Nicole Liu, “Good Morning, Cairo”

My Truth

I sit on the edge of the couch, watching the news of the Arab Spring filing in, images of chaos and struggle clouding up countries that were once great civilizations.

The fight in their eyes is oddly familiar to me; they bring me back to the streets of Cairo, where a simple family vacation made us bear witness to the start of the January revolution.

“Welcome to Cairo!” Our taxi driver said, a warm smile on his face.

My mom smiled back, the relief etching itself into the lines around her eyes. Outside of the airport, in the cacophony of hagglers and honking cars, no taxis had been in sight. Until a man came up to us and introduced himself as Madu, a taxi driver. He had kind eyes and an inoffensive posture - I instantly liked him.

His car smelled of worn leather, people, and a touch of smoke, but my face was instantly glued to the window. I took in the vast expanse of Cairo, the sights, the smells, and the colours of a famed city in textbooks. It was beautiful, but I couldn’t help but notice the aura of poverty and hopelessness that settled into the streets.

My dad, in the front seat of the taxi, couldn’t help but ask, his voice revealing his curiosity. “Is Cairo always like this?”

He didn’t mean any harm. But we could all feel it. The lack of tourists and the chaos in the airport. It was a feeling, something we couldn’t quite place a finger on.

Madu shook his head. He met our eyes in the rearview mirror, a grim look set in his features. “No, not always. It’s the revolution,” he explained.

“Revolution?” The shock was clear in our voices. The news of a revolution had not yet carried over amid our packing and preparing for our twenty-day trip through Africa and the Middle East.

“The demonstrations started a few days ago,” Madu said. “Now there are marches, burnings, strikes every day. People are starving under the presidency

The read was visible on my parents’ faces, their eyes flashing with identical looks of horror at bringing their ten-year-old to a country that was currently undergoing an uprising.

Years later in high school, I would learn about the 2011 Egyptian Revolution, the beginning of the four-year-long Egyptian crisis and the role Egypt played in the Arab Spring. It was only then I realized that I had experienced the very beginning - I had seen it with my very own eyes.

It was too late to turn back. We had flown over six hours to get here. For the next five days, Cairo would be our home.

Madu offered to drive us throughout our whole trip, saving us the hassle of finding transportation and a local to help us navigate the country.

We would eat all of our meals with him, and when we all sat down for lunch, Madu would tell us about his home and his life. He told us that he had not been able to find work in a month; after all, not many people needed a taxi amidst protests and rising levels of unemployment. He feared that he would soon join the ranks.

He was honest with us, even when I didn’t really understand the implications of what he was saving. Madu told us his concern of being unable to support his family, his dread of the day when he would no longer be able to put food on the table, and his worries for the future of Egypt. He was not a particularly avid protestor, despite not sharing any love for the president. Instead, he was someone that believed in survival above all else.

I did not see the extent of Egypt’s poverty. The few glimpses I caught were through the wide eyes of hungry children, the tin cans of beggars ringing their own melody, and the throngs of people that roamed the streets.

Madu shook his head, sympathy set into the line of his mouth. “It wasn’t always like this. People weren’t always on the streets. Mubarak and the government’s corruption have ruined Egypt,” he lamented.

He turned to us suddenly, urgency in his voice. “Make sure you have your

His warning fell short -- a pair of rough fingers already reaching out and grabbing at my face.

I jumped, startled to see the faces of women and children, their hands and arms snaking into the car window, prying for the strands of my hair and the fabric of my clothes.

My mom let out a cry of alarm and pulled me away from the window as Madu rolled them up, forcing the fingers out of the car.

“Are you okay?” my dad asked, making sure I was still in one piece.

“You have to be more careful,” my mom chided. “They could have grabbed you.”

Madu hummed in agreement but his eyes were alight with awareness and warning. “They do that to tourists sometimes, they’ll grab your hands, hair, or whatever they get their hands on unless you give them money.”

“Don’t worry,” he reassured us. “We’re almost out of the area. You’ll be alright.”

After a while, when the experience had long been reduced to just a moment of excitement, my mom let me return to my seat by the window.

Looking through the glass, beyond my own reflection, I thought about the children in the market, their innocence and childhood robbed by the harsh realities of poverty, corruption, and rebellion.

Our last day in Cairo began at the crack of dawn. We had left early from our hotel, at a time when the roads were silent and the city was still sleeping.

Inside the little taxi, a stifling weight rested on us. Madu’s smile didn’t quite reach his eyes. Despite only having known him for a few days, his name would stay with me in memory.

I pressed my nose against the window, letting my breath fog up the glass as the scenery morphed into a blur of colour. Underneath the morning sky, my parent’s faces settled into a calm expression for the first time in days, comforted by the fact that no shouts and cries tainted the air.

We slowed down at a street corner, where a group of men stood. I squinted, curious at the sight of people. It was early to be outside.

To even an outsider, I felt the tension guarded in their stance. I could sense the severity trapped in the stiffness of their posture. There was an awareness alight in their eyes. Above all, it was the foreboding sense of a sea of black shirts - except for the red tang of blood dribbling down one lip and the brick another was clutching in his hand.

I would never be prepared for what he did next. Almost in slow motion, I saw him move. His body lurched forward, his arm swung up in the air, and so fast, fast enough that by the time my parents caught sight of what was happening, the brick had already collided with another man’s head.

He crumpled to the floor like he was made of jelly, the words on his lips left unsaid.

It happened in a matter of seconds, right as we drove by the corner. My parents tried to cover my eyes with their hands as if they could protect me from the world through the gaps of their fingers. But it was too late, the image was already replaying in my head.

It was a beautiful sunrise. That, I remember. A rare one where the orange bled into the pink and blue. One where the ripples of clouds accompanied the first notes of daylight in a perfect symphony.

“Good morning, Cairo,” I whispered to the city. My words stilled in the air. Resting there. As if that day, the world knew how much there was left unsaid.