I was just rereading some old notes and stories from the time I spent in Egypt. Most of what I have on the topic, the trip, the experience was written only once I got back to Rome, not in Cairo. I think I was too enchanted and having too much fun while I was in Egypt to bother writing anything. (Like I always say, you're either living life or you're recording it, you can't do both at one time.) I was going to post something I had written immediately after my trip but everything I found was drippy and sentimental and overly romantic. You'd think I had taken a magic carpet ride alongside the Nile with an enigmatic poet/snake charmer with a deep dark soul named Moustafa the way I went on and on. I have a tendency to embellish, denying it would be useless. Actually I don't much care to deny it. Whenever I leave my history in the capable hands of my memory I know that my tales and their historical validity become suspect. So go on, suspect me. I hope it becomes a habit. It's a healthy one.
But even after all this time has passed and warped my memories (it's been almost 10 years now) I still have clear impressions of that city, the people I met and how wonderful it all was. And, certain things are historical fact: I did send my resume to every English speaking publication with offices in Cairo I could find (I was working as a journalist at the time). When I got back to Rome, I started belly dancing and Arabic classes, I left Cairo hoping and planning that it would be my next city of residence. I still have a pang of remorse that that plan fell by the wayside with some of my other poorly but enthusiastically concocted projects. Though I admit I've always had a weakness for Arabic culture, history and art, I was honestly smitten with Cairo, a city whose pyramids -sandwiched remarkably between the Sahara desert on one side and a Kentucky Fried Chicken on the city side- make the Colosseum in Rome look like a quaint, albeit dwarfish example of modern architecture. And the pyramids don't even begin to encapsulate all that Cairo has to offer: smells, sounds, atmosphere.. all of it oozing with millennia of palpable history and culture. Truly bewitching.
I have kept in contact with some of the people I met in Egypt during that trip and have become even closer friends with other Egyptians I met in New York subsequently. Egyptians are, in my experience, wonderful people and one Egyptian at least, who is no longer with us, was one of my all time favorite people, one of the very best people. I wonder what he would have said about what's been happening in his homeland, I think of my friend and his smile and the cloudy look he got on his beautiful good face when he was worried, as I fear he might be if he were still alive. I am worried about Egyptians. But I'm worried for the rest of us too.
I think it's common to wish someone who is in the process of changing his own destiny well but to harbor in the same breath the wish that his decisions in no way hurt or hinder ourselves. I always feel guilty when I fall prey to this kind of double-sided concern, as though my concern for my own interests somehow subverts or corrupts the sincerity of my genuine altruistic concern for others. So I want to come clean to my Egyptian friends: I am proud of what you're doing, it's about time, good for you, I wish you well AND I hope the next guy to take power isn't some crazy Koran-waving god-freak. The expressions on either side of that conjunction are uttered with equal sincerity and perhaps the only honest thing to do is to utter them in the very same breath, incongruous though they may appear. The best thing we, the onlookers, can do is just to spit it out. So there it is: I'm extremely honored to know your country and countrymen and best of luck from the bottom of my heart and please make sure, for all our sakes, to keep god out of politics.
Now, with that said, I hope that sonofabitch gets the hint and gets the hell out and leaves you to your country as soon as possible.
But even after all this time has passed and warped my memories (it's been almost 10 years now) I still have clear impressions of that city, the people I met and how wonderful it all was. And, certain things are historical fact: I did send my resume to every English speaking publication with offices in Cairo I could find (I was working as a journalist at the time). When I got back to Rome, I started belly dancing and Arabic classes, I left Cairo hoping and planning that it would be my next city of residence. I still have a pang of remorse that that plan fell by the wayside with some of my other poorly but enthusiastically concocted projects. Though I admit I've always had a weakness for Arabic culture, history and art, I was honestly smitten with Cairo, a city whose pyramids -sandwiched remarkably between the Sahara desert on one side and a Kentucky Fried Chicken on the city side- make the Colosseum in Rome look like a quaint, albeit dwarfish example of modern architecture. And the pyramids don't even begin to encapsulate all that Cairo has to offer: smells, sounds, atmosphere.. all of it oozing with millennia of palpable history and culture. Truly bewitching.
I have kept in contact with some of the people I met in Egypt during that trip and have become even closer friends with other Egyptians I met in New York subsequently. Egyptians are, in my experience, wonderful people and one Egyptian at least, who is no longer with us, was one of my all time favorite people, one of the very best people. I wonder what he would have said about what's been happening in his homeland, I think of my friend and his smile and the cloudy look he got on his beautiful good face when he was worried, as I fear he might be if he were still alive. I am worried about Egyptians. But I'm worried for the rest of us too.
I think it's common to wish someone who is in the process of changing his own destiny well but to harbor in the same breath the wish that his decisions in no way hurt or hinder ourselves. I always feel guilty when I fall prey to this kind of double-sided concern, as though my concern for my own interests somehow subverts or corrupts the sincerity of my genuine altruistic concern for others. So I want to come clean to my Egyptian friends: I am proud of what you're doing, it's about time, good for you, I wish you well AND I hope the next guy to take power isn't some crazy Koran-waving god-freak. The expressions on either side of that conjunction are uttered with equal sincerity and perhaps the only honest thing to do is to utter them in the very same breath, incongruous though they may appear. The best thing we, the onlookers, can do is just to spit it out. So there it is: I'm extremely honored to know your country and countrymen and best of luck from the bottom of my heart and please make sure, for all our sakes, to keep god out of politics.
Now, with that said, I hope that sonofabitch gets the hint and gets the hell out and leaves you to your country as soon as possible.
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