Round the World with Us

We hear so much about Egypt, King Tut, the pyramids – but what is it really like to live in Egypt? Amy McMahon offers this beautiful essay on her experiences in a country where the past is always present and diversity of life is everywhere.

Thank you to Amy for this wonderfully written guest post that offers a much deeper insight into the real Egypt.

The place I live in was built by farmers and kings.

The expected dichotomy of style is evident in everything from the architecture thru to the attitudes and expectations of its current residents. Poverty and wealth, pride and disappointment, anticipation and hopelessness all share the same space.

Multicultural influences abound.

As was true in the generations prior to my arrival, multiple languages are still spoken here and invading forces are again influencing local cuisine. Visitors have alternatively been guests and hosts. I myself arrived at this destination with the objective of both influencing and being influenced by the community I joined.

A place where past and present are inextricably linked.

Close to a decade on, I have come to the conclusion that those who once worked this land and those who ruled it still haunt the current occupants in a way that cannot be escaped. The past is present in the everyday while innovation sways modern society along a path towards the future at a pace that is as timeless as the land itself. Like millions before me, Egypt is not only my home, but also my lifestyle.

2 hours, 31 minutes….

The express train from Cairo to Alexandria takes exactly two hours and 31 minutes. Occasionally it varies by a minute or two. The railroad schedule is an oddly efficient anomaly within the grand scheme of Egypt’s infrastructure. But the tracks run through scenery that well represents the whole of the country – predominantly agricultural with growing industrial and residential regions, typically all within eyeshot at the same time.

Egrets, cabbage fields and satellite dishes.

The window next to my second-class seat provides the perfect frame for mental snapshots along the journey between Egypt’s most populous cities. Ambient noises from the clanking tea cart, my seat-mate’s cell phone, the large family at the back of the car all fade as the images take center stage and occupy me for the duration of the trip: brightly colored window shutters against dull red brick, still smoldering patches of scorched fields, long legged egrets cooling their feet in the flood rows, grey-green cabbage fields, forests of satellite dishes on rooftops rimmed with rebar, the ubiquitous piles of construction sand, lazy willow tree branches dragging in the irrigation canals, water wheels, pickup trucks transporting anything and everything that are loaded in such a way they would put the Grinch’s Whoville booty to shame, cement factories as grey as the product they create, farmer sowing seed by hand, cell phone towers, an entire family on a scooter, road construction. We approach Alexandria. Malls and car dealerships, turn of the century architecture, Mubarak billboards, over and underpasses, traffic lights being ignored.

Egypt: a land for personal growth, a condition, a state of mind, a home.

The train slows as it enters the city center. Passengers begin shifting bags and shuffling for position in the theoretical queue to disembark. I choose to forego the competition knowing that my friends will patiently expect me to be last off. I’m in a retrospective mood. The train ride put me in mind of how my own personal journey these past years seems to be reflected in the diverse scenes I witnessed along the way. We are both works in progress, without question. Combining the best and worst of old and new, we trudge along clinging and groping. We adapt and adopt. We hope for the best but expect the worst, just in case. Egypt is a condition, a state of mind. Egypt is my home.

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