Column: Farewell to Cairo

CAIRO— It’s here.

After spending 16 weeks living and studying in Cairo, Egypt, I’ll be back on American soil in less than two weeks.

It came out of nowhere, but I’m excited.

I’m excited to go back to where things are easy, safe and reliable.

I cannot wait to see my family and friends and eat Chipotle until my stomach bursts.

At the same time, I’m dreading the moment when I have to get on that plane and say goodbye — not only to Egypt, but to the people I’ve met here.

God help whoever is sitting next to me on that first flight out of Cairo, because it’s going to be rough.

I keep looking back at the first column I wrote, before I left for Cairo. I wrote about the questions I’d been asked and the questions I had myself.

During the last four months, I’ve gotten answers to questions I never even knew I had.

I now know that the best prevention for tear gas damage is to keep a cloth soaked in vinegar or lemon juice on you to breathe through.

I learned how to fit approximately nine people into a single cab.

I can now efficiently haggle for basically everything, and in Arabic, no less.

As things wind down, I’ve tried to reflect on this semester. I can’t even process everything that has happened in the last four months. I just see it in glimpses.

I see myself standing in Tahrir with tens of thousands of Egyptians, hearing them scream for democracy.

I see the pyramids at Giza and the incredible hieroglyphics in Valley of the Kings.

I see myself crawling through the tunnels of tombs and into burial chambers.

I see the students on strike chanting outside of our university, the gates locked behind them.

I see the library in Alexandria and the cliffs jutted up against the Red Sea. 

Right now, from Cairo, I can’t imagine being home.

I can’t imagine walking into a Target and buying everything so easily. I can’t imagine not having to worry about water shortages or whether food is clean. I can’t imagine hearing English in public.

I don’t know how I’m going to go out to the bars back home and show arm or leg skin after covering for four months despite desert heat.

Heck, I don’t know how I’m going to shake the Arabic phrases out of my speech.

I do know that reverse culture shock is going to be infinitely worse than the initial shock of coming here.

I’ve made such good friends during this semester from everywhere. My best friends here are Egyptian, Polish, Norwegian, British and American.

They’re people I never would have come into contact with otherwise, but, here we were, all thrown together into Cairo’s chaos. There’s no way to bond more quickly.

In less than two weeks, we’ll have to say goodbye.

Even as a small child, I wanted to come to Egypt. This country has been the place I’ve always most wanted to visit. I wanted to see the pyramids and eat falafel. I wanted to experience the politics and talk to the people.

As a journalist, I wanted to come here to tell stories. I wanted to try and do what I could to bridge the overwhelming gap between east and west.

For 20 years, all I’ve heard were America’s phobic tales of the Middle East. I wanted to get the other side of the story.

I never thought I would get that opportunity at age 20.

Even now, I can hardly believe how fortunate I am.

I have done so much here — more than I can write down in a column.

The hardest thing to reconcile is that there is still so much left to do, and I’m not going to have time. I’m just not.

On Dec. 21, I have to get on that plane and fly home. I won’t get to see everything.

But, in a way, that’s good.

After all, it just means I’ll have to come back.  

­— hannsmit@indiana.edu