A Sphinx of a Time!

What happens when four fat frustrated females (wow that's like an alliterative hat-trick plus one) get together at lunch?

They belly dance.

Yes that’s what my colleagues and I did…to give our bellies (and ourselves) a change.
We’ve had our share of running, jogging, walking, cycling, ‘bringing-a-plate’, or simply eating in silence and boredom. We have had enough (I mean literally...what else explains our size and weight?). So we decided to do it the Egyptian way.

If you have given your belly a serious thought…there is no reason why you should smirk, laugh, scorn, or get shocked at belly dancing. It's real good exercise.

True, we were at least a Libyan Desert away from being sexy, seductive enchantresses…conjuring up romantic images of the Nile, the Sahara, the Sphinx, the Valley of Kings, oriental hookahs decked with precious stones, grand velvet-wrapped halls with riches, and intoxication being poured from a jeweled long-necked pot.

We were hippos…turned into kangaroos…by a magic wand.

When our trainer (our common friend actually… who is a database manager by profession and a belly dancer by passion) agreed to join us one day at lunch and show us some belly dancing moves, we jumped like a baby kangaroo excited by the sight of young green shoots.

And when she did turn up, and opened her bag full of dazzling costumes and headgears, crowns, swords, veils, masks, and other such exotic props….we jumped like an adult kangaroo excited by the sight of an eligible mate at mating season.

Shocked at the enthusiasm of her new students, she said ‘There is no jumping in belly dancing. Do you all get that?’
‘Yes, maam’, we chorused like school girls.
And what followed was a lunch hour never better spent.

Suppressing our giggles and breathing in to pull our bellies inwards… we must have been a Pharaoh’s nightmare. But we couldn’t care less.

We walked down the conference room as gracefully as if we were on a ramp…or a bride on her wedding aisle (it’s a different story that we pushed one another, sat down on the way, made hooting calls to those who continued walking seriously)…
We took a step, paused, crossed our leg to the other side, and took a side step (it’s a different story that we stamped one another, fell down, rolled with laughter, and laughed till we cried)…
We balanced heavy ornamental swords on our heads and walked again (it’s a different story that the swords fell off in 2 micro seconds)…
We did ‘snake-arms’ to melodious Egyptian tune (it’s a different story that our wobbly arms looked like overfed snakes from a comic strip)…
We made circles and drew the number 8 in the air with our hips (it’s a different story that ours must have been ‘8’ in an unknown language)…
We let our chiffon veils fly in the air, as we raised our eyebrows suggestively (it’s a different story that beneath those veils we wore sports shoes and sweatshirts)…

As one of our work laptops played traditional Egyptian tunes that could make the soul leap and yearn… the four fat frustrated females had a Sphinx of a time.