Balcony life

It’s early March and every now and then a midday breeze drifts across the balcony. My first coffee of the day is disappearing quickly down my throat, sipped from one of the new glass mugs I bought yesterday from El Tawhid wa el Nour (the Egyptian equivalent of Target or K-Mart; not a fancy people place, but we love it).

You can hear a microcosm of life from Egyptian balconies, especially if they’re on the lower floors of the building. The voices of children playing. Radio music wafting past somewhat statically, with Abdel Halim and Fayza Ahmed interspersed with Wust El Balad and Mohamed Fouad, depending in which direction you turn your ears. The bikya man buying unwanted household items, the aysh man selling bread, the ghazl el banat man selling fairy floss, men and women selling vegetables on the corner.

Sitting here, it’s easy to imagine that things have changed for the better, that the people are happy, that the forces in power are bettering the country day by day, minute by minute, propelled by a deep love of their country and their people. And then reality returns and the picture is not what it should be two years after the revolution. The hope that was here even a year ago is almost gone, if there is any left at all, and the little that is left hangs by a thread. Many who were struggling for change just want to leave; to get on with their lives in a place where they count for something, where their daily struggles and daily contributions count for something. But who can leave, and who should have to?

The call to prayer cuts through the air, a constant reminder of the presence of something greater than yourself in this country that seems to have been abandoned by God. I keep trying to reassure myself that, as it says in the Qur’an, ‘Everything is written’ and there is some kind of beautiful plan in store for Egypt that will in due course come to fruition; that the fabric of this country will be woven into what it should be by the people, who deserve to have their vision for it materialized.

I wonder how those of my parents’ and grandparents’ generations feel. The ones who knew Egypt when she was free—or at least free by comparison to what she is now. When cosmopolitan was the norm and every day held a little romance, a little poetry. When she was Om el Donya personified. And I can’t imagine the sadness they must feel, knowing what once was and seeing what now is. Knowing what has been lost and wondering if it will ever be found.

Sitting on the balcony, it is not difficult to imagine. And if it can be imagined, it can happen, isn’t that what they say?