Everything in Egypt Takes Time

Fouad and I have always believed that mural making teaches everyone something. Even we learn a lot from our travels and our interactions with the many people and places we have visited. And each time we gain that little more of insight and make new friends or revisit established ones, we feel a little bit more blessed by these experiences. Egypt is a country of extremes. People seem extremely poor and extremely rich at the same time in many ways. But one of the first things I was told when coming here, was that everything in Egypt takes time. It has proven to be very true, and I have learned that this philosophy also can have benefits of its own.

We left early this morning to head out on a bus that would take us from Alexandria to Egypt’s second most populated city, Mansoura. The word is a beautiful sounding word as are the people that live there, so it seems. A couple hours of traveling time didn’t sound bad, but if I would have remembered that statement, and as I look by now, if in fact, everything in Egypt takes time, then that couple hours of course is double that!

However, the ride there by bus seemed like I was brought closer to the people and the earth itself. Traveling around Egypt had usually been by train or car; the train speeding through too quickly not allowing me to see more beyond for more than just a few seconds, and by car, unable to see beyond a short horizon. For me, the bus more or less sauntered slowly on by and sitting in the front and in seats high above gave me that “vista” I longed for in trying to discover and get close to “real people”.

Hundreds of kilometers between Alexandria and Mansoura were filled with long flat stretches of green fields with distinctive geometrical patterns of plantings. I marveled at the pure square area of rice paddies, and watched barefoot men and women toil over them reminding me of days over thirty years ago where I witnessed this same kind of scene in the Philippines. Since that time, I have always felt that rice had a special meaning and whenever and wherever I eat it, I love it more because I knew of the effort it takes just to produce it. I think I read somewhere that rice is the world’s staple food, and I can also believe that in every country around the world, there are likely stretches of rice paddies just like this where people, bent over in tending to seedlings ankle deep in water, are the backbone of their societies, creating the food that villagers and city dwellers so enjoy. I also imagined that they, dressed in galebeya’s or pants bottoms rolled up, look much like those of centuries past—a stark contrast to the flashy glitzy and bejeweled and bedecked magazine covers plastered everywhere.

I also marveled at the use of the land along the canals and waterways where the banks of these places were covered with what seemed like miniature perfectly neat rows of other plantings—with every meter of space that had water close by, utilized in a very efficient manner. In the distance, and scattered among the fields were what looked like mini oasis, where tall willowy palm trees cooled someone resting. And other times I would see a woman in a brightly flowered dress and gypsy style head scarf toiling over a small fire, perhaps making tea for the weary workers who comprised of mostly men and women. Now and then I could see small clusters of children playing and running joyfully, among natures fields and dirt pathways in between them. The goats, sheep, donkeys and caribou and horse drawn carts moved among these indigenous people, and again my thoughts of country clubs and fancy restaurants and high rise buildings came to mind. The contrast of the scenes made me ponder even more about our need for things that diminished the meaning of so many other important things in life.

Extremes. Egypt. We passed through a small and dirty industrial town. Litter and trash everywhere, beggars in the streets, too many cars going in all directions, dust and dirt and acrid smells wafting through the open doors of the bus that stopped to let out passengers. Pools of teal blue-green, red and purple colored waters gurgled from the streets forming little rivers of magnificent colors. These were the colors of pure raw and toxic dyes from the textile factory; the mainstay of this town. The bus doors closed and somehow seemed to shut out and turn away from this stark contrast of the long road we had just traveled, languid and green and full of clean black earth, miles of rows of agriculture and people fully involved in their work. Once again we were on our way, the bus moving like an old and tired bull elephant pushing onward through the jungle of people standing in the streets or walking to who knows where.

Several more times along the way, the bus would pull over to let a passenger jump on or off and those near to the roadway would gaze up and I would smile and they would smile back—some with their amazing faces full of character, toothless and wrinkled from so much sun…but always with eyes full of reflection and something special from within their souls.

My thoughts turned to PEACE and the sight of these people working day in and day out, year after year, generation after generation. They, so close to the earth seemed content and dedicated to the task at hand, not worrying if they could afford a new car or what new clothes they could buy tomorrow to wear to fancy restaurants or to live in villas or travel outside these little patches of time warped necessity.

And once again, I remembered my many women friends the “Women of Srebrenica” in Bosnia and remembered the photos my husband took of these similar kinds of simple unassuming people…swarthy brown weather beaten rural people. I thought about how they had no hidden agendas or preoccupations except to tend to their plantings and toilings and harvestings and separating potatoes and other foods for our tables and our bellies. I thought of them, these people who would never harm anyone—people who smiled back when you smiled at them and possessed something in their soul we lacked.

And these thoughts of simplicity and simple people brought me to the reality of understanding that it is they, so close to the earth that respect LIFE in all its simplicity. It is they who use their hands and farm tools, some ancient as life itself to make our life cycle continue. It is THEY who have real peace. Everything in Egypt takes time. And thank you dear Egypt, once again, for reminding me that peace begins with us. it is all of us who are ultimately responsible for what we put into the earth and into our lives. It is us who in the end, will reap what we sow. May Peace Prevail on Earth.

Joanne Tawfilis