Zyphera

Once, one told me « Egyptian don’t drink alcohol, they smoke hashish. They are very religious but harass women in the street. Their wives cover their heads but wear sticky skinny leggings. They claimed democracy but feel more safe giving all powers to one” Then I went: “Oh, right…I understand….Wait, no I’m confused”. Then he said “It’s ok to be confused. Egyptians are confused about their own confusion”. Here we are. I thought for almost a year I was just crazy. I couldn’t get why a taxi driver can jump out of his car to insult and beat another taxi driver and finish the talk with “Habibi”…What the hell! Why couldn’t you start by the “habibi” thing. It would avoid…at least, traffic jam! Then I figured out: maybe Egyptians need all these drama things to make it more alive or something. Anyway I did get confused. More: my colleague shouting on people for being angry. Hold on, maybe you should get cooler, no? “Well, this is what I am thinking also” she said. Hum …Another nice one. Once in a hotel with my Egyptian boyfriend, the director called my room three times for reminding me than it is forbidden to let him enter (information got from very cautious cleaners). Well, in a tricky way and not very polite, he tried to explain that the hotel doesn’t allow people not married to share rooms….When a half naked girl walked. Not half…let’s say 10% dressed. Then, we got it: there is a part for foreigners where moral doesn’t exist anymore and a second part, for Egyptians, where religion is the rule. Believer or not, Muslim or not: follow the rule in that part. There are some things acceptable for the “not like us” and some things not acceptable for “us”…when these things might be compromised under certain circumstances.

Then, definitely I got confused. What is allowed? What is not? And…most of all: Why? This question is not to be asked. Egyptians are very open-minded to discuss things with the poor foreigner. They assume the foreigner can’t understand because he/she has been raised in “a little bit too free world”. However their explanations were quite poor. Like the veil, I got as many responses as persons I’ve asked: “It is tradition, women from the South used to wear it to protect their head from the sun”; “the wives of our Prophet wore veils”; “it is just to protect themselves from men” (interesting one…and not working by the way). But the best one was “because this is how we do”. Got it. This is how you do. Imitation. Community. Honor. These words lead Egyptians to behave. Not to be.  When they mix behaving with being: here comes the confusion. I have to say with my very free mind, I went through them naturally pointing “ok then, if you don’t want to, why would you?”. Living out of the community is not possible. They belong to. Nevertheless, they can’t exactly say to what/who they belong to.

I have spent one year and a half in Egypt now. Actually Cairo not Egypt. Precision matters cause Cairo is a country in a country. And as any huge extra human capital, things are much more complicated…making confusion more confusing. I have never doubt about people mental health. As a foreigner, I do have to adapt and not question my hosts’ believes and habits. Very quickly, I thought I am crazy for not understanding the “I say this and I do the opposite and I can’t explain it because this is how we do”. Thank to my friend who saved me from mental rehab. I heard so much persons complaining about the country, the habits, the traditions, the people’s ways, the government, the silent and over oppressing rules. They wish silently that it will ends. Somehow. But they don’t take the step to change these. The comfort zone might be more precious than the unexpected.

I like the unplanned and unexpected…for few things at least. And I can’t follow rules I don’t believe to and that are not mine. Too wild for Cairo? It sounds weird to feel too wild in a city that never sleeps, where mess is the order, where no rules seem to be the traffic rule, where millions people live in the ‘areas not planned by the city authorities’. Maybe wild and mess are different. Over the past eighteen months, I have learned to like what I usually don’t. The cold smoke smell in cars. Men’s mustaches. The “welcome to Egypt” (Hey guy it has been one year I walk by your shop….I am not a tourist anymore !). Women’s fights in subway’s wagons. Looking at men smoking shishas in cafés on the only sidewalks in the city. Man… Cairo had been rough with me. And somehow, when I walk home at night or when Cairo lets me taste its sweetness, I am thinking it brought me new challenges. It brought me opportunities to test myself. How far I can stick to my values and principles when all around is living, thinking differently? How much I can give to my hosts? Past travels and abroad experiences taught me a lot. More about myself than anything else.

My driving instructor is driving me crazy “yemiin”…I turned right. “Shemaal!!!”  he’s shouting. After the first hour I got it: when he says one thing, he means the opposite. Nice brain exercise. It is beyond Egyptians’ strengths to say “No” when they are silently thinking “Nooooooooooo, pleeeeeae”. Is it what Cairo is teaching me? To read between lines? To understand we don’t always say what we mean? To accept that we don’t always do what we secretly wish?  

Cairo confuses me because Cairo has something to teach me. And I still try to figure out what. 

Finally confusion is fine because I like Cairo sweet and sour…