Getting to Know You

Occasionally on The Friday Zone we’ll meet a family who has come to Indiana from another country. They’ll tell us about their daily life, share some of their family traditions, and describe what life was like where they used to live. Let’s celebrate the diversity of our community in The Family Zone!

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Meet a Family From Egypt

The Elsarrag family includes Maher, Zakiya, Mennah (age 13), and Maha (age 10) and they live in Bloomington. Maher and Zakiya used to live in Egypt before moving to the United States and settling in Bloomington, where their daughters were born. Egypt borders the Mediterranean Sea and is next to Libya.

To share their Egyptian culture with us, they brought in many treasured items such as beautiful Egyptian drawings on papyrus (which is a plant and where we get the word “paper”) and they also brought a picture of the alphabet in hieroglyphics (the picture writing of ancient Egyptians).

Mennah and Maha brought in photographs from their most recent visit to Egypt. The photos showed Mennah and Maha riding donkeys, visiting the famous pyramids and the Sphinx, and standing in front of the Nile River.

Maher and Zakiya told us about the traditions they still practice here in the United States such as celebrating the holiday of Ramadan and speaking the Arabic language.

They also taught us how to say “The Friday Zone” and “goodbye” in Arabic. What a beautiful language!