I just arrived back from my first Egyptian child’s birthday party which was more like a wedding at home.
The invitation said 1:00 so I arrived at 1: 10 because my taxi had trouble finding the house. I was the first person there, she said, oh that is Egyptian time which means no one comes till at least 1 ½ or two hours later than the time on the invitation. The house was beautiful. The living room, full of paintings, was about the size of the whole downstairs in my house at home. The house borders on the high class golf course, I would think they get a few golf balls in their yard.
It was a party for parents as well and I met a lot of nice ladies who all speak English quite well. Several of them I had met already as they were parents of my students. It was a comfortable party and I was glad I went.
There must have been a staff of about 30 workers including waiters, cooks, life guard, DJ, games organizers and videographer. That was not counting all the nannies who arrived with the children and their mothers. They had a restaurant cater to the kids menu with a large outdoor barbeque and 2 chocolate fountains as well as ice cream and the birthday cake. There was another catered buffet inside for the accompanying adults and there were no plastic or paper dishes in or outside. Waiters circulated offering non alcoholic refreshments. It was a pool party so the children had fun with the games provided by the team of people hired to run the games in and out of the pool. There were games for the children which changed every so often to keep them from getting bored. When I left they were finger painting traced pictures of their bodies on large sheets of paper and spray painting a white sheet with spray bottles of food colouring.
Friday 16 May 2008
Birthday Party
I just arrived back from my first Egyptian child’s birthday party which was more like a wedding at home.
The invitation said 1:00 so I arrived at 1: 10 because my taxi had trouble finding the house. I was the first person there, she said, oh that is Egyptian time which means no one comes till at least 1 ½ or two hours later than the time on the invitation. The house was beautiful. The living room, full of paintings, was about the size of the whole downstairs in my house at home. The house borders on the high class golf course, I would think they get a few golf balls in their yard.
It was a party for parents as well and I met a lot of nice ladies who all speak English quite well. Several of them I had met already as they were parents of my students. It was a comfortable party and I was glad I went.
There must have been a staff of about 30 workers including waiters, cooks, life guard, DJ, games organizers and videographer. That was not counting all the nannies who arrived with the children and their mothers. They had a restaurant cater to the kids menu with a large outdoor barbeque and 2 chocolate fountains as well as ice cream and the birthday cake. There was another catered buffet inside for the accompanying adults and there were no plastic or paper dishes in or outside. Waiters circulated offering non alcoholic refreshments. It was a pool party so the children had fun with the games provided by the team of people hired to run the games in and out of the pool. There were games for the children which changed every so often to keep them from getting bored. When I left they were finger painting traced pictures of their bodies on large sheets of paper and spray painting a white sheet with spray bottles of food colouring.
