Love in a Hot Climate or How I Met Your Mother the Bedouin way

Tags

Bedouin, Cultural differences, Dating, How I Met Your Mother, love, Marriage, Men and women, Relationships, Traditions

A is a young bedouin. 

He’s smart and quick and very generous. He taught himself English while working in an airport carrying luggage and glimpsing at a world of incomprehensible men and women in flip flops and sun hats.

A likes peach juice (and always shares it with whoever happens to be around), owns a little house and 10 sheep and wants to know about the world. Europe is particularly baffling.

‘Where do European men meet their women?’ he asks, looking in the side mirror and struggling to supress an embarrassed smile.

“Well, it depends. At work, at university maybe. Parties. How about you? How did you meet your wife?’

“Well, I didn’t. Not before the wedding.’

‘That’s a bit risky. What if you didn’t like her?”

‘Well, I knew everything about her. I’d talked to her brothers. And her father. Her whole village knew her. They told me about her.’

 “Ok. But you still didn’t know her personally. That’s brave.”

“No, it’s not. You trust a complete stranger. You know nothing about their family, taste, history, health or good name. You just see them. That’s a bit risky.’

Oh. I never thought of it this way. In retrospect, maybe I should have consulted a few villagers here and there:)
I finished the rest of my peach juice in silence.

Happy Valen-denial?

Tags

celebration, Cheey, Dating, irrelevant, love, Valentine's

So the big pink V has visited the building 4 times today.

1. Its first appearance was early in the morning. Interesting piece in the paper about how the price of flowers goes up 12-fold today. And how most people think V day is an alien, imported, irrelevant, inappropriate celebration. Most restaurants are flooded with bookings.

2. Then I read a few blogs – grand total of 3 out of 4 entries on the subject.

Long story short – V day is an irrelevant, commercial, nauseatingly pink exercise, who needs it, love is or should be celebrated every day bla bla.

3. At the gym all the machines had pink ribbons and the trainers were wearing red. At the end I even got a small present, which is either a very small grater or a very big nail file, I can’t decide.

4. Then a guy who sits behind a small folding desk in the street asking people if they need a passport application wished me a very energetic “Happy Valentine, sir!”

So now that I have joined the long line of people who write about how the pink V is so not worth writing about, may I wish you all a happy irrelevant V day and may your graters (or files) carry all the joy and chocolate they can take.