WestMeetsEast

I saw a great bumper sticker as I walked to work during my last week in Cairo. It read: "Don’t Hold Opinions About Things You Don’t Understand." So I decided that I have no opinion about this country.

During the same walk I saw and experienced two things that have dogged me since Day One. I saw a smashed, dead cat covered with flies and maggots by the side of the road, and I was harassed by a group of men in the back of a truck. Oh, and I was ‘welcomed’ by an Egyptian. All of which serves as a reminder of how little an impact I — all of us — truly has in a culture so enigmatically entrenched in its ways. As many foreigners who have come and gone for centuries, Egypt is still the same. It is probably the same as it was thousands of years ago, plus or minus a little pollution.

As much as we — particularly foreigners — like to think we have made some sort of dent or change, Egypt is a constant reminder of our own futility and mortality.

And then it struck me: This is what it feels like to be an Egyptian. This is what it feels like to be a mere number in a swelling, sweltering population. This is what it feels like to have no voice. This is what it feels like when the president is the same person in power as when you were born. This is what it feels like to have no choice. This is what it feels like to know that no one gives a damn if you live or die. ...And this is what it feels like to not care.

This is what I learned about Egypt. And as long as I live, I will not understand it.