Egyptian grooming.

Culturally, there's nothing you can take for granted. From meal times to bed times, gestures and non-words ("uh" means "yes" here, biting your thumb at someone simply means that they're stingy, not that you're insinuating something unseemly about their mother), from feminine hygiene to shaving, everything is different than what you'd expect.

Take the razor, for instance. Ordinary. You couldn't find a more normal bathroom accessory, for men or women. For generations, the razor has been the veritable symbol of the everywoman feminist movement, suddenly marketed in pink when women's armpits and legs became public space (1920s-1950s) and, for most women, hairless. Now, while some women may opt for laser hair removal or waxing, they're the exception to the norm. What do American women do? They shave.

When I told my host family that I shaved my legs, they just about fell over. "Like a man??" they gaped, incredulously. Now, men here often go to the barber to be shaved with a straight razor, so I might have been conjuring up much more fearsome images in their mind.

But, needless to say, women here don't shave. They wax. Everything. Neck, hands, feet, everything. It's not wax, exactly—Egyptians make this sugar mixture that does the trick, called "Sweet"—which makes sense if you think about the ingredients, not if you think about the stinging pain that it brings.

It's roughly a once-a-month ritual for the family, which is about how long it takes for the hair to come back. Today is the 16 year old's first day of school, so Um Hani whipped up a batch of Sweet in honor of the occasion, and I participated in my first ever waxing fest.

It should also be mentioned that Egyptian standards for appropriate body hair are different. Ever since spotting my forearms—which are perfectly fine by American standards, thank you—my Egyptian family has been dying to wax them. "Man! Man!" they say, pointing at the blondish hair on my arms.

So, yesterday I submitted myself to the Sweet, only as far as my arms were concerned. I now feel Dolphin-esque and aerodynamic—awesome. The family was pumped. "See? Now you are white and smooth." At the time, my skin was blotchy red and covered in bits of honey-wax, so I couldn't quite appreciate.