What do I want to be when I grow up?

On weekdays I typically wake up with the sunrise. Most days the first thought is: damn those folks at the mosque next door, they have no clue what it means to love one's neighbor and microphones must be banned at mosques. My second thought is: today is...there are X number of days to go before the weekend.

Don't get me wrong, as many people tend to do, I don't hate my work. I just don't like it much. The only thing that motivates me to get out of bed is the paycheck at the end of the month, and the fact that I have to do "something." I've been chastised before for saying this, told by my mother: "You're ungrateful, you should thank God you have a job and can work," or by my friends, "You should quit and do what you like to do, this is bullshit," or by other friends, "Stop complaining, and try to enjoy what you have, or do what you enjoy in your spare time." So, I feel something is seriously wrong with me when I realize that I neither know what I really want to do, nor like what I'm doing now.

But recently a few things have been dropping in my path that I can call "signs." The first was a presentation I attended where the first Egyptian guy to summit Mt. Everest spoke. He said two things that rang a bell with me. The first is, that he quit his job in investment banking and travelled for a year (lucky dude obviously could afford it) and that he was trying to figure out how to make the thing he loved into his career, and finally found out the right formula for himself. The second thing that came across my path was a speech by Steve Jobs at a graduation ceremony at Stanford a few years ago. That brilliant man said something that hit home: you have to do what you love and even if it takes years to find out what it is, you shouldn't give up. Only if you do what you love will you succeed. Thank you Mr Jobs. At least now I know I'm not strange and it's normal to take time to figure out what you want to do with your life. Some people are lucky and find out early on, but some people, like me, sort of know what they love, but don't know how to make a living out of it.

I wanted to be a writer when I was 8. I remember very clearly how it started: one day I wrote a crazy little story for 3rd Grade English called, "No More Ice Cream," about a kid who gets his wish to have a limitless amount of ice cream only to get so bloated and sick and realize there could be too much of a good thing. I had a blast writing it. My teacher loved it and read it to the whole class. I proudly brought it home and my father read it to everybody: his friends at work, my uncles, anybody who was willing to sit for a few minutes to hear it.

I love writing; about people, about myself, about the things I feel passionately about. But the options to make a living out of writing seemed terribly unsatisfactory. Journalism? Wars, dead people, disease, and all sorts of ugly things, not to mention very little imagination. Business journalism? Sort of like pulling teeth out without anesthetic. PR? Another word for "bullshit." Novel writing? Don't know if I can do it, but might try. So now what? That's what I'm still trying to figure out. But at least I know I'm not the only one with this problem, and it's ok to continue discovering, to still try to figure out who I am. Maybe I don't want to be a writer after all... I still need to find out, and it's ok not to know.

Would it be very weird if I move to the middle of the desert?

Whenever I go on a trip somewhere in Egypt outside Cairo, I'm amazed at how beautiful Egypt is. The minute I move beyond Cairo's outskirts, the air is clean, there is peace and quiet and even the people are much nicer. And I can't help wondering why on earth are we all crowding each other in this ugly city and making ourselves miserable!

I'm not being biased when I say that Egypt's natural environment is truly exceptional. There's a bit of everything. Desert, oasis, mountains, woods, valleys, seas, lakes and rivers. Add to that the mild weather and abundant natural and historical sites, and you get a combination that is amazing.

Almost throughout my last trip to the Dakhla Oasis, which is 1000 kilometers away from Cairo, I kept wondering what the hell are we all doing in Cairo. Even though part of me knows that services are not very well-developed in this part of Egypt, it didn't hit home until we were on the way back. We stopped for refuelling and lunch at Bahariya, half-way along the road. There we dropped off all the other people (we were 12 people in all) and the three drivers went looking for gasoline. After stopping by three gas stations and being told there was no gas, finally one of us found a gas station with fuel in it. And there I got my answer. A queue of 20 cars, all waiting for a chance to refuel. We were there for almost two hours. And this is just gasoline, I guess the same applies to medical services, education, and all kinds of other things.

I didn't get the chance to ask the people of the Oases whether or not they were happy about the tourists and the features of modern life that have reached even the remote areas of the desert. But once, when we were taking a tour of an abandoned town called "Kasr" (it was abandoned in the 70s), I asked the man who was showing us around, "Was life better then or now?" He replied, "Of course it was better then. Now we have electricity, running water and bigger homes, but we're no longer healthy. We don't care for each other like we used to; money is the priority, not happiness. And now we have all sorts of diseases we never had in the past." He showed us to a narrow street of the abandoned town, and said, "This is where we used to gather on the first day of Eid. Each person would bring a basket of food and we would share it together and with any visitors from other places," he went on, "We don't do that anymore. Every family celebrates Eid at home, nobody meets up, we don't visit each other or gather anymore."

A New View of Egypt

The group I was travelling with was very interesting and I discovered that they love to take road trips all over Egypt and have been to some very strange and unique places. What was even more astonishing is that they always take their kids, and the kids love it. They don't care for playstations or computer games, and they run up every hill on the road for the sheer fun of climbing. I think I enjoyed the kids' company even more than the parents.

The other interesting thing is that it was a group that is predominantly Coptic. Not the rich, international school types that I've known most of my life, but middle-class Egyptian Copts. I was surprised by some of the views they shared. For the first time, one of my biggest fears was spoken out loud: that the Muslim Brotherhood would take over the country and make our lives miserable. Apparently, many Copts are leaving Egypt because they're really worried. But at the same time, if all the Copts do leave Egypt, what little balance we have in Egyptian society will be lost. And then the Fundi freaks (as I like to refer to the Brotherhood) will screw us all, royally!

It's very sad. I love Egypt and I want to stay here, but I wonder sometimes if one day I won't be able to enjoy life here anymore. It would break my heart to see this country blow up, to lose what liberties I have and be compelled to leave because life has become impossible. And I keep wondering, why do people continue to subscribe to this kind of hate and intolerance? It's painfully obvious how unhealthy, corrupt and ugly it is. And how can they actually believe that God wants them to hate other people and force them to obey their orders? Where did that come from? Why is it so hard to understand that it's much nicer to live together and love each other? Just like what the man of Kasr told us, it was much better when people shared things together and cared for one another. There was a community and everybody looked out for everybody else.

Sidewalk Songs

Half the time we don't even see them, the rest of the time, we just recoil with disgust. We think that they don't really have feelings, sometimes we project our own thoughts and feelings on them, most of the time we just expect that they're too high on drugs to feel anything, that they're too numb.

I know that whatever I do, I'll never really know how it feels to be a street person unless I too live on the streets. I won't do what George Orwell did, and actually go there. I'm not brave enough. Unless I lose all my money, my home and my family, understanding their life will not be easy.

On a small side street in downtown Cairo, we parked the van. Three young men and a young woman approached us. They looked anything between 17 and 35, their faces looked old and were so covered with dirt, I couldn't really tell if there are any wrinkles. Their eyes, though, looked particularly attractive. They had an intense look in them, and they sparkled and seemed a little bleary and sad. It was probably the glue they'd been sniffing or the pot they'd been smoking.

One of the men carried a tiny baby to the van and handed him to the doctor. "This baby is very sick, he's vomiting a lot," the woman said. I asked her, "Are you his mother?" She replied, pointing at a pile of rags on the sidewalk, "No, he belongs to my sister, Nada*, she's the one sleeping over there." That's when I noticed another young woman, who seemed thinner and prettier than this one, was sleeping deeply on the sidewalk amid all the rags.

The doctor pulled the curtains to conduct the examination in privacy, while I stood outside with the rest of the team, including my friend, the social worker, and the driver. The social worker was talking to Mohamed*, the first young man, who is in a relationship with the child's mother. Mohamed called Nada his "wife." They have another child, a two and a half year old girl, who is in reasonably good health. I was leaning on the van feeling kind of useless, when Ali*, one of the young men, looked at me and smiled. He then started singing softly, maintaining eye contact with me. His clear and expressive voice sang, "The mother gives birth and throws them away, and the father doesn't care...**" The song went on telling the lives of children on the street, how nobody understands their bitterness, how nobody seems to care how they feel. I noticed that everyone in the group was silent. People started gathering around, shopkeepers and residents in the buildings. Everyone stood there, listening to his mournful song and his beautiful, raw voice.

Mohamed came out of the van after the checkup and said, "I can sing too." He sat cross-legged in a building's doorway and started on a different song. He kept the rhythm with his hand, alternating between beating it once on his chest and clapping both hands twice. "You're just living your life oblivious to my suffering, I've been drinking this bitter drink for so long, you must to drink it too, To know how I feel, To know what I'm going through...**" was the refrain of his song. The tune wasn't as harsh as the words, it was soft, mellow and sad. The other young men and the woman sat down beside him in a half-circle and together they made the music to the song with their hands. They were in perfect harmony together, never missing a beat. I could feel their connection and closeness, I could tell they were one unit, one family. The song spoke about the life of each one of them, the experiences they share together. Mohamed finished this song and started another, equally heartrending song. There were now at least a dozen people standing around us, listening quietly. Nobody said anything, nobody moved. When they finished their song, we all clapped.

But to me it was terrible, despite the sweetness and softness of the songs and the music. I realized that they can only sing about sadness, bitterness, anger and pain. I don't think they can sing happy songs, or at least they wouldn't sound the same. They recited some poetry as well; cynical, angry poems about how society, the government, and the rich people don't care about anything but themselves. Yet I guess it's also hopeful. Maybe if you can sing and talk about what you're going through, maybe if you haven't lost the power to protest the unjust conditions you live in, maybe you've still got some hope, because you know this isn't how it's supposed to be, that this is too horrible for anyone and you don't deserve it. But the problem remains: is anyone listening?

* I changed the names, to preserve some privacy.
** I will publish the full words to the songs in another post.

In a Tidy Little Box

A guy I knew always used to say to me, "I can't understand you! You don't fit into any of the types of people I know, I can't place you in any category." Most of the time I used to find his comments amusing, but there were times when they made me downright angry. It used to infuriate me to realize that he just didn't get it: you can't put human beings in boxes and label them. At one point he got angry at me because I just didn't behave like most of the solid pieces of matter he's used to, the ones with the predictable behavior, and once even told me something that I find somewhat funny, "You're not the same person you were before." It kind of surprised me, for the simple reason that this is someone who only knew me for two years, and his basis of judging was a two-year friendship, which wasn't really that close according to my standards of closeness. He definitely just scratched the surface, and all he knew was really skin-deep, and he doesn't know who I am, where I came from, where I'm going, and all the demons I've had to fight along the way...

Sometimes I wonder if the problem is that I'm a woman. Men seem to be such simpletons when compared to women, especially in this part of the world. Where something requires 5% of effort for a guy, a woman has to put in five hundred times more effort, because she has to fight against all sorts of things in this society. We still live in Medieval times here, where women are expected to live according to the rules of the Middle Ages, and to have the intellectual capacity of a cow. Just establishing that you're independent and can think for yourself is a struggle. For me everything is a fight. I had to fight to stay in school, to go to the university I wanted, to work, to live independently, to think for myself, I even had to fight to wear whatever I want! And the fight continues, against family, friends, the security guard at my building, the assholes in the street who harrass me, guys who want to use me sexually, and I have to fight against the stigma of being single and living alone when I'm approaching thirty. Plus I have to fight for the same things men fight for: a good job, good pay, staying competitive on the job market and learning new skills, staying healthy, keeping my head above water during a financial crisis, maintaining my assets and making sure they'll all in good order, and following up on a 100 different things at work. Some days just waking up in the morning feels like lifting a mountain, and I don't even have kids yet! I can't imagine what it feels like to be responsible for a child as well.

I know I act like a total bitch sometimes, especially with men, because I'm sick and tired of being perceived as a silly thing that was created to cater to their needs. I'm not going to smile and be sweet and pretty all the time, just because it suits them, if I'm upset or angry I will show it and I will not put any extra stress on myself just to be nice to someone who only succeeds at annoying me. If you annoy me, I'll let you know, especially if you're male.

The problem with men, and maybe with many people in Egypt and this part of the world, is stereotyping, especially when it comes to women. Women are reduced to "types". You are either "good little girl" who is also a virgin till marriage and comes home by 9:00 pm, or a "slut" who sleeps around and is just a cheap thing. Or you fall into other categories like, "divorced woman" or "spinster" or "airhead" or any other such label. The sad part is that most women live up to these labels, and allow men to place them in tidy little boxes. But in reality, they're all just human beings struggling with millions of painful and difficult things. And the funny thing is that men don't offer any real support. They just offer their existence and that should be enough to carry you through all the practical problems of life. But do they really take on any burdens for your sake? Do they try to change their perception and that of other men? Hell no! They usually provide you with more burdens for you to carry all on your own, while they cheer you on!

A female friend of mine with two kids and a useless husband once told me a story I still laugh about till now. Her useless "part-time" husband who never paid the kids' school fees or helped with anything, once came over on Valentine's Day with a large box of chocolates and a bouquet of flowers, expecting to have sex with his wife who had spent the whole day from 8 am to 4 pm at work and then taking the kids to swimming practice, feeding them, buying their various needs, doing homework, till she got home at around 11 at night! The poor woman was an exhausted zombie, and this guy comes over all fresh and happy thinking he'll get some after not having seen either his wife or kids for several days or even weeks. She laughed when she saw the chocolate and said, "Why didn't you get a couple of kilograms of meat for the kids instead? It might've been more useful!"

I guess we still have a very long way till we get to the point where people will learn not to judge others, and not to label them according to superficial ideas and perceptions.

Oh, well. Just a few random thoughts...

Interesting Note

This was actually on a paper taped to the wall on the second floor of my building:

3azeezy 7aramy safee7at el zebala, al raga2 2e3adateha 2ela makaneha wi Ramadan kareem.

"Dear Garabge Can Thief,

Please bring it back and Ramadan kareem!"

Looking for That Missing Something

I remember the first time I saw her was at the bus stop, many years ago. She was trying to get on the bus. Her right hand was twisted at a strange angle and her right foot looked lifeless. The sight drew me out of myself, made me focus on something else other than my own petty problems. I thought of how difficult it must be for her to get on the bus everyday, and to cross roads and how she must feel self-conscious with everybody looking at her as she struggles along.

The years passed and I got a car and no longer took the bus. But a month ago, as I parked my car in front of work, I saw her again, standing in the street, hailing passing cars hoping someone would give her a ride. I stopped for a moment, and hesitated. The next day, there she was again, sitting on the sidewalk, looking lonely and abandoned. I walked up to her. "Hi, do you need a ride somewhere?"

She smiled, "No, darling, thank you. I'm waiting for a friend of mine who gives me daily rides."

I said, "Can I ask you a question?"

"Yes, of course."

"What's wrong? What happened to you? You see, my sister has something similar; a disease of the nerves called multiple sclerosis. Is that what you have?"

"No, it was a virus that attacked my brain and closed two arteries...I've been like this for a very long time, it's ok. This happened when I was still in college."

"If you ever need anything please tell me." We exchanged phone numbers and she called me a couple of hours later to thank me for my kindness. But I hadn't done anything, I just felt this painful knot inside me when I looked at her and could see that her life was so much harder. I learned that she's a pharmacist, and that she's 43 years old. This happened to her when she was only 21.

With the start of Ramadan I started giving her daily rides to the bus stop, because the buses no longer passed in front of her house and she couldn't walk and her friend started leaving the house an hour earlier. That's when I heard other bits and pieces of the story.

"I took my mother yesterday to a nursing home. She has a benign tumor in the brain and she can't move. What's worse is that she can't talk, I can't understand a thing she says to me," she told me one morning, "My father is dead and I have only one brother who lives in the US, so there's nobody else to take care of her."

On another morning: "Does your sister live with you or is she married?" she asked.

"She was married, but now she's divorced."

"Yeah, me too," she said, "Life without men is much better. All they bring is misery."

"Yeah, I know."

One evening we went out for fitar together. Me, her and my sister. My sister left us at one point to pray at a nearby mosque. While we were away she told me a little more about her marriage.

"When we were engaged he was a totally different person, then suddenly he changed 180 degrees once we got married... I had a baby, by the way, but she died..."

"Oh, no, how did that happen?"

"I was seven months' pregnant. My husband was travelling, and I had some pain and spotting. I went to the doctor and he told me to lie down and not move. The next day, I had the baby, at home. I was sitting on the toilet, when I felt this terrible pain. If I hadn't got up at that moment, she would have fallen into the toilet. Instead she fell to the floor. She was so tiny, and she made a small squeaking sound. My mother came running and she saw me standing there, the baby on the floor, the placenta and umbilical cord still partly inside me... She was terrified they wouldn't come out and I'd die, but I leaned on the bathroom sink which was cold and maybe that helped push them out. We went to the hospital where the doctor gave me anesthetic and did some sort of cleaning operation..."

"What happened to her?"

"They couldn't find a free incubator, and she stayed outside for more than two hours. By the time they got her in the incubator, it was too late. She died," she went on, "She was so tiny, and she had lovely black hair. She was as small as my hand, and so beautiful. I named her Yasmine."

I felt my hand go to my mouth, and a sick feeling in my stomach.

I just couldn't believe all she's been through, all the loss and pain. It just seemed too much for one person to bear, and I thought I'd been through some difficult times, turns out I'm very lucky. I felt ashamed of myself.

With the start of Ramadan this year, I made a few decisions. The first was to help people who need it, and not waste energy on people who don't. I also decided to monitor my intentions. Most of the time we do things for others because we want their attention, approval, or something from them. This time I decided I'm going to go out of my way and do things for people who definitely can't do anything for me, and without expecting anything in return. I'm no angel or saint, I'm actually a bitchy, nasty person, with a mean tongue and lots of anger, jealousy and hate. But lately I've had this nagging feeling that something is wrong with me spiritually. I feel sick inside. I've been focused on material things for so long, and the lusts and desires of this world, and I feel lost, sick, unhealthy and unpeaceful. I feel a lot is missing, and my way of life isn't satisfying me anymore. I'm no longer pleased with money, nice clothes, big titles, male attention, or any of that. It feels empty to me. I've been having fantasies of donating all my possessions to the poorest of the poor and setting out to live a life like Mother Theresa or someone like that. I've been thinking of leaving Egypt and joining a Buddhist monastery and studying Buddhism.

I just feel that the material world is never satisfying. I always want more and no matter how much I have, it's not enough. There's always one more thing. And when I get it, it feels empty and I have to look for something else. It's been ages since I've felt truly joyful and peaceful, maybe the last time I felt that way was when I spent time at a refugee camp with refugee children.

I know I'm rambling a bit, but it's been nagging at me for a long time now. Life is just like that. Some days you're on top of the world, some days you're rock bottom. Some days you're healthy and you're surrounded with people, some days you're ill and you're all alone. As long as you're attached to these conditions, you'll never be happy, because by nature these things pass. Like the mystics say, it's all illusion. None of this is real, because the only reality we're all sure of is that we'll die, and even that is illusory and incomprehensible.

I feel better these days when I spend time with the my new friend, the lady who lost so much, than I do when I go to places where there are people all dressed up in fancy clothes and gossiping. I feel empty and unhappy at work when I have to think of making money and doing good business, than I felt when I spent time with street children. And even these things are illusion, as long as we get attached to them and our egos get involved.

Oh, well. I guess I'm having a spiritual crisis these days. It's been developing over the past few months, but these days I feel it almost all the time.

A Matter of Perspective

Today I woke up feeling pretty down. I have a nasty cold, I just started a new job and I don't understand a lot of things, and a few unpleasant things have happened recently such as money being lost or stolen, and so on.

But this morning, even though it's hard, I've decided not to let these things bring me down. I've decided to make the choice to be positive. So, in order to do that, I'm going to think of the things that are bothering me, and try to figure out a way to turn each one into something positive.

First of all, the fact that I don't understand much at my new job isn't cause for depression. It's normal, and nothing to panic about. Yes, it's true I have bills to pay, and I'm no millionaire, but even if it doesn't work out at this new job, it's no disaster. Life will go on, and maybe I'll learn a valuable lesson from it. That said, it's important to try to make them work out. It's a new experience, and maybe it will be a good one, and I'll learn some new skills, and achieve something new.

I'm also forgetting the pluses of this new job. The location is exactly 5 minutes away from home, which is something I never dreamed to have, and the working hours are great. I'm really lucky. The fact that there's nobody around to give me any real guidance or training is a difficult challenge, but I need to think of some way around it. At this new job I'm doing a lot of learning at this point, so I shouldn't be too harsh on myself. I won't work miracles overnight, and maybe never will, but I'm willing to give it time and effort and to make at least a small achievement over the next few months.

Now the fact that I have a cold, well, that's just life. It'll pass and by tomorrow, hopefully, I'll be better. So I just have to endure it.

As for all the shit that's been happening on the personal front lately, I guess the best thing is to try to learn from past mistakes. I've had a few unpleasant experiences in the past four months or so, but I think I've learned a few things about myself. I need to pay more attention to my actions. I need to be more careful who I let into my life, and I need to realize that kindness and giving should not be unconditional for all people, harsh though that sounds. Sometimes people really do use you, on purpose. And the minute you realize that, you need to back off and break the pattern, no matter how harsh and mean that may seem.

Oh, well. It's all just an attempt at rationalizing things. I don't want to wallow in my own depression or let all the negative stuff get to me. It's a matter of putting things into perspective. My own thoughts are my biggest obstacle.