In a dimly-lit corner of the bedroom, Zeid sat on the desk,
actively engaged in writing the first draft of his project proposal. Crumbled
paper and empty cups with traces of coffee covered the top of the desk. Silence
enveloped the room, interrupted only by the ticking clock and the scratching
voice of pen on paper. Zeid had been writing for eight straight hours, so
engrossed that he barely noticed the clock pointing to 3 am.
During these long hours, he was driven by a force stronger than his
exhaustion. He had to bring his dreams into reality, and jotting them on paper
was the first step to do so. This was the moment to surrender to his calling.
A year ago, Zeid Left everything behind and came all the way from
Sao Paulo, where he lived for the last twenty years, back to his home country.
It wasn’t an easy step. After the success he had achieved as an
arts performer and youth program director in Sao Paulo, returning back to a
country that once oppressed his ambitions was a challenging step to take. He
used to think that he would never return to Egypt after the twenty good years
he spent in Brazil. But everything changed after the twenty-fifth of January,
2011, a day deeply marked in the history of his country.
Zeid spent the weeks following Jan 25 glued to the TV, watching in
anxiety what was going on in Egypt. He was overwhelmed with scenes of millions
of citizens flooding the streets, taking refuge in them until the dictator stepped
down. Feelings of pride flooded him, mixed with a slight tinge of shame for not
being part of the uprising. These
feelings slowly turned into an irrational desire to leave everything behind and
go back to Egypt. He didn’t have a plan back then, only a burning desire!
In a matter of few months, he settled everything down in Sao Paulo
and flew back to Cairo. It took him several weeks to restore his balance after
struggling with a heavy sense of culture shock. Everything felt and looked
foreign to his eyes, even his neighborhood in historical downtown Cairo, where
he was born and raised up for the first twenty years of his life.
The once beautiful neighborhood with tree-lined streets and
neo-renaissance architecture was completely deformed. Old beautiful
architecture was lost amid the newly rising haphazard shapeless buildings in
dull colors. The trees-lined streets had been turned into a shelter for street
vendors, heaps of garbage lying everywhere, hiding the remains of a once
glorious neighborhood. Zeid was surprised to witness a large number of Sudanese
refugees residing in his neighborhood. It was a sad reminder that the whole
world is in turbulence.
The first few months of his new life in Cairo were slow. He slept
till late in the morning, and spent the afternoons strolling in the busy
streets of Cairo, watching people from afar, just watching, taking mental
images and writing notes. Zeid wanted to give a space for the voice in his
heart to ripen. Every night, he would lock himself in his room, writing for
hours; it was his way of digesting what was happening around him and
communicating with his inner self.
Something happened a few days later that opened Zeid’s eyes to the
calling in his life. That evening, he was having his regular cup of tea at the
outdoor cafe down across the street from his home. He enjoyed watching passersby,
while slowly sipping the sweet, hot tea served to him in a glass cup. A group
of children from the neighborhood were playing a heated football match on the
side of the busy street, interrupted regularly by rushing cars and passersby.
On the other side of the street, three Sudanese young boys sat on the sidewalk,
watching in anticipation the ball running through from one player to another.
One of the players eyed the Sudanese boys and shouted fiercely “What are you
looking at, you monkeys? Go back where you belong!” He picked up a pebble and
threw it at them. They screamed and ran away, hiding in the dark side street
where they lived. The scene left Zeid with such an outrageous pain in his heart
that he was close to getting up and rebuking the attacker, but he controlled
his anger and reminded himself that the attacker was a child unaware of what he
was doing. He thought how cruel this life was, as if it wasn’t enough for those
Sudanese kids to be forced to flee their torn country, only to face rejection
and violent discrimination in their transitional so-called “home”. As Zeid went
lost in his thoughts, alarming shouts brought him back to the scene at the
street. One of the children playing football was hit by a rushing car. He
wasn’t seriously injured, but went on crying loudly in shock, while people
gathered around to make sure he was okay. Zeid hadn’t yet recovered enough from
the first scene to take in the second. He got up in a rush, anger and
resentment filling him, and went for a walk to unwind the tension. He thought
to himself “What the hell am I doing in this crazy place? This is a country
that kills its innocent children.” He fought back tears as he walked by the
demolished historic school building that had turned into a garbage landfill.
“Is it fair for children to risk their lives playing football in the middle of
busy streets, while empty grounds are being occupied with dumpsters?” He
thought. “If I were the governor, I would turn this piece of land immediately into
a playground for all children to enjoy: boys and girls; poor and rich;
Egyptians and Sudanese.” It eventually hit him. He didn’t have to be the
governor to change the status quo. All he needed was faith, persistence and
effort. This was his calling, scary yet clear.
Zeid spent the next few weeks stirring around the idea in his mind,
putting it on paper, doing research, and talking with the district government
officials, neighbors, local businessmen, and random people at the neighborhood
café. Some people told him he was wasting his time; that those children’s need
for work and money is more important than football matches and useless play.
Talking with some of the government officials dried up his enthusiasm. One
afternoon, he sat at the cafe, feeling drained and thinking of dropping the
whole thing. As he was drinking his tea, a middle-aged man approached him; he
wore a large copper cross on his chest.
“Are you Mr. Zeid?” he asked.
Zeid looked at him hesitantly “yes?” he answered.
The man asked to join Zeid for a cup of tea. “Let me introduce
myself. I am father Habib, the priest in charge of the Sudanese refugees’
service in Sacre Coeur church on the next street. I was finishing some
church-related business at the governorate building, and Mr. Mahmoud, the
district official, told me about your proposal of turning the demolished school
building land into a playground for all children, including Sudanese children.
Mr. Mahmoud asked if our church would be interested to finance such a project
since we always work for the interest of the Sudanese refugees in the
neighborhood. I talked with the church administration yesterday about the
project, and they gladly voiced their interest to finance it, after receiving a
clear and detailed proposal of course.”
Zeid couldn’t believe what he was hearing. At the time one gate
closed, another was widely opened. It was a message from the heavens that this
project will happen with or without him. The choice was left for him to either
be part of it or withdraw in silence and leave the field for others. It didn’t
take him much time to decide.
That night, he went home, closed the window curtains in his
bedroom, turned on the dim red light of his desk lamp, and spent eight straight
hours conceptualizing his ideas and drafting the proposal; he named it “An
all-inclusive playground” The images flashed vividly in his eyes as he
envisioned this 800 square meter land in the middle of his neighborhood
sectioned into a mini football field, an open-air theatre with a big stage and
several rows of chairs, and a huge tent set up on a 300 square meter land for
the indoor activities and a library corner. The proposal started with the
vision: “An inclusive playground where all children- regardless of their color,
nationality, religion or sex- can play together and access the small wonders of
arts, sports and entertainment.”
He knew he was going to face challenges that would try to stop him
from turning the dreams inked on paper into reality, but the memory of the
three Sudanese boys running away in shame after being attacked by other kids,
and the child who was this close to getting crushed by a car while playing
football in the busy crowded street made him more determined to take the risk.
After all, his whole life was built around dreams turning into realities, and
some faith-building obstacles to overcome in between.
