My heart, it bleeds

Blog posts are obviously like buses. You don't get one for weeks, and then suddenly two come along at once.  The title of this blog (specifically its grammatical structure) is a reference to the problems Arab students of English have with tenses, and also with the combination of possessive pronouns with the nominative 'it' (I know, I know, ever the teacher).

My heart does bleed though. It bleeds for all the people who have died because of horrific terrorist attacks. It bleeds for the people of Egypt because of the catastrophic impact this continues have on the already depressed tourist trade, the lifeblood of this country. There is no unemployment benefit in Egypt. If you lose your job, you can't feed your family. It's that simple. It bleeds for the Syrians who have had their country stolen by murderous terrorists who have the gall to attribute it to religion. Specifically it bleeds for the Syrian refugee hairdresser I met in Hurghada, who has not seen his family for three years and has little prospect of seeing them in the forseeable future. So he ekes out a living pampering rich tourists who are frequently obnonxious and disdainful. And make no mistake about it. We are rich in comparison, in financial terms as well as political stability, social welfare, education... I could go on. I witnessed one such person who was unfortunately British being extremely rude to the Syrian refugee hairdresser. If my head hadn't been covered in hair dye, and my sister hadn't had her face covered in a "soothing mask", we agreed that we would have rushed out to have a word, Scottish style naturally!  

My heart bleeds for me too, and my new family here in Cairo. Because of the devastating impact of these things on the Egyptian tourist sector, I'm going to have to seek work outside Egypt for a short period. Some of you may wonder why I bothered to move to Cairo at all given I am now going back to the UK. I don't see it like that though. As far as I am concerned, Cairo is now my home. I live in Cairo. I will just be working somewhere else for a while. I'll admit that it's a bit of a long commute, but the more I mix with the expat/immigrant population in Cairo, the more I realise that such arrangements are not as uncommon as one might think. Having lived and worked in one country my whole life, moving to Cairo has made me realise what a cloistered existence it is. Of course there's nothing at all wrong with this; it's the norm and the vast majority of people in the UK live and work for their entire lives in the same country. I think it's the realisation that there are other ways of living that can be equally successful that has been a bit of a revelation to me.

The two things about this situation that upset me most are firstly that I will have to spend time apart from A. Now we have found each other it seems cruel that we have to do this. Secondly, I have had to give up the teaching. I couldn't agree to do another semester knowing that I might have to leave half way through it or fly back to the UK for interviews. I was only at the school for 3 months but I loved every minute of it and I'm already missing it. All of you who know me though know that aside from my main ethos in life ("To thine own self be true") I also firmly believe that every cloud (EVERY cloud) has a silver lining. This cloud actually has several, and the one that is at the forefront of my mind is that this will allow me to build up some money and enable me to open my own school here in Cairo eventually. When A mentioned this ages ago I thought it seemed like an impossible dream, but the more I think about it the more it seems like a possibility.

Another fantastic view from my wonderful balcony

Of course there are many other silver linings. I will get to see much more of my family and friends, and my dog. I'll have decent WiFi. I'll be able to watch British TV without incurring exorbitant data download costs. I can have the Cairo sun but still have a bacon butty on the Sunday mornings when I'm in Britain.

But still. My heart, it bleeds.