Spring Festival

The spring festival or sham al-naseem is a popular celebration in Egypt and as such is taken seriously at the language centre in Alexandria.

I saw it as an opportunity to socialize with my new friends in the Chinese programme that I had first met during the Chinese New Year party (also hosted within the centre).  In addition, it was a chance to try out the very salty fish.

However, the woman from Romania was uninterested in going to (in her words) “a pagan festival” and reminded me that since I am a Muslim I should not be going either.

I then felt confused.  On one hand, I wanted to socialize with my new friends from the other classes whereas, on the other hand, I felt embarrassed by the thought of violating my religion.

I had been having doubts about my commitment to any formal organized religion, but a part of me was always afraid of going to hell and I did not want something as trivial as this party being the reason I end up in the burning fire.

So now I was confused!

Fortunately, or unfortunately, the director arrived and, after a brief exchange of words between her and the Romanian, I was asked if I would be attending.  At that point I felt embarrassed again (for a different reason) and felt obliged to attend, which I did (hoping that God would forgive me since all I wanted to do was socialize and had not even thought of doing my research as to the origins of this festival and its permissibility in terms of Islam and Christianity).

The fun did not last long as I was reminded by one of the teachers that we had a class with the Romanian.  However, things were not so bad since I did have ice cream and had priority in the queue.  Also, in the class, the teacher, as usual, made me laugh.

His classes were my favourite – always absorbing or simply entertaining.  Too bad he left Egypt before I returned.