The Egypt I Choose to Remember

I grew up in the United States as a child and a young teenager. Even so, Egypt grew in my heart with me. My father constantly told us glorious stories of his youth, growing up in the village, living through the 1952 Revolution (although quite young at the time), and protesting against President Gamal Abdel-Nasser. He told us how Muslims, Christians and Jews lived together peacefully and how a person’s religion was almost irrelevant. Before I ever visited Egypt as a youngster, I recall seeing my father, with my five-year-old eyes, watching the news from Egypt very closely in October 1973. I had no comprehension of the war going on between Egypt and Israel at the time. Even so, I have a clear memory in my head of my father weeping with joy in front of the television set on October 6, 1973, when the Egyptian army successfully crossed Israel’s Barlev Line.

The Egypt of my youth was one of wonderful summer holidays. It was an Egypt where sheep roamed freely with people on the streets of Cairo. It was an Egypt of sun, warmth, lots of good food, neighborhood children to play with, walking along the main street of Roksy with its flashy shoe stores and then eating the best shawerma in the whole world, riding on camels in front of the Pyramids, streets with few cars, doting grandparents and uncles and aunts and extended family members who were all also called uncle and aunt…

I finally settled in Cairo in 1986 to start university at the age of 17. It was so exciting for me.

The Requisite January 25 2nd Anniversary Post

I almost feel obligated to write the requisite “January 25 2^nd Anniversary Blog Post”. I’ve been thinking about this for the past few days: what do I write and how do I really feel? All I’ve been getting back from the Little Man in My Head is, “blah” and sounds of someone on the verge of vomiting.

I often think about those 18 days, the hardships we faced, the fun times we had, and the accomplishments we achieved. Sitting here in the UK where I’m spending three months, it all seems like something I must have watched in the movies. I no longer hold the same sense of pride and accomplishment I had in the days following February 11. I still believe we did what we had to do. I still believe that Egypt now has a chance for a better future. And I still think it might take a generation or two to happen.

But truth be told, I’ve found myself feeling nostalgic for the days when the majority of Egyptians couldn’t care less about politics.

Dreams With Sea Creatures

I’ve had dreams of sea creatures the past two days.

Yesterday, a huge manta ray kept flying into my apartment through a window. It was an air-borne manta ray. The reason it flew into my apartment was that it was attracted to light and I had a light on. It would fly through the window and then cloak itself around the ceiling light fixture I had in the room. It would stay this way for as long as it wished and then it would fly back out. My husband and I watched this happen several times in awe. We then decided to try turning off the light to see what would happen. The manta ray still flew into our room. Apparently, it was so sunny outside that our room was flooded with light. The manta ray was still attracted to our home. Finally, we shut the window. The manta ray still flew towards us and stuck itself to our window on the outside while my husband placed his hands against the inside, pretending to feed it and watching its mouth make cool circular movements of trying to eat. It was all so awesome.

Today I dreamt that we had all gone to Alexandria to go fishing.

Egypt’s Tourism is Under Threat

Egypt is one of the most beautiful countries in the world. I don’t say that because I’m Egyptian. I say that with the eye of a person who has traveled the world far and wide and has seen what the world – and Egypt – has to offer.

Northern Sinai

Put Cairo aside for a bit. The minute you step outside of Cairo, our country’s beautiful landscape will put you into a trance. If you travel up north, you’ll ride through our lusciously green Delta region, with the countless Nile tributaries feeding farmland as far as the eye can see. Travel further north, and you’ll reach the Mediterranean Sea and its quaint towns scattered along it. Alexandria is a jewel. It comes with centuries-worth of history and shines with its typical Mediterranean culture.

Travel south from Cairo along the Nile Valley and you’ll pass through rural southern towns known for their hospitality, strong accents, and great food. The further south you go, the bluer and the clearer the Nile waters get. Travel even further south and you will be stunned by 4000 years-worth of history and some of the most important antiquities mankind has to provide.

Travel west and you will venture into the Western Desert, with its never-ending sand dunes and scattered oases. And travel east and you will travel through the Eastern Desert to reach the Red Sea, with some of the best dive sites in the whole world.

And then there’s Cairo. Egyptians call it Masr – or simply Egypt – because it is everything that Egypt represents from history, to culture, to a gathering place of people and cultures, to chaos, to beauty and grandeur, to ugliness and pettiness.

Al-Azhar University in Old Cairo

Egyptians say that Egypt is the Mother of the World – umm addunya – and we truly believe it is. Egyptians also say that if you drink from the Nile River once, you will return to it. And definitely for most Egyptians, that’s true. Our attachment to our country is very strong no matter how strongly we criticize it. And most Egyptians who leave the country do eventually return, if even to be buried in its belly.

As a country, we have so much to offer to tourists. As a people, we’ve failed tourists miserably.

Class distinctions at the Bibliotheca Alexandrina?

If there’s one thing I do a lot of these days, it’s attending conferences. So if there’s one thing I know well these days, it is conferences.

Some of what I see at the Bibliotheca Alexandrina-organized conferences disturbs me.

The whole point to organizing a conference is getting people who are interested in the same topic under one roof to meet, discuss and network.

The best conversations and networking are done during the coffee breaks, lunches, dinners, and social events.

In so many conferences I’ve been able to walk up to people I wouldn’t normally ever have access to under other circumstances. I’ve sat next to ministers during dinner, chatted casually with Nobel Prize winners at coffee breaks, and asked scientific experts not only about their science but also about their personal lives at lunches.

This isn’t what I see happening at the Bibliotheca. At every conference I’ve been to, participants have been categorized and thus separated into different eating areas.

In my first two conferences at the Bibliotheca, the media, for example, were placed in the common man’s category (my label). This meant that we were given lunch boxes and were left to find any corner to eat our food in. During this last conference that I attended, I was to discover where those who were not commoners went. Turns out there are two more categories.

Again, the first category is for the commoners. In this last conference the commoners were university students who came from Cairo and Alexandria to learn about evolutionism from some of the most esteemed scientists in the field. They got lunch boxes and no dinner.

The second category was for the academics attending the conference. Media were luckily included in this category this time. These participants got their food at an open buffet and had tables to sit at.

And then there’s a third category. The VIPs. These are mainly the Bibliotheca people organizing the event plus some of their special guests. These guys have a closed dining room and some of them get served.

Now I completely understand the need sometimes for a separate eating hall for some of the more important guests who might not ever get to eat if they do so in the midst of many starry-eyed admirers. Sometimes, I say. For some people. As I said, I’ve been to conferences where ministers and Nobel Laureates were eating at the same tables as everyone else.

But I do not understand the need for the two other categories.

Because of the way the Bibliotheca organized coffee breaks and meals, the young university students who came to learn about evolution never got a chance to properly rub shoulders in a normal setting with international scientists. Of course, they could always run up to the stage after each session to catch a few words with the panelists, but that was it.

I’m befuddled.

Please note that I write this with no jealousy at all on my part. I was personally treated very well at this last conference by all Bibliotheca staff and I even got to eat one of my meals in the VIP dining hall.

But I still think this separation of conference participants during meals completely defeats one of the most important purposes of organizing a conference to begin with: allowing people to learn from each other as they mingle and eat, as we say in Egypt, “bread and salt” together. And in Egypt, once you’ve had bread and salt with someone, you’re practically family.  

Bibliotheca Alexandrina: please reconsider this approach.