Shoelaces and Silver Linings: A Day 4 Special

Day Four – March 30, 2020
Global cases: 779,596; Deaths: 37,538
Egypt cases: 656; Deaths: 41

Shoelaces and Silver Linings
Ramya Prabhakar
Presidential Associate
Office of the President

I’ve never been much of a runner. Frankly, I’ve never been an athlete at all. I haven’t played an organized sport since my ill-fated recreational volleyball team in eighth grade. We were called the Mystics. My brother dubbed us the Mistakes. My volleyball career ended soon after.

But as I end week three of quarantine, running has become my lifeline. Four times a week, I lace up my trusty Adidas sneakers and crisscross Maadi until my legs begin to shake. This morning, the sunshine hasn’t yet heated the air, and a light morning breeze filters through the beams.

I fill my lungs with fresh air – such a precious commodity now, and one I wholly took for granted before – and feel the sweat gather at my forehead as I push myself from a walk to a jog to a sprint.

Today marks seven months since I moved to Cairo – seven months out of twelve. Come September, I’ll be back in the United States, back to my old life in Washington, DC, back to my reality. When the quarantine first started, I tried to be optimistic, but I mourned the remainder of my Cairo year.

Gone were the late-night shawerma runs, the card games and shisha at smoky cafes, the Uber-Scooter rides at once liberating and slightly terrifying. Obsolete were the travel itineraries, the plans to visit cities I had longed to see – Istanbul, Beirut, Ramallah.

And futile seemed the Arabic lessons amidst four English-speaking roommates. I had come to Cairo to immerse myself in the culture, learn the language, and make friends – but I seemed fated to spend almost a quarter of my time with people just like me.

My legs take me around a traffic circle and down a random assortment of Maadi’s iconic tree-lined streets. As I jog, I spot the boy who works at the vegetable stand near my apartment, and we share a smile of recognition. Further down the street, I run past three blocks of flower markets, each filled with springtime purples and yellows and whites.

I stop at one of the shops and ask the florist about plants that thrive with little water and a lot of shade. We chat in Arabic – about flowers, about the lockdown, about my family in the States – and I count fewer mistakes in my speech than usual. As I leave (empty-handed, fortunately for the plants), he presents me with a brilliant red rose.

Ever since I started running, my energy has increased and my anxiety has lessened. In between work obligations, I’ve found the time and motivation to study Arabic more intensely. For a few hours a day, I lose myself in the eloquence of Arabic poets–Mahmoud Darwish, Ahmed Fouad Negm. I binge-watch Secret of the Nile and try not to look at the subtitles. I browse Twitter and find that I can understand many of the Arabic news alerts – and more importantly, memes – that fill my feed.

When I find myself mourning my Cairo year, I think of the people that form my community here in Maadi – Egyptians and Americans whose smiles and good humor make me feel less alone. I think of the language I’m learning more quickly now that I have time and energy to devote to it. And I think of the insights I’m gaining into Egyptian politics and culture – insights that would emerge only in a time of crisis, and that I might have missed with a busy international travel schedule.

So until the lockdown ends, I’ll keep lacing up my sneakers and winding my way through Maadi’s streets, and I’ll keep smiling at the flowers and the jokes and the cool morning breeze. Coronavirus was definitely not the Cairo experience I imagined, but it is an experience nonetheless.

Day Four: This Quarantine Needs to End
مذكرات العزل: اليوم الثالث علينا ان ننتصر
Day Two: Of Loneliness and Silent Prayers
Day One: Documenting AUC Life Under Confinement