Nostalgie

27, Rue Roushdy Pacha
I am much more proud of my heritage than I let out sometimes..
I've lived my very early childgood years outside Egypt and used to come here for the occasional visit, wedding, long weekend with my dad.. To me, Egypt was "27 Rue Roushdy Pacha"; the address of my Geddo's 2-storey villa where my uncle and aunt lived afterwards.. i never knew my Geddo and Teta, he passed away in the 60's when my older brother was just a baby and she passed away a long before that time, yet i always felt their presence in the house.. i imagined her with her white veil/shawl sitting on the sofa facing the big green door, running the household and ordering everyone around.. I pictured Geddo in the garden, making shish kabab that he would probably just taste (he was a vegetarian wannabe like me :)) back to my childhood, i used to love walking in the garden at sunrise and sunset, the smell of jasmine was amazing in the air.. until this day, the smell of jasmine trees near residential areas can bring tears to my eyes with nostalgia..

I used to walk from there to my other uncle's house next door... my uncle himself had died when i was very young but his 2 daughters who were in college back then used to spoil me like crazy... I used to walk till Zikry Pharmacy, then to Kharinos -the best place for Cassata (or however you spell it) and get gateaux.. I used to walk to Karameh, the ancient Palestinian grocer's who sold everything from pencils, to ice-cream, to "yameesh", to rice.. Karameh was a very very very old man, who was old since my father was a young boy, and who probably outlived my dad..

A couple of years after we moved to Egypt, they sold the villa.. for the exception of my dad, it was a unanimous decision.. I went there a couple of weeks ago with a friend of mine.. we were driving near the area and i wanted to see whatever happened to it.. it looked ugly.. they changed the green iron fence (painted it maybe), they took down the mango trees -the fruits of which always made me cough-, they put white statues in the veranda that overlooked the garden, and they were building one more floor on top of it so it was in the grey cement phase.. It broke my heart.. a piece of my childhood was lost forever..


Coco Chanel
When I was young, my dad's ex-wife or my brother's mother as i like to call her (i have an unusual family structure) used to get me small bottles of Coco Chanel whenever she saw me.. She worked in Duty Free blabla so she had a lot of those.. the échantillon black bottle with 5 ml of the beautiful scent :) Funny thing is, i used to call my brother Coco, so for many years i grew up thinking this perfume was actually named after him!! And they tell you i was a smart baby!


Morning Rain
A memory from older years... Waking up to morning rain, sitting in the balcony a little after sunrise just to watch/smell the rain, sip tea, and contemplate.. i did that the day of the rainstorm last month, and it was a cleansing experience.. give me more winter anytime.. the lethal combination of being near Zamalek while winter is approaching is irresistable..


"My life is slowed up by thought and the need to understand what I am living." ~Anais Nin