April 1, 2003 — Mudeif Productions

The Presbyterians are having a security confab in Louisville tomorrow afternoon. We've put in our request to return, hoping it'll turn out for the best. We've been staying in touch via ZNN (Zababdeh News Network - the text messaging back and forth), which lets us know life is "normal" with an additional light dusting of snow (first time in a decade for that!). Meanwhile, today we and our friends from Cairo have gone back up to the village of Apshia to visit with our friends from the Middle East Council of Churches. She has promised to teach us how to decorate Ukrainian Easter eggs. We have seen these eggs before, the delicate, intricate designs seemingly impossibly painted on the thin shell of an empty egg. Never did it occur to any of us that such amazing and delicate things could be made by normal people like ourselves. She has dozens of them (gorgeous chicken, goose, turkey, and even ostrich specimens) and is ready to share her wisdom.

*Learning this delicate art from an experienced hand!*

Marthame worked on the computer while Elizabeth and the other Presbyterians donned their aprons and took their seats around the kitchen counter. We all first followed the same design, a colorful geometrical pattern on a black background. Our host had eggs already blown and dried for us, so we simply began by drawing light pencil marks on our eggs, and going over them with hot wax, manipulated in something called a kiska, which is like a teeny tiny metal funnel. This little funnel we heated over candle flame and pressed into a cake of beeswax. The wax melts and pours into the funnel. Then it's a matter of delicately drawing lines on the egg following the pencil marks, without any blobbing, shaking, or dropping. That's only for the parts we wanted to remain white. Then the egg is dyed in a color (yellow I think), taken out, dried, and more lines are applied in wax (for those parts to remain yellow), and the egg immersed in another color. The process continues until the pattern is complete, and in this case, the egg is fully dyed black (except for the protected waxy bits, of course). After the final dye job has fully dried comes the most fun part, when you hold the egg next to the candle flame and melt off the wax. It's so neat to see the colors melt into view. Then the egg is subjected to various chemical baths for its own good (dry-cleaning fluid to clean it and oil-based varnish to seal and protect). We were all so enthusiastic that as the first eggs were drying we all tried our hands at another one, some more freestyle than others. Elizabeth, who was never one inclined to follow recipes, knitting patterns, or crosstiches to the letter (often with, eh, interesting results) had a ball - what with all that wax and dye. [Mom, I guess the cat's out of the bag for your birthday present...]

Then we all enjoyed dinner together at one of Limassol's restaurants that promised Mexican food. Cypriot-facsimiles of Mexican food are not the real McCoy (broccoli and green bean burritos?), but were delicious anyway.