OOPS!!

Dress here is very important. Dress is seen as a sign of respect for the culture and for my husband. Women dress very conservatively, so, whenever I am outside I always make sure to wear long pants and cover most of my arms. It is, also, very hot here, so when I am not outside and dress doesn't really matter I usually wear a tank top and shorts. (Just a bit of background info. for my story).

So, there is a family that lives at the end of our street that we have become friends with. They are very kind and we always enjoy our visits with them. We usually just visit them and they had never been over to visit us. That is usually how most of our visits are here. We usually visit our friends, but they don't visit us. We have come to accept this and have stopped stocking our house with goods for visitors.

Well, I hadn't been feeling very good the past couple of days, so this morning M and S went to school without me. While waiting to get a rickshaw, S saw this family in front of their store and they of course asked where I was. S told them I was sick and the wife said she was sorry to hear that and would come visit later today.

S told me that she had said she was going to visit me, but the day went on and it was getting later and later. I had partly forgotten her promise to visit and figured she wouldn't. It was almost time for M to go to bed, so I gave him a bath and let him run around naked for a few minutes. I was wearing the usual tank top and shorts. S had been out running around town and was expected home any minute, so when I heard the doorbell ring I wasn't surprised. Another American had been with him, so I thought maybe he was helping S carry groceries and had rung the doorbell. I even called through the door and thought I heard him say that it was him. I opened that door first revealing a naked M. Micah was very excited to see whoever was at the door, so I thought for sure it was our American friend. I opened the door further to reveal me in my tank top and shorts. To my uttermost shock, there standing the doorway were our friends...the whole family...wife, husband, and three children. I quickly ran into the bedroom to put on some appropriate clothing. I was so embarrassed!! After I correctly clothed myself, I put a diaper on my little naked man and continued on with the visit. S even apologized for me, since my arabic is not sufficient enough to do so.

We were so unprepared for this visit. You must, also, serve your visitor tea and people here like their tea sweet. Unfortunately, we were out of sugar, so I had to improvise with a little powdered sugar. I figured they would just think the white girl didn't know how to make it. Our laundry was out all over the furniture as well and luckily they had brought us some sweets, because we didn't have any to serve them which was also expected.

Oh well, I guess you live and learn. We will definitely be prepared from now on and I will make sure to throw on more clothes, and put a diaper on the little one before I answer the door!!