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Diving into Arabic language and culture

Cairo street Large posters and billboards of Egypt's president, Hosni Mubarak, adorn many streets in Cairo. (Pamila Pengra photos)
A visit to Mama's house turns into an adventure in non-vegan eating

CAIRO - Kelly finally got hold of Madame Camellia, or "Mama," her friend Caroline's mother-in-law. (Caroline had said if we were ever homesick, as in for an actual home, we should give Mama a call.)

It took many attempts and a lot of broken Egyptian, but eventually we set a time and figured out that Mama's place is only a 15-minute walk from our apartment. Caroline had emailed insanely convoluted directions: go to the movie theater, turn right at the carpet store, left at the video store, right at the ironing man, and right again at a blue pole - but in spite of our usual navigational inadequacies, we made it to the house on time without any difficulty.


Umniyya, age 3, and her sister Malax, just a few months old.
Mama and her daughter Neshwa met us at the door. Neshwa is married and lives in a neighborhood about an hour away, but she has a new baby and spends her days with her mother while her husband is at work. She and her husband both work at banks, but she is on a six-month maternity leave. Neshwa's two daughters - Umniyya, age 3, and Malak, 4 months - are very sweet little girls, but it is assumed that Neshwa will probably have a few more children. Like every Egyptian family, they hope to have at least one boy. Mama's house is typically Egyptian: she has lived in the apartment for more than 50 years, since she was a new bride, and it is filled to bursting with over-stuffed rococo furniture, gilded mirrors, knick-knacks, and tons of pictures of the family. After a short, interview-like meeting in a sitting room filled with pink flowery couches covered in stuffed animals, we sat down to dinner.

The meal was full of Egyptian delicacies and had been very carefully prepared: pigeon stuffed with grain, roast chicken, macaroni casserole with bechamel sauce, yogurt and cucumber salad, pita bread, pickled eggplant, and a small green salad with apples, pickles and carrots tossed with parsley and vinegar. In other words, not a lot of vegan food. (Vegans do not eat any animal products at all, including eggs and dairy.)

I had decided that in order to be a more accommodating guest I would try to eat a little dairy, and Kelly had promised to eat enough meat for the both of us. But before we even sat down, they had given me an ENORMOUS piece of casserole, and as they began to pick up a whole pigeon to place alongside it, I uttered the fatal words "Ana nebatiyya" ("I'm vegetarian").

Much clucking and tsking ensued. "Kelly, why didn't you tell us that your friend is vegetarian?" Kelly hadn't told them because it was hard enough setting up a meeting, and explaining my dietary choices might have taken another three phone calls.

I placated them by digging into the creamy casserole, trying to shove it into my mouth and not consider what I was eating. The food that happened to be vegan was delicious: the salad and eggplant were amazing, and she obviously has a better bread baker than we do. But the food that was not vegan tasted like cardboard in my mouth. I am more outgoing than Kelly with new people, so I did a lot more talking - which means I also did a lot less eating. Mama and Neshwa made me finish my salad, which I was pleased to do, and said that next time they would make me koushari. Thank heaven for koushari.

We retired to a second, less ornate sitting room and drank tea and played with Umniyya while Mama performed the evening prayer on the couch across from us, and Neshwa got the baby up from her nap. Our conversation was fairly simple: they wanted to know why we chose to come to Egypt, how we liked it so far, what we had seen, and what we plan to see. Questions like this are fairly easy, with words that I know and can understand. Although at one point apparently I totally lost the flow of conversation: when asked if I would like more tea, I began to talk about the Sinai peninsula. Can't win them all.

They brought us rice pudding for dessert; I ate a few bites but spooned most of it into Kelly's bowl while they were in the other room. After dessert and tea and a lot of cooing over the adorable children, we pleaded homework to do and left for home. I really enjoyed the visit, loved playing with the kids, and had a great time getting to know Mama and Neshwa. My experiences inside Arab homes have all been consistent in the feelings of warmth and acceptance that I receive there. Even though I am an American vegan atheist, I am always welcomed.

People often expect that being vegan is difficult anywhere outside California, but in my 10 years as a vegan I have traveled the U.S., Mexico, Europe, China, and now Egypt, easily finding things that are delicious and appropriate. Egyptian cuisine in particular is very vegan-friendly: falafel, beans, and pita are everywhere and very safe. As a vegan, I don't usually get to try the favorite national dish, which was more of a heart-breaker with Spain's paella than it was with China's oxtail soup or Egypt's stuffed pigeon. The only times I have encountered real problems have been as a guest in peoples' homes. I have always said that I didn't want veganism to hold me back, and that's why I decided to try something different in Egypt.

However, my little eating experiment yielded decisive results: I will not do that again. After brushing my teeth twice to get the taste of dairy out of my mouth, I realized that I was really sick. I could barely choke down crackers and juice the next day, and there were many trips to the bathroom. My body might get used to the dairy, but my head can't. The rice pudding tasted good, and I could tell that if it were vegan I would be shoveling it down and asking for more, instead of just furtively spooning it into Kelly's bowl. Eating things that aren't vegan makes me feel sick and unclean inside. I don't know how to explain it, and I am not making a judgment against omnivores, I just can't get past my beliefs and my feelings.

—Pamila

Pamila Pengra graduated from UC Berkeley in May 2005 with a B.A. in linguistics. She is studying Arabic in Cairo on a CASA fellowship.