Egypt is a journey

“I can’t imagine why anyone would be sad to leave Egypt these days,” someone said to me.

Well, I'll tell you why. It’s sad because Egypt is a journey, not a destination. It’s a place that reveals itself slowly over a long, long time. It is found in the details, in the minutiae of everyday life, hanging in the air waiting to be walked through so it can seep slowly through your skin and into your heart.

It’s in the calloused hands of the butcher as he prepares your meat. It’s in the rising fury of an argument that reaches a swift crescendo before evaporating into nothing. It’s in the smoke wafting around the dora mashwy carts. It’s in the boys who walk with their arms draped around each other and the girls who link arms with their friends.

It’s in the voices of the people, who all talk at once and over the top of each other and yet still manage to generate a sequential conversation out of the jumble of words. It’s in the play of the bawab’s children who can invent really good games on the spot (or so I’m told by my kids).

It's in the scent of the stifling, polluted air that hits you in the face when you step beyond the glass enclosure of the airport.

It’s in the dust that settles in your skin and hair and in the dirt under your fingernails. It’s in the tone of voice of the taxi drivers when they talk about their love for their country, even when she’s at her most unlovable.

It’s in the constant little frustrations when you’re there and the longing for it when you’re somewhere else.

Egypt is like a sweet, fleshy pomegranate that you have to tear open with your bare hands. It's an intertwining mess of tart, white, unsavoury pith and glistening scarlet juice pods that burst with sweetness if you have the nerve to take a bite—the sweetness that you'll miss out on if you worry about getting the juice on your clean shirt.

Collecting treasures in Cairo

The other day, the boys and I were going for a long walk, just for the fun of it, which is something of an anomaly in Cairo. At least that's how it started out.  And then, shortly after we started, they decided it was also going to be a treasure collecting expedition.

Being still of the age where certain scraps of discarded paraphernalia are considered things of great consequence, they decided to amass as many bottle tops as they could. Every few steps they spied another one, and the challenge was on to find one they didn’t already have. The most valuable were those they had to get down on their hands and knees to dig out with a stick, followed closely by the ones covered in rust, which were considered antique and therefore priceless. After two blocks their pockets were full and we had to stop at a kiosk to get a couple of plastic bags to hold the loot.

When we finally got home a couple of hours later, we had a bucketful of bottle tops, which we soaked in detergent and dried off. The second leg of entertainment then followed by lining them up according to colour and brand. Four hours of merriment and not a penny spent.

This is the Cairo equivalent of collecting seashells. My 7-year-old told me it was the second best day of his life, succeeded only by the day he went to Jambaroo, a local water park in Australia.  

Egypt, the land where small joys can be found in the dust.

Egypt is the place...

People constantly ask me, “…but why do you love Egypt so much?” And it’s a question I’ve always had trouble answering, because I never really knew why. It was not something to be put into words; it was a feeling. But over time, the reasons have crystallized in my mind and I will tell you exactly why I love it.

There are a million little reasons, a million little moments, and the sum of their parts make up the whole. 

I love it because of the sense of community that is ever-present in a country of 90+ million people where, even when I didn’t know a soul, I felt as though I belonged. Because if my car breaks down there will be a handful of people pushing it to give it a clutch start without even having to be asked. Because the fruit seller tore open a pomegranate with his hands to show me how to eat it. Because the young guy in the kiosk offered my son his hawawshi sandwich when he randomly commented how much he loves hawawshi. Because the parents in the park invited my boys to play ball with their children and then insisted that they keep the ball at the end of the game. Because my boys now know what it means when someone has a white heart. Because when I told the waiter in a café that I need my coffee really strong and really hot, he tapped under each eye to say, “Min einaya”. 

Because when my children give someone with nothing a couple of pounds they receive heartfelt blessings for God’s protection. Because being a mother is not only enough, it is revered. Because every time I speak to anyone they wish me peace. Because every time I talk to someone on the phone they ask if I need anything. Because when I order shay bilaban in a coffee shop they heat the milk for me. Because when I speak Arabic with an accent the taxi driver asks if I’m Lebanese. Because here I learnt that sometimes bad things happen to prevent something worse from happening. Because I left a jacket I loved in a taxi and was told that it happened because somebody else really needed that jacket much more than I did. Because my boys have learnt that the bawab’s kids are often kinder and more polite than the kids who have everything. Because here I finally worked out how to reconcile the concepts of fate and freewill. Because the little things can mean everything. Because being in Egypt makes me see life in its proper perspective. 

Because Egypt is the place where I feel more like myself than anywhere else.

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?