Zyphera

Khaled is an important encounter in the Congolese chapter of my live. Our friendship, as he liked to say, was an exchange « in order to gain something« . According to him, he helped me to rise above myself, and in turn, he believed he was earning his “man strips“. When I think about him, his voice—filtered through his mustache—resonates in my head: « One and two and three… whatever! », « I said what?! », « Being a man or acting like a man?”, « How come?! »… There are so many expressions of his. Every one of his words echoes beyond the walls of the house we shared for a year. Every day, morning, noon, and night, when I got home, he greeted me with his usual, « Hi Gamila! »

Khaled worked for a United Nations peacekeeping mission. He often repeated that he did not really know what he was doing here. Even though he understood all the political and economic issues that had led his own country (Egypt) to send him, it saddened him to realize he wasn’t doing anything truly useful. His harsh but realistic words always brought him to the same conclusion: he was working for the « United Nothing« !

Khaled is a rock that his family and friends cling to during a storm—and he knows it. Without pretense, he genuinely cares about the human race, which pushes him to multiply his strength. Despite his stature and his impressive presence, I detected a certain fragility in him, a flaw. Khaled is caught in the gap between the ancient, almost prehistoric aspects of the Upper Egypt’s culture and our hyper-modern globalization. Yet, he adapts to this divide. There is no mixing, no compromise; he remains entirely himself in every situation. He holds onto simple but effective ethics that many today consider obsolete. I don’t know if they come from his education, his experience, his character, or all three, but they brought me comfort. Our long conversations over sweet tea at the end of the day—which were often more like monologues—made me realize that we agreed on so many things, despite our differences in culture, language, and age. Most of the time, these talks turned into what he called « lessons« . He always began his remarks with something like: « This is lesson number thirty: learn for free, without paying« .

Seeing all his attentiveness, I often wondered why? Why did he need to take care of everyone, to push them to be the best versions of themselves? Why did he need to make every single day a human success? Why did he want to be involved in everything? While this is a rare and beautiful trait, I realized something was missing during his posting in Congo: his family. But even more than that, I wondered: what was this hole in his heart? He often spoke of losing his father during his youth. Perhaps he was trying to fill the emptiness left by that loss. Despite all his daily energy, he finished each evening sprawled on the couch in his military uniform, boots unlaced, small glasses perched on the tip of his nose, sighing out a tired, breathless, « I’m suffering! »

Seeing him like that always made me smile a little… and it made him smile, too.