Memoir of a Psychiatrist: Ahmed El Toumi, Md Dpm

By Ahmed EL Toumi

This memoir is the story of my life, which, as a practicing physician, covered several thousand miles in travel and living among people different from each other, and regions in the same country different from each other. The anthropology and medical experiences were different from one place to another.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Oct 4, 2011
• ISBN: 9781463416362

Ahmed EL Toumi

My name is Ahmed. I was born in Cairo, Egypt on March 17, 1927, reared and received all my education primary, secondary and medical school in Cairo. After I graduated from Cairo Medical School, I practiced my profession in Egypt for about eight years, after which I worked in the Sudan for five years. Then I went to England to do my post-graduate studies and obtain my degree to practice psychiatry from The Maudsley Institute of Psychiatry. After I obtained my degree, I worked in England for about seven years, after which I left London for Chicago, Port of Entry. I left Chicago for St. Louis, Missouri, where I worked as a psychiatrist for some thirty years. I retired when I was seventy years old. During my practice as a physician, I worked in a Mediterranean country Egypt, Sudan (African), England (European) and America (North American).

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MEMORIES OF CHILDHOOD

This is not really a memory, but my parents told me that I walked earlier than most children and that my old aunt, who lived with us all her life, scooped me off the floor when the doorbell rang.

But I remember vaguely that when I was about two years old, I threw pots and pans from the window of the third-floor apartment where we lived. I was smacked every time, but I kept doing the same thing. Apparently I got a kick from hearing the sound of pots and pans hitting the ground. I was totally unaware that they might hurt or perhaps kill someone unlucky enough to walk over the point of impact.

We lived in a part of Cairo called Elabasia, which had no meaning that I know of. We had a maid who stayed with us from before I was born until she was married. She was like a mother to us, and we called her Mum.

Mum was in love with a young man who owned a small grocery next to our house. My father was a matchmaker, and Mum left my father to marry the young grocer. We, her adopted children, visited her. She lived in a poor area with a narrow alley leading to her small apartment. I remember how happy she was and how happy we were to see her happy.

I was still a child when we moved to another part of Cairo by the name of Shubra. My father owned a four-floor house that had a shed next to it and a yard surrounded by a brick stone fence. In front of it was land the size of a football arena. At the end of the yard there was a house owned by an uncle who had date trees. Whenever the dates were ripe enough, he hired a man who wore a rope around his waist. He climbed the tree by throwing the rope up the tree and hacked a large bunch of dates that then fell to the ground. It was a spectacle.

To the left of our house was a farm of sugar cane where we had picnics, cutting the cane to pieces and sucking its sweet juice.

Many stray dogs were in the area, and we became friends. I cannot explain the affinity between dogs and me. It was love at first sight, I swear. I just went to them and petted them without fear. Many were my size; some were bigger. I walked to our apartment and they followed me. I admitted them, to my mother’s chagrin. I must mention here that I was her favorite child. She was afraid that one of the dogs might have rabies.

They run and jump, Mom, I’d say.

There was a man who sold fool medames, which was beans cooked slowly until they become brown. The man came and tied his donkey by a leash to our balcony iron rails. He had his fool in a large container and people came to him to fill their pots with beans, or he would go to other buildings to bring his large container.

One day I untied the donkey and rode on his back, and he bolted. I held to the leash and the donkey ran. The people screamed, and just as I was about to fall, someone put a large pole in front of the donkey—a fond memory.

I also remember a young man who took me riding on the bar of his bicycle. I could feel his erection and almost jumped off the bicycle, but he stopped his bike. That wasn’t a fond memory.

THE BARBER OF CAIRO

Unlike the barber of Seville, the barber of Cairo wasn’t kind to kids.

When I was three or four years old, my parents gave me money to get a haircut at a barbershop close to our house owned by Mr. Mahmoud. Mr. Mahmoud was a big man with a bushy mustache and a long beard who couldn’t stop talking to his clients while he was cutting their hair. He talked to me as well, but every now and then he would ask me to open my hand and put a louse in the middle of my palm, announcing, as if he discovered a mine of gold, And there is another one! And that was when his shop was full of clients. It was a shameful announcement, which I kept to myself. It was difficult for me to tell my mother. It was as if I was accusing her of something.

At that time an epidemic of lice among schoolchildren wasn’t uncommon. Kids of those schools were given a bottle of anti-lice shampoo. Some friend of mine told me one day that Latifa, Mr. Mahmoud’s daughter, was given a lice shampoo bottle. It was good news for me.

The next time I went to get a haircut at Mr. Mahmoud’s barbershop, I asked Mr. Mahmoud loudly, Is it true, Mr. Mahmoud, that Latifa was given a lice shampoo the other day? Mr. Mahmoud ground his teeth and didn’t answer, but his clients laughed. They knew that I was getting my revenge.

From that time my lice were set free, and I had the courage to tell my mother how Mr. Mahmoud would put my lice in my palm. My mother became furious and took me to another barber.

Mr. Mahmoud was ashamed because his daughter had lice and he lost a client as well. And I lost my lice; they were now picked up and slaughtered by the hands of my own mother.

A sweet victory.

EARLY CHILDHOOD

I was young—I don’t know how young—when my parents were divorced. I know that I was lonely and miserable. Mother had taken my two sisters with her and I was left to the care of my old aunt. I had an older brother who was in college and was engaged to his niece. They touched each other a lot. He was busy.

Psychology tells us that kids often feel that they were the cause of their parents’ divorce. I never felt that way. They were divorced because my father was a son of a bitch and a homosexual to boot.

Well, I hit the road and went fishing. I loved to see the float sinking and the fish pulling the line and dancing in the air. Even now, I love to fish. I fished in small streams and caught bilharziasis twice, and twice I had a painful intravenous course of injections.

I felt very lonely and walked what now seems