Cairo, the 27th December,2009

“Bag full of cabbages”

Ohhh…back to Cairo in less than a week that tasted like pure heaven.
After a few days in the warmth of my homeland and so far away from all struggles, endless surprises and adaptations to a world I never completely understood, I find myself in between worlds, as usual.
I ‘ve left my homeland and came back so many times that I ended up loosing my ground.
Where do I belong, after all? Where am I?!
I confess I am lost. Don’t know it anymore.

Me and my family ate and sat together, exchanged presents and walked along the rainy fields with our dogs. We had breakfast together and went to the cinema as in the good old times. We spent the week glued to each other and that has never felt so good.

I am lucky to have such a strong emotional bond with my immediate family and friends (people who sustain all that I am and the ones who give me strength to continue when life becomes too heavy to handle…).

My bags:
As usual, my bags came full of food and books! I am such a Portuguese chick…oh, Lord…
Olive oil (my number one obsession making me suspect I may have been an olive oil producer in Ancient Greece);
Smelly cheese;
“Jamon”/”presunto”;
Home made bread and cake;
“Bacalau” (traditional dried fish very well known in Portugal although it comes from Norway);
Pure honey with no additives;
Nuts and almonds that actually taste like (you guessed it!): NUTS and ALMONDS;

Books, of course!
Some weird Chinese supplement for my brain (courtesy of my mum who was smart enough to feel that my exhausted brain is in the verge of rupture due to irreconcilable differences between my way of thinking and the Egyptian/Arabic way of thinking!).

Departure-Return…the eternal cycle of a true gipsy soul !

Detachment has been one of my recurrent assets.Part of the goal of my journey is, now I know, to learn how to detach myself from people and things and just go with the flow accepting the ineviatable truth: nothing and no one is permanent in my life.

Am I getting wise (finally)?!

I am far away from being a Buddhist when I know that I cannot be totally detached from the people I love.
I am detached from places and objects but never from the ones I love. In this sense, I fail 100% as far as detachment goes.
Buddhism wisely says that we should never get attached to anything or anyone as reality is prone to change in a constant basis. Nothing remains the same or at the same place. All is fluid and in permanent movement/change. Trying to catch a moment is like trying to stop the water flow from the river Nile. Impossible task aimed to failure.

Attachments bring suffering, wise men say.

Well… as I wait in the airport for one more return to Egypt, I realize only someone who has lost his/her humanity is able to be completely detached from the people he/she loves.
After all, I am still a human being…imperfect, immature and deeply attached to the ones who share my heart.