After an afternoon of exploring Coptic Cairo, Ben and I wandered outside of the Christian cemetery into the back alleyways of an adjacent Muslim neighborhood. As we strolled past trash piles, donkeys and stray dogs, we were suddenly surrounded by a group of kids. “Take our picture!” they begged as they posed around us. “There’s a wedding tonight!” they exclaimed and they grabbed us by the hands and took us to an alley where their entire extended families were dancing in the streets. After dancing with the family members for an hour and snapping about a hundred pictures of all the children, we were invited to come back to the wedding party at 7:00.
We headed back to Dokki to seek refuge from the heat (it was about 105 degrees and 73% humidity on Friday) and stopped by Tahrir Square on the way. In addition to the usual group of protesters and political organizers shouting slogans from megaphones, we also witnessed a man scaling a lamppost while waving an Egyptian flag. While it was a pretty dangerous stunt, it was very powerful to see a giant flag being waved above the square as the man stood precariously balanced atop a street light.
Soon it was time to head back to Masr ‘Adim or Coptic Cairo for the wedding. Not knowing what to expect, as we walked up towards the alleyway the kids we had met earlier that day grabbed our arms and escorted us to the wedding party. We were seated right in the center and Mohamed, a relative of the groom, kept taking pictures of us on his cell phone which he then broadcasted on a TV screen in the center of the celebration. He told us about his work selling aluminum in Libya, gave us each one of his necklaces, and invited us back for lunch on Sunday.
As the night wore on, I soon learned that my role at the wedding celebration would be to dance with every single woman and child in the neighborhood (including the bride!). Women who I had never met before would pull my arms in opposite directions each telling me that it was there turn to dance with me. While it was kind of overwhelming, and I felt pretty out of place being in the center of a wedding party when I didn’t know anyone (and of course being about a foot taller than most of the elderly woman who wanted to dance with me) all in all it was a lot of fun.
Although we stayed at the wedding celebration for about four hours, Ben and I were still pretty unclear about what was going on. The bride spent most of the time just sitting (looking pretty upset) on the edge of the circle of dancing women. We never saw the groom and although we each asked multiple guests where he might be, we received conflicting answers from “he’s right back there” (pointing down the alleyway) to “he has other plans tonight” and “he’s coming later.”
Also, there was a strange combination of women in niqabs on the one hand, and men drinking beer, and other women dancing very sexually in front of all the men on the other. Concepts of what’s “haram” or “hilal”--- what’s acceptable or forbidden under Islam--- don’t always seem logical from our outsider perspectives. When we left the wedding at 11:00 the food still hadn’t been served, and although we were exhausted from all the dancing, I think the party was really just beginning. We’re planning to go back for lunch on Sunday and to bring the family some of the pictures we took, so maybe we’ll find out more when we return!
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