5 Years Later

Five years to the day, I am back again.

Stepping off of the plane and onto the dark tarmac, that familiar, overpowering, and choking smell of car exhaust filled my nostrils. The entrance hall of the airport was once again full of Egyptians and foreigners lining up for passport processing. I once again fell into the mindset of “what’s next”: How much should I pay for a cab? Would something happen with my passport? Would I be detained? Exiting the entrance hall into the baggage claim area, my anxiety once again washed over me as men rushed toward us, offering this and that price to ride in a limo, then a taxi, then another taxi. My expression hardened as I once again racking my brain for the necessary vocabulary for negotiating, bargaining, rejecting, and playing the hard to get foreigner. Having Billy with me eased my worries and I let him take the reigns of our journey to downtown Cairo. I had no need of my rusty, coquette Arabic. Finally, a gentleman undercuts the offers for freedom from the airport. Thank god for Billy’s patience and personality. Exiting the airport was just as I had remembered it. Hundreds of people standing, sitting, and hovering around the entrance, waiting to leave, waiting receive their loved ones. As we pushed our cart of baggage through the crowd and the stares, a man looks me in the eye and recites that comforting phrase: “Welcome to Egypt.” I smile and thank him. I’m relieved to see a kind face and hear those words. 

The cab ride is as it always was. Darting in and out of traffic at 50 miles per hour, nearly missing several cars. I noticed the missing seatbelt in the back seat halfway through the ride. As usual, and perhaps stupidly, I have neglected to even look for it when I got into the cab. I heard a while back that it was rude to wear a seatbelt in  cab. It was a sign that you don’t trust your driver. I don’t know if that’s actually true, but at this rate, it didn’t matter. I heard Billy chatting with the driver up front and I struggled to understand their conversation and secretly hoped that the driver wouldn’t speak to me. I didn’t want to embarrass myself. I felt like a child. All I wanted to do was eat something, shower, and sleep. “Tomorrow I will begin to relearn what I don’t remember or never knew,” I thought. “There will always be tomorrow.” 

The couple days that I have been here have been like waking up from a dream of what I had pictured Egypt to be as reality washed over me. That old, familiar reality of the fast paced movement of people, traffic, and life in Cairo. I’ve been excited as I remember how to conduct business: ordering food, the number of expressions of gratitude ending or beginning with “Allah”. The wonderfully seasoned tastes of ful (fava beans on pita bread) and baba ghanoush. The unsatisfying taste of Nescafe instant coffee, the small portion sizes, and fresh juice, and meeting the bawab (doorman who cares for the security and cleanliness of the apartment), a pleasant man who sits under the stairs smoking his cigarettes and warming himself by pot of coals. Everything was so familiar, and this time I meant to do it right. 

Well, almost everything. The revolution has taken its toll on this country. Freedom of speech, press, and association are greatly stifled. I’ve been told that no one speaks of politics anymore. That’s too bad. I was counting on speaking with cab drivers as I used to about political life in Egypt, elections, and the president. Such things are not only forbidden, they are criminal offenses and the mukhabarat are everywhere (secret police), stalking the cafes and the streets, listening to conversations. Who knows, the cab drivers might also be mukhabarat or informants. A friend told me that conducting research in Egypt is also difficult, as research on modern topics, from art to music to politics, are also banned. Questions about the military are strongly discouraged, and if they come up, it’s all “I love the military” and “Long live the military.” To conduct a survey on the street, you need permission. Research has gone underground. Journalists are being arrested or taken out of the country for their safety. The apartment I am staying in downtown was searched before the anniversary of the revolution to check for subversive materials. Thank god Billy was gone. An American was recently arrested for speaking about politics with locals at the pyramids. He was doing what we all do: learn vocabulary in class and practice with Egyptians. He’s being charged with inciting violence and insurrection. I’m told that an American passport no longer has the same clout it did before the revolution. 

These are the rumblings around Cairo.

I am beginning to have doubts about whether my project will, in the end, be approved by the ministry. I will meet with my coauthor this week to speak about the status of our project and how it should be framed and sold as to get the proper permission. 

If parts of my entries are vague, it is to protect myself and those around me. “They” are watching. 

On a related note, I am reminded about the pettiness and the childish dramatics that surround dialogue in the United States about “government tyranny”, including the recent takeover of federal government property in Oregon by an armed, rightwing militia. Government tyranny is not the ownership of land by the federal government. It is not ensuring through regulation and legislation that businesses and individuals cannot discriminate against LGBT or minorities. It is not the government imposing background checks or other restrictions on gun sales. Tyranny is the constant fear that your words will land you in prison without due process. It is the pregnant silence imposed on the expression of your political opinions and your participation in civil society. It is the exaltation of the state over the individual. It is that silent reinforcement of that fear. Those Americans who lament about “tyranny” are naive and have no idea what they are talking about. More than anything, it demonstrates their lack of knowledge of the world around them. They would be laughed out of a cafe by old, liberty-deprived men smoking hookah in Wusut al-Balad. What paranoid and dramatic queens Americans can be. 

Despite restrictions, I have been waiting for my second reckoning with Egypt since I was so abruptly evacuated from the country in 2011. I had left an irritated, defeated 22-year-old. Cultural and linguistic exhaustion had beaten me down, and I couldn’t wait to leave; or at least that’s how I now remember it. I had felt so alone here, and now I realize that it was all my fault. I tried so much to push myself to learn, but I realize now that I never really left the comfort of my expectations for others and for this society. I had expected the slightest amount of effort to return a thousand times the reward, and I paid for that mentality every day. It was the high standards and the great expectations that I’ve always had for others that were my doing-in. This time will be different, I hope. I am older, a bit wiser. I’m less anxious and more certain of who I am and what I have to do. There’s so much freedom in that. I used to write about how I needed to dive into the chilly waters of the unfamiliar, and eventually I would become warm again. Reflecting on that, it seems that I had only submerged myself halfway, leaving the rest of my body to shiver exposed. Plunging head first is the goal of this trip. I have 3 and a half weeks to do this. I can do this. I will tread carefully knowing that Egypt has changed, relegating myself to observer where I must and exploring curiosity when I can. It’s a different time for me and for Egypt. So much has changed and so much is still the same. 

Here I go again.