The Gig's Up
It's time to properly retire this blog. Below is part of the entry I prepared to sign off with as I sat in the Cairo airport.
Let's start where we started: a downtown Toronto city apartment, thinking about Cairo. That's where I'm headed.
An unexpected addition to my final day: a meeting with the German aid organization I cooperated with in my first year. The new director wanted to chat to discuss my "experiences" with my work. So there I was, eight months after I concluded all of my connections with youth employment in Egypt, and I sat drinking a cool karkaday in the Wust el Balad office, remembering all of the old names, the old powerpoint presentations and business cards, the familiar frustrations and shots of excitement sitting around the conference table of the Ministry of of Manpower.
I am leaving Cairo at what seems to me to be a difficult time. Perhaps I would have thought this at any moment that I was to leave. For me, the court rulings vindicating the owner of the 2006 ferry that sunk in the Red Sea marked an emotional low.
The plane is boarding. Receipts are printing. Buses driving, people picking up their bags and moving. I am in a corner by myself in the airport. I am quiet. peaceful. ready. not emotional. The emotions came saying salaam to Egyptians. Saying salaam to people who feel so much and who I know will miss me, even the ones I knew in our formal relationships. The toughest: saying goodbye to someone who has the same feelings about Egypt and has no exit plan. Simply writing that down brings my heart to the floor.
Now I am actually back in a Toronto apartment. The streets are quiet, my days measured. I think of missing in a fuller, heavier way. These days I miss London in an entirely new way. I miss my feelings of missing when I was there. I have no idea how I will miss Cairo, because I have told myself not to miss it, since I will be there soon again. There are musical chords that make me regretful, dishes that remind me of the excitement of being out. Thinking of subway stops in foreign cities is one of the most grounding things I can do.
There is no concluding blog on Egypt. That would be impossible. I wouldn't wish that on anyone. But perhaps to start the scatteredness of the to and fro. That is so much more manageable.
Let's start where we started: a downtown Toronto city apartment, thinking about Cairo. That's where I'm headed.
An unexpected addition to my final day: a meeting with the German aid organization I cooperated with in my first year. The new director wanted to chat to discuss my "experiences" with my work. So there I was, eight months after I concluded all of my connections with youth employment in Egypt, and I sat drinking a cool karkaday in the Wust el Balad office, remembering all of the old names, the old powerpoint presentations and business cards, the familiar frustrations and shots of excitement sitting around the conference table of the Ministry of of Manpower.
I am leaving Cairo at what seems to me to be a difficult time. Perhaps I would have thought this at any moment that I was to leave. For me, the court rulings vindicating the owner of the 2006 ferry that sunk in the Red Sea marked an emotional low.
The plane is boarding. Receipts are printing. Buses driving, people picking up their bags and moving. I am in a corner by myself in the airport. I am quiet. peaceful. ready. not emotional. The emotions came saying salaam to Egyptians. Saying salaam to people who feel so much and who I know will miss me, even the ones I knew in our formal relationships. The toughest: saying goodbye to someone who has the same feelings about Egypt and has no exit plan. Simply writing that down brings my heart to the floor.
Now I am actually back in a Toronto apartment. The streets are quiet, my days measured. I think of missing in a fuller, heavier way. These days I miss London in an entirely new way. I miss my feelings of missing when I was there. I have no idea how I will miss Cairo, because I have told myself not to miss it, since I will be there soon again. There are musical chords that make me regretful, dishes that remind me of the excitement of being out. Thinking of subway stops in foreign cities is one of the most grounding things I can do.
There is no concluding blog on Egypt. That would be impossible. I wouldn't wish that on anyone. But perhaps to start the scatteredness of the to and fro. That is so much more manageable.
posted by Nermeen at 9:21 PM
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