Her Best Friend’s Arab Wedding

Half an hour before boarding, I received the call. She sounded happy and excited. It’s the last of a series of calls that we exchanged before R, my sayangmama number two, left for Cairo. She is attending her best friend’s wedding, a childhood friend from schooldays. R left with the groom as her friend, Aisha left day before yesterday with her parents.

Needless to say, we are excited for her and want her to experience and see Cairo and experience a different kind of holiday that she was used to in Europe. She had been to France with the school, Spain and Portugal with the uni, and now she is going to have a taste of the Middle East.

Having spent her primary and secondary school at The King Fahd Academy, a Saudi school in London, she is quite fluent in Arabic and quite wise to the ways of the Arabs. That is the least of my worries, at least she’ll be brushing up her Arabic with the locals. In some ways, she is more Arab than Malay. At one stage, her sense of dressing, her manner of speaking were so Arabic that we questioned our decision to school the children there.

Anyway, I was excited at the thought of her visiting the pyramids, the Al- Azhar mosque where the nikah will be conducted, and the busy and colourful market place that I have heard so much about from Maknenek and Nefertiti. Her father had actually hitchhiked to the Middle East during his student days and had plenty to tell.

Before she left, she had packed her kebaya’s and other traditional Malaysian costumes as she wants to wear them at the function. A touch of Malaysian in an Arab do! I know it’ll be fun. From what I gathered from Maknenek’s account of her own wedding, its also hilarious! With lots of dancing and yoddeling Arab style! And so I gave her my digital camera to record everything. I dont want to miss anything.

But this morning, I woke up to the news of another big explosion - car bombs – in Sharm el Sheikh- killing 49. This is another place she is visiting.

This has been one of the worries when she announced sometime ago of her decision to go to Cairo. This place has not been very safe for tourists. Although she will be staying with a family there, she will still be visiting touristy areas and I have this tight knot in my stomach that will not go away.

While she was in London, we sms each other to check that everyone is alright, in the wake of the current development. I worry so much about the whereabouts of my children. And now, I have this extra worry as I watched the images on TV.

My phone just buzzed and it was an sms from her. She is in Cairo having landed safely there, Alhamdulillah. But I want her to take the same plane back. I want her home now. I didn’t hug her hard and long enough when we parted.

Take care, sayang mama

R in my graduation kebaya, doing the ulit mayang, with brother,with sister,
looks good in my wedding dress, and happy celebrating my birthday.

UPDATE:
After the Nikah ceremony at the mosque yesterday, R and wedding entourage had lunch on a boat cruising down the Nile. How nice!
Trip to Sharm-el-Sheikh has been cancelled.