Egypt Reflections: Everything Changes and Yet Everything Stays the Same

A quick note: this post was written several months into my four-month stay in Egypt. I’m now in Kenya, but finally playing catch-up with drafts and photos from the past five and a half months!

I’ve been in Egypt for a little over three months now, and while I regret not posting sooner, in many ways I’ve needed these weeks and months to process how my life has changed and the things I’ve experienced since the beginning of September.  

My time in Egypt thus far has been both a dream come true and a reality check.  As a child, I dreamt of living and working here as an Egyptologist; I was obsessed with the history and stories of this ancient land.  Of course over the years I changed my professional path, but this country always remained high on my list of places of travel and explore.  

I occassionally still get a goofy grin on my face as I think about the position I’m now in.  While I’m not living and working here in the way I imagined as a child, I am now considered an Egyptian resident and I’m earning my paycheck by doing accounting and finance remotely for the cybersecurity company I worked for back in North Carolina.  So, in a roundabout way, my childhood dream has come true, and that’s really friggin’ cool.  

Yet, the daily reality of life in Egypt isn’t all magical sunsets and romantic ruins.  If you’ve ever spent time in a developing country, you’ll know what I’m talking about.  For every adventurous desert excursion and refreshing lemon mint drink there’s a local guide trying to rip you off or a dusty street covered in donkey shit.  Each magical sunset is bookmarked by eye irritation from pollution; you struggle to finish your extensive meal that cost $5USD as you watch emaciated cows walk past the restaurant patio.

Navigating life here is difficult at best.  As a Swiss artist living in Cairo (Sandrine Pelletier – you should check her out!) put it, “it’s a place that makes you insane, actually crazy.”  You have to negotiate for everything and maybe still overpay, accept that the food you’re eating means you won’t have a solid shit for four days, and realize trustworthy people are few and far between.  At times it feels like the entire country is in cahoots to make your life unnavigable.  

I’ve dabbled in Stoic philosophy over the years, and life on the road in Egypt is a great way to put many aspects of this philosophy into practice.  You quickly learn to live with very little in terms of both material possessions and creature comforts.  Of course it was the one week I was sick that I lived in a hut with no running water and no air conditioning while high temperatures neared 100F every day.  But as Stoicism teaches, you learn what you can control, which is usually very little apart from your attitude towards the situation.  I decided to consider my living situation a “glamping” experience rather than seeing it as a shitty AirBnB, and suddenly it seemed more adventurous and doable for just a week.  

Egypt certainly teaches you to roll with the punches.  Any time I now have a disappointing experience or get ripped off or get yelled at for walking somewhere when there’s not a sign telling me not to walk there (which is surprisingly common), I shrug my shoulders and say to myself, “welcome to Egypt!”  Maybe one day I’ll be able to laugh at these things on the spot, but maybe reaching that point means I will have actually gone insane.  

I don’t mean for all of the above to sound like total doom and gloom.  As cheesy as it is, for every challenge, there’s a reward, although sometimes you have to look incredibly closely for it.  I’ve been rewarded with some of the most stunning sunsets I’ve ever seen, breathtaking climbs into pyramids, the serene beauty of being utterly alone amongst the ruins of an ancient city, and some of the best food I’ve ever eaten.  The friendly folks I have managed to meet are true gems, and the laughs I’ve shared with them are seared into my memory.

After several months here I’m still glad I decided to come and spend this extended amount of time learning about this country.  It presents an endless array of paradoxes (the title of this post is from a Dutch woman who has lived here for over twenty years).  It’s certainly not a country I would recommend to just anyone as it really does take a savvy traveler to navigate and enjoy.  But I feel that I have been able to cut through the grime and frustrations and see glimpses of beauty here.  Hopefully the beauty becomes easier to see as I spend more time here and the perceived negatives fade into a sense of normalcy.  I guess only time will tell.