Khalaas y3ani

Well, this is it – my last day at Silverkey and my penultimate day in Egypt.

When I first arrived here in March it came on the heels of 2 months of near constant moving around – around the US and Canada, then to the UK and Morocco – and initially I was planning on only settling here for a few months before moving on. Sadly those plans fell through, and after briefly considering leaving for another country in the region I decided to make a go of it here, luckily finding work through friends and moving to downtown Cairo from where I was living on the outskirts of the city. The year definitely didn’t turn out like I expected, but thankfully that’s not always such a bad thing.

The stuff I was expecting was fantastic. Getting to spend two weeks working with the Canadian MC and a further week and a half helping to lead MENA LDS gave me the chance to work with old friends on the things that I loved. Then my traineeship with the African YES Project made me push myself, learn new skills, make new friends and even helped me use what I learned in university to help teach others. I’m still stupendously proud of my team for taking on a project the size of starting up our own tea-making business.

Then, when things deviated from what I thought would happen, in true Cairo fashion this just opened up a whole range of new possibilities for me to take advantage of. If I had left, I never would have gotten the chance to work and live with a couple of crazy bastards. I never would have climbed Mt Sinai, seen the Mediterranean, jumped over sand dunes in the Sahara or snorkelled in the Red Sea. By my count I would have missed 6 crazy adventures, about 8 awesome parties, 5 good restaurants and many, many close friends. Khan al-Khalili? Never happened. Sitting on the street with the Boabs dressed in a Galabeya? Nope. That night Luke, Kent and I stayed up until 5am watching Chappelle’s Show and drinking chili vodka? Lost to the ages.

The sad part is that, while moving on means that there’s a whole new range of adventures ahead, there will always be things that are left behind. Egypt and Cairo in particular isn’t always the easiest of places to understand, or feel comfortable with. There’s much about this place that still seems strange and distant, and I think I could live here for the rest of my days and never truly understand certain aspects of life here. But for every annoyance there’s something to smile about; for every day I’ve returned home frustrated and angry, there’s a challenge that I met and beat. Like any time you’re in a strange place, far away from home, sometimes all you can do is plant your feet, smile, and meet whatever gets thrown at you with a steady mix of sarcastic humor and the ability to laugh at yourself. I’m sad to leave Cairo and the friends I have here, but happy that I had the chance to have that experience in the first place.

So, like I said, this is it. No more fuul, tamaya or shawerma, no more pomegranate juice or sahlab. No more dodging cars, arguing with cabs, riding microbuses in the middle of the night. No more karaoke at Harry’s pub, parties at Harrison’s place, drinks on the roof of the Odeon or laughing with friends at Horeyya. No more blue room, Mahroos, fighting with my shower, watching movies with Luke over dinner or saying hi to the guys on our street. No more sunsets in Al Azhar park. No more walking home over the River Nile. No more Cairo, no more Egypt.

At least for a little while.