WestMeetsEast

A rush of cold, healing salve on my aching knee - such a familiar feeling in such an unfamiliar place. I'm sitting here with minor knee pain after playing soccer for the last two and a half hours and thanking God, Allah and Budda for the "beautiful game." What a savior it is. It reminds you who you are and where you came from and what power you have. I do not know where I would be without it.

Anyway, this entry is not about soccer. It's about whale watching in the desert and using fruit as metaphors for the world's religions. I'll start with the most transcendent experience I've had so far in Egypt. By sheer dumb luck I was invited at the last minute on a trip to the Western Desert by my rich neighbor who had just bought a big, fancy four-wheel Range Rover for such desert excursions. Irfan is a Pakistani national working for a French railway company in Cairo. He is engaged to an American Yale grad who will join him here after the new year. Irfan is one of those worldly, smart guys who knows what he wants out of life and sees no reason why he shouldn't have it. He exudes confidence and self-assurance without a trace of arrogance. Quite a feat. Anyway, Irfan and his work buddies - let's just call them the Frenchies - all have four-wheelers equipped with GPS maps via handhelds, satellite phones and an assortment of life-saving and sand-tackling tools to assure even the biggest Nancy boy that the chance of getting stuck or lost is remote to none.

We started out early - early according to the Frenchies' schedule. Apparently, Jean-Pierre and Monique wanted to present a clean Durango to the desert. After washing their truck, and making a last-minute stop for ... French bread of course, we pulled out of Cairo at 10 a.m. After about two hours, Cairo's smoky air, blaring horns and glaring masses were fading from sight, and from memory. We left the highway suddenly and there it is...miles and miles and miles of sand. Everywhere. Its sheer ubiquity is overwhelming and humbling. We tore into the sand like banshees. Holding onto the car's "Oh Shit" handle for dear life I could not contain the grin that creeped across my face. What incredible fun to be reckless and free under a huge blue sky and generous sun.

We made our first stop to gather shells and so the Frenchies could drink their pastisse (has anybody had this drink? It's a god-awful tasting, hugely alcoholic liquor.) We found the most amazing fossils and shells - some millions of years ago, this part of the desert was under the sea. Thus the whale watching. After another couple miles, we found the site of the whale vertebrae. Also near this site are remnants of a downed WWI airplane.

We stopped to eat some lunch down in between a couple of sand dunes, which provided nice shade from the sun and a cozy lunch spot. The Frenchies offered us some more pastisse, some white wine, some red wine and even some whisky. I passed. After finishing off a tuna sandwich, I laid back right there in the sand and promptly fell asleep. After my cat nap, we headed back to our cars and went in search of some particular dunes the Frenchies wanted to take their cars on.

After taking our time, stopping for photos, etc., more pastisse, someone mentioned the time. We had exactly 20 minutes to get out of the desert and to the Fayoum oasis highway before dark. We hauled some major ass. The three trucks trailing in each other's dust like cheetahs chasing one another across the plain, zigzagging across waves of sand.

We made it with about a minute to spare. Once we were back on pavement and the Frenchies polished off the pastisse, we reluctantly headed back to Cairo, promising that next time we'd spend the night in the desert.

The next story - about the fruit - is transcendent too, in a way. As you all know, this is the middle of Ramadan, a very holy time for Muslims. For us foreigners, things are kinda nice. Think Thanksgiving day or Christmas morning after the presents are opened. Quiet, family around, some big TV event. That's pretty much what it's like every day during Ramadan for Egyptians. Stores are closed. The work day starts around 10 and ends at 2ish, when the streets clog while hungry fasters rush home to eat iftar - the meal that breaks the daily fast. And guess what happens at 4:30? Nothing. No one is on the streets. Nothing is open. No one is walking around. The subway is near-empty. And we get to walk around and enjoy it. Ever wondered what it would be like if the world ended and you were the only one left?

Theresa and I walked to the subway station last week instead of taking a cab - something we've never done. We stopped and looked into store windows. We noticed nooks and crannies we'd driven past hundreds of times. It's quite eerie and yet gratifying to see the streets emptied of their 16 million inhabitants. And all because of the Islamic holiday.

Which brings me to the fruit story. So far we have been invited to two iftars. The first was forgettable. It was the least Egyptian as it was held at Davin's university, which boasts of the best catering in town. The food was great, but there was no camaradie or conversation after dinner. Most people took off or sat in corners, smoking.

The second iftar was given by our grocer. This is the same vegetable and fruit stand that I have mentioned before. It's not exactly a stand, nor is it a modern grocery store. They sell fresh vegetables and fruit, and that's about it. The guys who work at the stand are some of the sweetest guys you could ever meet. And last week, they invited Davin, Theresa and I to partake in their iftar. A carpet of green turf was laid out on the sidewalk, and served as our table. The store owner's wife (whom we never met) cooked some 15 dishes for about eight to 10 men and us. We sat, shoes off, and ate mostly with our hands and shared bottles of water. The meal consisted of dates, rice and noodles, potatoes, meat, beet salad, green, orange and yellow peppers, zucchini and fresh fruit for desert.

After the meal, one of the men asked if he could chat with us a bit. He said he wanted to tell us something. He picked up a pear, a date and a strawberry. He said, "See this strawberry, this is Budda. This date is Islam. This pear is Christianity. Each one is different but each one still has vitamins. We are all different, each one, but we are all good." He then went on to explain why he loves his particular God. He says Islam is good because there are systems, which instruct you on how to live your life. "You have questions about parenthood or an illness or some other problem, Islam has the book that has answers. It has the answers. I love my God."

He went on quite a bit longer and tried to get more philosophical but his English was too broken for us to understand him. As simplistic as his explanation of Islam was, it was informative nonetheless. This man could have been anyone in America talking about God and Jesus and why he loves Him. In fact, he sounded like many Southern people I have come across in my life, believers. For the masses, this is Islam. It informs them in this life, how to be a good person. Nothing more, nothing less. Modern references to Islam extremists are cultural manifestations that have much more to do with socioeconomic circumstances than any religion. In my mind, this man with his fruit metaphor is Islam.

I visited the US this month for a wedding and to spend time with my family as my grandmother died recently. People have asked me if I experienced any reverse culture shock. I don’t think I’ve been here long enough to experience that but I did get a keen sense of how great the differences are between here and there and the gap in understanding. I blame the lack of decent media coverage for that. But I also must take Americans to task for one thing: unsubstantiated opinions. It is 100% impossible to understand the political situation here without knowing its history and its local nuances. I don’t understand it myself and I may never. But to have a strong opinion based on what you hear on CNN and Fox News is irresponsible. Don’t trust the media. American media are so totally biased, they can’t see straight. That’s all I will say about that. Oh, and it sure was nice being totally clean for once.

Before I left for the states, I had a chance to see the country’s other big city, Alexandria. On the Mediterranean, Alex is much nicer than Cairo.

It was founded by Alexander the Great and retains much of its Greek heritage it the form of restaurants and ruins. We took a train from Cairo for about $8 apiece. That was first-class. Which, I must add, was the shoddiest first-class seat I’ve ever had. The guy who led us to our seats — without being asked — demanded that we pay him for brushing off the seats. We gave him a couple piasters. The ride took about three hours. Once we arrived, we started searching for a hotel. It was about 8 p.m. on a Thursday night. Again, without asking, we suddenly had a guide who made it his life’s goal to find us a hotel. “At no charge,” he insisted.

Two hours later, after being shown a half-dozen crappy rooms, we were exhausted and attempted to shake off our guide. He followed us anyway, right into the Nile Exelsior, and demanded money. After paying him off, we settled into our 85-pound-a-night room and found some grub. A decent meal at 19 pounds (about $5) of fatta and shish kebab. We decided the next day would entail relaxation on the beach, come hell or high water.

We woke early and trotted off to find a bus to the beaches. We took a cheap bus to the clear other end of the city — the tourist side where hotels are over 600 pounds a night. We stumbled upon paradise. Clear-blue waters, fancy hotels, sailboats and restaurants. We took a tour of King Farouk’s (Egypt’s last monarch) palace, which today acts as a Camp David for the government. The grounds were immense and lush. Inside the palace grounds we spotted an empty beach. Upon trying to get onto the beach, we were stopped by a guard who explained that this was a private beach reserved for some hotel’s guests only.

Further down, we found the public beach crowded Florida-style. We paid the 10-pound entrance fee and went to find a spot. It was at this point that I finally looked around and realized something that had never really occurred to me. Islamic women do not wear bathing suits. They are completely covered. Headscarves, T-shirts and long shorts. They swim in these clothes. Refusing to let this bother me, I took off my shorts and top to reveal, yes, that’s right, my bikini. Needless to say, I laid out in the sun on my stomach and buried my head in the sand. Davin learned a new phrase in Arabic: “Get your own wife.”

After an hour, we packed it in and went in search of a seafood dinner. We had read about a place on the beach in a Lonely Planet guide. We took a taxi there. Turns out the restaurant must be having a down season. When we arrived at 7, it was as if we had woken up the staff. The lights were out and nothing was on the tables. They assured us that yes they were open. During the entire meal, the lights came on and off and the noise of a backup generator (that didn’t really work) kept conversation at bey.

After dinner we walked out to the main road and realized the power was out on the entire block. With no taxi in sight, we boarded a bus that was headed in the general direction of our hotel. The bus did a couple of turns around the block for no apparent reason while the driver ate some dinner. When he was done with his dinner, he had no place to stow his glass, so he chucked it out the window. An interesting ride took us back to the balady side of town (balady means local, or townie) where we settled in on our balcony with a couple of beers.

Because the area the hotel was in was pure-Egyptian, the night was alive with activity. Our hotel was surrounded by ahwas and shisha bars. The male-to-female ratio was about 100 to 1. We watched the games of backgammon until we were forced inside by the men who spotted us and insisted on gesturing at me. I guess they assumed I was a prostitute and that Davin was my pimp.

So our little weekend escape wasn’t much of an escape, but we did enjoy some excellent coffee and a visit to the city’s new library. An amazing building architecturally, the library is huge and modern. We must have spent three hours there.

Next month, the city is poised to transform as Ramadan begins. Akin to a Western holiday, the city is overtaken by strung lights and street vendors. Ramadan lasts an entire month and consists of fasting from sun up to sun down. And from what I hear, there’s roaring parties each night as the fast is broken. It is a time of no work and much carousing. It is also a time of little production (the work hours are from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.) and heavy traffic. I also hear that Cairennes (huge smokers) become more than a bit grumpy as fasting includes no sex, no cigarettes, no food and no coffee.

I should have walked away. A mature person would have walked away. Before I begin this story, let me start off by telling you a dream I had a couple of weeks ago. It goes like this: I was hiking alone in some woods. It looked like California. Suddenly, a bull is blocking my path. I try every way to get past him, but his eyes are following my every move. After a while I think, “F it, I’m making a run for it.” I sprint past him, turn around, jump on his back and grab hold of his horns. I break his horns right off and use the sharp end to slowly, methodically gouge his eyes out until he’s totally blinded. Then I go on my merry way.

So I guess you could say I have a little pent-up anger here. OK, back to the story. This week I had my first real match with my soccer team. We were playing against a local Egyptian team that is known to play pretty rough. Needless to say, I was nervous as hell. It’s one thing to kick around scrimmage-style with a bunch of ex-pats. It’s a completely other thing to play an actual game against a local men's team. I arrived at the field late in my work clothes. So, the process of finding a place to change clothes drew its own crowd of gawkers. Soon, some Egyptian coach cleared out a locker room of about 15 men to let me in. Once word got around that a woman was to be playing in the game, quite a crowd gathered to watch the match. No big deal. The first incident came from a group of young boys who thought it was cool to throw rocks at the girl. After a teammate stopped them, all was fine.

The game was great. I didn’t touch the ball much, but I managed to stop my mark from scoring a couple of times. Game over. Score: 1-1. Upon leaving the club, a group of teenagers circled me and shot me birds and other various rude gestures. At first I wasn’t even sure they were meant for me, so I kept walking. Soon enough, it was clear they did not appreciate the fact that a woman has soiled their field. I stopped, turned around and asked the ringleader to say what he meant to my face. I waited as his friends egged him toward me. He giggled and stammered and tried to hide behind a friend. Wrong. I waited and continued to point at him and ask him to come here and say it to my face. He didn’t move, so I did. I got in his face, told him to apologize, which he did not, and then I hawked up some spit and spit in his face. Then I told him to “Fuck off.” How mature am I? I should have walked away, right? He’s just an idiot kid. It’s possible that he doesn’t even know what his gestures meant. Who knows. All I know is that it felt good. It felt right. Cultural sensitivity be damned.

This place changes people. It’s so backward sometimes, I feel like I’m choking. Yesterday I heard a story about an English woman who was brought in to be the one of the bosses of a British Gas and and Egyptian company joint venture. On her first week she was reprimanded for giving a presentation (in a business suit) while standing in front of an air-conditioner. Apparently, the Egyptians complained that she was trying to distract them with her nipples, which had gone hard from the cold. So instead of the Egyptian getting reprimanded for making sexist comments, she got a dress code. One step forward, two steps back.

I read some Cairo diaries that were published recently in the New Yorker and a number of things struck me. First, these diary entries written by someone who has lived here much longer than I and who has an historical perspective as he visited Cairo more than 30 years ago as a teacher. Second, many of his observations are the same as I have had (crazy driving, pollution, etc.) but the vast majority are so totally different from anything I have seen or heard that he may as well be writing about another country.

What I am doing is most certainly not novel. But what makes a travel journal enduring and readable is the writer’s point of view. So after reading Lawrence Wright’s version of modern Cairo, I realized that I am doing you, my readers, a disservice by offering you my narrow view of things.

Let me unload some of the baggage I carry that colors the stories I have been relaying to you.

First, I am cheap and I am broke. I earn one-tenth of what I earned in the US and my husband is a student. This means that many of the beautiful places in Egypt are inaccessible to us. Egypt has many resort-like areas (Sharm El-Sheikh, Hurghada, El Gouna, Agamy, Ain Soukna) where you can spend less than you would in the US for top-notch Club Med-style facilities. These are the places of white sand and turquoise waters and bellboys. You will not hear about these places in my diaries. Even if I was making good money, resort life has never been my style.

But because of my cheapness, you will hear about the inside of a Cairo bus. You will know what fuul, tammiya and fatta taste like. You will feel the stares that I feel when I ride the Metro. You will know what the men at the awha (male-only coffeehouses) talk about. These are the activities, the transportation and food of real Egyptians — the majority of the country that cannot read, write and barely have jobs.

Second, I am self-conscious in public. I do not like being noticed. It takes away some sort of control I have over what I am thinking and forces me into situations I never asked for. Yet, at the same time, I am friendly, and this invites unwanted attention. This personality trait of mine colors the way I think about Egyptians. It doesn’t matter why they are staring at me. There are too many reasons. The No. 1 reason is sheer difference. There are some foreign women here who enjoy the staring and sometimes even bring it on. I go through phases. Most days I try to ignore it. But after ignoring it for a couple of days, I want to be brazen. I am angered by the fact that I am letting someone else’s behavior change mine — letting them make me feel ashamed or too feminine. I get angry that they make me feel like a teenager again who has no confidence and a terrible self-image. During these anger phases I stare right back or call them a bad name in Arabic or hiss at them they way they hiss at me. I will wear skirts on these days and keep my head up at all costs. Then the next phase that hits is a more liberal approach. Why bring on more trouble? I switch my skirts for baggy pants. This is just their culture. It is a sexually repressed culture; it’s not their fault. Male-female relationships in Egypt are not based on mutual respect. They are not even allowed to develop friendships with women to learn what women are capable of. The sexual barrier becomes its own character. And it doesn’t go away. Men here are convinced that women are only out to snag a man and then sit at home on their ass and complain about the servants. The men have little sympathy for the lack of role models and the heavy-handed patriarchal society that created these kinds of women.

So it is impossible for me to write about my adventures here without these nagging traits of my own getting in the way. If I were a man, you would have a totally different opinion of Egypt after reading my diaries. If I were rich, you would most definitely have a different view.

Back to Mr. Wright and his NY Times diaries. Politics. Again, I haven’t mentioned them much which must seem odd considering the time and the region I am in. This is again colored by me and possibly not the real Egypt. Wright writes that Egyptians’ hatred of Americans is palpable and growing. I simply cannot speak to this sentiment since it goes against everything I have experienced here. It is true that many Egyptians are not convinced that Osama bin Laden was behind 9/11. It is true that Egyptians think America’s blind support of Israel borders on criminal. It is true that Egyptians view most Americans as naïve. But it is not true that Egyptians as a whole hate Americans as a whole.

This is quite possibly the largest small town in the world. People here look out for each other. A woman stranded on the side of the road with a flat tire can expect to be helped immediately with no fear of being attacked. I run into people on the street almost once a day whom I have met before or seen somewhere. Just walking around the city, you are “welcomed” about 10 times. Egyptians love foreigners. The vast majority want us to enjoy their country and stay here.

The country’s problems are numerous. It is a hard place to live for anyone. But the problems stem from the government being too entrenched in the daily lives of citizens, being corrupt and being too huge. There are some 16 million people in Cairo; 6 million of them work for the government. Herein lies the problem. The massive inefficiency created by the beast of bureaucracy leaks into the private sector and creates jobs like the hole diggers and hole fillers, and my favorite, the chairsitter.

The chairsitter is classic Cairo. You cannot go anywhere without seeing a chairsitter. I believe they are meant to be security of some sort, but there is so little crime in Cairo, that these guys go for weeks without looking at anyone’s ID or stopping anyone from going anywhere. Hence the name: the chairsitter. There is literally at least one chairsitter per residential building. If the building is more than five stories, then there’s two chairsitters. If the building has companies inside, each company has its own chairsitter. There’s chairsitters in public areas – parks, gardens, etc. There’s chairsitters on just about every corner in our neighborhood. There’s a chairsitter in every public bathroom. And at least, in this case, maybe they are holding the only toilet paper roll so they serve a purpose.

Another totally random observation that has nothing to do with anything: Cairo is covered in bats. They are everywhere at night. My colleague from NY and I finally (think) we have figured out why. The city is plagued with abandoned buildings. Some were left mid-construction either because the project ran out of the money and went under or because the government put the squeeze on the project for some reason. (There’s even one building that was hyped and promoted as a high-tech high-rise. Halfway through construction, they stopped because they failed to make enough parking spots ahead of time so the government shut them down. And it’s too expensive to tear down.) So, anyway, we think that the bats are living in the buildings, which act as perfect, dry caves all day, and then they come out at night.

Asking anyone what they love about the city they live in is an interesting exercise. In America, you would expect to hear answers from “the weather,” “the low cost of living,” to “job opportunities” and “the tree-lined neighborhoods,” to “the low crime.” Asking people in Cairo this same question is different. You definitely don’t get the same kinds of responses, but one thing you do hear that I’ve never heard in reference to an American city is passion in their voices. People who love Cairo, really, really love Cairo.

But when you ask for specifics, they tend to shy away. Mainly they cite the fact that you can find anything you want here – meaning consumer products. So for Cairennes, the true sign of “making it” is consumerism. The fact that you can buy Giorgio Armani sunglasses in Cairo means the city has arrived, so to speak.

The truth is, there is much to love about this city that has nothing to do what you can buy here. The problem is that Cairennes don’t place a premium on these lovable attributes. The Nile, for example. It’s amazing. This river is laden with so much history. It has literally fed centuries and centuries of hungry bodies. Its breezes make the city’s dreadful air slightly more breathable. But the amount of pollution in the river is so shameful. And the only groups that cry out are outside NGOs and environmental groups, not the citizens. Another example, the Egyptian museum. This museum is home to some of the world’s most famous antiquities. And yet the museum is run down, the names of displays are misspelled or worse, mislabled entirely. The art is not being properly protected in regards to the damaging climate and air conditions. The museum’s hours are haphazard and unreliable.

If I had to come up with a slogan for the city of Cairo in the 21st Century, it would be “Cairo: A City of Lost Potential.” There’s a sense of constantly caring only about the short-term, and not the long-term. Things around the house are fixed halfway with tweaks here and there, and then they break again after a couple of weeks. The electrician came to fix our fuse box — which was a fire hazard with its melting wires — and destroyed the paint on the wall. Now we are waiting for a painter to come by. We also discovered that since the new fuse box was put in place the doorbell only works when the foyer light is on. Things at my office get the same treatment. Everyday, we run out of toilet paper by 3 p.m. And instead of buying a 24-pack to last for a week, they supply us with two-packs on a daily basis. Same problem with the copier. And the fax machine.

Sometimes I think this short-term outlook is by design. It keeps people like the office boy employed. And the street cleaners who simultaneously sweep up trash and then litter by tossing out their cigarette butts. Construction jobs seem to be the same. My Egyptian friend and neighbor Ihab says that on any given day a street will get freshly paved and the next day it gets dug up because the first crew forgot to lay some cable or pipes. And at the end of the tear-up job, they run out of money to re-pave. So what are you left with? Good intentions, but a crappy road.

(Speaking of good intentions, did you know that in Islam the intention of praying is just as good as an actual prayer?)

We’ve also been sadly disappointed in the music scene. As world-music buffs, we were expecting to be exposed to interesting music. But, alas, this is something you have to hunt for. Most modern, young Egyptians listen to the worst of the worst Western music like (I apologize now for whomever I am about to offend) Britney Spears, Celine Dion, Marc Anthony, Shakira and Ricky Martin. These are pretty much the only acts that have made it across the ocean from the US. And Europe has only given Egypt dance music.

The sad part is that Arabic music is actually really amazing. In my opinion, it is one of the most creative things to have come out of this culture. It’s so different from anything you hear in America. Next time you get a chance, listen to some of these singers and tell me if you don’t agree: Rachid Taha, Khaled, Sawt Al-Atlas, Amr Diab, Hakim and Mohamed Mounir.

These musicians have mixed old classical Arabic music that uses the patented sliding string sound with modern French rap and hip-hop rhythms. They call this type of music rai (“opinion” in Arabic). The lyrics tend to be of a political nature. Rai has been around for decades, but today’s rai has incorporated so many other sounds. Oh, and the best place to hear this music for the least amount of money? In a Cairo taxi of course.

The other problem with finding good music is technology. CDs and CD players are not the standard here. It’s still cassette tapes. And who still has one of those? In desperation, I bought a cassette player last week at Radio Shack. And that night, Davin and I went on a search for some Arabic music on tape. We found a music store close by and I bought a tape by Cheb Mami. You’ve probably heard his music. He is the voice in the background of Sting’s song “Desert Rose.” Anyway, after listening to the tape a couple of times, I accidentally pushed “record” instead of stop and recorded over the tape.

All of you know that soccer is a big part of my life — and something I am loath to give up. Well, this week was the ultimate soccer experience. On Tuesday night there is a regular pick-up game with some British men who work for British Gas. That was tons of fun even though I was the only woman. And Thursday night I had my first tryout for a women’s team — supposedly one of three women’s teams in the whole country.

One of our new friends, 23-year-old medical student Mustafa Hamdy, has taken my cause to heart. When he heard that I played, he told me about this particular women’s team he knew about. He went to a good bit of trouble making sure I could get into a members-only club. He met me at the field – along with three of his friends on a Thursday after work.

As soon as I see the “women’s team,” I know I have to get out of there. These are not women – they are girls — some as young as 13 and most of them in higab (veils), long pants and tennis shoes. I started to turn around to tell Mustafa that this was not going to work out when I realized he was already talking to “Captain Samy” about me. Seconds later I am being yelled at by Captain Samy, the overweight, chain-smoking Egyptian coach who speaks no English. Samy yells at me to fall in line with the rest of the girls and start stretching.

So I think to myself, ‘OK, I can do this. It’s just two hours of embarrassment, then I can just never return.’ So “practice” starts. The oldest team member, 20-year-old Nora, leads the team in stretches — none of which are done properly (too much bouncing, etc.). Then Samy yells something about running around the track. (At this point I am just watching him and trying to follow the other girls and what they are doing…and some of them translate for me as well). So we run about a half-mile. These teenagers are panting and breathing so hard you’d think they’d just run a 10K.

We finish our two laps. We start the drills, which consist of passing and dribbling. Very elementary stuff but decent basics. However, this is when I notice the ball. For those of you who play soccer, do you remember when you were on the under-10 teams? Remember the size of the ball? A size 4, right? A kid’s ball. Well, in Egypt, a kid’s ball is also a women’s ball.

Samy divides the group into four teams for mini-scrimmages. The winner stays on the field and the other teams rotate in. I played defense and tried to stay out of the way for the most part. But at one point, I made a run forward to get open for a throw-in. I volleyed the thrown-in ball for a goal. These girls screamed their heads off. They had never seen a woman volley a ball into the back of the net. They were screaming and giggling nervously. Then I headed a ball — more gasps. I passed around someone — more cheers.

It was totally embarrassing. I tried to leave but Captain Samy screamed at me to stay. After my team won its fourth consecutive game, two of the girls came up to me and “Elizabeth, we are so happy to be the champs, but we just cannot play another minute.” They were holding their stomachs and near tears. Samy yells at them to sit down. They basically had cramps and he was telling to sit down.

Then came the cameras. In the middle of the scrimmage, the club officials decide it’s time for a team photo for the club’s magazine. And guess who they forced to be in the team photo? That’s right, the giant, mysterious white woman who showed up once and never returned. Then they asked us to juggle the balls around. Of course I was the only one who could juggle, so now the guy with the camera is moving around me flashing the camera and snapping shots. So totally embarrassing.

After the practice, the girls were surrounding me asking me where was I from, how long have I been playing, etc. I told them I was too old to be on their team, that I had literally played soccer for longer than all of them have been alive. When they found out I was American and not German (I guess because of my size?) they immediately wanted to know what I thought about Palestine and where was I on 9/11…they begged me to return saying I could teach them so much.

I told them I wish I could come back and coach them properly but that it was probably impossible. A woman coaching soccer is even more laughable here than it is more women to play soccer. I told them to stick it out and that they are pioneers in Egypt for women’s sports. I told them to ignore the crowds of men that gather on the sidelines to laugh at how ridiculous it is to see girls playing soccer.

It was a surreal experience. Almost like travelling back in time. This must have been what it was like for the first generation of American women who played soccer. The Middle East certainly doesn’t have a stranglehold on sexism. I’m just lucky to have been born after US women broke into the world of sports. I am thinking about going back and attempting to either suggest new drills to Samy or subtlety let him know that I can help out in coaching if he is too busy or needs to leave early.

The looks on these girls faces when I showed them how to stretch their quads and that if the ball is coming toward your face you don’t need to use your hands to stop it was priceless. Like a whole new world.

It’s strange how the slightest bit of Americana — the kind I used to avoid back home — can be comforting in a place so far from home. Davin and I spent Friday afternoon (the equivalent of a Saturday in the states) at the Maadi House. It is basically a country club. Its membership base is strictly American military and any US government entity members and their families. We got in as guests of our real estate agent whose husband works for the US.

It was like reverse culture shock. We ate $3 burgers. We watched American cartoons in the TV room. We listened to very Southern-sounding moms scream at their kids to stop fighting with each other. We saw a young military couple lounging by the pool – he was reading Tom Clancy and she was reading People magazine. We watched kids jump up and down in one of those blow-up floaty funhouses that you see at big backyard parties in America.

The ex-pat community here has certainly built quite an empire for itself. They have their clubs and work hard to have nice homes and apartments but only inside – attempting to fix the streets outside their homes or coordinate trash pick-up in the neighborhood is unheard of. They are only passing through so why fix anything permanently?

This next part will most likely not shock any of you, but it is nonetheless appalling in my opinion. Over the past month I have had the opportunity to see firsthand yours and my tax dollars at work. Egypt is the second-largest recipient of USAID behind Israel. This money is peacekeeping money — in other words, the mission is to sink money into the Egyptian economy to build up business, environmental awareness, health, education and more. At the country club, we ran into a thirtysomething woman I had interviewed previously for a story on a USAID program that trains high-level managers. She was with another USAID worker and we hung out with them for the remainder of the day and into the night. These two single women — grads of Georgetown and Bennington — were full of talk of Egypt … Egypt’s men, Egypt’s bars, Egypt’s resorts. Yes, they both have actual jobs here but from what they say they only work about three or four days a week, they take numerous vacations and spend gobs of money. These gals make more than they made back home (probably somewhere in the $40,000-$50,000 range). They get 15% of that salary as a “hardship stipend” because they’re in the Middle East; they get up to $5,000 to ship their belongings from the states (even though all apartments in Cairo come furnished); they get a $1,500 monthly housing allowance and God knows what else.

First of all, before we moved here we found a website that translates your salary and bills, etc., from one international city to another. From our calculations, a salary in the range of $60,000-$70,000 a year translates to about $6,000-$8,000 here. Our apartment is about 1,300 square feet (huge) and costs about $380 a month, which is on the high end of the scale. And hardship?? Please.

These girls each have a three-bedroom apartment – much nicer than anything they can afford back in the states. Since the landlords know they work for the US government, their apartments cost $1,500 a month even though fair market price should be about $500 a month. They spend their weekends diving in the Red Sea and having romances with young Egyptians. (To use her own words, one said “How else as a 40-year-old divorcee am I going to date a gorgeous 25-year-old? This would never happen in the states…) Oh, and she made sure to tell us that she had deflowered him since of course he is Muslim and supposed to remain a virgin until marriage. The third USAID worker I met chooses to spend his gobs of dough on the illegal drugs he gets on romps to the coast.

And we wonder why people of the world think of Americans as spoiled and arrogant…when most Americans they meet are these government workers who basically treat these jobs as a spring break …partying and spending lavishly. And when they refer to their work they pretty talk only of how impossible it is to get anything accomplished with a government as backwards as Egypt’s so they are just putting in their hours and not accomplishing much. I must say however, that the one good thing that comes out of this system of sending singles into countries where they are treated like gods is that at least they are pouring money into the economy here and helping the country’s bottom line. And just think, the US has thousands of programs like these in numerous countries all conversely doing harm and doing good.

Being a business journalist can make you feel at times intrusive, sycophantic, smart, stupid, righteous, humbled. All these incongruous emotions can be exhausting and confusing. After the hundredth press conference of the latest “innovative cross-platformational customer-expanding experience,” you begin to be jealous of those journalists covering wars and famines.

But no matter how long one has been in the business, most journalists still retain at least a modicum of idealism. It’s usually what got them there in the first place. When that idealism dies out, I’m not sure. I guess it depends on the reporter and the circumstances. And then there are times when that idealism bubbles back to the surface, when you remember with perfect clarity why you do what you do, why you chose this silly profession.

These were my thoughts last month after I shared a Coke with a the head of an ad agency in Qatar, Lebanese national Baher Hayek.

I was in Doha, Qatar, for two days. I knew it wasn’t enough time to absorb much of the city of 300,000 or so, but at the same time, it’s Doha. If you think Dubai is in the middle of nowhere, try visiting Doha. It redefines dull. Long stretches of beige interupted here and there by a shiny tower. Beige sand, beige buildings, beige cars. Doha, ever in the shadow of glitzy Dubai, is trying hard to put its name on the map. With its substantial money it’s building many projects just like Dubai’s. Manmade islands and such. But one of its projects is unprecedented, or so reads the brochure. This was the reason I was in Doha, to interview the heads of 2,400-acre Education City where the likes of Cornell, Texas A&M, Carnegie Mellon and Virginia Commonwealth University have built full-fledged branch campuses. A worthwhile project, which should make for a decent story, once I write it.

After a full day of touring this mega campus and speaking to more Americans in one day than I did in two and half years in Egypt, I needed something different to do on Day 2. So, as part of my other magazine job, I went around chatting with the heads of local ad agencies, to determine the state of the advertising and marketing industries for a potential. This is when I met Baher.

It was hard to ignore the burn scars on his otherwise typically handsome Lebanese face. About halfway through the interview I stopped and told him I needed to take his photo. He was insistent that I photograph his unscarred, left side. He then casually mentioned that he was the victim of a terrorist attack that took the lives of his two young children. Taken aback a little I told him I how sorry I was and we went back to talking about the immaturity of Qatari companies when it comes to understanding the importance of branding.

At the end of the interview we exchanged cards and said goodbye. At my hotel I settled in at the rooftop bar and grill to kill the next five hours before my flight. In the middle of transcribing one of six tapes, my phone rings. It was Baher. I had left behind a CD of images from the company’s latest campaign. Instead of sending a driver (as is the usual practice), Baher himself shows up at the hotel 15 minutes later with the CD.

We order Cokes and within minutes he’s telling me his life story. I hadn’t asked really, but as is typical in these transient Gulf states, loneliness often goes hand in hand with a big job. Men like Baher, unable to make much money in their own countries, are often recruited to run businesses for the rich oil barons of the Gulf. These battle-bruised execs hail from the poorer and problematic countries like Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Iran and Egypt. These are the smart Arabs that perhaps used to immigrate to the US or UK. Now they are businessmen in the Gulf. And they are usually here alone. It’s rare for them to bring their wives and children along unless the company foots the bill, which was the case when Baher was working in Saudi Arabia from about 1999 to 2004.

He had made some actual roots in Saudi. In a paid-for villa in a secure compound of course, but his house was a real home, full of pictures of his 5-year-old daughter and 7-year-old son, furniture, decorations, the works. The compound was full of about 200 families just like his, young Lebanese and Egyptian families doing quite well for themselves. It was known as the compound of the expat Arabs. It also happened to be right in front of the main palace of one of Saudi’s ruling princes.

Around midnight on Nov. 8, 2004, his wife woke to the sound of gunshots. She climbed atop the roof of the two-story villa where she could see the compound’s gate. Here she saw about 20 gunmen shooting at the compound guards. In the midst of the shooting, a stolen police car was able to drive through the compound’s exit, which had been opened by mistake by someone inside trying to leave.

His wife alerted Baher who was downstairs, and then she ran into her children’s room. Within minutes, the car, which was filled with 1,000 kgs of explosives parked in front of the house and detonated.

Baher’s children were instantly crushed. His wife was thrown from the second floor into the air and landed in the garden. She was 4 months pregnant. Baher remembers her screaming out her children’s names. With a broken leg she managed to crawl to her husband whose unconscious body was lying in a heap of rubble. The rescuers who came 20 minutes later begged her to leave his side, he was dead they told her. She refused to leave saying she knew he was alive.

Sixteen surgeries and some 600 stitches later, Baher’s body is still full of shrapnel. When they rise to the surface he has them removed. He works out most days, which helps dislodge some of the pieces.

His pregnant wife gave birth five months after the attack to a healthy boy. A miracle, a divine intervention, he says.

A Christian before the attack, Baher now calls himself a “believer.” We have become believers. You have to. I have to believe that my children are with God. If I didn’t, it would be devastating.”

“One day,” he said, “you wake up and everything’s gone. Your home, your children, everything. What do you do? I don’t even have any photos of my kids.”

His need to talk about the “accident,” as he calls it, comes from his faith. It’s almost as if talking about it reassures him that God indeed had a hand in saving his wife and baby.

He sees his wife and son about once a month. “It’s better this way, believe me. What can we talk about?” With a faraway look in his eye, he explains that with her he must put on a happy face. “We pretend.”

His wife is convinced God has punished them for previous sins. When she was 18 years she caused a car wreck that killed a child. And when Baher was 22 and living in Maryland, he impregnated an American woman who kept the information from him until she was five months pregnant. After offering to raise the child himself, the woman refused and they agreed on adoption.

The child, now 15, was given to a Jewish couple. “They were lawyers. I knew they would always have money. I did what was best for my child.”

The “accident” dredged up these “sins” from the past, and they have irrevocably tainted the marriage.

Baher is the first survivor of a terrorist attack I’ve ever personally met. I think as journalists, we are supposed to ask what someone like Baher’s religion is, what political party does he belong to, how much does he hate Al Qaeda, what revenge does he want, and so on.

But all that seems so secondary in comparison to his obvious pain, so raw and palpable. Does it really matter how it happened, how the government responded? The man has no photographs of his children, as if they never existed. His wife is racked with guilt and shame. His marriage, his life, will never be the same.

For the record, 21 of the 22 perpetrators were caught. In all, 18 people died; about 100 were injured. The attackers were connected to Al Qaeda. The Arab expat compound was used as an example, a show of power. The terrorists’ aim was to show the prince how close they could get to him. The 18 shattered lives were an afterthought. Their nationalities, religion, all irrelevant to the attackers.