Social butterflies

One of the things we've really had to adjust to here is the pace of the day: mornings start off slow and late, and people generally don't eat lunch until midafternoon (1:00 p.m. is considered early; we ate at 2 today and the restaurant we were in didn't begin to fill up until 3). And when I say the mornings are slow, I mean it: there have been plenty of days where we've woken up before 6 due to jet lag, and yet somehow I can't seem to make it to a shower until 10:00 a.m. or [very often] later. So it's now 7:30 p.m. local time, and here's a recap of what's behind/ahead of us today:

We've already had lunch with Niazi cousins Alishba and Eman (see photo below; we also lingered over post-meal chai with them for a few hours and treated Nick to some childhood reminiscing). After the Niazis headed out, we then hosted my Dad's cousin, Ali Mahmmadi, his wife and four kids here at home. We're about to push off for dinner (at 8:30 p.m.!) with the Hameed family and will then find said Niazi cousins again to hang out at Alishba's friend's house. So it's evening time and we've still got half a day's worth of activity to go. Good thing this culture is nap-happy.

Although our mornings are lazy, our afternoons and evenings are much fuller now than they were at the beginning of our trip. This is due in part to the fact that we're trying to cram a bunch of activities into our final days here, and also because most weddings are wrapped up by now and peoples' schedules are freer. Why are the weddings finished, you ask? Because December 29th marks the start of Muharram, and I've been led to believe that this gets kicked off with 10 straight days of mourning (no music, dancing, etc.). And yes, our reception falls on the first night of Muharram -- meaning, no chicken dance for us!