Anyways, we get to the center of my friend's town after an hour. From there, we take a Tuk Tuk -- basically, a motorized rickshaw, see below -- to the next microbus station (more like a real bus station, but for microbuses).
This guy had red and black stickets of Bob Marley, the Bulls, Che Guevara, Muslim prayers and other random stuff including stuffed animals. This is not odd at all. Normal.
The next microbus ride is only twenty minutes, and we get out at the front of town (or more exactly village). As we walk along the main dirt road wide enough for two way traffic and filled with pot holes, we see fields and fields of crops, donkeys on our left, and Ahmed's one building elementary school on our right. On our way to his house, every other person greets Ahmed. It's the kind of place where everyone knows everyone. After a little meet and greet with the whole town, we got to his new house. This is the house in which he is going to get married. It's still under construction (a different concept than America), but it's half done. When he gets married he'll live on the ground floor, and his older brother (1 year older) will live on the second floor. They're building a third story, but I don't know what exactly they're going to do with it.
This house is a 30 second walk away from his parent's house.
Anyways, when he get to his house, his parents greet us with open arms and warm hearts. His mom tells us to make ourselves at home (her house is our house) and told us welcome more times than I could count. His father greeted us with an uncountable amount of welcomes and the typical "Peace be upon you, may God bless and have mercy upon you." We sat down on cushions, and we started talking together. His father's second question was "How is Obama different from Bush?" It was an interesting start, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't a rhetorical question, but instead, a genuine inquiry into information regarding policies and characters. After 45 minutes to an hour of conversation, his mom brought us a huge meal. A full duck, a couple chicken breasts, red meat (they just call it meat here... I assumed it came from a cow), duck liver, duck spleen, macaroni, rice, vegetables, soup, beans, and pepsi. It was way more food than we could even imagine eating, but his mom kept apologizing for not making enough. His mom was hilarious because she kept telling us to take more food, and she actually picked up the chicken breasts or liver or whatever and kept handing us more food. Let's back up one moment. We're not at a kitchen table and there are no forks or knives. We're still in the reception room -- a room that you'll find in every house in this town -- that is next to front door. It's kind of like a room locked off from the rest of the house. Anyways, we're sitting down on cushions, and there is a table that is only 6 inches or so off the ground. It's a buffet style meal, and you just grab what you want or take all the food offered to you by Ahmed's mom. You eat with your hands and a spoon. The spoon works better for soup than your hands. Initially, Ahmed was going to give us forks and knives because he knows that's how we eat, but he changed his mind because he wanted to make sure we had the real experience of how he eats everyday. He said that every time he goes home (about every 5 weeks), his mom always cooks up a feast like this. It was pretty cool. His family was super nice and welcoming. His 13-year-old sister was particularly funny because she laughed whenever we spoke... I guess the American accent in Arabic is pretty humorous. His uncle and baby cousin ate with us as well, and we all had a good time just talking, eating, and drinking a lot of tea. A lot of tea. And, the problem is you can't say no.
Afterwards, we met the mayor of the town (another one of his uncles). We chilled with him for a little while, and then he took us to his office where he has a desk, birth records of everyone in the town, a board on the wall with the names of the leaders of the town -- mayor, vice mayor, vice vice, etc., and twelve rifles locked up in case there's any problems in town that require a little extra force.
We returned to his house, had another round of tea, and bounced to the pharmacy that Ahmed worked in last summer. We said hi to his friends, and the we finally hit up a microbus to Alexandria.
Dinner.
Engagement party for another one of our friends in Alexandria. Details on engagement parties and wedding parties still has to wait for another day.
