Turkish Visitor - Guelsen

Last week my eldest aunt came and visited me from Turkey. We spent some lovely days together. Well most of the time we were actually dashing from one mosque to another and with that from one prayer to another. Still, after one week, everytime i hear the "Ezan" - Call for Prayer, I think that I have to run to the next mosque so that my aunt can pray. Well to put it in other words... i actually miss her a lot here. Was nice to share a part of my life with her and like that give my turkish family an insight to my daily life in cairo.

Although I wouldnt categorize my turkish family as highly religious, I have to admit that my aunt is. (Please bear in mind that i am a person who has nothing to do with religion) So suddenly i was on the side of a person who doesnt shake hands with men. Usually it is me, who gets totally upset when a man doesnt give me his hand to say hi - as he regards us women as unclean. Wow, what weird change. Now it was me explaining to ppl that she wont shake their hand and that i cant come at a certain time, as it is praying time. By having my aunt here, a totally new dimension was opend to me and this was really interesting. Until now, although i am living in a very religious country, it never had any influence on me - other that i more and more claim for secularisation. With my aunt here, religion became part of my day.

Considering that my aunt never traveled alone until now, I have to say that I am sooo happy that she came and spent time with me. She is unbelievably smart, calm, balanced, positive, generous, well hearted, funny, and a great conversation partner, so i really miss her here now.

Here you see some pics of the two of us on our sight seeing tour.