International Night

We had International Night tonight here on post. All of the foreign students put together presentations on their respective countries, and that included some native foods. Jordan was the first country display we stopped at. They had a very nice presentation; it included a lot of native sweets, dates, pistachio pastries, sesame cookies and rosemary tea.

We stopped by the tables set up for Egypt, Tunisia, Chili, Africa, Romania, Canada, Oman, Saudi and Hungary. We missed the tables from Korea, Japan, Germany and Pakistan. Sigh. Not enough time!

We had a most interesting discussion with the Bahraini students; theirs is a relatively new kingdom. Until just a few years ago they were just a state. The young captain also got us laughing when he told us about why some men take multiple wives. He said that there must be a legitimate reason for doing so; as in the first wive was not able to conceive a son, etc. I'm thinking that is not so much a reason as an excuse. Of course, he said, there are those that abuse the system. Ha ha!

It was also interesting moving from the Middle Eastern countries where any drink offered was likely to be a good strong tea or coffee to the European countries where various and sundry alcoholic beverages were proffered. Hungary gave us a good strong plum brandy, woo hoo! It was very much like the Tshlivovitz from Yugoslavia that my relatives are known for . . . served warm with a plum in a shot glass. And of course our neighbor from Canada had a great assortment of beers, eh!

The best thing about International Night is meeting the students and listening to them tell us personally about their own countries. It makes you want to visit each of these countries. A bonus for me this evening was learning how to burn the frankincense Ward brought home! We've had that stuff for five years and I never new what the heck to do with it . . . tonight the mystery was solved!