It's the last day of 2011 and I honestly can't say that I'm sorry to see this year go. Last year at this time we were looking forward to a winter of visitors who would be coming to see Egypt and ride with us to get to know the countryside. The weight of the moribund political system here was a familiar feeling...you didn't talk politics, it was easier not to think about them, we just got on with our lives. As we moved into January, there was, however, an odd sense in the air. There were the protests over Khaled Said's murder, very unusual and moving protests with thousands of people lining the river and ocean walkways dressed in black and speaking to no one. Something was happening and none of us really knew what, but given the stagnant quality of life in Egypt, everyone was more curious than fearful. When the protests were announced for Jan 25 last year, I had a feeling that they were likely to be something more than normal. I took a friend from our area into town for supplies on January 24, and we basically stocked up on necessities like rice, sugar, tea, Cheetos, chocolate...you know what I mean. We ran into another friend in the grocery store who said that she'd been thinking of taking some visitors to the Egyptian Museum the next day and I told her that I couldn't really justify my feeling, but I thought maybe that the next day was not going to be the best day for a downtown trip and that they might want to keep an eye on the news. We are still laughing over the warning, but she and her family are being moved back to the US soon as her husband's company is downsizing in Egypt.
Like virtually everyone else in Egypt I was totally blown away by the events of January 25 and the following three weeks. We stayed on the farm glued to Jazeera English, CNN and BBCWorld. Time went into a strange form with calls checking in with my kids in New York twice a day when the phones were working, and manic rage when the internet and phones were cut here. Fear and anxiety for young (and old) friends in Tahrir and other protests in Egypt became the overwhelming emotions as story after story of the horrors being inflicted on prisoners, citizens, and protesters flowed in. After a while, the horrible became disturbingly normal. People I knew from internet connections were arrested and beaten, friends of friends were shot by snipers, and one of my closest young friends was attacked and nearly killed by a mob of thugs near Kasr el Aini hospital when she went to give blood. The local neighbourhood watch committees filled us with pride at the willingness of the Egyptians to care for themselves came to the fore, since it was pretty obviously that the part of our government that was supposed to be a source of order was in fact a source of disorder. I'm old enough to remember where I was when John Kennedy was killed, when the Berlin Wall was built and when it fell, what I was doing on the morning of the Cuban missile crisis, to have gone to classes in university through clouds of tear gas...I've seen plenty of excitement, thank you, in my life, but nothing ever came close to those three weeks.
Like many in Egypt, we wept with delight on February 11 when Mubarak stepped down, thinking also like everyone else that this would mean some real changes. On February 12 we drove down to Beni Suef to buy some new goats for our herd, a maie Google and two females, Twitter and Horreya. And then we began watching events unfold. Oh my, what a year. What disappointment. We did have a few brave visitors who came to see a post-revolutionary Egypt, and most of them were fascinated and delighted. But as summer came on and events became more complicated and less visitor-friendly, fewer and fewer people came to visit Egypt.
This fall has been a time of watching elections, protests, strange responses to protests, and much worry about the future of our country as it isn't clear that the military really have any intentions to follow the work of Jan/Feb to its conclusions. Tonight I understand that a prayer/vigil is planned for Tahrir to commemorate the martyrs of the struggle. Hopefully, it will be peaceful. I'm hoping for an improvement after the elections, but the signs are not so brilliant. We may have another interesting January to find our way through. Guess maybe it's time to stock up on Cheetos.
copyright 2011 Maryanne Stroud Gabbani
Showing posts with label holidays. Show all posts
Showing posts with label holidays. Show all posts
Saturday, December 31, 2011
Saturday, February 12, 2011
Thinking About Love
Valentine's Day is and its connection to romantic love is celebrated worldwide in February. It is not a particularly Egyptian tradition, and in fact November 4 is celebrated as well as the Egyptian holiday of love. Rather cynically, one could easily suggest that the cute stuffed animals, the roses, the chocolates, the cards, and the rush on intimate dining spots are all a ploy by the commercial interests to get us all spending more money after we've recovered from the giddy rush of the Christmas season, especially since there is no real historical evidence that either the day or the saint have anything to do with romantic love. But the ease with which many cultures have adopted the day of thinking of one's loved one suggests that this is something important to us all.
If you examine the day and the relationships that it celebrates, it is indeed important to us all, for without the bonds of friendship and love between partners it would truly be difficult for us to renew the human race...a fact any single parent will attest to. It is always a good thing to remind ourselves that we are not alone in our daily struggle to survive. As a widow for ten years, it's been rather a long time since I got a Valentine's Day bouquet or card, and I have friends who are just entering the long period of adjustment to this state. It's hard to lose a partner and Valentine's Day can be especially painful in the first years. Those of us who have survived that first traumatic year take care of our friends who are struggling through. We call, visit, email and try to be there to help keep their heads above the waters of loneliness.
So what is this love we are celebrating? Is it only the feelings of warmth engendered by the sight of a smile, the warmth of physical contact, the wish to spend more time together and perhaps marry? When thought of in this fashion, this love that we celebrate on Valentine's Day is not just romantic love ("Oh my, look at that gorgeous one! Wouldn't I love to be the number one for that!) but it is truly love in general.
We love many things and people. We love our husbands, wives, mothers, fathers, and children. We love our pets, our gardens, our neighbours (hopefully), our friends and so on as well. Are they truly different kinds of love? From the vantage point of my early 60's, I'm not really sure that they are. Truly, I'm not interested in marrying my terrier who might wake me at night with his barking, nor most of my friends. At the same time, my husband was both loved by me and was my best friend. I knew I could count on him when the chips were down and we shared many secrets that were known only to us. But just as chocolate comes in many flavours that appeal to many sorts of people, or even to any one person at different times, love also comes in many flavours.
Too often we look for love as if it were a beacon or spotlight that might shine on us through the eyes of a loved one. We think of it as a gift that another person or being might bestow upon us if we are worthy, and far too many people feel that they have no hope of being worthy of such a gift. Does love sail out of the moonlit sky like a flying saucer, does it suddenly drench us like an unforseen rainstorm, or fall splat on our forehead like the gift of a passing bird? It certainly feels like that sometimes.
When my husband died, I was devastated, bereft, lost in a number of worlds that seemed completely unfriendly to me. I went through my days in a haze, expecting to see him walk through the door just returned from a business trip that took too long, listening for the sound of him sneezing as he got up in the morning. It was a terrible period for me. One evening, I went out to the farm where I was boarding my horses and took my old mare out for a walk in the summer night. We were alone in the darkness listening to sleepy birds, hearing snatches of music from distant village weddings, noting our time by the call to prayer in the night. My mare walked along the darkened paths calmly, responding to my random comments with a flick of her ear, and I thought to myself how good it was to be alone with someone who cared about me and not about my late husband's businesses. I realised just how much I loved this creature who trusted me to guide her and who offered to guide me when the way was too dark for my feeble human vision. With this realisation, an extraordinary sense flooded through me of the warmth of my mare, the beauty of the trees against the night sky, the softness of the air moving slowly across the fields.
With the loss of my husband, I thought that I had also lost the love that we had shared and that lit our world and warmed our children. Alone with my mare in the night, I realised that nothing outside of us can either take or give us love. The love is within us waiting to come out to touch other living things, whether human, animal, or vegetable. As I passed a village home, a woman called out to me inviting me to tea. I wasn't willing to stop or break the spell, but I found myself able to smile with real warmth at her to thank her. Her answering smile washed over me, leaving me comforted again to the center of my soul. That night, I knew that I would survive my loss and that I would in fact thrive.
When we think of the holiday of love, we must remember this fact. Love is not given to us; we give it and then receive the warmth of our gift. When we cook with love, the food is more delicious and nourishing; when we care for our plants with love, they flourish; when we spread our love and joy among our friends and family, it shines back at us as the sun is reflected in the moonlight. And the more you give, the more you get.
copyright 2010 Maryanne Stroud Gabbani
If you examine the day and the relationships that it celebrates, it is indeed important to us all, for without the bonds of friendship and love between partners it would truly be difficult for us to renew the human race...a fact any single parent will attest to. It is always a good thing to remind ourselves that we are not alone in our daily struggle to survive. As a widow for ten years, it's been rather a long time since I got a Valentine's Day bouquet or card, and I have friends who are just entering the long period of adjustment to this state. It's hard to lose a partner and Valentine's Day can be especially painful in the first years. Those of us who have survived that first traumatic year take care of our friends who are struggling through. We call, visit, email and try to be there to help keep their heads above the waters of loneliness.
So what is this love we are celebrating? Is it only the feelings of warmth engendered by the sight of a smile, the warmth of physical contact, the wish to spend more time together and perhaps marry? When thought of in this fashion, this love that we celebrate on Valentine's Day is not just romantic love ("Oh my, look at that gorgeous one! Wouldn't I love to be the number one for that!) but it is truly love in general.
We love many things and people. We love our husbands, wives, mothers, fathers, and children. We love our pets, our gardens, our neighbours (hopefully), our friends and so on as well. Are they truly different kinds of love? From the vantage point of my early 60's, I'm not really sure that they are. Truly, I'm not interested in marrying my terrier who might wake me at night with his barking, nor most of my friends. At the same time, my husband was both loved by me and was my best friend. I knew I could count on him when the chips were down and we shared many secrets that were known only to us. But just as chocolate comes in many flavours that appeal to many sorts of people, or even to any one person at different times, love also comes in many flavours.
Too often we look for love as if it were a beacon or spotlight that might shine on us through the eyes of a loved one. We think of it as a gift that another person or being might bestow upon us if we are worthy, and far too many people feel that they have no hope of being worthy of such a gift. Does love sail out of the moonlit sky like a flying saucer, does it suddenly drench us like an unforseen rainstorm, or fall splat on our forehead like the gift of a passing bird? It certainly feels like that sometimes.
When my husband died, I was devastated, bereft, lost in a number of worlds that seemed completely unfriendly to me. I went through my days in a haze, expecting to see him walk through the door just returned from a business trip that took too long, listening for the sound of him sneezing as he got up in the morning. It was a terrible period for me. One evening, I went out to the farm where I was boarding my horses and took my old mare out for a walk in the summer night. We were alone in the darkness listening to sleepy birds, hearing snatches of music from distant village weddings, noting our time by the call to prayer in the night. My mare walked along the darkened paths calmly, responding to my random comments with a flick of her ear, and I thought to myself how good it was to be alone with someone who cared about me and not about my late husband's businesses. I realised just how much I loved this creature who trusted me to guide her and who offered to guide me when the way was too dark for my feeble human vision. With this realisation, an extraordinary sense flooded through me of the warmth of my mare, the beauty of the trees against the night sky, the softness of the air moving slowly across the fields.
With the loss of my husband, I thought that I had also lost the love that we had shared and that lit our world and warmed our children. Alone with my mare in the night, I realised that nothing outside of us can either take or give us love. The love is within us waiting to come out to touch other living things, whether human, animal, or vegetable. As I passed a village home, a woman called out to me inviting me to tea. I wasn't willing to stop or break the spell, but I found myself able to smile with real warmth at her to thank her. Her answering smile washed over me, leaving me comforted again to the center of my soul. That night, I knew that I would survive my loss and that I would in fact thrive.
When we think of the holiday of love, we must remember this fact. Love is not given to us; we give it and then receive the warmth of our gift. When we cook with love, the food is more delicious and nourishing; when we care for our plants with love, they flourish; when we spread our love and joy among our friends and family, it shines back at us as the sun is reflected in the moonlight. And the more you give, the more you get.
copyright 2010 Maryanne Stroud Gabbani
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