Restlessness

There are certain activities and experiences that the all-knowing "they" say that once experienced, whet one's appetite for a lifetime. I would tend to agree with this as I've been the victim of it lately. My particular affliction happens to be the desire to travel. Yes, I've definitely got the "travel bug" as people like to call it. It's been over a year since I've been outside the U.S. and I'm itching to leave again. I've been a couple of places, but the most sigificant time-wise is Egypt. I've been there twice for a total of 6 1/2 months and I miss it terribly.

It's funny, whenever I mention to people that I've lived in Egypt, the first words out of their mouths invariably have something to do with the pyramids and camels. I can't help shaking my head at the sad reality that a place of such rich and varied history, culture, and people has been reduced to a single architectural structure from centuries past in the minds of most Americans.

I miss the energy of Cairo, a beautiful city that feels as if it's literally bursting with life. I don't know if there's anywhere else in the world of such variety and seeming contradictions. Modern cars driving beside carts pulled by donkeys, men in flowing galabeyas walking alongside men in business suits, women completely covered in black with women in western clothes and many other women wearing hijab covering their hair in a rainbow of beautiful colors. A whirlwhind of movement and light, people, horns sounding, street vendors calling out their wares, the layered scents of spices, trash, sun-warmed fruit, grilling meat, and thousands of people. I remember sailing at night in a faluka along the Nile. The city lights reflecting off the water as a cool breeze pushes us along in relative silence, distant from the busyness of the city. The banks of the river so lush with vegetation...

So here I am now, in East Texas of all places, getting excited when see a woman in hijab or hear someone speaking Arabic. In truth, anything remotely connected with the region gets me excited. In fact, yesterday at a mall I struck up a conversation with a salesman at one of those booths that sell hair-straigteners because he looked very Middle-Eastern. It turned out he was Israeli and our conversation about goings on in the region only fed my recent restlessness. Inshallah I will soon be able to scratch this itch, but for now I'll have to settle for relating my thoughts and experiences to whomever will listen, or read, as the case may be. But for now, ma salama.