Not My Last Word on Egypt

Minneapolis—I've been home from Egypt for a month and I'm still a little flummoxed by the whole experience. I was enchanted by the people, delighted by the food, traumatized by the traffic, aggravated by the noise, overwhelmed by the landscape, disgusted by the filth, irritated by the religion, awed by the antiquities, dismayed by the poverty, and captivated by the sheer length and breadth of the story. But one thing I never was, was afraid.

Friends and family back home sent me frequent messages expressing fear on my behalf, and the longer I was incommunicado during stretches on the road or in the mountains, the higher the emotional pitch. What you don't know can hurt you, and I can understand their anxiety when all the press has to say is that Bedouins are kidnapping tourists and rioting soccer fans are dying by the dozens. But I knew by being there that Muslims are rebuilding Coptic churches, that the Bedouins do have something to complain about and seizing a few tourists (while treating them hospitably) can get them some headlines for their cause, that the sinister Muslim Brotherhood has widespread support not so much for radical reasons as for humanitarian ones, and that I've never felt safer anywhere.

We've got it so wrong about this part of the world. Egypt's whole government "system" collapsed barely a year ago, yet a parliament is in place, political parties have formed, presidential candidates are running, and a diverse population with lots of ground to cover is actively engaged in determining what democracy will look like in a land that hasn't seen anything like it in 6,000 years.

The current struggle for political power is revealing some weak spots, for sure, like parliament stacking the constitutional assembly with members of the dominant political party. And it's making some strange bedfellows (the Muslim Brotherhood and the military? Hello?) But who could have guessed that Egypt would be here a year after Mubarak fled? Could the revolutionaries? Could Mubarak? America may not like how the story unfolds, but how can we help admiring Egyptians for what's gotten them here?

Meanwhile, as the headlines back home made Egypt look like a war zone, every train, bus, and plane I took was on time and running. People may have been surprised that an American was visiting at all (our Israeli policy is a sore spot) but they welcomed me and congratulated me on our president.

And while a foreign woman traveling alone might be a likely target for pickpockets or harassment, I saw no evidence of this in Egypt—even when I found myself walking back to my hotel at night. Would this be true in Europe? In America?

Imagine the situation reversed. You're an Egyptian considering a family vacation to a country where neighborhood militiamen kill unarmed teenagers. Where racial profiling is so commonplace that people of color avoid police officers altogether, much less call on them for help. Where anybody on the street could be packing a concealed weapon—legally.

Say you're not an Evangelical Christian. How welcome would you feel in a country where support is pooling around candidates who think their piety qualifies them for government? Do we ever consider how the rest of the world considers our domestic climate?

I don't know how they do it in a country that's practically quadrupled in population in the last generation, but even in Cairo I met simple kindness and generosity everywhere. Like when I was eyeing some tasty-looking thing in a food vendor's window and he just reached around the door and passed me a morsel. Or when I was running to hop into a packed microbus and a hand emerged to help me inside.

Egyptians everywhere struck up conversations with me simply to practice their English, and when I replied with my scrambled Arabic, their pleasure at my attempt was instant and apparent.

These are the things I remember about Egypt—not the events that inspired the flaming headlines or the inconveniences and abrasions of traveling in a poor country remaking itself. What I remember is the warmth and the unqualified welcome. And because of these, I will see Egypt again soon, inshallah.

About Going Alone

Everywhere I went, people asked why I was traveling alone. Mostly I just told them I was having an adventure. What I didn't tell them was that I did not want to be part of a tour—I'd done that once and if there is a hell, it's a tour bus full of strangers you can't escape.

I had never been anywhere on my own, never planned any travel that didn't require concessions to someone else, and because I'm an introvert, never so much as asked for help in a grocery store. I wanted to know if I could forget all that and make my way in a country whose language, landscape, and customs were completely unfamiliar to me. It was a good idea. Of all the decisions I made in the course of this journey, going alone was the best.

I also didn't tell them what I really wanted to achieve, which was to mark a transition from my old life as wife, mother, neighbor, friend, and career woman, through the dark years when all that blew apart, to this new, simpler life of unforeseen possibility and contentment. Six weeks in Egypt turned out to be just the ticket.

A Final Note. On Toilets.

I have been thinking of something my Egyptian-American Friend told me a few years ago. He said I am like an American toilet: You keep putting the bad stuff in and it flushes right away, while he is like an Egyptian toilet: It doesn't matter how much you put in or how many times you flush, it's there for the rest of your life.

One of the things I did with my time in Egypt was work on understanding myself better. And now that I'm more familiar with Egyptian toilets, I think I understand my Friend better, too.