#MeToo

This is the story of the first time I was sexually harassed. It was 37 years ago, when I was 15. Like most 15 year old girls, I wanted my own money. We lived in a rural area, so jobs weren’t thick on the ground. I can’t remember how I found out about the cleaning job with Mr Manson; I think maybe my Dad knew someone who knew someone. I went to see him with my Dad. It was agreed. I would work as a cleaner on Saturday mornings in Mr Manson’s house for £1 an hour. It was good money.

Every Saturday morning, my Dad drove me to his house and picked me up three hours later. The work wasn’t difficult. A bit of washing up, dusting and hoovering. To my 15 year old perspective, Mr Manson was an incredibly old guy, although with hindsight I think he was only about 60 – eight years older than I am now. Nonetheless, he was still 45 years older than me. When I had finished whatever had to be done, I made myself and Mr Manson a cup of tea, which we drank in his old-person living room.

A few weeks into the job, I had made the tea and we were chatting. I never really liked him, but at that age I couldn’t put a name to the feeling. He asked me if I like fun. I think I need to say at this point that I was a naïve 15 year old, my upbringing had been sheltered and largely in rural areas. Fun to me meant going to the local disco for a dance, or hanging out with my friends. So I answered yes, I do like fun. What kind of fun do you like? He asked. I told him my innocent 15 year old girl pursuits. Oh no, he said. I meant fun in bed. Sex. Do you like fun in bed? Because I can give it to you.

Even now, 37 years later, the feelings of fear, revulsion and disgust are as strong as they were then. I leapt up, grabbed my bag and ran towards the door. Have I offended you in some way? He asked. I didn’t answer. I ran out of the house and down the road. I'm thankful with hindsight that he wasn’t a strong man, otherwise I’m really not sure where this would have ended.

I met my Dad coming up the road in the car to pick me up. I was completely distraught, so much so that to begin with he couldn’t work out what I was saying – I was sobbing so much I couldn’t get the words out. When we got home, he sat me down, handed me a glass, and said drink this now. It was vodka. I drank it. My first experience of sexual harassment turned out to be my first alcoholic drink as well.

I calmed down enough to tell him what had happened. We had family friends staying that weekend, and everyone else was out. My Dad was like a cat on a hot tin roof. The minute my Mum and the rest of the family got back, he was out of the house like a champagne cork. I found out later he had gone back to Mr Manson’s house and threatened him through the window. Mr Manson wouldn’t come out.

I now know, 37 years later, that Mr Manson had a profound and lifelong impact on me. He shattered my innocence. He showed me a world that was not safe, where I had to protect myself. I would never be that innocent 15 year old girl again; even now I look back at my 15 year old self and feel overwhelmed with sorrow for what I lost that day.

My Mum and Dad were truly wonderful. I was entirely believed. There was not a miniscule hint of victim blaming. They did their best to help me get over it. My Mum even let me get my ears pierced a year early. In the post Jimmy Saville era, the police would have been involved, but it was different then. I did get over it in that I carried on with my day to day life. My Dad found me another job as a waitress in a hotel. I went to school, passed my exams, went to university. I never really did get over it though. The memory of this event is as clear today as the day it happened.

A few weeks later, my Dad came in and said, I’ve got something for you. He handed me £3. What’s this? I said. Your pay from Mr Manson, he said. Apparently, he’d met him in the paper shop. I don’t know the detail of what happened, other than Mr Manson handed over the £3. I don’t know what my Dad said, but knowing him as I do, I can guess.  I suspect Mr Manson never visited the paper shop again.

Me too.

All in all it's just a...nother brick in the wall

Last Friday I went to an Egyptian Pink Floyd tribute band called Paranoid Eyes. I admit, my hopes weren't high but it turned out they were brilliant. It was a bit surreal though. It was a tiny venue, and the members of Paranoid Eyes can't even have been born when Pink Floyd's greatest albums were released. The Wall was released in 1979, I was horrified to recall. Like many of my generation in the UK, The Wall was the album that introduced me to Pink Floyd. I was 14! I said to one of the friends I was with, I'm fascinated by how this even happened. What was the sequence of events that ended up with a group of young Egyptian men forming a Pink Floyd tribute band? As it happens, I'm hoping to find out, because I've invited them to play at our wedding celebration party and I'm going to ask. I'll let you know, or if you're coming to the wedding, you can find out for yourself. Most of the audience were young Egyptians, and they LOVED it. Egyptians are more emotionally open than British people, and they were really enthusiastic. I had no idea Pink Floyd had a fan base in Egypt. Amazing.

Paranoid Eyes playing at Room Art Space

Aside from hearing great music which is always good, this turned out to be a significant event for me because it made me realise how important my own history, background and culture are to me. There were three of us there brought up in Britain of a similar age (which of course now you can work out from the above information...) I asked one of them what age he had been when The Wall came out and we had a conversation about its influence on our younger selves. Later we had a conversation about who wrote Comfortably Numb. There are few people in Cairo with whom I could have had these conversations; Egyptian or other nationalities. What is this? I've asking myself since because it gave me a profound realisation. Is it as simple as having a shared culture? I've been here two years now and I still pore over British news and watch British TV. Sometimes this country feels so alien that I cling to my roots and my culture like a drowning person clinging on to a life raft and if I let go everything will be lost.

Most of my foreign friends here in Cairo haven't moved here permanently, so at some point they will be moving on either somewhere else or back to their 'passport' country. In fact, several friends have left this year. As far as I can tell, they don't miss Britain as much as I do, and think this is because either they know they're going back (or at least believe it's an option). For me, this is a permanent situation. My husband has five children who live here in Egypt. There is no way I could even ask him to leave them and move to the UK, and to be honest I think he would hate it there anyway, for many reasons. So I am here for the duration; I can't have my husband and live in the UK. So I live in Egypt.

I am a resourceful and independent person. I have a life here in Egypt, a job, friends of many nationalities, a home, cats, interests. I'm happy with this life and I'm lucky to meet so many different people. But sometimes, I miss wall to wall green. Rain, cold, snow. Icy winds. All of which I complained about when I lived in Britain. I miss British trees and lakes and rivers. I miss having a shared culture and history and background with most of the people I meet. I miss not having to explain anything much because people just know it. So, to my closest British friend (and Pink Floyd fan) here in Cairo (who knows who he is), I hope you know how important you are to me. As well as being my confidante, shoulder-to-cry-on and person who makes me laugh most (I still swear you're trying to kill me by making me laugh when I'm drinking something), thank you for being my friend.

"The truth is you don't know what is going to happen tomorrow. Life is a crazy ride, and nothing is guaranteed".

The quote in the title of this post was by Eminem, one of our the greatest modern poets. I'm not so keen on the music but the lyrics are incredible. Anyway, this isn't about Eminem, it's about my last few weeks, which really have been a crazy ride.

I was in the pub one night with a few friends, and one of my team texted to ask if I had heard the news about my fellow manager in Exams. "What news?" I said anxiously. "He's broken his leg". "Whaaaaaaaaaaat!" I shrieked. It was true. At the worst possible time of the year, a the beginning of the May/June exam session, he'd broken his leg which resulted in an operation to put eight pins in. So not a trivial break either. Our boss was due to go on holiday the next day, and then on a course in the UK, so I was the only manager in Exams AGAIN. It all went downhill from there really.

The very next day, we had been due to go to Alexandria for a pre-exams, motivational team building trip. We were going to cancel, but Mr Broken Leg (MBL) as he shall be henceforth be named for reasons of anonymity, insisted that we go without him, so we did. Actually, it was great. I arranged a selfie treasure hunt (a list of bizarre objects that the team have to get into a photo with themselves). Egyptians LOVE selfies. It was much more of a success than I expected and the ingenuity and creativity of the team caused a lot of hilarity. I do love our team in Exams, they're one of the best teams I've ever worked with. It's just as well, because work has been a complete nightmare since, having to do several jobs at once at the busiest time of the year (by miles). I hope this doesn't come across as a moan, I don't mean it to. In many ways, it was exciting and exhilarating, but it was also more stressful than I can convey. But MBL is now back at work a couple of days a week, and the exam session is finished, so I'm hoping things will calm down. And I am really lucky because I do love my job.

In the midst of all this, I've had some health issues. I went to see a certain type of doctor, as a result of which I had a bone density scan, a mammogram, a smear test, some ultrasound and a load of blood tests. The outcome of all this is that I don't have breast cancer but I do have osteopenia, and I am past the menopause. Why is it called the meno-pause by the way? What exactly is pausing? Anyway, I went through a short period of depression about the osteopenia, mainly caused by looking online (yes I know - fatal) and seeing pictures of grey haired older women "leading happy healthy lives despite osteoporosis". What? I'm only 51 FFS! Well I was then, I'm 52 now. Maybe I've crossed the Rubicon into old. Luckily, I have amazing friends and family who pulled me out of the blues and now I have a plan. Finding out so early is a good thing, because you can build new bone. Sadly it involves eating less cake, amongst other things.

I've also had a completely new experience. There have been some ructions in our expat group. It's a long story to which I may dedicate a whole post to one day, but at the moment I'll summarise by saying that someone joined our wider group and created complete mayhem. The latest is that myself and my closest friend in Cairo weren't invited to a mutual friend's cocktail party, because if we had gone, three of her other friends wouldn't have gone. I mean, seriously? Are we all six or something? We can't possibly all like each other in life, but can't we all at least act civilly? Apparently not. My own personal transgression, I found out the other day, was because I spoke to Internations because events were frequently being posted by one of the three people mentioned above, where women wearing hijab were not allowed. Internations kindly told her I had complained, but I mean, seriously? This is a Muslim country! Those of you who know me well will know that I can't bear discrimination or inequality, so I took a stand. And now I'm not being invited to a cocktail party. Fortunately, I have plenty of real friends in Cairo who SUPPORT me for standing up for what I believe in. I'm pretty impressed though to have reached this age without actively not being invited to something. I can tick it off my bucket list of "slights to receive before you're sixty".

On the positive side, I really do have incredible friends here. Sadly, some of them are leaving soon, but I honestly hope we can manage to keep in touch. We've also made the decision to move out of Mokattam. Much as I love living here, it's just too inconvenient. We're hoping to move to Zamalek, which will be a stone's throw from work, and it's a bit of an expat haven, full of western style shops and restaurants. It'll be a bit more expensive, but I won't have the transport costs (easily my biggest expense here) and so many of my friends live there. I also won't have the hideous commute to and from work, breathing in the fumes every day.

Beautiful Alexandria

We had a lovely little short break to Alexandria a couple of months ago. Despite my accident prone-ness in Alexandria, I do love it and it was great to spend some time together just chilling and breathing in the sea air.

Egypt can be a difficult country for expats, but it is truly an incredible country in so many ways, and this is what keeps me going during difficult times. Most Egyptians are the kindest and friendliest people you could meet, with a great sense of humour. Some of my work colleagues have me in stitches at times. You can get anything delivered at any time of the day or night. You can buy things over the counter in the pharmacy that you have to get a prescription for in the UK (and every second shop is a pharmacy). The fruit and vegetables are incredible, especially the watermelons which are in season at the moment yay! I love Egyptian food. It was so beautiful during Ramadan, everywhere was decorated with lights and Ramadan lanterns. Unfortunately I missed the feast at the end of Ramadan due to an emergency trip back to the UK, more of which another time.

To quote another song writer - life's what you make it, and I'm doing my best to made it good.

Celebrate good times, come on!

I was listening to a podcast the other day by Sundae Schneider Bean, an expert in the whole expat/living abroad thing. The podcast was about celebrating successes, even tiny ones. A lot of the time, I find myself feeling frustrated about what I can’t do yet, or my lack of progress in certain things such as learning Arabic. So the podcast got me focused on my successes since I moved to Egypt, which, believe it or not, was 18 months ago.

My most recent success happened just the other day. The Cairo International Book Fair was on, so I arranged to go with a few friends. It's at a place described as “Nasr City Fair Grounds”. Despite searching online and on Google maps, I just couldn’t work out where this place is, which makes things more difficult with Uber because you can’t put the destination in. So the options are to get an Uber with an unclear destination (always a risk because generally they haven’t got a clue where they’re going and can’t use the GPS), or get a taxi. In such situations I did what I always do – I rang my husband and asked him to speak to the taxi driver. He refused. He said if I tell you what to say, you can say it to the taxi driver. The pressure! Having to say new Arabic words to a taxi driver and risk that completely blank look! Anyway, I did it. He told me the words and I said them to the taxi driver, who understood, and sped us off to the book fair. Where I spent too much money on books, predictably.

I was inordinately pleased with this success, even though it may seem tiny. Arabic is a hard language to learn for a native English speaker for many reasons, so it’s daunting trying to speak new words when it really matters, especially as Arabic has some sounds that English doesn’t. For example, there’s one letter that sounds like you’re trying to swallow an A. I tried to say Ma’adi to a taxi driver once, and it took him about 5 minutes to understand me because of this letter. We spent the rest of the journey with him drilling me to say it properly – without much success it would have to be said.

It’s all got me thinking about how much Arabic I do actually know, and I surprised myself again. As mentioned above, a lot of the time I feel frustrated by my lack of progress. I think it’s because of the huge number of other things I’ve had to adjust to; my brain can’t take learning a new language on top of all that. Having said that, when I think about it, it’s surprising how many words I know. Inevitably, most of the words are the ones I need to live an independent life in Cairo, but I have learned quite a lot of others. Some of them are even useful, especially for scaring the living shit out of my team when they think I can’t understand them (laughs evilly…)

As well as the small successes with the language, there are many other things I can do which terrified me to begin with. I look back at my early blogs, and buying toothpaste was a challenge. I have lots of small shops where I live, and I like to shop in them. I can buy fruit and vegetables (and ask for a bag), and most other groceries. The only shop I have a problem with is the butcher, because I don’t know the words yet. So I buy most of my meat from the supermarket. I can ask for a kilo of mince though (which turns out to be quite a lot of mince). I’ve found a clothes shop which sells really good clothes for work, and it’s not even an expensive Western shop in one of the malls. It’s a proper Egyptian shop. For the first time in my life, I own a cat. In fact I own three cats. This resulted in a number of new challenges; finding a vet, a pet shop, a cat sitter, and a driver prepared to transport cats.

I’ve travelled all over Cairo by myself, in Ubers and taxis. I’ve got the train to Alexandria on my own (not without incident as you’ll know from my previous blogs). I can cross the road on my own (a significant achievement in this city I can tell you!) I don’t feel inclined to drive in Cairo, and I haven’t managed to get the metro yet, but all in good time.

The incredible Mohamed Ali alabaster mosque

Probably my most important successes have been about building my life here in Cairo, and part of this has been because I forced myself to get out there and meet people. Obviously I’ve got my job, but the majority of my social circle aren’t people from work. I’m an Internations consul for the Arts & Culture group, and also The Written Word. I’ve been to parts of Cairo that most tourists don’t get to, because they spend two days seeing the Pyramids and the Egyptian Museum then move on somewhere else. It’s a shame, because Cairo has layer upon layer of history and is absolutely full of fascinating places and hidden gems. The writers’ and readers’ groups have become extremely important to me, in fact discovering that I can write stuff that people want to read is a complete revelation, and probably a bit more than a small success. I have been published! And my article in Egyptian Streets was trending for a while! I have a small circle of close friends that I see regularly, in fact I go out a lot more than I used to when I lived in Britain.

I’ve managed to get through a lot of physical and health challenges. Inevitably there have been stomach bugs (I’ve definitely had e-coli and giardiasis – the latter of which made me ill for weeks). I battled all summer with heat exhaustion; I’ve discovered my tolerance for heat is extremely low, and I need to take twice daily rehydration sachets. I know this because of another success – I’ve found my own GP. Well they don’t really have GPs here, I just call him my GP because he said I can come and see him about anything. I picked him because he had a kind face, which turned out to be a highly effective strategy. I’ve also had to go to the hospital to have my trigger thumb dealt with and also when I had the giardiasis because it gave me acute gastritis. I’ve also been getting more migraines, probably because of the heat, but I’ve dealt with that too. It really does help that you can get the drugs delivered right to your door by a guy on a moped.

And on that subject. You can get absolutely anything delivered to your door in Cairo. There’s a brilliant app called Otlob with all the restaurants that deliver, including a pudding restaurant. I remember the first time I plucked up the nerve to order – my shawarma and chips arrived half an hour later. I do realise that being able to have pudding delivered to your door any time of the day or night is not necessarily a good thing, which is why I’ve now got myself a personal trainer and have started going to the gym. I feel like I’ve got to the stage where I can start focusing on something other than just surviving the day to day challenge of living and working in a country with a fundamentally different culture.

A friend asked me the other day if I feel settled here in Cairo, and I would have to say that I don’t. It’s not an either/or situation though; every day that goes by, with the small and the big successes, makes life here less strange and more normal. I’m pretty sure I’m close to the stage where the normal outweighs the strange. There are a lot more good days than bad days, and it is truly a privilege to live in a city that is riddled with multiple layers of culture and history. A friend told me recently that she really admires how I’ve built my life here in Cairo; and two friends have said to me how much they appreciate the effort I put into the Internations groups. Both these things made me feel all warm and fuzzy.

So I think I’ll stay. For the time-being, anyway.