Hosting the Arab way.

We were guests of an Arab family in Mekah long time ago. It was Ramadhan and we were invited by Ustaz Oudah and his wife Aida ( Habibti's friends ) to break our fast in their house. Upon breaking fast we were served with a few types of drinks, zam-zam,sherbet,fruit juice accompanied by samosa and some other savoury and sweet dishes,not to mention kurma,grapes,oranges and buah delima which was in abundance.

Finished eating we prayed and we excused ourselves to go back to get ready for terawih prayer at al Haram. But of course we hadn't started our meals yet,said Ustaz Oudah,wait for a while for the main dish. What main dish I thought,we were so full and we felt like going for a 2 mile brisk walk to make ouselves less bloated.

In came the maids carrying a tray of mutton, a tray of chicken, a tray of rice and a pot of soup. Those are the kind of food I love , but at that time the food was too much for me. I thought of many ways to escape from eating ,like I'm too full,I couldn't eat any more and other excuses ,but to no avail.Big chunks of mutton and chicken were loaded in my plate and my husband was speechless. We couldn't figure out how to finish the whole thing.

Later I learned ( in Cairo ) that you don't have to finish all the food they put on your plates. You can immediately put it back into the serving plates. You just eat whatever you can and be prepared to remove your plate when the hosts attempt to refill it. But if they are succesful, you put it back when they are not looking.But if you are a really big eater, you can enjoy the food as much as you can ( like eating one whole chicken or a leg of lamb! ).

It is an offence if you eat too little or if you don't eat at all. You'll insult your hosts as if there is something wrong with their food. It happened to me when I was with 'Habibti' in Cairo. Those days I didn't take dinner, I stopped eating after maghrib. So when I stayed in sister Suad's house I seldom eat , just drink some water or eat very little during dinner time. The next week, we went to Tanta to sister Wafa's resident, that night I ate something ie one egg since I had eaten so much in the evening. Sister Suad was very offended because I ate dinner in Sister Wafa's house but made a lot of excuses not to eat dinner in her house. I had to explain (through Habibti)that I forced myself to eat to please sister Wafa, since it was the first time I met her.

Now only I realise when we are a guest we should follow our hosts ways. We should forget our ways, like not eating ( just because we don't take dinner ) whereas the hosts take the trouble to prepare good dinner for the guests.