Egyptian Quirks
So are people in different countries really that different? No, of course not. Everybody cries, laughs, watches 24... sometimes all at the same time. But for the rest of the day there are little things that pop up that I definitely don't see in Canada. First off, everybody here is nocturnal. And I don't mean just young adults, everybody here stays up late. The last time I was here 5 years ago I remember getting off my flight that came in at 3AM. We were driving along and came up to the seaside highway (which they call the seaway, or corniche: pronounced corn-ay-sh) and there were thousands upon thousands of people sitting along the side hanging out. Old people, young people, families with children and babies. I asked if there was some kind of celebration going on, and it turned out that it's normally like this every night in the summer.
My schedule this time hasn't been so late-night accessible so this fact of Egyptian life hasn't really hit me again. However, last night I went to the biggest and best mall in Alexandria, and it was the same thing. It was midnight and the mall was absolutely packed like it was boxing day. My cousins couldn't believe it that stores in Canada close at 9PM and especially in a town like Waterloo where you're lucky to see more than 5 cars past midnight. Correctly, they quickly realized that such a town would be incredibly boring to be in, and felt very good about living in Alexandria.
And then came the ketchup.
But first, the seemingly homosexual tendencies of the average Egyptian male. Not that there are a lot of gay people here of course, this is the Middle East after all, but when you look at what these a lot of these guys are doing it's definitely flaming from a Canadian perspective. The first time I was here I went to the University of Alexandria with my dad to take in the sights. After about 5 minutes I turned to my dad in a very low voice and confusingly asked "hey... uh... hey dad, uh.. there seems to be a lot of gay people here eh?" He had a very hearty laugh and explained how in Egyptian when friends walk together they usually link their arms together. I've seen this kind of behaviour in asian girls at my University, but I've never seen guys do this before outside of a romantic couple, so you can see where I was coming from. Then there was the dancing! People here belly dance, and they're very very good at it, and it's really cool to see. What's not so cool is that the guys belly dance too, and do it the same way that the women do, and try to act all seductively. I know it's difficult to picture, but just try imagining two young men on a dance floor belly dancing as they look into each other's eyes. And they're totally straight.
Ok, back to the ketchup. It makes sense when you think about it, but when you first see it happen, it's once again kind of a eyebrow raising moment. We get a nice large pizza and everybody takes their slices. And like it's the most natural thing in the world they all take their ketchup packets and lay down a nice layer of the red stuff on their pizzas. It makes sense because tomato sauce is tomatos, and ketchup is well, tomatos as well, but I've never seen that done in Canada. Ever. We've just recently moved to ranch dipping sauces and the like. That really brings a question to my mind, is ketchup the natural evolution of this new dipping craze? Since Heinz's miracle liquid really is the ultimate in dipping substances, are the Egyptians just really far ahead of us on this one? Personally, as someone who would rather see the Heinz's empire fall and be replaced by Diane's BBQ goodness, I hope this isn't the case. But maybe I'm bringing my own doom by introducing this technique to Canada where it will catch like wildfire, and we'll see Pizza Hut come out with a new thing that has ketchup inside the friggin crust.
