An all-inclusive playground

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. 

And with the first rays of the rising sun and the songs of early birds, Zeid was almost done with the first draft of his proposal.  It was time for him to go to bed, carrying a large, content smile on his tired face and a large, ambitious dream in his wild heart.