Living according to my own rules (of the heart, as usual) can be quite dangerous and misunderstood in a country like Egypt where most people live according to traditions, mentality blocks and what others say they should be, think, do. It seems everybody is lost and unsatisfied with their own lives but all they care about is another people's lives. What would happen if egyptians - and everybody, for that matter - would FOCUS on THEIR OWN PROBLEMS and LIVES and quit checking out other people's single steps?!
Yesterday night I was contacted by my landlord asking me if it was true that different men dropped me, on different occasions, at the entrance of the building where I live.
"What?"
I mean...my landlord is not my father and I am not a teenager returning from a disco at late hours but, over here, the doormen, neighbours and even - it seems! - the night birds hanging from the trees seem to watch with frightning care every single step one takes. Specially if ONE is a WOMAN, a FOREIGNER and..."haram"...a DANCER!
I tried to avoid a conflict because I knew I would explode. I even justified that those men are my friends, colleagues from Tango classes and "milongas" I attend. From the depth of his ignorance, he paused and gasped at the word "milonga". I guess he had no idea of what that meant and, therefore, presumed it was something illicit, maybe a "baccanal" where everybody is naked and promiscuous.
Oh, Lord! Give me patience for such stupidity! Oscar Wilde onde said that the only sin is STUPIDITY.
I TOTALLY agree with him. "You're THE man, Oscar!"
On another occasion, I was reproached by a neighbour for chatting with a poor man that comes to clean the stairs of the building we live in. He was cleaning it and he looked interesting to me. Simple as that. I wanted to see him smile and know his name, talk to him and learn something, perhaps...you never know!
No second or third intentions. For God's sake. This was an old man with no teeth cleaning the stairs of our building. I just felt curious and interested in talking with this person for simple human connection. Nothing less, nothing more.
My neighbour pushed herself out from her flat where she yells and prays all the time (the connection between yelling and praying is something I didn't quite get yet) and told me:
"How come someone like you stops to talk with that man? He doesn't even know how to write and read and he's dirty. What can you possibly see in him?"
I had no answer for this because I would have to be stupid to answer to such a stupid person. Just because he's cleaning stairs, it doesn't mean he's dirty. Just because he doesn't know how to write or read, it doesn't mean I cannot learn anything from him.
I could have answered her this and more but, somehow, I felt it would be a waste of time, a throwing of pearls to the pigs.
I just waved my hand as if a fly was bothering me and left.
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