Who’s that girl?
Dear Motorbike-Riding Youth:
First of all, I would like to thank you for shouting “I love you” at me while I was minding my own business on the side of a narrow road in the mid afternoon autumnal heat. For a moment I had forgotten that I was a foreign woman, and you, having clearly never seen a foreigner or a woman before, were so overcome with true love that it inspired an immediate reaction from you that thankfully reminded me of my feminine, alien, identity. Moreover, I am no stranger to similar feelings of passion, especially for pedestrians, and so I completely sympathize with your socially inappropriate utterance.
However, if you would allow me to critique one aspect of your harassment strategy, I would simply like to point out that your outburst of passion occurred just seconds before you passed me as we were going the same direction. This means that you had only seen the back of my person at the moment you realized you had fallen for me. I, of course, am no Scrooge, and would be the last person to deny the possibility of love at first sight. That being said, in common usage first sight usually indicates some sort of eye contact or facial recognition, which then (if successful) progresses onto the collar bone and shoulder region or whatever pleases the parties involved. In contrast, you were brave enough to display your ardor heedless of what might have appeared on the other side.
I heard your zealous declaration first and then saw you zoom past me, as you continued on into the great wide world of Cairo. Before you turned out of sight, however, you must have realized your mistake. You doubted whether you could you actually love me without seeing my face, my features remaining unknown for eternity. Worse yet, what if I was wholly different than expected? Suppose I were actually an Egyptian man wearing a wig and Chacos? What if I had one large walrus tusk and a furry lip? A unibrow and scaly skin? Three eyes, a peg leg, and tentacles for a nose?
You realized quickly that you could not live with this uncertainty, and so turned around while continuing to move forward, all at once holding onto the past, plowing into the future, and throwing yourself into danger. Once you looked back, you saw that I was a foreign woman, just as you had hoped. It no longer mattered whether or not my features could be considered attractive, since they were non-Egyptian and female. You were content with knowing your love had been real, even if the interaction was all too brief. My advice to you for next time is to be careful of who you fall for, since you never know what they might look like.
the Revolution, armed thugs arrived and started making mischief. No one knows why the thugs came, who they were, or what they wanted. The police remained involved in the struggle, but the army completely withdrew, allowing it to continue for hours into the morning. No one really understands what happened or why. My teacher today said that it may have just been a play by the army to make people fear chaos and not advocate too strongly for a faster transition. The thugs could have also been ex-policeman or something like that….but it’s not clear. So the moral of the story is: people are confused.
Since my post yesterday on crossing the street was such a hoot, I decided to do another quick postie-wostie on how I get to school everyday. Just imagine if instead I were writing about how I got to school everyday at Boston University and you’ll see how banal this is. And yet I continue.
The apartment hunting process was stressful to say the least. Not only was there intense pressure to find somewhere to live, we were also completely thrown to the wolves regarding the entire endeavor. When we (I and my roommates) set out today, we had the names of a few brokers we had gotten from random people and places and only a vague idea of what we were looking for. We took the Metro to Doqqi and met up with our first broker, who marched us through the sun, us huffing and puffing behind him as he glided with disdain through the middle of the streets in the face of oncoming traffic. As soon as we walked into the building and I could see way too many wires in the ceiling, I knew there was going to be a problem. Sure enough, the apartment he showed us appeared to be oozing dust and decay. I set my hand down on the railing in the stairwell and when I picked it up it was covered in soot or something equally difficult to remove. Gross.
Snotting black 