BY MARJORIE TOLSDORF
I was hopelessly lost in the center of Old Cairo with a dead phone, a handful of useless Arabic words floating around in my head, and an escalating fear that I would not find my way back to the safety of my hostel by nightfall.
My bleached-blonde hair and Captain America T-shirt made me a stand-out amongst the river of onyx hijabs and beige cotton tunics that engulfed me from all sides. I stood motionless outside of Ramses Station, feeling like a bee in an unfamiliar hive as locals rushed past me into the central train station. The view in front of me revealed an endless expanse of makeshift market stalls built on top of handwoven blankets that were haphazardly strewn over sidewalks and asphalt. To my left, cars and buses moved at a glacial pace along a major highway. Thick streams of pedestrians boldly and incessantly moved between them.
I feared I might never see a familiar face again. I took a step forward while looking sideways at the mess of tiny human bodies traipsing between vehicles of every size and color. Just as one small boy decided to test his fate and run into the path of a delivery truck, gravity shifted sideways. I lost sight of the fearless child as I tripped over a row of neatly organized shoes lining the edge of a market stand, tumbling headfirst into its owner. She caught me and held my shoulders until I regained my balance. As my vision refocused, I was surprised to see that the woman in front of me stood out as much as I did.
Her name was Amira. Her skin was the color of the night sky, and her eyes were tinted with flecks of green and gold. She wore a hijab sprinkled with hot pink and neon yellow polka-dots. At first glance, her expression was stern and unforgiving, but it only took a few seconds for a wide grin to seep over her features, spreading all the way to her eyes. Desperate for a respite from trepidation and anxiety, I sat with her in her tidy, miniature market stand and listened to the story of her life over a cup of black tea.
“I came to Cairo from South Sudan to escape bloody war,” she told me as a grim sadness fell over her. “This war took the lives of my parents and my three younger sisters. Khadija was my favorite. She had some sort of magic in her smile, the kind that brings happiness.”
When the attacks began in 2016, Amira’s family was devastated. “We thought the peace agreement would change our lives, but it took mine instead,” she said. The southern Sudanese hopes for independence and peace were met with violence and destruction. One afternoon Amira was preparing dinner alone in her family’s kitchen when she heard the front door burst open. Her immediate reaction to the sound of gunshots that followed seconds later was to hide in the cellar, hoping the invaders would not notice the trap door behind the kitchen table. When she emerged from underground hours later, no one was left alive.
A neighbor helped her find an escort out of the region, leaving her to fend for herself somewhere in the outskirts of Juba, the capital of South Sudan located near the Ugandan border. She escaped the country miraculously, making her way to Cairo over the course of the two months following the loss of her family. Sometimes she walked, but sometimes she got too tired, or too cold, or too hungry, and had to ask for help.
When she arrived at the border of Egypt, she asked a cab driver to help her find a safe city where she could begin building the foundations of a new life for herself. She had not received formal refugee status from the Egyptian government, so the driver had to bribe a guard at the border to gain her entrance. “The cab man told me he would take care of me if I agreed to be more than his friend,” said Amira. “I did not know what else to do.”
Amira eventually settled in Cairo where she thought she would have the best chance of finding informal work. She moved in with a family of Sudanese refugees she had met outside of Ramses Station, selling various goods near the exact spot we were currently sitting. She promised to help with the business and give her earnings to the head of the household, an older Sudanese man who made his way to Cairo a decade before her, in return for shelter, a sense of community, and a glimmer of hope.
I felt I had unnecessarily panicked that day; my temporary helplessness as a foreigner was a normal, inescapable routine for her. She lacked opportunities to become educated or find work in Egypt, but she could not conceive of a way to find refuge in a different country. I listened to her story, set to the rhythm of her soprano voice, jolted occasionally by her broken English. I felt a new kind of sadness as I grieved the family members, personal aspirations, and an overall contentment with life she had long ago put to rest.
We watched in silence as the sun dipped behind Ramses Station. The sky was coated fluorescent pink to match her hijab. I remarked that it must have decided to wear her favorite color in solidarity. Together we packed away all the contents of her stall and walked down eerily empty streets towards Tahrir Square further into the central part of the city. Finally, we reached the familiar gate that marked the entrance to my hostel. Wordlessly, she hugged me goodbye, leaving a lingering fragrance of jasmine rose oil on my shirt.
That night I went to bed looking down at the red, white, and blue rings of Captain America’s classic bullseye, newly scented with the aroma of Amira. My father had gifted me the shirt as a reminder of home. I wished I could give that same feeling to her—a guarantee that she would have a home to return to one day, as well.