One Year Later: What Post-Revolution Egypt Has Been Like for a Normal Egyptian

On January 25, 2011 around noon, Arwa Salah, Adel Abdel-Ghaffar and I met at a sandwich place in Shubra, a Coptic Christian majority neighborhood in central Cairo. The three of us were very skeptical that the day would amount to much, but being the people that we were, we were willing to give it a chance. We’d all given many chances before. We’d been to protests that amounted to not much more than a few yelling “troublemakers”.  We’d voiced our anger about the state Egypt was in due to a very long dictatorship in a number of forums that were available to each of us. It had always felt like our actions were not much more than a drop into the sea. But we weren’t going to give up. We were going to give it another chance.

What happened over the following days was momentous and quite unexpected by most Egyptians. I don’t think we realized the potential we had as individuals and as a people to create change. Once this realization started dawning on us, we would not allow ourselves to be convinced that we could not take our country out of darkness and into the light.

We would not settle for less than Mubarak stepping down from power. We fully realized that the removal of Mubarak and his regime would create a huge power gap. We fully realized that there was only one power in Egypt besides the National Democratic Party that had any experience and popular support to step into that gap; and that was the Muslim Brotherhood. We were completely aware that once Mubarak and his regime were removed we would be in for trying times. I remember discussions about this going on and on between revolutionaries between January 25 and February 11. I remember saying those words over and over to the various journalists who contacted me for interviews at the time and who repeatedly asked, “But what happens after you remove Mubarak?”

Achieving the Ever Effervescent Work-Life Balance

How can one strike a healthy work-life balance? Is it possible to be successful both in your professional life and your personal life? These are questions that we all ask ourselves at one or more points in our lives. The fact that you are asking yourself these questions is good. It means you have slowed down enough to evaluate where you are now and where you would like to be heading.

Defining success is a good place to start. Each one of us defines it differently. A good general definition that can apply to anyone is that success is what gives you a feeling of satisfaction and accomplishment. Success depends on what your objectives are. Imagine yourself after retirement looking back on the past 40 years. Do you feel you’ve accomplished something with your life? Do you feel you lived your life to the fullest? Do you feel you’ve left a positive lasting mark on society…on someone…anyone? Is your life now – at retirement – as satisfying as it was before you retired? Have you structured your life so that satisfaction lasts a lifetime?

If your answer to one or more of the above questions is no, you need to re-think your life strategy.

There is Ringing in My Ears: Living With Tinnitus

Ringing in my ears. A constant, high-pitched ring. Never a moment of silence. Never a moment of peace and quiet.

I have no idea when it started. I always assumed the ringing was some sort of a normal, inner physiological refusal of silence.

The first time I noticed the ringing in my ears might not be normal was the only time it really disappeared. I had complained to a doctor about my pre-menstrual syndrome (PMS) and he suggested I try taking half of a mild anti-depressant pill for two weeks a month. He said that should help with my PMS symptoms. The very first thing I noticed a few hours after taking my first pill was how quiet everything had gone in my head. I wasn’t sure at first what was missing until I thought about it a bit. The ringing. The ringing was gone. What a tranquil feeling that was.

I didn’t take the anti-depressant for long. It was causing me to be very apathetic. I was losing the fire in my belly that made up a large part of who I was. And as a psychiatrist later assured me, I was not depressed to begin with.

This ringing in my ears is a medical condition called tinnitus. Many things can cause tinnitus but for many people, the cause of their tinnitus will remain unknown. Things like hearing loss, exposure to loud noise, impacted ear wax, problems with the inner ear or the jaw joint, and stress and depression have been linked to tinnitus. It’s possible to treat tinnitus in some people by treating the underlying cause. But for others, it is a condition that will remain with them. All they can do is train themselves to mask or ignore the sound.

I’ve had this sound with me for so long that I do not normally notice it unless I focus on it. When I focus on it the sound gets louder and louder until it’s deafening. Sometimes when I’m sitting comfortably and quietly at home reading a book the ringing will come to the forefront of my attention. If there are other noises in the house, the television set turned on or the children roaming about, the ringing is completely and subconsciously tuned out.

One in five people suffer from tinnitus. I’m part of that one-fifth of the human population.

There is a ringing in my ears. A constant, high-pitched ring. I wish it could go away.

 

Let Me Tell Your Story

Do you have an interesting life story that you want to give a voice to? Do you know someone who does?

I’m itching to tell that story.

Email me at tellnadiayourstory@gmail.com. Send a few short paragraphs that summarize your story and why you think that story needs to get out.

If I find your story interesting, I’ll get in touch with you and we’ll discuss how I can use my voice to get your story out.

 

How the @#*! Does One Go About Discovering God and Religion?

There’s nothing like the death of a parent to smack some sense into you. Or maybe, rather, to smack confusion into you. Or perhaps it’s more like smacking you into realizing

Michelangelo's Finger of God

you need to confront the confusion you already had but did not want to face.

My father taught me almost everything I know about religion; i.e. Islam. I did my own readings, of course. I had a phase of about six years while studying medicine in university when I became a bookworm of Islamic knowledge. Just the other day I decided to organize my personal library at home. I thought I’d organize my books according to subject. I came across the books I bought during that time and I was horrified. Besides a number of books that guide one to the best methods of preaching Islam to others, and other books about how to purify oneself to a place of high moral and ethical standards according to Islamic philosophy, there were books such as Leadership and Following in Islam, Dying with Passion, and The Methods of Ideological Invasion. My books were chosen usually as either required or recommended reading by Muslim Brotherhood “sisters” and “brothers” who were mentoring me at the time. It was pounded into my head that one should not stray from books written by certain authors so as not to have my head messed with, basically, by writers following a non-pure path of Islam. And since I was still young, impressionable and pretty much ignorant and incapable of making up my own mind for myself – or so I was made to believe – I was instructed to follow the advice of those brothers and sisters who were more worldly and knowledgeable than me.

Many years later, I now clearly see how cult-like that part of my upbringing was. My head became lazy. I turned into a person who resorts to certain authorities on religion, i.e. Islam, rather than figuring things out with a mind open to all possibilities.

A Daughter’s Pain in Losing Her Father

I had a dream last night. I was missing my Baba so much that I somehow managed to get into his grave to lie down next to him. Graves in Egypt are small underground rooms. The grave door was open and sunlight was shining through. It felt nice to lie down next to him. I felt safe. As I was lying there, my Baba started to stir. He slowly opened his eyes. He was awake! I was so overjoyed. I remember feeling in the dream that the nightmare of his death was finally over. He was back as he should be. I quickly called my brothers and sister to come. Baba was awake!

Baba

We buried my beautiful father today. He was and always will be the love of my life. 

By the grace of God, all four of his children were with him to say goodbye.

It was a moonless night… A social networking narrative experiment

It was a moonless night. They had been at this for hours. Their heavy, tired feet were moving in synch with each other creating a rhythm that cleared their minds of the arduous task at hand and the more difficult task to come. For the moment, all they needed to focus on was keeping up the rhythm:  Tap, plump, crunch, drag, tap, plump, crunch.

 

This is a social networking experiment in narrative writing. I invite you, the reader, to engage now as a writer. Add a paragraph in the comments section that builds on the first paragraph in the story and subsequent paragraphs developed by others.

You are allowed only one paragraph per post. You are allowed one post for every three posts made by others. Your words may be subjected to some minor editing. Your post may not be used if it does not flow properly with the rest of the narrative or if it is deemed inappropriate for other reasons. Do not let this last statement stifle your creativity, however.

Develop the storyline and the characters as the process progresses.

Identify yourself as the owner of your words unless you wish to remain anonymous. But do realize that the final product may possibly turn into a New York Times Best Seller or a Hollywood movie, in which case you might regret not making mention of your name to get credit for your words.

Now have fun! And let’s see what this story is all about!

Turning Forty, The Farting, Body Odors, and Odd Hair Appearances

I abhor the whole concept of celebrity writers. What do I care about the life of Hollywood movie star X or talk show host Y? Heck, they don’t even write their own books. They get people to do it for them.

To my shock, horror, and utter disdain, I resorted to reading a celebrity book this summer. I needed something light and funny to read after an exhausting two months of work.

Tina Fey’s Bossypants was my first ever celebrity book. I’m not here to review it. But I do want to refer to one chapter she wrote composed of three simple sentences:

What Turning Forty Means to Me

I need to take my pants off as soon as I get home. I didn’t use to have to do that. But now I do.

I have been laughing for the past month over that chapter. I can absolutely relate.

I’ve decided to put together my own What Turning Forty Means to Me list. Men and women out there: feel free to add to my list in the comments section!

What Turning Forty Means to Me:

• Body odors. New and disturbing body odors in places there were no odors before.

A Woman’s Independence: Fearing What I Ultimately Strive For

I live many contradictions. One in particular has been haunting me lately.

For as long as I can remember I have asserted my independence and been proud of it. I make my own personal decisions and take permission from no one. I have my own money. I own my own things.

I recently realized that I have only done this, however, under the guardianship of a male. The first 24 years of my life my guardian was my father. The following 17 years of my life my guardian was my husband.

Why do I call them guardians?

When I think of my father and of my now ex-husband I think: protection, stability, guidance, companionship, someone to trust in, someone to resort to or to fall back on…

Throughout my 41 years of male guardianship I never would have called my father or my ex-husband my guardians; especially not my ex-husband for the principle of it. He was though. They both were. I realize this now.

For the past year, since my divorce, I have been without guardianship.