Thursday, May 19, 2005
Missing Egypt
Being back in America after a long period of time can be overwhelming sometimes, and as much as I missed my home while I was there (culture shock is a terrible thing), I miss Egypt now that we're here. Actually, coming back to America has been not only a culture shock for my poor Middle Eastern husband, but for me it has been a shock and an embarrassment. Don't get me wrong, I love my country dearly, and there are so many more opportunities here for us than there were in Egypt, but as I look at America, 2005, I am convinced (after having lived in a Muslim country, learning Islamic values) that morally, America is spiraling downward. I see the way teenagers dress, (if MY daughter ever wore THAT, I'd ship her to Egypt) the way people speak to each other, the way they treat each other. What happened to family values and neighbors? They are only in the small towns now.
I thought I would share a little bit of America's past with you, only, it isn't in America...it's in Egypt. (The wonderful thing about keeping a journal is that it becomes your written memory--thus the title "memoirs"--and I find that when I read them, I relive them.) This journal entry is from January, 2004, and I remember it as if it were yesterday.
Bus depot waiting to go to Cairo:
There is a man sitting on a box in the yellow sunshine beneath a column shining shoes. Behind him is the red painted ticket office, a round sort of building supported by columns and covered by a concrete awning. In front of him is a shoe-shine box full of his tools and brushes, smudged with black shoe polish in places. There is a pair of boots sitting by the box that he picks up one at a time to buff with his cloth and brush. They are a man's half boot--brown, with a buckle on the side. Standing beside the shoe-shine man is another man in a wine-colored Argyle sweater and khaki pants, probably in his fifties, reading a newspaper. A boy walks nearby selling a stack of newspapers he hugs close to himself. I feel as if, somehow, I have been magically transported to 1950s America. Even the very sunlight bespeaks the nostalgia--straight from the cover of a Saturday Evening Post. It is a moment, unnoticed by its participants, that will remain a part of my experience here--and in the end will become a piece in the puzzle of the person I am. The serene part, the sentimental, nostalgic, sappy part, the part that reaches deep into the files of my psyche to bring out a priceless memory and make it part of my home decor...[it is] something living that has no right to pass away into nothingness.
I thought I would share a little bit of America's past with you, only, it isn't in America...it's in Egypt. (The wonderful thing about keeping a journal is that it becomes your written memory--thus the title "memoirs"--and I find that when I read them, I relive them.) This journal entry is from January, 2004, and I remember it as if it were yesterday.
Bus depot waiting to go to Cairo:
There is a man sitting on a box in the yellow sunshine beneath a column shining shoes. Behind him is the red painted ticket office, a round sort of building supported by columns and covered by a concrete awning. In front of him is a shoe-shine box full of his tools and brushes, smudged with black shoe polish in places. There is a pair of boots sitting by the box that he picks up one at a time to buff with his cloth and brush. They are a man's half boot--brown, with a buckle on the side. Standing beside the shoe-shine man is another man in a wine-colored Argyle sweater and khaki pants, probably in his fifties, reading a newspaper. A boy walks nearby selling a stack of newspapers he hugs close to himself. I feel as if, somehow, I have been magically transported to 1950s America. Even the very sunlight bespeaks the nostalgia--straight from the cover of a Saturday Evening Post. It is a moment, unnoticed by its participants, that will remain a part of my experience here--and in the end will become a piece in the puzzle of the person I am. The serene part, the sentimental, nostalgic, sappy part, the part that reaches deep into the files of my psyche to bring out a priceless memory and make it part of my home decor...[it is] something living that has no right to pass away into nothingness.
