This blog is abandoned until the THESIS is over!!!

What went wrong..?

Sentences I will always remember:

“An eye for an eye, leaves the whole world blind” (Gandhi)
“If I weren’t an Egyptian, I would have wanted to be one” (M. Kamel)
“You live, you learn” (A. Morisette)
“There are a lot of Gandhis and Ches out there; they just didn’t get the right chance” (D. Burghart)
“A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle” (unknown, but I bet it’s a woman)
“The future is a mistress that is so hard to please, and the past is a pebble in my shoe” (song, Brokedown Palace)
“Those who hear not the music, think the dancers mad” (R. Labib)
“I’m sick and tired, of always being sick and tired” (Anastasia)
“If you want to make omelets, you’ll have to break some eggs” (T. Durden in Fight Club)
“If you want to be happy, BE” (I don’t remember)
“I’m sick of yew, and I want to be free” (S. Ayad?)
“A lady at the table, wild in bed” (M. Silva)
“Shit happens” (Everyone)
“We have found the enemy and he is US” (an American guy)
“ I am from Texas, and I don’t like Bush” (another American guy I met in Brussels)
“Our generation is fortunate to live in a time of courage, and we are proud to serve in freedom's cause. May God bless you all.” (G.W. Bush)

RAMY, HAPPY & RO2AYYA

People forgotten. I call them shadow figures. Everyday you meet them: the DHL delivery guy, the best friend of the girlfriend of the first guy you liked (but thought you loved), it’s even the disgusting hairdresser that you used to go to long time ago, when you first realized that you hair needs a fix: RAMADAN. You must have been someone else’s shadow figure, too; seeing them once or a few times, having some special –or not- conversation, and then … you disappear.
You are left somewhere in a forgotten, yet unforgotten file, inside a dusty old drawer. You lay there for the rest of your life: forgotten, without a name or even a memory, just a vague picture, and somehow like a cartoon character: deep down it touches you, but you don’t admit it for the rest of your life. Why? Because it’s childish and it reminds you of your naïvity, purity and innocence.

One of my favorite songs: Universal Soldier

He's five foot-two, and he's six feet-four,
He fights with missiles and with spears.
He's all of thirty-one, and he's only seventeen,
Been a soldier for a thousand years.

He'a a Catholic, a Hindu, an Atheist, a Jain,
A Buddhist and a Baptist and a Jew.
And he knows he shouldn't kill,
And he knows he always will,
Kill you for me my friend and me for you.

And he's fighting for Canada,
He's fighting for France,
He's fighting for the USA,
And he's fighting for the Russians,
And he's fighting for Japan,
And he thinks we'll put an end to war this way.

And he's fighting for Democracy,
He's fighting for the Reds,
He says it's for the peace of all.
He's the one who must decide,
Who's to live and who's to die,
And he never sees the writing on the wall.

But without him,
How would Hitler have condemned him at Dachau?
Without him Caesar would have stood alone,
He's the one who gives his body
As a weapon of the war,
And without him all this killing can't go on.

He's the Universal Soldier and he really is to blame,
His orders come from far away no more,
They come from here and there and you and me,
And brothers can't you see,
This is not the way we put the end to war.

Molokheyya + Ma7shy + Bamya + Keshk + etc.

Apart from missing your boyfriend, your sister, your family, your girlfriends and the closest of all: your cat, when you leave home for long, the thing you and your stomach miss the most is: FOOD. The above mentioned, dishes with weird-sounding-names are only few among a huge variety of Egyptian food that -yum yum- are so delicious and tasty. The problem is, they are so heavy, after you are done with eating lunch, you definitely have to sleep for 2 hours at least, or your friends are going to be extremely bored if they meet you right after lunch. The second problem is, if you want to cook these dishes and if you want them to taste good, you have to be a grandmother… or a mother… OK I admit it, some of my friends DO cook these complicated meals, BUT they have been doing so for ages, while I did not. I have been proud of being able to prepare eggs for the past 25 years. Nowadays I can add pasta, chicken and rice to the eggs-list.
(N.B. Rice: You buy UNCLE BEN’S, which has 4 or 8 plastic bags full of rice inside. You put the plastic bag in boiling water for 5 minutes, and that’s it: you have rice!!)

More of them...

Images that warm the soul...

My history teachers

During my short life, I had two teachers that made my love for history grow beyond my imagination. The first one was Frau En3am, a fat, early-forties lady, who knew how to tell us about Egypt’s long and fascinating history in such an interesting way, which made me personally wish that history does not have an end.
My second teacher was a less formal one, who was able to talk about history at any moment in such eloquence and fluency. One day he was drunk and stoned, yet he made this 45 minutes presentation on Egypt’s history; starting with the pharaohs (el farawna, as some people might call them) and ending with the present situation, with glimpses on the future and the different, possible scenarios that could take place. I was so impressed; I just felt like kissing him for the way he can make a long, lazy day at the beach seem so educational and fruitful at the same time.
Yet I am wondering: what potential could my teacher have, if he drinks less, smokes less, and consequently talks more?!

Writing...

I write and write and feel the ideas and words jumping out of my head. Ideas are faster than my handwriting. It's that old feeling… that urge I know that makes me get out of the bed from under the covers in the middle of a cold night to get a pen and a paper and to start writing… writing with no pause, with no breaks, no thinking, just writing. And then, after I finish writing, I feel so relieved and go to bed again feeling happiness and satisfaction. Did I change the world? Did I change even MY world? Did I put a smile on a child's face? Did I give a helping hand to an old woman? Did I listen to a violenced woman? No. But I feel that I did all this when I wrote down those words. I changed my life… no I changed the world, because before writing those words, they weren't there, they were just ideas, thoughts flying in the air. Now they are here, now they are real. They are a mirror. A mirror of me, of myself, of my ideas on a piece of paper. They are a confession, an opinion, a belief, my belief, my belief in life, love, religion, my country, my dreams, my wishes, thoughts, traditions, my society, my concepts, my objections, my commitments, my rules, my favorites, my hates and loves, my memories, my experience, my history, my present and future, my everything. It's basically me.

Black Wednesday

Today, the 1st of June 2005, Egyptians will wear black, as a way to “peacefully” protest against the harassments that took place last week on the day of the referendum. Several incidents, where men and women were beaten up, harassed and assaulted by the security forces, took place all around Egypt. “The country is boiling” everyone back home says to me. For many decades, Egypt did not witness such outrage and anger on its streets, and finally when Egyptians woke up from their fifty-years-nap, the question is: Where do we have to start from? What should be changed, in order to have REAL Democracy? Is it the constitution, the government, the political parties, the peoples’ mentality…or all of the above?
Do we have a democratic basis yet?