It’s my birthday in four days (Feb 16th in case I end up publishing this way later) and I’ll be going to Fayoum to spend one night in seclusion with the people I love. A long time ago I had made myself a promise that I would leave Cairo at least once a month, in order to breathe the fresh air, look at the stars and actually be able to feel gratitude for this place I live in. There is something about Cairo that demands to be left. I don’t know if it’s in the city’s inherent makeup or just in mine, but I often find myself asking the question: do I actually want to be living here? If you’ve read my pieces Dear Cairo and The Exodus, you know how much this city means to me. You know the daily activities and little corners of the world that I have made mine and continue to cherish every day. And yet, the urbanization of the city really gets to me. A lover of nature, I have a hard time coming to terms with the fact that I am living in a land made out of concrete. Willingly. That, in order to be able to walk in greenery or feel the sand beneath my feet, I have to look for a manmade park somewhere or drive 2+hours to the beach. Cairo is a bustling place and yet what my soul longs for is the quiet. The freedom of an untainted skyline or a sea breeze filled with the glimmer of sunlight.
I never really pictured myself as a settling down kind of girl. In my youth I always had big dreams of traveling the world, going from one place to the next and exploring all the places I’d never been. I imagined myself picking up random jobs to sustain me through the month and writing about all the sights I would get to see. It is still a dream I have and hope to accomplish. What gets to me about Cairo is that it’s surrounded by so much beauty. The vast plains of the desert. The little oases tucked in all of its corners. The seas that border it in the north and east. Egypt itself is so beautiful, and yet we have probably chosen the ugliest part of it to settle down in. With the little army shops opening on every corner and the strobe light billboards scattered around every part of the city, Cairo has become a monstrosity. A behemoth, that keeps expanding with more and more buildings and more and more people. I’m no sociologist— or economist—but I’m sure that at some point it will self-implode.
My family chose to leave Cairo over 15 years ago. They chose to settle in the desert, in—what was then— the middle of nowhere, in order to escape the sound and pollution. Now, of course, 6th of October has become just as urbanized as the rest of Cairo and has become added to what is referred to as Greater Cairo. I appreciate their move, I appreciate our house with its garden, and yet I would argue that it wasn’t far enough. Instead, I wish they had moved us to the Red Sea, to some little town along the coast that does not receive heavy traffic and has stayed true to its natural roots. I’m a dreamer, I know, but I can’t help but think that being far from all of this is how we were meant to live as humans.
My friends and I often talk about leaving Cairo. Of moving to the desert, or settling down in Sinai amongst the mountains. Of going to a little dive-town or living with the farmers in Fayoum. But for some reason, for most of us at least, it remains talk. When it comes to actually pulling the plug, we are scared. We are scared of what will face us on the other side if we abandon routine and tradition. We are scared of living far from our families. We are scared of freedom? A number of years ago, I visited a camp in Sinai where they grow produce and plants. A group of us had come to volunteer on the farm, to build mud-houses and repot the plants, and I became enamoured with the place and its people. I felt like that is what true communal living should be like, and I made immediate plans to return and maybe do an internship there. I didn’t though. For some reason I could never find the time to take a break from my busy life. From the “upwards” trajectory that I thought my career was moving in. I knew how important it was, for my belief system, for my soul, and yet I chickened out. I think a lot of us feel the same way. When faced with a life-changing, paradigm-shattering decision, we stick to what we know. The small losses are better than a big loss, we reason to ourselves. A small life change, better than the unknown. “Are we even made to settle?” is something I often wonder.
My friend Farida is a wanderer at heart. After growing up in Abu Dhabi, with it’s cookie-cutter perfect urban lifestyle, she vowed to herself to experience what the world was all about. She traveled to Ecuador and even Egypt in search of alternate lifestyles and freedom of the soul. And she found it. She found tribes of women that upheld their grandmother’s traditions making crafts from dreams, she found healing plant medicines, she found nature as far as the eye could see, and she found community (or communities). Settling in Cairo has been tough for her. Every few weeks she feels the need to travel and get out of the hustle and bustle. The wind calls to her, and she books another flight. When I talk to her, I am often confronted with what I feel to be the truth of our nature. Were we not made to experience the diversity that this earth has to offer? Were we not made to explore? Some would argue that in always seeking out, as I do from Cairo, as Farida does, we are truly seeking an internal equilibrium of some kind. The outer unrest is mirrored in the inner unrest. I wonder if that’s true. Does wanting to leave necessarily mean unhappiness? Is it human to want to root down and build (instead of root out and experience)? If we only have one life, does it make sense to limit that life to one city? Personally, I think human beings are versatile, I think what we want today we might not want tomorrow and it’s totally in our right to follow that choice. What might have worked for me for the past 10 years, isn’t going to necessarily work for me tomorrow, and I have to be okay— to be courageous— to follow that instinct.
But it’s easier said than done. Truly following our hearts, means fighting against the status quo. It means explaining to those you love that you may love them, but that there’s something more important to you, at the moment. It means explaining that the world and the rules they have followed just don’t work for you. It means that their choices will not be yours. When I applied to my Master’s degree in New York many people asked me why I’d chosen such a long program (2.5 years). Did I know what I was signing up for? I couldn’t bring myself to tell them that I needed a decent exit strategy. That I wanted to make sure that I would have to be away for a while, before coming back. Granted, that didn’t work out for me exactly how I’d planned, but the intention was there.
Today, for the first time in my short life, I have actually found happiness being in Cairo. The things I hate about the city: the cars, the pollution, the noise, the traffic, are eclipsed by the things I love: the inhabitants. I can’t say that it’s my ideal life that I am currently living, but I can say that the love I experience on a daily basis has meant more to me than the desire to run. Farida feels similarly. When asked about why she chooses to stay, her answer was simple: the people. If you’ve ever been to Cairo you know that it’s true. We are made of so much more than our city. And when I doubt that, when I feel the desire to board a plane or retreat into the desert, I’m reminded of that movie “Into the Wild” and the scene at the end where the main character, alone in the wilderness, jots down “happiness only real when shared”. And I wait and see. Maybe, we are made to settle down and live in communities. Maybe, some of us will forever be nomads and explorers, looking for adventure. For my peace of mind, I’ve decided to just embrace whatever comes, wherever I’m at. And when it calls for it, adjust accordingly.
Always searchingly yours,
Girl With One Earring
