What time is dinner?

In class this last week, I was talking about Eva (as I often do).  For some reason, I was talking about what time we feed her dinner.  I said something along the lines of, "so when it comes to around 5 o'clock, she starts getting fussy and we feed her dinner."  At this point, the kids almost fell out of their seats.  A mixture of hilarity, shock and wonder filled their faces.  One kid said, "What time do you feed her lunch - 12 O'CLOCK!?!?"  He then proceeded to laugh as if he'd told the funniest joke in the world. 

The thing is, everyone else laughed because they DID think it was the funniest joke in the world!

Here, the daily schedule is a little bit different.  People often work from about 7am till 2 or 3 in the afternoon.  At this point, people leave work or school to go home and eat lunch.  In fact, there is no prescribed "lunch break" at Al Raja.  There's just a 15 minute break at about noon.  If anything, kids will eat a snack.  But full on lunch isn't until 2 or 3.  Then comes the nap time. 

So when is dinner?  I asked my class and they said no earlier than 9pm.  Sometimes as late as 10.  So you can understand their surprise.  This actually works out quite well for us because that means that if we go out to eat, restaurants quite dead till at least 8.   So we always get fantastic service - we're often the only one's like that? 

So why do they eat lunch and dinner so late?  Well - I might ask you why I eat so early.  But I do have a hypothesis.  Air conditioning is the savior of life in the Gulf, but before that, it is just too darn hot in the afternoon to do anything.  So what else is there to do besides take a nap?  When it gets dark and a little cooler, people would often return to work an return home for dinner late in the evening.  The pattern has stayed even with the advent of air conditioners.  Its not so much different from our system of summer breaks. I wouldn't give it up, but it comes because families needed kids during the farming season.  That purpose is outdated, but the tradition is still there (thankfully!) 

It was kind of fun to see the shock and horror on their faces when they learned this fact about me.  I'm sure there'll be more stories as the year goes on!