The truth comes out

Back in Cairo and the smell of smog hit you again as soon as you get out of the bus by the time we arrived back to Cairo it was dinner time. We checked back into hotel Indiana and then went straight out to dinner. Tonight would be the last night the group would be together our tour ended tonight some people were leaving after dinner and some the next day. Mel and I still had 2 more nights before we were due to depart Egypt. I did not want that time to come.

We all packed into 2 taxis to go to dinner 5 people were squished in the back of our taxi and I was sitting on Marwuans lap in the front seat, my neck and shoulders slouched over so I could fit in the car. The taxi driver was not fussed that his taxi was filled to the brim in Egypt there is no law for the amount of people you can have in your car as long as the driver can see where he is going. You also don't need to worry about a seat belt unless you are the driver of the car but never have I seen a driver wearing one.

20 minutes later we arrive at our restaurant Deals we had to walk through a dark hallway to a bar/restaurant that has no windows and is dimly lit cigarette smoke is lingering in the air. There are a lot of mirrors on the walls and a few LCD televisions playing music videos.  We sit on stools at a tall table and order our food and drinks. I was happy to see that they had imported alcohol it was very hard to find imported alcohol in Egypt, only 5 star hotels and fine establishments served it and at expensive prices compared to the local stuff. But well worth it when you found it because the Egyptian alcohol even though cheap always gave you the worst headache.

After dinner we went around the table said a few words about each other. It was a good positive way to end the tour. Marwuan and I got teased a lot about our holiday romance but it was all in good fun. After a few more drinks everyone went back to hotel to get ready to leave to their next destinations. Marwuan and I stayed behind at Deals we had nothing planned for the next morning. Mel was really tired so she went back to hotel with the group Marwuan and I said our goodbyes it would be the last time we would see a lot of them ever again.

When everyone left we moved from the tall table and took a seat of one of the smaller tables in the corner. I sat close to Marwuan he had his hand on my thigh. "I can't believe the tour is over" I said "It went by so quickly especially the last week in Dahab". Marwuan nodded I knew then he was thinking the same as me, with the tour being over that meant that we were closer to saying goodbye.  "How would you feel about meeting my family tomorrow?" Marwuan blurted out; surprised by this question I laughed "You're joking right?"

He was not joking he was serious I stopped laughing. He told me that he been thinking about it the whole time we were travelling back to Cairo he said that if I accepted he would call his mum in the morning and ask her if she would be home tomorrow afternoon and if she would cook us lunch. "Umm I will have to check with Mel we planned to spend some time exploring more of Cairo before we went back home."  

"Ok she is more than welcome to join us if she would like" I nodded and said I would ask her when I got back to hotel and get back to him. This was a big thing I knew that in Middle Eastern culture you did not just take any girl home to meet your parents unless you were serious about the relationship.  

  "When you speak to your family about meeting me what will tell them?" I asked this question hoping that it would give me more information about what was going on in his head but he turned it back onto me. "What do you want me to tell my parents?"  I took the safe road and said that you could always introduce me as your friend. "Yep I could do that" he said "but I have never taken home a female friend home before so I think they will figure out that it is something more". Just what I had thought. It was now time to talk about the future we had put it off for the last week but it had come that time where we needed to discuss with each other about what would happen when I went home. I asked if we could go back to the hotel I did not really feel like talking about it in this dark bar I wanted to see his face and look into his eyes when we spoke about our future.

When we got back to the hotel I had to go to my room first. We could not be seen going into his room together by any of the hotel staff or Marwuan could get into serious trouble. In Egypt a man and a woman are not allowed to share a hotel room together unless they are married and you need to provide your marriage certificate when booking a room with a female. If you do not have a marriage certificate and get caught in a room with a female that is not your wife you can get charged by the police.

Back in my room Mel was still up watching TV again she was not feeling very well her stomach was playing up again. I told her that Marwuan had asked me to meet his family tomorrow and she was more than welcome to join but if she did not want to go I would not if she had plans for us to do more exploring of Cairo. Mel said that she doubted that she would be leaving the room at all tomorrow because she felt like the stomach bug was back. I asked her if she wanted me to stay with her tonight but she told me to leave and enjoy my time with Marwuan she would be asleep very shortly. I said ok but I will be back before she wakes up in the morning. I always came back to my room before she woke up in the mornings I liked to be there to spend some alone time with her when she woke up.

I ran through the hotel hallways and up the stairs to Marwuan's room checking in every direction if any hotel staffs was paying attention to where I was going but they were too busy talking on their mobile phone to care too much what I was doing. I knocked on Marwuans door still looking in both directions, he opened in a towel he had just showered. "What a nice way to be greeted" I said with a smile and entered the room. No talking was going to happen now.

Lying in the bed after making love I told Marwuan that we needed to talk. He agreed that we had put it off for long enough. I told him that the feelings I had been feeling towards him were strong and some feelings that I had not felt in a very long time I felt excitement, happiness, enjoyment, jealousy, nervous and I was scared whenever I was around him I was falling in love with him. However I was unsure on how I could cope with a long distance relationship I am a person that needs to feel love and I need to feel like I am getting attention and I am unsure how he could do that when he is on the other side of the world. I also need to feel trust toward him and with the job that he does I know that new women will be introduced to him fortnightly. I'm not sure that it will work I won't have his touch or his smell to keep me going. All I will have is his voice; will that be enough to keep me interested?

He had the same concerns as me but also felt the same strong feelings towards me that he had never felt before. He said that he wanted to give the long distance relationship a go and if it didn't work that's what god had planned us. If we walked away now without even trying we knew we would both be thinking about it for the rest of our lives what if. So from that moment we made it official we were going to give this relationship a go we were going to do whatever it takes to make it work even if were on the other side of the world from each other.

After that conversation I felt relieved that we had spoken so openly and honest to each other I felt like I had got everything off my chest however I still felt very scared for the future I knew that it was not going to be a walk in the park I knew this was going to be one of the biggest challenges I had faced so far in life. Not only was it different countries between us it was also different cultures.