Nothing like Northern Hospitality!!

Living here is teaching me so much! Muslim women believe one way to ensure their welcome into Heaven is by being hospitable!! They really do an amazing job......so you can imagine the pressure I feel when we invite friends over. When they leave I feel like I have run a Marathon...( or should I say done an exercises DVD because I really know what that feels like. ) Before I go on let me mention something very important:
- If an Arab invites you to their home, they really mean they want you to come to their house. Excuse this next comment if you are the rare American who invites and really wants to always have people you barely know in your home.
-You know how we are, we always say "if you are ever in the area please,please come to my house." Of course what we mean is" if you are in the area CALL ME....and if I have time we will go out to eat or something. " Well in our experience here in North Africa (as well as with our Muslim friends in the States) They really mean it and if they live more than 1/2 hour from you don't be surprised if you are expected to spend the night!! Whatever time you go expect to stay looooong time!! You will most likely be shown every picture they have. (And if they have a video of their wedding you will see that too!)
In our time here we have invited lots of our friends to our house......in this time I have learned a lot! How did I learn by inviting our friends to our house ???? Well, the first few times one of my friends was "invited" to our house she came in, went in the kitchen......and TOOK OVER!!!! At first this got me a little upset. I was thinking okay, this is my house, my kitchen, my food,etc. Then I realized if I just accepted all the criticism I could really learn a lot. She means well when she tells me "......you don't know how to do anything right!!!!" :) I will admit they don't just pop anything into the oven directly from the freezer and eat it 20 minutes later, so I give them credit for that.
Every mother assumes the responsibility our teaching her daughters how to become good women. They are taught from the time they are little that is pleases God for them to be good housekeepers. The greatest compliment you can receive is, "you are a real woman." It is also an embarrassment to the woman of the family if her family eats out a lot. One embarrassing thing happened to me when we first got here; I was walking in the door to our apt. and my new friend (we had only been here a few weeks) stopped me and said, "Do you ever cook?I saw you just yesterday with a rotisserie chicken from the store. For us that is a hshuma(a shameful thing.)" Again this friend meant her comment for good. I explained to her that I really like to cook but we didn't have our kitchen set up yet. She nodded and later that day she rang our doorbell and handed us a huge plateful of food for our whole family! Later that week was when our daughter got sick. As soon as she knew we were at the hospital my friend walked in the rain to bring us food and see how we were doing. It is a real challenge for me to think of things I can do to repay my super hospitable friends and neighbors. Sadly, our hospitality is similar but our motives are completely different. While I my mind I do for others to show God's love for them, in their minds in a way they do for others to gain God's love for themselves.