Ahmed Da Groom

Last night we attended out first Egyptian Wedding. Ahmed Da Driver was getting married and invited us a while ago and never having been to a muslim wedding, let alone Delta Egyptian wedding or any wedding on the banks

of the River Nile we gladly agreed. Mahmoud also joined us as we left early to head down to Giza in the evening traffic driven by our friends

driver (we thought it only fair to give Ahmed Da Driver the night off!! actually we gave him the week). Of course nothing is predictable in Cairo and we got down to Giza in record time so had an amble by the Nile with Mahmoud till 8pm when pretty much on time the Bride and Groom turned up (typical Egypt, the only instance something happens on time is when in Europe the Bride is deliberately late).

The drum boys started playing and the arabic flute guy started jamming his thing as Ahmed and Mrs A got out of the car. All the women, apart from Mrs T, did that uuuuulllllululuululuuuulululul thing. Lots of dancing, it was quite a heady atmosphere so I shot some video which Ill try to put on later. Then everyone went inside

and the bride and Ahmed stood in the entrance for about 5 mins while the band played them in.

The flute man

was like an Arabic Dizzy Gillespie, it was remarkable how like Jazz it was. Suddenly he saw me taking photos so came across, dragged me up an

d I had to dance with Ahmed, much to everyones obvious pleasure (Mrs T says amusement is a better description). The boys were proud (embarrased) of their dad. Then the happy couple walked down the aisle to an pop arabic version of here comes the bride and sat on a double seat on the stage whilst very loud Arabic music started up. Then lots of dancing, Men together in a sort of greek style knees up, girls with a more sedate, dance round the handbags and chat affair. Mrs Ahmed Da Uncle (see

previous post on our adventures getting furniture made in Damietta) came over and shook hands and then gave each boy two great big wallaping kisses on each cheek - they were not best pleased by suffered it for cultural harmony. Various aunties, uncs, sisters, brothers and hangers-on all came and shook hands. Bride and groom then signed their wedding papers. We wanted to shoot off by then but we were not allowed to leave without having some cake - the old arabic custom of force feeding guests kicked in. Cake eaten we bid farewell and headed off into the Cairenne night traffic.