Yesterday was the kind of day that happens once every five years in normal, quite households that do not suffer from hypertension, melodrama and severe mood swings. In my family it happens at least once a month.
Yesterday our house was up in flames (almost a literal description if I had been allowed to do what I threatened to do), people were crying, screaming from the deepest part of their being and of course, slapping their faces with great frequency and gusto.
Yesterday my uncle was due to fly to the Gabon, where he works for 3 months on and off on a ship. Yesterday my gran was feeling very agitated and had wound herself up tightly, ready to release all of her tension on whoever was unlucky enough to get in her way.
The result of this tension was that my aunt started to rip her hair out and pack her bags, swearing to take her children and move anywhere else. My uncle (not the one travelling) ended up getting into a fight with the neighbours in the street and just managed to stop himself from whacking them round the head with a large metal stick.
These events were spurred on from a single sentence my gran (who was anxiously waiting to get to the airport, wanting to get there 5 hours before we needed to be there) said to both my aunt and my uncle. That was "If you don't want to take him to the airport he can get a taxi". BANG, the fire had been lit, and everything that happened after only set to anger it more.
In the end we managed to get my uncle to the airport (albeit to the wrong terminal because he hadn't taken the liberty to actually check his ticket before we left) and he got on his flight.
On the way back, my cousin called my aunt, panic in her voice. She had heard a lot of commotion in the street in front of us and went to see what had happened. 3 people had been shot dead by passing security forces, and their bodies had been left in the street for long enough for most of our neighboorhood to see them. Apparently they had been a group of hooligans trying to rob a shop, so they were stopped in their tracks by their security forces.
It's difficult to believe anything you hear here. It seems as though you cannot get an unbiased account of anything - evereything that happens is tightly bound in conspiracy, politics and strong unfounded beliefs.
In fact, yesterday I was thinking to myself how inadequate I felt that I didn't know much about Egyptian history. Then I said to myself, but how can I be sure that what I read online or in history books is the actual truth? How can bwe believe any history that we hear? During Mubarak's reign, history taught at schools in Egypt had been 'modified' to teach innocent minds that Mubarak had countless significant achievements under his belt, that were all either fake or done before his time.
How do we know what is actually true? Ever?
This thought made me feel a bit depressed. I have now decided to just learn from any source I can, but also not to forget the source that I learned it from, instead of blindly believing anything that interested me. In short, yesterday I decided that I would stop being GULLIBLE.
Yesterday our house was up in flames (almost a literal description if I had been allowed to do what I threatened to do), people were crying, screaming from the deepest part of their being and of course, slapping their faces with great frequency and gusto.
Yesterday my uncle was due to fly to the Gabon, where he works for 3 months on and off on a ship. Yesterday my gran was feeling very agitated and had wound herself up tightly, ready to release all of her tension on whoever was unlucky enough to get in her way.
The result of this tension was that my aunt started to rip her hair out and pack her bags, swearing to take her children and move anywhere else. My uncle (not the one travelling) ended up getting into a fight with the neighbours in the street and just managed to stop himself from whacking them round the head with a large metal stick.
These events were spurred on from a single sentence my gran (who was anxiously waiting to get to the airport, wanting to get there 5 hours before we needed to be there) said to both my aunt and my uncle. That was "If you don't want to take him to the airport he can get a taxi". BANG, the fire had been lit, and everything that happened after only set to anger it more.
In the end we managed to get my uncle to the airport (albeit to the wrong terminal because he hadn't taken the liberty to actually check his ticket before we left) and he got on his flight.
On the way back, my cousin called my aunt, panic in her voice. She had heard a lot of commotion in the street in front of us and went to see what had happened. 3 people had been shot dead by passing security forces, and their bodies had been left in the street for long enough for most of our neighboorhood to see them. Apparently they had been a group of hooligans trying to rob a shop, so they were stopped in their tracks by their security forces.
It's difficult to believe anything you hear here. It seems as though you cannot get an unbiased account of anything - evereything that happens is tightly bound in conspiracy, politics and strong unfounded beliefs.
In fact, yesterday I was thinking to myself how inadequate I felt that I didn't know much about Egyptian history. Then I said to myself, but how can I be sure that what I read online or in history books is the actual truth? How can bwe believe any history that we hear? During Mubarak's reign, history taught at schools in Egypt had been 'modified' to teach innocent minds that Mubarak had countless significant achievements under his belt, that were all either fake or done before his time.
How do we know what is actually true? Ever?
This thought made me feel a bit depressed. I have now decided to just learn from any source I can, but also not to forget the source that I learned it from, instead of blindly believing anything that interested me. In short, yesterday I decided that I would stop being GULLIBLE.
No comments:
Post a Comment