Copyright trailing grouse

Cairo is the City Victorious. She is. No matter what happens, she wins.

I trundle along in my rather mundane life, ignoring her, ignoring her richness around me and then it happens. Without fail. She chews me up, lacerating me with her sharp teeth, smothering me with her sandpaper tongue and as I fight to gasp a last mouthful of air, she swallows. I find myself deep in the uncertainty of her underbelly. Who to trust, where to go, what to believe? Everything is turned on its head and a black  scream forms inside my gut. It moves up, too loud for my voice, the screams echo inside my head, “I AM LEAVING. GET ME OUT OF HERE!” and then the words that later feel so disloyal, “I H-A-T-E  E-G-Y-P-T!”

Disloyal because also without fail, shortly after that, I have one of the best days of my life and know that Cairo is truly Um el Donia.*

Such is life in this megacity, that those of us who choose to live here because we love Cairo, cannot leave for fear of never finding somewhere that makes us feel as alive as we do when we’re in her arms.

*Mother of the world