Lost of the Desert Sand

From: Youssuf El-Kalay youssuf@qpt.com ======================================================================= Lost in the desert sand There I was standing in the middle of a desolate tract, in one of the most arid regions of the world. The sun beat down on my face and my dry parched throat yearned for water. Salvation was nowhere to be found, like a ferret in a dense forest. All was lost. I was surrounded by a pack of hyenas, sniggering at me because I was an anomaly in their world. I didn't belong; I didn't want to belong. This is how I felt when I was living in Egypt. It was a tumultuous period of my life and looking back I feel fortunate enough to have survived the turbulent change in life.

Life was quite different in Egypt, from my days in the United States. We moved during the summer, a time when heat and dust made an unpleasant combination. Although I had visited Egypt before, it was different this time. Certainly going on an excursion was far different than actually living in the country. My parents told me it was going to be the beginning of a new life, a chance to make new friends and gain new experiences. I was so eager to return to my roots. I anticipated lively adventures and an exciting life much like that of Indiana Jones. Little did I know that everyday would be quite the opposite. Society in Egypt was far from anything you would expect. It was common to see horse driven carts on the roads alongside cars that were hundreds of times more powerful than they were. People still bought food and other goods from open-air markets even though supermarkets were plentiful. Even though you'd see men and women sweeping the streets, they were still cluttered with garbage. It was as if old and new were in a clash, a struggle to fit in with each other.

Although I spoke the native tongue, my Arabic reading and writing skills were far below the level required for me to enter a public school. So I was enrolled in a private school that contained not more than 100 students. We were taught in an apartment with classrooms the size of a bedroom. All the walls around me begged for a fresh coat of paint and the gnarled linoleum floors made to look like a freak accident from an armed land mine. Proper desks were nonexistent. Instead we sat on a crude wooden chairs with a small table nailed to the side of the chair. Outside was a small courtyard measuring 40 feet at most, littered with piles of candy wrappers and an assortment of bottles from a popular soft drink. In spite of this, I tried to look at everything with an open mind, realizing that perhaps there was something beyond the glamour of fancy desks and classrooms.

Unfortunately there was something far worse than an under equipped school, something so hideous that it made me cringe at the thought of it. It dawned on me that it was the actual students that had created this chaos around the school. The cacophony of their laughter and jeering overwhelmed me. I was like the new kid on the block, but even after I had been there for several months the mockery continued. They didn't want to accept me, and naturally I didn't want to be accepted. They commented on my American accent saying, "Where's your cowboy hat, Yankee boy!" Even the teachers looked upon me as strange. They called me 'khawaga' which means foreigner in Arabic. I was like a stranger in my own land. The English teacher commented on my style of writing stating "Your American style of writing doesn't suit me, it's not proper".

Everyday was very hellish for me, and soon I lapsed into a coma of depression. Life basically had no meaning to me anymore, and everyday that passed was just another page in a never-ending story. One day as I was walking away from the school, I saw an old man sitting on the ground selling fruits and vegetables. The goods weren't in fantastic condition and the man himself didn't look too well off yet he looked content. I approached him and asked him how his sales were going and he said "Not too good, but then again I am better off than many other people who are in worse conditions than I am". His words of wisdom dumbfounded me. I realized that life was what we made out of it and that happiness was truly a state of mind. Eventually we moved back to the United States, but I never forgot my encounter with the wise old man.