Last Day

Last day. And now it’s time to head home. I wish I had just a week more at this point to dig into Cairo deeper and take the time to go see some things I missed. I regret for instance not visiting Medieval Cairo more to just walk around and take it all in. But overall I feel really good about my trip now. I struggled a lot the first two months with feelings of confusion over why I’d come and what I hoped to gain by being here. A lot of times I felt like maybe I was wasting my time and had made the wrong choice in coming; with friends around me getting married, receiving promotions, looking into buying homes and this kind of thing, I often felt like I was being irresponsible, putting my life on hold for maybe too long a time.

I worried and stressed over my photography. But that’s just part of the working process when undertaking something like this, I dealt with it in Texas and that was just for four days. I’ve come to learn it’s a natural thing for most photographers to experience lot’s of self doubt, and as I’ve grown more comfortable here, I’ve been learning how not to worry about it. Focus on the work, try and make it good, learn from the mistakes and failures, and at the end of the day, just learn to release it. I no longer worry about I’ve done or haven’t done in that area. Excited to see the results of all this, but ready to accept it and move on if the results aren’t there or some technical issues botch lot’s of the film. And if it does turn into something, well then I’ll feel pretty damn good about that.

This probably has something to do with where I’m at mentally now in Cairo too.

I’ve been broke most of this moth despite coming into some money towards the end; eating endless meals of toasted pita bread with peanut butter and honey to save money, but I feel more content and comfortable than I’ve felt my whole stay here in Cairo, or in sometime anywhere. Strangely it feels home like now. I feel like I know how to walk it’s streets, deal with it’s hustlers, curiosity seekers, street kids, shop owners, taxi drivers and people with confidence that has come in spurts over the summer, but now feels whole and complete. So many of the concerns that have eaten at me in NYC for the past year and half that I brought with me over have slowly fallen away over the past weeks.

Friends have been gone the past few weeks since it’s North Coast season around here, so I’ve had of alone time in Cairo. It was awkward at first since I was used to seeing people out nearly everyday for such a long time here, but it’s been really good looking back on it now. I’ve seen so much more of the city, met people I never would have met, and just generally fallen into a good groove here.

I wish I could have been able to afford to travel more throughout the region and visit a few other cities; Beirut and Damascus was the dream, but the airfare was a big deterrent, but looking back I had an experience here. I traveled and saw all the things tourists and students see, but usually did with a bit more flair and less hassle. How many tourists get wined and dined by hotel managers? How many get to ride through remote deserts in a Mercedes or visit a slum one day and sit by a pool in one of the most upscale neighborhoods the next? Walk to their window in the still cool morning and pick a guava fruit off the tree branches hanging outside?

I’ve met and befriended Egyptians from different walks of life at this point, moving out on my own having facilitated this. I’ve had lemon juice with one of the last remaining Egyptian Jews in Cairo and talked about New Orleans. I’ve hung out with old Egyptian men in a home built into an old alleyway drinking and smoking late into the night. I’ve danced on the Red Sea at one of the biggest society weddings with over a thousand guests. I’ve visited the home of one of the big name families in Egypt, eaten dinner in a poor neighborhood with a nameless family.

I haven’t ridden a camel and haven’t been to Sharm. I’ve ridden in the back of a Bedouin truck down the coast. I’ve ridden along as friends went real estate shopping in an oasis and my first day of seeing Cairo was from the back seat of luxury car as we went furniture shopping. A lot of times I’m left asking myself if I made the most of my time here. But looking back on it now, it seems that it’s been an unusual and interesting trip, time hardly wasted.

Now the excitement of going home. I shouldn’t be getting too interested; I think going back is going to be like getting thrown into the ocean without a life vest. Couch surfing the first three weeks, obsolete account balance, possibly having to move out of the place I’ve called home in Brooklyn since I moved there to a smaller apartment in a walk up, and etc. I’m going to get wet no doubt there. But I’m hoping to roll back in with the mindset I’m in here, if I do I should be fine.

Brooklyn, New York, it all seems colder now thinking about it after here. I was thinking about this I sat in a cab coming home one evening.

I pictured all the cramped together buildings, the empty streets, the bleakness of Brooklyn and the way it carries such an imposing air about it even though it has none of the skyscrapers of Manhattan. Brooklyn often seems dead, morose and lonely unless your out in Willliamsburg, parts of Park Slope or Smith St. Everyone rushing around chasing more money to buy more things to feel like successes, New York, a city which “makes even a rich man feel unimportant.” I’m not immune to this.

I look at Cairo outside my window. The sun is setting and on either side of the highway run slums almost as far as the eye can see. There is pollution in the air and it’s hot, but outside pulsates life. Men are sipping tea along the side of the road outside the City of the Dead waiting on their buses or just trying to beat the heat. Children are running around chasing one another and playing games.

The sun in it’s slow death catches a young boy high above the graveyard city standing on top of pigeon roost that looks like some large tree house constructed on top of a small building. He is waving a large flag and a flock of pigeons turn and dive at his movements. We pass him and for one second he is overwhelmed by the sun and his body becomes a black outline against the orange. For him it’s just another part of his day and life, infused with no more significance than me taking a walk over the Brooklyn Bridge at sunset, but right now it seems infused with some significance about life here.

All around life is making itself seen and heard here. Its polluted, chaotic and messy, but there is something exciting and beautiful about it despite all the headaches. Life back in the states is clean, orderly and safe, but I feel like going back now I might see something missing that seems fundamental to people being human. Then again…

It’s easy to be nostalgic when leaving a place. New York has plenty of it’s charms and character, I’m just curious more than anything through what eyes I will view it now that I’ve been so gone in a city like Cairo.

Time to go. I’ll be posting here throughout the next few weeks. I’ve got a few random things I’ve written that can go up, some snapshots I should have posted long ago, and as I started getting images scanned from the film, I’ll share those too. So this will probably turn into a bit of a photo blog by the end of the month, so keep checking it out.

Thanks for reading.