Part 43: dholl and yellow rice...

Friday evening with Ayesha was such a laugh! She had tons of tales about her new SiL that had us all in stitches!

Nothing brings guji women together quiet like gibbaat of other guji women...so while Ayesha had enough stories for many a novels...she also had a very attentive audience made up of MiL, Sumaya, Shireen and I.

Ayesha's youngest BiL had just married a month ago and his new bride had brought her own drama to the household.
Ayesha gleefully told us about the day her MiL had to rewash Every.Single.Thing in the kitchen...Everything!

"Everything!", exclaimed Shireen, " Why on earth!"

" Ay that Gori Bhen has a problem! She likes to wash dishes too much! How she washed everything that time we came for supper..Areh areh...then she put clean clean dishes in the dishwasher! Jaa-Jaa!", My MiL said.

Sumaya was nodding in agreement, while shireen and I looked at each other shocked!

"Wait...wait...it gets better!", Ayesha said,  trying to hold her laughter.

"when Suleman and Rizwaana came back from honeymoon, after supper we never let her help, nuwe dulhaan and everything...so as usual my MiL 'rinsed' all the supper dishes and loaded the dishwasher, she always puts it on after breakfast everyday.

Anyway, in the morning when I got the kitchen I set the table and made breakfast and lunch for Qasim and the boys.

After breakfast my MiL went to put the dirty 'rinshed' breakfast dishes in the washer but the dishwasher was empty!

Aye she was panicing!

Then Rizwaana told us she woke up early and emptied the dishwasher and packed all the clean dishes away!"

We all looked at Ayesha with our mouths hanging open as we put two and two together!

O.M.W!

Ayesha nodded laughing!

"Yup, she thoughed all the dirty dishes in there were already washed! That's how clean my MiL rinses them! So she packed it away...
My MiL almost fainted! She rewashed Every.Single.Thing in the kitchen...by HAND! Coz she didn't know where what went!", Ayesha ended in laughter...

Shoh...i almost felt sorry for her MiL, poor thing! And poor Rizwaana! She must have been mortified!

"wait wait! That's not all...have you ever eaten dholl and kitchri?", Ayesha asked us.

" eeew! No!", Sumaya said.

" Ayee...whats that?", Shireen asked.

" That's what I had for Jumuah lunch last Friday!", Ayesha said with a naughty smile.

" Jaa-Jaa!...ghandi waat!", MiL said, shaking her head at Ayesha.

"Last Friday my MiL told Rizwaana to cook, so Rizwaan decided to make dholl and rice, aloo fry, paapar, fried fish, sorji, salsa and she even went and broke mangos from the neighbours tree to make fresh methi pickle...", Ayesha explained.

"Sounds yummy!", I said.

" Yah, it was! She went through so much trouble...except she stressed herself out so much she put Urud(tumeric) in the rice!", Ayesha said in another fit of laughter.

" whaaaaat!!!", we all said together, laughing in disbelief!

"yup! She tried to rinse it out but it was too late and she couldn't  waste 4 cups of rice! Yes...she made enough yellow rice for 20 people!", Ayesha finished.

Shame, I was amused but I also felt sorry for this Rizwaana girl...being a new DiL is no easy thing...little boo-boos kinda freak you out.

For the rest of the evening Ayesha entertained us with all her stories...but the real gem of the day came from my MiL who said...

Drum roll please...

" at least my DiLs have ackaal (common sense)..."

Oh but she said it so off handedly we didn't even get a chance to bask in the glow of her backhanded compliment...

Part 42: babies and birth plans

Meeting Nasreen's little Baba on Friday was so lovely, he was tiny and too precious. Small eyes, little nose, a tiny rosebud mouth, wrinkled fingers...aww and the smell! That sweet sweet newborn smell, ahhh.

Imraan ofcorse didn't leave his Guji mentality in the car park, as soon he looked at baby Nabeel, he started with the "He looks just like...".

Nasreen wasn't hearing any of it, "My son looks just like himself, nobody else...dont project your speculation on to him."

...shew! I forget sometimes how blunt Nasreen can be.

Imraan wasn't phased though...he was use to it, his sister Ayesha was alot like Nasreen in that regard.

We had a lovely visit with Nasreen but once we got to the car Imraan asked me why we were the only visitors their...i had to explain to him that Nasreen only started telling people she had a baby now, and we were amongst the first few to know...he was beyond shocked!

She wanted her labour and delivery to be a private affair, her mum and MiL will only meet the baby this evening and they can start telling the rest of the family but Nasreen won't be accepting visitors for the next two weeks.

Imraan was having a hard time swallowing all this...

"What she going to do if people come to visit by her mums place?, there won't be nurses to keep them away!", Imraan said

" she's not going by her mum, she's going home, she has a doula who will come to show her how to bath her baby etc...her mum is considered a visitor too...", I explained

Imraan was blown away, " I get no visitors, kind off...but not even her mother!!!"

Lol, how do you explain to Imraan, Nasreen's crazy philosophies'...

" She wants her post delivery period to be about their new little family, just her, Muhammad and baby. she doesn't want disruptions, inconvenience and irritation...she says that it would be a nightmare dealing with visitors when you should be bonding with the baby..." I tried to explain.

"she also doesn't want her mum or MiL because they will want to help by taking over the baby, she doesn't need that, she needs help running errands and doing house work. the baby must be her only job...something about other peoples scents and perfumes interfering with establishing breastfeeding."

I could see Imraan being completely lost...

" All I remember is that when Ayesha had her baby she came to stay for over a month, I was in matric and the house was crazy!", Imraan said

" There was alot of people around and my mother was so busy seeing to Ayesha, plus the baby, plus the visitors...Mummy really got tired."

" Ayesha's son use to cry so much, all the time...he was always hungry I think."

" Thank goodness when she had the second fellow, I was staying on campus! Maybe Nasreen has a point!", Imraan said with a laugh.

I suddenly started thinking about what kind off boundaries I want to set for when I have my babies...

That made me realize I really needed to think about it, it was going to be a logistical nightmare!

I will be living in PMB by then, our hospital was in Durban. If I wanted to do traditional Huwawar Il have to go to Sheppy, traveling for an hour with two small newborns?...shew!

Imraan must have read my mind..." don't worry, lets move first then we can make a birth plan"

I burst out laughing...a birth plan is for the labour I told him!

He smiled, " Lucky you booked us in for those prenatal classes, then"

I decided he was right, Il wait for the classes and then make informed decisions that would suit our needs.

When we got home, a familiar car was parked in the driveway...one we hadn't seen in awhile but!

" Ayesha's here!", Imraan said excitedly.

Imraan's sister barely visits nowdays, which is too bad, she such a riot! I couldn't wait to hear all her funny stories'...

The weekend looked very interesting....and it was!