القاهِرة
root: ق-ه-ر / proper noun, feminine form I active participle / definition: Cairo
A few days ago, I was taking refuge from a chilly Cairene night in the warmth of a tiny bookshop when I got to chatting with the two men working there.
One of them kindly gifted me a book he guessed I’d like, and asked me to get in touch after reading it to let him know my thoughts.
And I will, Mostafa, but realistically that will be a long while away as I’ve amassed a terrifyingly-high digital stack of readings to get through first, in order to research for and write this PhD chapter before May dawns.
Ah, but Cairo…
What a city. It completely took me off-guard and overpowered me with its everyday beauty, and I think I’ve fallen in love.
Photos kept filling my camera roll, inspired scribbles and sketches made their way into my travel notebook, and—oh!—the scene of sand-coloured balconies through a sepia-tinted hotel room window will certainly make it into the video diary I’m creating.
Whilst there, I met with friends I hadn’t expected to reunite with so soon, and even one of my teachers who happened to be passing through the same city at the same time. I somehow felt so at home.
And as with anywhere I go, I couldn’t help but make some linguistic observations.
Sat in the back of a tuk-tuk, racing the setting Sun and seemingly heading in the wrong direction, I asked the driver where we were going and he said something I heard as köprü, which means “bridge” in Turkish.
We, in fact, did reach the bridge and it wasn’t a codeword for kidnapping. So I assume köprü translates just fine.
I’m sure my writing is a bit chaotic at the moment, as I arrived back late last night and almost forgot I had a meeting this morning in which I could barely string a thought together.
Even on the plane, I felt chaotic. I was listening to a lecture in Spanish and sporadically glancing over at the bizarre documentaries the guy next to me was watching.
That journey prompted me to write some lines of poetry in a mix of Spanish, Turkish, Arabic, and English—which says nothing about my linguistic abilities and everything about how tired my brain was.
At this point, I can’t even remember where I wrote all the lines. But I’m sure I’ll stumble upon them unexpectedly when the time’s right.
!إلى اللقاء
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