Cairo, the 30th June, 2009

“Book reviews TEAR AND LAUGHS … and the girl who wants to marry me! ”

*** Sometimes, life in Egypt is just too much to take…
Reality here is too much to digest. It shakes you to the core and mixes away all your ideas so badly that, somehow, you loose track of your own identity and values.

*** I found a girl begging in downtown Cairo who proposed to marry me and sleep on the floor, by my bed if only I took her with me.
She was asking for money – as many kids from the mafias who exploit children – and was caught in conversation with me when I asked her why she was walking around in the street at 2.00h in the morning (I was coming from a dinner with my friends who also tried to chat with the girl, with no success).
She told me the “sir” (her pimp, father, whatever) would be very angry if she returned home with less then 35 egyptian pounds.
She also refused to take a photo with me when we first asked her because, as she knowingly said, we would sell it to the newspapers and the “sir” would punish her (I guess she heard about children´s and human´s rights and was aware of how wrong her situation was, despite being not more than 6 years old).
After a few tender gestures and the assurance that we would not sell the pictures to any one, she agreed to take some pics with me but with fear and doubt that never disappeared.

I hugged her, patted on the head and she kept asking me to marry her.
My eyes were filled with tears and I tried not to imagine where this little girl would spend the night and who – the “sir” – would receive her and what he would do to her after a long day and night of begging in the crazy, noisy, polluted, hellish streets of down town Cairo.


Book Reviews (MUST, MUST READS):

***Paula, by Isabell Allende – I cried like a baby reading this book. Isabel Allende telling about her own daughter´s coma and her death through the rough patches and sweet streets of her own life. Tender, honest and so moving. Beyond moving.

*** Dance while you can, Shirley Mclaine - Oh, what can I say?! Delicious actress and dancer Shirley Mcleine wrote this book about the life of a dancer, an artist and a woman outside of the norm. Fascinating, specially if you´re a dancer or an actress (like me!).


*** Al Khan, The Daily Comic Strip, Tarek Shahin – Cartoon sketches with social, political, cultural critics to Egypt´s current situation. Another daring “reality” check allowed by the Government censors. Funny, bright and accurate. Another way of knowing about my own surrounding reality.