The Muslim Brothers in Society: Everyday Politics, Social Action, and Islamism in Mubarak's Egypt by Marie Vannetzel

Author:Marie Vannetzel [Vannetzel, Marie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Nonfiction, History, Africa, Egypt, Religion & Spirituality, Middle East Religions, Islam, Social & Cultural Studies, Political Science, International
ISBN: 9781649030238
Google: wLBDzgEACAAJ
Publisher: American University in Cairo Press
Published: 2020-01-15T00:25:05+00:00

Kissing camel

Sheikh Abdu Wahid has been up to Cairo to look after one of his sons, he told us that he was “behaving badly in the ways of young men & bringing shame upon the head of his family.” I was walking through the service rooms in the Temple when I met the Sheikh & stopped to say the usual polite things, I thought I had got through them very well when he sprung an entirely new lot of salutations on me & took me firmly by the hand & led me to the Temple courtyard. Here a very handsome young man was presented to me who proved to be the erring son. He certainly didn’t look the sort who could easily resist the temptations of a gay town like Cairo, I am rather doubtful whether such a dashing youth will be content to stay on a quiet country farm, but the Sheikh seems quite capable of ruling his family with a firm hand.

The last few nights we have been rather disturbed by jackals, they are getting very hungry & bold, they can smell our chickens & prowl round the house: of course our dog barks frantically. We have to keep him tied up at night otherwise he will go off to the village to visit his lady friends. Sometimes our night guard fires his gun at them, but they are rather superstitious about killing them.

We have not yet eaten all the good things sent us for Xmas, we have a wonderful dessert every night. Turkish delight, stuffed dates, chocolates, almonds & raisins nougat, candied fruits as well as our local grown oranges, mandarins & bananas. The fresh oranges are simply delicious & they come in big baskets with lots of leaves on them, our meals are very varied & we make use of all the local vegetables, just now we are having black carrots, a cross between ordinary carrots & beetroots, they are very good.

One of our favourite puddings is date rice, it is rice pudding & chopped up dates, baked until the milk is all absorbed & the rice is very tender. The flavour of the dates goes all through it, I think you & Father would like it for a change.

When we have chickens we usually have them stuffed with rice & raisins, you have no idea how good this is, sometimes the liver is boiled & chopped up with the rice (or it may be giblets) we don’t have bread sauce alas, because the native bread is not suitable for it.

The meat is usually rather tough, it has to be eaten so soon, but we do have good soup & splendid egg dishes & lots of tomatoes all of which I do full justice to. We are most polite over our dessert. We always have finger bowls, & such dear little cups for our black coffee, in fact we are really in the lap of luxury. Nannie is such a dear old soul & looks after us splendidly.

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