It's difficult, difficult, lemon difficult. Relationships that is.

That was our conclusion following an inspirational trip into the far south of Egypt, at one of the lowest points west of the Red Sea and near Halayeb Triangle, a disputed border area with Sudan.

The phrase itself that we begin the post with is a play on the British slang phrase "easy peasy lemon squeezy" meaning quick and easy and we borrowed the twisted version of it from the American-British movie In the Loop where it was uttered by a hapless character at a loss for words and the right action.

We believe it's the best description of how nonplussed we are at the state of relationships, dating and marriage traditions in Cairo or al-Qahera, the city that conquers, especially compared with those of the tribes we've met in the mountains and the town of Shalateen, and away from all the new age complexities we often endure here.

North and South

After meeting and talking with residents of Shalateen and Bedouins living in the heart of the mountains, we often conversed and exchanged impressions -- and it was striking how differently sometimes we perceived the same things. It was no different for the issue of marriage and relationships. Whether it was through young Shalateen guys, all in their twenties, or with our guide, a man in his fifties who was preparing to take a second wife, it was interesting to note how complicated the dating and the marriage process in Cairo is, compared to the mountains.

Despite the main limitation of not marrying outside the tribe, it was easy to choose a partner in the mountains. It was also cheap; both men and women are less demanding. If they can't afford a house, a tent will do. And a camel worth LE3,000 is all what the groom has to pay. Simple, isn't it?

Well, at least on the surface it is. Talking with the young men, they sounded curious about dating, something that their culture strips them off. And at first, one of us suggested they might have felt entrapped, as the other suggested she might be projecting her own feelings into this. Because in the end, their questions about women and dating, how it feels like to go out with a girl before choosing her for marriage and how to get the attention of girls on the street (without offending them) all came with a sense humor and were mixed with laughs. Unlike many among us, the "marriage" conversation does not cause stress or make the men run in the other direction. Then again, they're not crumbling under the weight of the arduous process that choosing a partner and a marriage in the capital entails.

How we felt about all this

We both blogged about this and how we felt. "The Bedouins weren’t impressed by the complexities that dating, relationships, 'love' entitle for Cairiens despite all the apparent 'freedom' we have," wrote one of us on her blog. "We, or at least I wasn’t happy with the sense of helplessness they seemed to have in choosing who to spend the rest of their lives with. They seemed to compensate for that by having the ability to marry more than one. It’s very easy (and in upcoming installments of the Shalateen travel package, we write elaborately on marriage and divorce in the tribe)."

"But it didn’t seem that our part of the deal had that appeal. Divorce and re-marriage is a big deal here, and for girls it’s still a small catastrophe to be divorced 'or ditched' by the man across classes. It’s still a big deal if you choose out of the 'mainstream,' like choosing someone of a noticeably different social background, from outside of the capital or as a woman choosing to marry someone several years her junior or as a man marrying a woman a few decades younger.

In another blog post, one of us not only wrote of his own thoughts on southern marriages, including how it's easy to find a partner and how money is not an issue, but also challenged stereotypes Cairo residents might have of the choices of men and women there with regards to marriage, and of their status in this small society.

"If you ask me it seems like the men have a tough time there. People think the women are oppressed because they are forced into marriage, are not the first wife (while he is still marrying others), not allowed to go out of the house, etc ... The fact of the matter is they are not complaining," read the blog.

In fact "women in the mountains get very good treatment. One of the lads by the beach asked us a question, 'Is it true what I heard that sometimes men in Cairo, insult and even hit their wives?' Another one answered with extreme conviction before I could even speak 'No, no. There is no way it can reach hitting the women' and this answer came with a cringe of the face, this cringe you have when you think of something so disgusting. And women in Cairo do get insulted, and do get beaten. Sure not all of them (that would be a bit crazy) but it happens, and it probably happens more than you think, because people will not go around saying their stories of hitting/being hit. So who is really oppressed?"

Click on the embedded hyper-links for the full blog posts. You can also read more about our 1000-kilometers road-trip the south in Al-Masry Al-Youm's travel section or click on the banner titled "Shalateen and Back Again" on the homepage of the English section for the latest installment of this travel series.