A feast in the heart of Cairo

Ahmed Da Driver (ADD) had invited us to his home for a meal with his new family and this week we were able to arrange everyone being available so made a date. We headed down into the depths of Cairos western suburbs crossing the 6th October Bridge, going through Dokki and Mohandeseen, where you get a sense of ever increasing dense living. We turned into Ardebaya, according to ADD called China by the locals cos its sooooo crowded.

The place was overflowing with people and tuk-tuks, cars, horses and carts and cycles. This is real working class Cairo, and you get a sense of feeling out of place, not very many, if any white faces venture into these narrow streets.

We drove on winding out way through crowded thoroughfares and turned down a narrow dirt track between two blocks of apartments that must have been less that a few metres apart. Parking up by a donkey tied to a tree with some sheep being herded we realised were were not in Kattameya anymore. We walked back to Ahmeds apartment, a small first floor one in one of the numerous apartment blocks being built over the city. Inside it was a pleasant apartment, a living room, two bedrooms, a kitchen and restroom. Small by western standards, not far off the size of our house in Witnesham, but this is how a lot of Cairennes live. Makes our mansion in New Cairo all the bigger and we discussed what ADD must think when he sees our house, it was quite humbling. The apartment was nicely decorated with furniture from Ahmed the furniture maker in Damietta. ADD told us the apartment comes as a brick box - you put in everything from the windows, floor tiles, plaster on the walls.

We met Mrs ADD, mother of ADD and mother in law of ADD. Arabic and Egyptian culture says you have to force feed your guess to splitting point and then beyond with copious amounts of food and although I had told Ahmed we were not big eaters his cultural instinct cut in and we were faced with a tablefull of taste Egyptian food, including delicacies like stuffed pigeon (they eat a lot of pigeon here, they love it, Mrs T eyes popped when ADD put two on her plate to start!) T enjoyed his but J is suspicious of anything new and would not touch his!

We also had platefuls of marshi (stuffed cabbage leaves resembling the stuffed vine leaves of greek cooking), rice, meat and tomatoes, potatoes, a green herb/plant mashed up with oil and eaten as a dip, gouslash - not the stew but a puff pastry pizza with meat in it.

A real feast and everything really tasty. The mothers then came out of the kitchen and force fed young T bananas. The ladies seems to take a real shine to young T it seems they appreciate a growing boy who can pack away his food. J on the other hand they were worried about for not eating his own weight in food and eventually tempted him with an ice cream.

So a truly memorable evening with ADD and his family seeing a part of Cairo and life we would not normally see - a real eye opener.