WALK LIKE AN EGYPTIAN: How a Burnt-Out Middle-Aged American Rejoined the Human Race while living among the People of Egypt during their Historic Revolution

By Alfred Greenberg

In the aftermath of 9/11 and amidst the beginning of the anti-Muslim sentiment that ensued, I was determined to find out just exactly what was going on in the Middle East, to discover for myself the truth behind the Arab culture and the Muslim faith. So, after much soul-searching, I decided to head off for a long sabbatical in the Middle East. I had just finished up a decade's worth of single fathering and finding myself on my own again for the first time in decades, I was feeling burnt-out, lost, and confused.

I set off for Egypt, arriving mere months before the revolution broke out that shook the world. As the country rocked and reeled through unprecedented turmoil, I found myself in the center of a dramatic upheaval. In the midst of it all, I found I was inadvertently becoming bonded to the Egyptian people and their struggle. After an interminable period of being shut down as a human being, I found that in Egypt, I was finally beginning to feel more alive again. Meanwhile, my experiences up close and personal with Islam, were proving to be entirely different than what they had been purported to be in the media.

My journey of living in Egypt lasted for just over 3 years. But it led to unique discoveries of not only the land, people and religion, but profound discoveries about myself. This story, part travel odyssey/ part memoir, is the adventure of one man who embarks on a journey into the heart of the Middle East, deeply immersing himself in the culture of an oft misunderstood people.  What he finds while there is an unexpected treasure. It is a story set against the tumultuous backdrop of a country passing through a time of historic revolution and change. And yet, just as they pass through a time that will never again leave them the same, he comes through the experience a transformed person.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Alfred Greenberg
• Release date: Feb 13, 2019
• ISBN: 9781386388302

Alfred Greenberg

About the Author Mr. Greenberg left the United States at the early age of seventeen, upon hearing George Harrison’s song for Bangladesh. He set off on a humanitarian quest to help relieve the suffering of people in that war-torn land, and while en route, helped establish halfway houses for drug addicts in India, Nepal, and Afghanistan. In Calcutta, he met and joined forces with Mother Teresa, who was in the early days of her work there, helping her in caring for people at the Home for the Dying. He later went on to open a humanitarian project in Bangladesh, where he remained for five years. Later, while back in the United States, he, along with his sons, launched the pop brother band, Bon Voyager, releasing three CDs of original music, and performing throughout the country to help promote various charitable causes. As a middle-aged man, he set off again, this time to live in the heart of the Middle East. He arrived in Cairo shortly before the revolution broke out, living through historic times with the Egyptian people. What he experienced there profoundly affected him. This book, part memoir and part travel odyssey, is an account of that journey. Mr. Greenberg is the author of two other books due to be released soon. For further information, kindly visit the website: www.apilgrimsdiary.com.

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PREFACE

In 2009, I was raising five teenagers as a single dad tucked away in a home on Cape Cod, Massachusetts. When the last one had finally moved out and gone off to college, I had reached the point of near exhaustion. I found myself sitting there in that big, empty house feeling lost and alone, trying to figure out what, if anything, life held in store for me now.

My kids had become my life and I basically had no life apart from them. I was the quintessential codependent, utterly losing myself in the care of others. For over two decades, I had been watching out for the most infinitesimal needs of others, but I knew little about how to take care of myself, or how to be in touch with what was going on deep inside me- what I really felt. Now with the kids gone, that thin veneer was being scratched and my insides further revealed. In the process, my premise for life was gravely shaken. And as the process roiled within me, deep doubts began to surface. Doubts about who I was as a person. Well, not so much doubts- questions.

I was facing huge disillusionment in still coming to terms with looming past failures, losing a post I loved overseas, and enduring a broken marriage. And at a time when I needed inner strength the most, I found it lacking. After having been spit out by nearly half a century of life’s turmoil, I had to come face to face with a gnawing darkness within and a hard truth—I had been living behind false masks for far too long. As Thomas Merton, the Catholic writer and mystic, succinctly puts it, If we have chosen the way of falsity, we must not be surprised that truth eludes us when we finally come to need it, and that confusion reigns.

That decade of single fatherhood was admittedly one of the most challenging times of my life, but it was also the period during which I learned some of my most important life lessons. For one thing, I had the opportunity to scrutinize myself in a way I had never done before. Those years of doing laundry, cooking meals, cleaning the house, and nagging the kids, brought me down to earth. And it took that to introduce me to a different outlook and a different way of being, teaching me to embrace the quiet and mundane things of life, the small and seemingly insignificant.

At the youthful age of seventeen, I had left the United States heading off for parts unknown, heeding George Harrison’s plea to aid the dying in Bangladesh. For well over a decade, I had labored in some of the most impoverished countries on earth, often eking out an existence simply on pure faith. While reaping many tangible fruits for my labors, still, something had been missing. What I realized sitting alone in that house was- in many ways I had been blind.

It had taken drastic changes and having things I held dear taken away from me, to turn the searchlight inward, to begin any true inner work. I always liked that Gandhi quote, Be the change you wish to see in the world. If only I had understood its true meaning. Good works and kind deeds have their place on the outside, but any real change has to begin within. It took that decade back on home soil with my kids, often walking in utter darkness, and at times under the weight of crippling depression, for me to start to take a good, hard look at myself. Perhaps my mission overseas, which I prized so highly, had provided me with a false sense of identity. And if so, perhaps that false self, had in turn blinded me to what was truly important- the inner reality of who I really was, and what was going on deep inside me.

However excruciatingly difficult, I had to admit to myself that I had gotten it wrong or I would never be able to embark on a truly authentic path. As Swami Vivekananda wisely stated, You have to grow from the inside out. It was a depressing reality to confront, but it was only when I finally bottomed out in India and lost everything, that I could finally begin to find my way back to myself. I had to be robbed of my own power and prestige, stripped of what I thought I needed, and who I thought I was, to begin to finally see. But I fought the whole process tooth and nail every step of the way.

The fact that I had wound up in the company of these innocent beings was, in and of itself, a reflection of the absolute, unconditional love the universe was still holding out to me. Somehow, in its mysterious way, life was giving me a second chance. Because it was in that quiet and lonely place with my kids, that I finally began to encounter a different kind of power, and a different way of being. The value system I had lived by before, which I had put so much stock in, had to be dismantled before I could start again, and build on a new foundation.

Once the last of the five big birdies had flown the nest, I was left feeling alone and dejected. In that abandoned structure once brimming with noise and the sounds of life, there was now complete and utter quiet. Without all that confusion to envelop me, I felt naked -sort of like a teenager again, searching for an identity in this great, big world. I needed to discover who I was on a deeper level than my role as a single dad, as an entrepreneur, a musician, a seeker, a teacher, a poet, a humanitarian- beyond it all. Beyond even my failings and beyond any good stuff I had done. Where was my soul? What did destiny have in store for me now? Sitting alone in that great big house, I just couldn’t see it. At a time when I desperately needed to reconnect with the spiritual and find direction for my life, I felt like a drowning man.

It was during that ten-year period when I was shepherding my flock of kids in the United States, that the momentous events of 9/11 occurred. I will never forget standing in my living room, the TV on, as the Twin Towers smoldered and fell, my children and I looking on in horror. I was truly saddened by the fact that soon the Western world formed a rather negative opinion of the Arab people, and the Islamic faith as a whole. Having spent nearly half my youth laboring in predominantly Muslim countries such as Bangladesh, Afghanistan, and Turkey, I knew for a fact that this horrific act did not in any way resemble the humble people I had come to know personally, and the unique faith and hospitality I had witnessed firsthand. Since it is inbred in my nature to want to explore a matter for myself, to get to the bottom of things, immediately after 9/11, I inwardly vowed to one day go and live in the heart of the Middle East, to find out exactly what was going on. Since I found myself badly in need of some time away, the thought struck me- why not combine these two innately strong yearnings?

After returning from overseas, while caring for my kids as a single dad, I had built up a small tutoring business reaching out to the Brazilian community. And having become familiar with their language and customs, I initially felt that Brazil would be the logical choice for any radical long-term step abroad again. Although I had sojourned in Tunisia for a brief period and had a taste of North African culture, still, I hesitated about heading off on a longer sabbatical deeper into the Middle East.

Egypt, I had been told, was the heart and soul of the Arab world. But taking a step into the center of Muslim civilization would be a daring move and require a boatload of courage, courage it seemed I really didn’t have. It would mean setting out blindly into the unknown again. But I wasn’t seventeen anymore. I was a middle-age man riddled with many doubts, fears, and insecurities. And while the call at seventeen had been about heading off to help save the suffering people of Bangladesh, this time the call seemed to be a very different one. It was about doing some serious inner work, some real digging. Succinctly put, it was a call for saving myself. Or perhaps better put, I was being directed to attend more carefully to my own self-care and self-transformation, which in years past had been sorely neglected. I suppose the words of Buddha serve to put this in a gentler light: You, yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.

Thinking it best to go with the safer bet, rather than the riskier option, I finally wound up making the ‘rational’ decision and bought a ticket to Brazil. But one night, shortly before my trip, I woke up and felt that intuition in my heart stronger than ever, the sense that my place at this moment in my life was to be in the Arab world. The prodding of the inner voice was relentless. So much so, that I couldn’t quell its pull any longer. Perhaps it was the ‘real me’ inside speaking for the first time in a long time, the one that had, over the years, been smothered under a deafening chorus of other voices—of shoulds, fears, guilt, and what ifs.

I knew the time had come to make a bold decision, so I got out of bed in the middle of the night, got online, traded in my ticket to Brazil, and bought a ticket to Cairo. My heart was beating so fast I thought I could hear it in my head. There’s a certain excitement you feel at your core in such a moment of radical decision-making, in that space of ‘not knowing,’ a terse mix of excitement and apprehension about what destiny might mysteriously hold ahead for you. And boy, I doubted myself a lot at first. But at least I was beginning to believe in myself again, or to believe in anything again.

Little did I know at the time, that I would be arriving in Egypt mere months before the outbreak of the revolution that was to shock the world and bring on the historic events of the Arab Spring. And that what was about to happen to me in Egypt, would alter my life forever.

CHAPTER 1

THE AGONY AND THE ECSTACY

JUNE 2010

I staggered my way off the plane at Cairo’s huge airport, nearly the last one out the gate, wondering if the guy who was picking me up from the hotel would still be there waiting for me. Just when I was considering the brave act of grabbing my own cab, I spotted a big swarthy man holding a sign with my name on it. Thank God, I thought- the guy actually showed up.

Welcome to Egypt, he called out, I am Mustafa.

I shouted my name over the loud din as the two of us shook hands. But within seconds it became obvious to me, that those three words were the extent of his English vocabulary. I was content to practice the few phrases I knew in Arabic, but how long was that going to last? To my chagrin, he flashed a big grin and started rattling away in Arabic as if he were meeting his long-lost cousin. I didn’t understand a thing he was saying, which usually wouldn’t have bothered me, as I was accustomed to immersing myself in languages to get the hang of them quickly. But considering I had just this second landed in Egypt for the first time, exhausted from the fifteen-hour journey, the language barrier was a definite downside. Even all my hours of zombie-like repetitions with my Pimsleur tapes back home was not going to be enough to get me through this. On top of that, I found myself in a world of confusion, with mobs of people swarming about us, impeding our exit to the airport parking lot.

The arrangement I had made with the hotel was that they were to send one of their staff to pick me up, one whom I had assumed, ah, spoke English. It was becoming increasingly clear to me, however, that this guy was just a random taxi driver they had called for the job. Definitely not a good omen. As red flags flashed in my mind, my euphoria at arriving in Egypt tanked with an awful thud. As we slowly made our way through the crowded airport, I anxiously grasped the rickety metal cart that carried my belongings. Mustafa guided me painstakingly through milling throngs, but as we exited the airport area to get to the car park, we were confronted with a second contingent of men, this time desperate porters. Without being requested to, they helped pull the cart along, shadowing our every move.

I was annoyed, to say the least, that Mustafa let this happen. The whole deal in having him come as a rep from the hotel was to shield me from all the sharks I knew, as a somewhat seasoned traveler, would be waiting at the airport. It didn’t take me long to figure out the racket: milk the tourist five seconds after he gets off the plane before he even knows what hit him! Sure as shooting, the next thing I knew five guys were standing with their hands out wanting tips. For what? Walking alongside us with their hands grappling the handle of the cart? Not wanting to create a scene and just wanting to get out of there, I begrudgingly shoved some coins into a couple of guys’ hands and then waved the others away, all the while berating myself for not putting a stop to their shenanigans earlier on.

I got in the taxi and slammed the door. If I wanted to savor the sweetness of victory, that could wait for later. Until I landed safely at the hotel, I would be watching this man like a hawk. My only hope now was that he knew where the hotel was and wouldn’t take me on a wild goose chase through the darkening streets of Cairo, demanding even more money. I exhaled deeply as the taxi roared off through the airport gate. As we sped along the street, colorful neon signs flashed from either side of the busy road. Emotional Arabic music blared from the car radio. Little golden tassels swung from the mirror, and a bright red teddy bear sat on the dashboard. After all my struggling and planning, I had finally made it to Egypt. My dogged persistence over the preceding months had, at last, paid off. But not wanting to let down my guard, I repressed my excitement with a stern poker face.

Mustafa raced off in traffic more confusing than anything I had seen in my life, even more intense than what I had experienced in Calcutta. Just when my fears couldn’t get any worse, we passed a serious accident along the concourse into Cairo. A veiled woman stood in the middle of the highway, grabbing at her injured arm where the two collided vehicles were parked, while other motorists weaved about them. Two crowds of gathering spectators stood arguing as to who was at fault. I sat there stunned, as our rickety taxi inched its way directly by the heated exchange. Mustafa shrugged it off without a wince, waving his hand wildly, insanely oblivious. Then he stuck his head out the window, swearing at the heavy Egyptian woman who cut us off in the traffic.

The flight had arrived late and we were racing through Cairo, a city that never sleeps, in the wee hours of the morning. Over an hour later, we arrived in front of a nondescript building smack in the center of town. Craning my neck to look up, I couldn’t even see a sign, just a looming gray edifice that looked eerily similar to all the others in the area. Before I had a chance to process what was happening, Mustafa screeched to a halt at the curb. He then leapt out of the vehicle, unloading my stuff onto the ominously quiet street.

A random guy sitting alongside the curb instantly reached for my luggage. By now, I figured I had learned my lesson, and was certainly not going to repeat it. I disgustedly pulled the stuff out of his hands to carry it myself.

The sidewalk stranger protested vehemently, his words slathered in a French Arabic accent. Hey! I am Mr. Omar, owner zee hotel! he barked.

What? Oh, sorry, I sheepishly replied, reaching out my hand to shake his.

Embarrassed that I had offended the proprietor of the place five seconds after getting there, I meekly released the bag. But how could I have known that this man sitting on the sidewalk at 3:00 in the morning with a few buddies smoking cigarettes, and God knows what else, was the person who owned the guesthouse? I shoved some pounds into Mustafa’s waiting hand as he slyly grinned and winked at Omar. With the owner’s assistance, I finally made it into the elevator with all my luggage, feeling both excited and apprehensive about what lay ahead.

That elevator didn’t work, so we had to pile everything out and switch to the next one. That one didn’t work either. Unbelievable, I thought, lifting my head to see an intimidating, steep, and dark climb ahead. I took a deep breath, lifting one of the heavy pieces of baggage and positioning it on my shoulder, preparing for the grueling ascent. Then the two of us trekked on up like Nepali Sherpas, marching in sync, winding our way endlessly around the dizzying staircase, eventually arriving at the building’s summit.

With dawn nearly breaking and feeling bone-tired, I walked into the lobby, soaked in sweat. Upon noting our arrival, the daughter of the owner quickly took her place behind the wooden reception desk. From what I surmised of the situation, her father was Egyptian, her mother was French, and the whole family seemed to run the operation together, kind of like a family business. So far so good, I thought. It was just like what I had read in the reviews online. She was the one, however, who I had been corresponding with by email. Inwardly, I breathed a sigh of relief, assuming that things would finally fall into place now.

But before my bags had even hit the floor, her smile vanished, and she nervously rattled off in French, But mister, didn’t you get my email?

I was thinking, Oh boy, what now? Annoyed and too tired to be speaking French at such an ungodly hour in the face of what appeared to be another looming crisis, I stuttered, Ah…what email? I’ve been traveling for the last day and a half. I haven’t even had access to email.

Oh, but we have no water here in zee hotel and I recommended you book at another place, she nonchalantly replied.

I stared at her in disbelief. No water? Are you serious? I uttered.

So sorry, Monsieur.

"What do you mean? I won’t be able to take a shower or anything? I mean...no water at all?"

Well, but we can get water by buckets down below if you want. It’s not problem.

Not problem? I thought about down below. Both elevators were out of service and we just scaled all of the floors of the massive building, something akin to conquering Mount Everest. All that was left was the rooftop above us.

Oh, man, I grumbled to myself, you must be joking.

I looked off to the side where a young Palestinian busboy stood waiting next to a couple of buckets of water with a sheepish smile. Her father, figuring he had done his part, slunk off into the lobby. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him station himself comfortably in a large chair with his smoke. I could only imagine helping this guy drag water up to this rooftop hotel from the street about twenty stories below. My first inclination was to get out of there as fast as I could, but in less than a few hours it would become a new day. There I stood, dripping with sweat in the steamy night air. It was obvious that there weren’t a lot of options to escape to, even if I had wanted to. I felt trapped.

I had been on Egyptian soil for only a few hours and already I felt like I’d hit rock bottom. So I decided to excuse myself and escape to the rooftop to seek some solace. My recurring fear was that this could be a prelude to what was to come in my unfolding Egyptian adventure. Feeling weary in both body and spirit, my fears definitely had the upper hand, playing out unpleasant scenarios in my mind. Old reruns of my five-year sojourn in India began incessant mental playback as I recalled hours of fruitless waiting in mosquito-ridden offices, blank stares, and endless heads nodding acha, acha- a place where things just never seemed to work, and frustratingly, never seemed to ever get done.

I should have known what I was getting myself into by setting off into the unknown once again as, after all, I had been this route before. But maybe being coddled by a decade of routine back home had coarsened my spiritual senses, and they needed to be sharpened afresh. Being here would mean allowing myself to walk in uncertainty once more. Brennan Manning expresses this well in his book, Ruthless Trust: The way of trust is a movement into obscurity, into the undefined, into ambiguity, not into some predetermined, clearly delineated plan for the future. The reality of naked trust is the life of the pilgrim who leaves what is nailed down, obvious, and secure, and walks into the unknown without any rational explanation to justify the decision or guarantee the future. 

With these thoughts swirling in my mind, I slowly trudged up the final gray cement stairs that led to the rooftop above us. As I opened the rickety metal door opening out to the broad terrace and stumbled into the cool night air, I was awed by one of the most magnificent sights I had ever seen: a view of the city of Cairo all lit up at night. Lanterns in ancient buildings looked like tiny candles flickering as if in recognition of my arrival. The purplish blue of the oncoming dawn formed a low band in the night sky, bathing the entire city in an iridescent glow. The magical pyramids were sparkling in far-off fields, as if beckoning to me with promise. I got to thinking: was this in a sense my re-initiation into being back East, after having lived for such a long time back in the cushy West?

Moments such as these have been my experience with the way life flows in the Third World. You go from agony to ecstasy in a matter of minutes. You go from the most intense and annoying battles, to moments of pure euphoria, and in this case, a glimpse of intoxicating beauty that left me speechless. When you’re just about ready to throw in the towel and to say to hell with it, it’s not worth the hassle, you’re reminded of that vast spaciousness and freedom- of the truly magical possibilities that await you, if you just hold on a little longer. When you least expect it, mystery and beauty get a grip on you. You’re reminded that there is always some sweet surprise just around the corner if you wait long enough. And here it was.

CHAPTER 2

ESCAPE FROM THE HIGHLY RATED HOSTEL

After my rooftop experience, I was infused with a sense of renewed calm, so I decided to hunker down there for the night. I traipsed downstairs, grabbed a couple of buckets of water from the waiting Palestinian busboy, and holed up in the small hotel room to spend the night. I figured if I could just douse myself with sufficient water, I could keep my body temperature low enough to make it through the sweltering duskiness. But the corner space that my room consisted of acted like a little oven, trapping in the suffocating heat, while keeping the cool night air suspended motionless just beyond the window. Nothing I could do helped alleviate the situation, so I just succumbed to my fate, grateful to at least have a safe place to rest and regroup. By