No bombs today

CAIRO, Egypt – I love \nhackneyed advice. \nI especially loved getting it when I was dropping off the announcement to friends and family that I’d be living in the Middle East for six months. Because without contest, the advice most commonly awarded to me was to “not get blown up by a terrorist.”\nWell, I have news for all those back home in the great U.S. of A. who were concerned for my safety: I have not yet, as of right now, been blown up by a terrorist.\nI almost got run over by a donkey. I did get hit by a car. That whole “free liquor home delivery” thing they have going here is getting us all pretty good. \nBut, happily, not yet blown up \nby a terrorist.\nIn fact, the closest thing to a terrorist I’ve encountered is that weird kid from Rutgers who somehow got a hold of my number.\nNo, no, I’ve not encountered any terrorists, or seen terrorists bombing innocent Aryan women or anything of the like. \nIt occurred to me as I was checking my bag at the American University of Cairo entrance – the doorman and I are on friendly terms after my first two weeks here. He’s your typical, jovial 40-something man; nerdy in that father-like way, making lame jokes that you find yourself laughing at because he just makes them so endearing. The only difference between him and his Midwestern analogue is his brown skin and less than perfect English. \nHe smiled brightly as he did his obligatory check inside my laptop-laden Jansport: “No bombs today?”\nI lost it. “Tomorrow,” I said in my struggling Arabic, laughing. “I’ll let you know when I bring them.”\nThey think it’s as absurd as we do. More so, even – Middle Easterners are the worldwide scapegoat, simply because they live in a certain region of the globe, practicing the world’s second most common religion and having darker skin than us.\nInteraction with lovable characters such as our friendly neighborhood bag-checker is the reminder that all my well-intended counterparts back home were missing when they advised me to “not get blown up by a terrorist over there.” \nI’m telling you, dying in Cairo traffic is a million times more likely than any other form of death – and that includes “evil Muslim terrorists” as well as tragic food-related fatalities – the latter of which I actually consider a real possibility.\nI’m perfectly aware that Western concerns for the safety of American nationals living in the Middle East around the anniversary of 9/11 are well-placed. But we could avoid a lot of harmful stereotyping – and hackneyed advice that muddles an already-skewed international scene – if we were to get away from the default image of the Middle East as being some bomb-exploding, terrorism-loving, study abroad-endangering wasteland and realize that it’s probably safer than the Bloomington bar scene during Welcome Week.\nSo, in short: no bombs today. Probably not tomorrow, either. \nBut I’ll be sure to keep you posted.