Cairo, the 10th January, 2010

“And then you ask me why I love Egypt!”


My love for Egypt is a complex matter to explain and maybe impossible to describe.
Why do we fall in love with someone?! Why do we feel attracted to places like magnets?!

The core reasons for my complex connection with this country are a mystery – even to myself – but there are a few treats about this place that can really indicate why on earth would I live in a place where so much is wrong and logic – “my logic” – seems to have gone down the toilet.
Here’s what happened:

I am returning home in the car crossing the overwhelming traffic jam of Cairo.
My dearest friend – and Dance Master – Mahmoud Reda is driving the car and we’re stopped in a line of cars that don’t seem to move an inch by the hour.
He’s in a hurry. I am in a hurry. We’re speaking about dance and life.
We’re laughing really hard, as usual, but we’re both exasperated by the immobility of the traffic.

Suddenly, a man selling flowers stops by Mahmoud’s window and recognizes him.
The minute he sees me on the chair by his side, he draws a fat huge smile and says:
“Here’s Mr. Mahmoud Reda and…there’s Madame Farida Fahmy!”

The assumption he made – that I am Farida Fahmy, the most famous and talented of the soloists that ever existed in the “Reda Troupe”, once founded and directed by Mahmoud - has an absurd aspect that I couldn’t ignore (Farida Fahmy is around 70 years old and there’s no similarity whatsoever between me and her!) but also a sweet side of it: he associated Mahmoud with Farida because, in his fond memories, they always performed together and appeared in their movies as a couple.

After we heard him call me Farida Fahmy with such tenderness and certainty, we both laughed even harder than before and, just because o we did so, he offered me a bouquet of roses.

This was such an absurd, simple episode but it explains – if you get the point!- why I love Egypt and find this country absolutely unique both in its wonderful and its dark side.

“You see...Mahmoud. This is why I love Egypt” – I told Mahmoud.
“Yes, you cannot find these characters anywhere else in the world, can you?!” – My dear friend answered.

And then people ask me why.
This is Why.