to do it for you. I do not think this will be the last time we are in a confusing situation like this.