Decisions and Lessons

As I sit down to relax tonight, the call to prayer is echoing through these cement walls. Every time I hear it, I still find myself stopping whatever it is that I am doing, and I listen to it. Car horns continue to honk, street cats screaming, ugh...it's the most horrific sound. The neighbors next to me are fighting with one another again. The walls are so thin. As I headed into the grocery store this afternoon I noticed the shelves fully stocked, and I didn't have to wait in line for check out. It's as if nothing happened, all is back to "normal." But is it really?



Typically, I have to plug my nose as I walk around the huge pile of trash that sits a couple of buildings down from me. I don't even want to know how many mice inhabit that thing...i always count at least six scrawny cats digging in it. But today, much to my surprise I saw a group of families with brooms sweeping up the dust and picking up trash. WHAT? since when did the people of Cairo care about the cleanliness of our streets? This is a first.



Yesterday, a couple of friends and I meandered through Tahrir Square taking pics of tanks, and seeing first hand the damage done by the fires and looters. A personal encounter was surreal after our only exposure to it being CNN. On the curb, sat a serious looking man selling Egyptian flags. I leaned over to ask him the price and he replied, "Enti Mosria?" which means, "You're Egyptian?" I replied that I wasn't, but that i lived here. He stated something really quickly in Arabic that I didn't understand. I thought he was telling me that because I wasn't Egyptian he would not sell me a flag. Embarrassed, I quickly walked away from the group of onlookers staring at me, the strange foreign girl. Suddenly a group of men started waving me back to the man with the flags. "No no," one of them said. "Because you are not Egyptian, the flag for you in FREE." HUH? i said. Putting it simply would be to say that in Egypt, no one ever turns down money. I tried to pay him, but he kept refusing. Definitely a first.



Something is different, but no one can quite pinpoint what it is. People have changed, but in contrasting ways. After multiple conversations with my Egyptian friends, as well as some foreigners, two drastic differences stand out. First, people are kinder than they have ever been. It is as if a heaviness has been lifted. For the first time, a girl at the grocery store smiled at me, and spoke to me in English. Normally, I find the check out girls rather sassy. I smiled, answering her in Arabic, which made her grin. Even taxi drivers seem less intense. During the time the city was on lockdown, people found themselves in situations where they had to get to know their neighbors. Families began relying on one another for support, even loans of cash and food. The men spent the nights guarding the streets with other men in their neighborhoods, and suddenly new relationships were blossoming. I heard that even after things calmed down, many men still would head down to the street just meet with the other men for tea in the evenings...a time of fellowship they had grown accustomed to during the nights on guard.





But that's not the only thing that has changed. People are bolder. Plain and simple, they are definitely gutsier. We are not sure how much of this has to do with the lack of police presence, but we are all on watch...much more aware of our surroundings. Do I feel safe in Egypt? Absolutely, In all of my travels (17 countries), I still feel safer in Egypt than anywhere else in the world. I am not kidding. That aspect has not changed, even will all this country is going through.

What is my response? I am thankful...I get to witness this unravel right before my very eyes. I get to talk with Egyptians, hear their stories, their politics, their reasons. I get see for myself rather than relying on the exaggerated western media. Do I think things will be tough? Absolutely. The Egyptians have a difficult road ahead. But they are aware of this and rejoice in knowing their voices have been heard. People like me who have lived a life of freedom cannot possibly understand this joy. We just can't. We are in a different element of reality. In my 15 months of living here I have experienced just a glimpse of what it means to have my American freedoms taken away....just a tad. But I haven't lived it.