From the Airport

Loyal Readers: this is NOT the end of my Cairo blog. I still have more stories that need posting, and more "final" thoughts. Stay tuned.

(excerpted and adapted from a letter to Ken)

0430 EET, Cairo International Airport, in possession of a valid exit stamp from the Arab Republic of Egypt

So I guess this is the end of my semester abroad. It ends like it began—sitting in an airport with people going to the same place as me. And I guess I should start figuring out what I learned from this adventure.

• I learned I can do a whole lot on my own. On my own physically and emotionally. The knowledge that AUC really honestly didn’t give a darn what happened to me or any of the other study abroad kids and that I had to figure out things for myself was simultaneously terrifying and liberating. (But if it was a test, I think I passed.)

• I learned that when it really (I mean really) hits the fan and the floor falls out from under you, you have your friends to fall back on and really you can’t count on anything or anyone else. We became a family here, not in the mushy sense (although emotionally we became close in the veritable relationship pressure-cooker that is study abroad), but in the sense that we have to take care of each other. And so we did. We had nobody else and we relied on each other. And we did okay. We took each other to the hospital, we sat by each other’s beds, we administered IVs (or at least threatened to), we held each other as we cried, we celebrated birthdays and triumphs and we mourned losses. Together.
  

• I learned that Egypt is a beautiful, beautiful country. It really is. It’s dirty, crass, poor, corrupt, twisted, inefficient, crazy, polluted, loud and unmanageable (at times), but it can also be stunningly, breathtakingly beautiful. It really truly can be. Watching sunsets in Luxor, just about everything associated with Dahab and Mt Sinai, looking over Cairo from the Citadel, Muhammed Ali mosque, the bright, loud, kitschy absurdity that is Khan el-Khalili—parts of this country are spectacular.

• I’ve learned that I love being an American. I love our values: hard work, cleanliness, honesty, honest hard work and a hard day’s labor, being self-made, not being complacent. It makes me proud—more proud than six months ago by far—to have these instilled in me and to live by them. The more I lived in a country so different from those, the more I became convinced that those values are RIGHT. Patriotism—not mindless flag-waving and thumping of a red, white, and blue chest but real love of your country and what it stands for—means a lot more than it used to. I love our society. No, that’s not true. Parts of it I still detest. (Although for all their anti-American = anti-Westernism = anti-consumerism and anti-materialistic culture bluster, Egypt is just as consumer-oriented as the US.) But I can’t wait to walk down the street without getting ogled or yelled at or hissed at or offered things or grabbed. America has women’s rights A LOT better figured out than Egypt. Politically, as well, I watched Egyptians lose political and social freedoms we take for granted—without caring. American political apathy is a favorite target of critics both foreign and domestic, but it can’t hold a candle to the apathy I saw in Egypt. (Look for more on that later.) I love American people. We are good people, we are. The Godfather starts out with the line “I believe in America.” And after my Cairo adventure, I believe in America more than I ever have. I also do rather enjoy the power that comes from holding an American passport. THAT one saved my tail a few times. But for better or for worse, yes: I’m an American, I like it, and I like America.
  

1032 EDT, an airplane south of Greenland and east of Canada, a good 32000 feet off of the ground.

The computer map says something like 3.25 hours until I land again in the land of the free and the home of the brave. I can’t wait. The plane is freezing cold and my mouth has that nasty “dead possum” taste from trying to nap a little bit. My shirt is wrinkled, annd my legs ache like crazy from the sunburn and the sitting.

A final Cairo story, not quite in Cairo but equally informative:
At Frankfurt Airport, one girl bought some Bacardi Superior at the duty-free and proceded to freak out about how she was going to get it back to the States after it was opened (you can’t take opened duty-free alcohol on the plane), since we were sitting in McDonald’s in the terminal sketchily sipping and making covert rum and cokes (since we didn’t want to corrupt any children, although there were very few). I had the solution: the tiny complimentary Lufthansa water bottles are no longer filled with water and are stowed in the ziplock liquids bag. Made it through the security checkpoint (which was frighteningly thorough after months of Egyptian “bag checks” and “security”). I’m bringing it back unopened as a point of pride: .2L of Bacardi Superior rum, even though the limit for any fluid in the bag is technically .1L. Got one over on the man. That’s something about me that’s different: I look for ways to get past the man. Constantly.

How else am I different after this adventure? Well, I may not be the best judge of that. Perhaps you should tell me. If I were to hazard a guess, I’d say that I am much more confident and independent that I was in December. I can get lost in very sketchy places alone late at night and successfully get home after three cab rides. I can handle men who can’t handle guns toting AK-47s every fifty meters and pointing them at me as a joke. I can handle terrifying military checkpoints where people are being beaten BECAUSE of my presence.

I speak Arabic better, too. That’s for sure.

Am I more “Egyptian?” Probably not. I still shower daily and love it. I'm still Catholic. A glass of tea does not require any sugar at all, and anything more than two spoonfuls is overkill. I still work ridiculously hard at life and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

But maybe I’m a little better at recognizing what I can and can’t control. Maybe I know a little better what’s worth fighting for and what’s not. Samuel Huntington (from whom I read a good bit this semester) sums it up well: Faith and family, blood and belief, are what people identify with and what they will fight and die for. (Huntington, "If Not Civilizations, Then What?" Foreign Affairs, 72:5.)

There’s a phrase I learned this semester; it’s not Egyptian but Muslim (and honestly it’s very much anti-the Egyptian mindset):) توكّلتُ على الله tawakeltu 3la-Allah). It means “I trust in God,” but with the connotation of “I have done my part, I have done everything I can, it’s in God’s hands now and I trust Him.” And it works.