TABLE
OF CONTENTS
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“Fil Mish Mish”
A
Dual Discourse with Two Migratory Visionaries
Salem
“It’s the American
Dream.” Salem,
our newly acquainted Egyptian friend, described his desires to move to
the United States
as “making it in the land of possibilities.” At
27 years old, he has nearly perfected his English
solely by watching
American movies and listening to American music. He
is an on-call lawyer of sorts (one without
any law school), works as a computer technician, runs black market Jeep
safaris
and pyramid tours, sells burned CDs and movies on the street, and works
on the
Mediterranean coast as a legitimate tour guide. And
yet somehow we met him on his “holiday;” he stopped my
friend and I
on the street excitedly asking if we were American.
“You two…are you…where are
you…Americans? Are you Americans?!” He said he had never met an American
before. With such a repertoire, I found
it nearly impossible – it must be a ruse
– but he insisted that he met many Russians, Italians, French and
Greeks
(in fact, he spoke all of those languages), but never had he formally
met an
American, whether it be tourist or otherwise. Well, Sir Salem, it is your lucky
day! There we were, two lovely
American ladies right before his eyes – eyes that were an exact match
to the
color of his carob face.
We chatted with these
eyes for about 30 minutes, awkwardly posed outside a juice shop before
heading
to a café for sheesha and coffee, and opened the flood gates of
conversation. We shared stories and
ideas of American media, pop culture, and slang versus that of Egyptian
culture; we even ventured into religion and secrets of cultural
differences
(sexuality, marriage, homosexuality, alcohol consumption…etc.). His favorite discovery was the phrase, “Once
in a blue moon.” In Arabic there is a
phrase,
“Fil mish mish,” which translates into, “apricot season,” but is used
to
reference, “It will happen in apricot season” – a three week period of
the
year. It was my favorite phrase to throw
back at catcalling vendors, and Salem
wanted to know the English equivalent; the best I could come up with
was, “Once
in a blue moon.”
He said he needed
to get out of Egypt
to continue to grow; he had a lot of work experience but not a lot of
work
money. Salem is Nubian.
The Nubian co-culture living within Egypt’s
borders
and outside is displaced by many factors – the biggest being the Aswan
High Dam
and the always existent marginalization that minority groups must face. Jobs
are scarce in Egypt,
but he explained that it was nearly impossible for him to get a
high-paying job
and keep an average one for long with the same carob-colored skin that
attracted us to him. I
asked him if he thought he would make it to
the United States,
and he inverted his award-winning smile into the most sullen amount of
seriousness
I have ever seen: “Yes. Once when the
moon is blue.”
Hany
“I am Christian,
isn’t that enough?” Hany’s honeycomb
eyes are wide and always smiling. Even
when telling of his sick father, poor family, and death of his beloved
childhood cat. I had met him on my first
visit to Egypt,
but was unsure of what to expect as I waited for him at El Fishawy, a
famous
café/sheesha bar in Khan Khalili. We
were to meet at five, and at 5:00 on the dot, Hany’s reflection
appeared in the
mirror above our table. My eyes lit up
from familiarity; he turned the corner, and we shook hands and kissed
both
cheeks! It was unexpected beauty from an
old acquaintance, beauty that made me realize we were old friends, not
mere
acquaintances.
He had moved from
the hotel industry to banking since I saw him last, an improvement he
says, but
not sufficient. “I need America. I need America
job, America money,
America
possibility. Egypt’s economy will
succeed only
with the individual. If I go, my family
and
my church will be helped; then they can help someone, and then the
someones
will help more someones. My family needs
me, my fellow Christians needs me…Egypt needs me.” Hany has been trying to get into the United States
for eight years; his papers have been properly filled out and turned in
with no
response. He has made phone calls that
haven’t been returned. “Why does America
not
need me? A Christian in the Islamic
world is reason enough, is it not? You
can not know what it is like, Emy (his Egyptian accented form of Amy).” He needs an American wife or a job they tell
him, neither of which are easy to find without being in the United States
in the first place. Hany is caught in
the cycle of immigration laws and strong-arms that so many others fall
into all
over the world. Regrettably, I asked the
impertinent question in vain as the dense American traveler: “Do you
think you
will make it to America,
Hany?” And through his smile and
glistening eyes, he responded in Arabic, “Fil mish mish,” remembered
whose ears
he was talking to and replaced it with, “How do you say...‘When the
moon is
blue’?”
Passport and Apricot
Dreams
In both cases, I
sat across from these men clutching the bag that enshrined my passport
and visa. They were my tickets to this
land of dreams,
adventure, lively culture, and ancient history; but it is the same land
that
holds these two men hostage, tainting the beauty of their homeland with
the
sourness of American refusal. Amitava
Kumar’s article, “Passport Photos,” likens the passport to a form of
language,
speaking of cultural differences and affluence, providing opportunities
for
some and building up limitations and restrictions for others. Salem and Hany
are like so many other Egyptian men and women in their struggles to
receive
passage into the United
States, and collectively share
similarities
with people from all across the globe with the same migratory ideals. What is this “American Dream” if it cherry
picks who will be granted the privilege of promised success and
prosperity – a
promise that they then will make even more difficult to achieve upon
arrival
through further marginalization and false claims? Hany
and Salem
showed me the truth of this castle in
the sky:
It is a dream that will fill
people’s
minds until there is a blue moon during apricot season.
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