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Is It Still Home? My Trip to America – Texas 6

18 Thursday Jul 2019

Posted by noreennanz in Uncategorized

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America, Christianity, Disabilities, Grieving, Home, Pilgrimage, politics, Racism, Texas, travel

I lie in bed this morning a little longer, listening to the strangely comforting drone of the oxygen machine. We have no plans for today. Today it’s family time. It will be an up-day for Rhett, and there is time for me to read some of the magazine articles Natalie has written, chat with Rhett and Natalie, and share photographs of my family over the past year. Perhaps I can show them a little of my life before Peter died. I can show photos of family members who traveled across the world to attend his funeral. Perhaps I can go for a walk in Rhett and Natalie’s neighborhood, exercising off some of all that delicious food I have consumed in the past five days.

I think about Rhett and Natalie’s life. I can’t imagine what it must feel like to have a terminal illness and be sick, year after year, wondering when the last breath will be. It has always my worst nightmare thought, as an asthma patient who suffered horrifying asthma attacks in younger years, to think of inhaling less and less air until you finally suffocate. Thank God I haven’t had one of these in decades. Still, the fear lingers. Rhett tries to reassure me, telling me he feels no pain. His oxygen machine can always adjust, giving him the level of oxygen he needs. Still. What a life. To have ever-diminishing energy.

I find in Natalie a kindred spirit and an inspiration. I have always found her to be gracious, calm, even-tempered, kind, and able to joke about some of the less pleasant things she is forced to endure. For me, she is the epitome of the devoted Christian wife, as I also strove to be. She has to constantly adapt her life to the ups and downs of her husband, as I had to do after Peter’s stroke. She has to find a way to live a life of her own, while always being available for whatever could befall her husband. And she does this with apparent ease, at least as far as I, an outsider, can see. She sees people. I have already met some of them – her cousin and her dear friend, both of whom she is close to and sees regularly. She does get out and take part in interesting things of life. She is active in their church, she sees the grandchildren whenever possible; she talks to her friends, her kids and grandchildren on the phone when too busy to get together. She reads and watches television sometimes. Natalie is beginning to feel more like a sister-in-law than a cousin-in-law. I guess that is only fitting, since Rhett was the brother I never had until I was six. In spite of the hardship each of them has to face, I find myself a little jealous of one thing. They are both of sound mind. They can carry on an adult conversation. This was hardly possible for me after Peter’s stroke. He was often in an entirely different world and unable to grasp his situation. It was a gift from heaven to have a husband I could care for and share some things with, after the agony of watching him in a waking coma for months, but I often felt lonely not being able to talk about my life with him in a way he could respond to. I missed my husband, even as he sat before me, even as we sat at the dinner table together, eating meals he helped me prepare.

I get up and walk into the kitchen, where Natalie is preparing breakfast. I share some of my thoughts with her. She laughs. “I’m no hero,” she says. Exactly what I told people who told me the same thing.

Rhett joins us for breakfast. It feels almost normal.

They tell me about a cruise they took to Alaska last year. Rhett would like to be able to travel with Natalie to Europe and go to England with me, where we could visit the homes, farms, churches and towns in Cornwall our ancestors dwelt in. Could he do this? They tell me how they traveled to the West Coast with oxygen machines, apparatus and all equipment necessary for survival, in addition to their suitcases. “A cruise is a great way to travel when you’re disabled,” they assure me. Rhett slept in the berth in their cabin on his down days, and on the up days he could participate fully in life on board. They met and became friends with another couple – it was wonderful! But could we do this? Rhett assures me he could, by flying first-class to England. Natalie’s expression reveals skepticism.

We look at family photos and then chat about this and that, and various family members. Eventually we get down to the subject I’ve been hoping to talk about – their view on the political scene in America.

“What do you think about Trump’s plan to build a wall on the Mexican border?” I ask. “You live in a border state. You see how many Mexicans and Hispanics are here.” Knowing that my cousins are politically conservative, I assume they will agree with Trump on everything.

“We don’t need a wall,” both chime in with one firm voice. “Even our Republican Governor doesn’t think we need one.” I feel reassured again. Maybe we’re pretty much on the same page.

I mention that I have downloaded the audio book Becoming, by Michelle Obama, onto my cell phone. I know my cousin doesn’t think much of President or Michelle Obama. This leads to a discussion of the “Black Lives Matter” movement. I have read a little about it and about police brutality, but I must admit, I am not very well informed. Here I get a very different response to the one about immigrants and the wall. “I think Michelle Obama has been a divisive force on this subject,” they say. “She approves uncritically of everything this movement stands for, and this movement is divisive. They have spread outright lies about some of the stories you hear in the news.” They go on for a while about how divisive America has become.

“Why can’t people just listen to each other, even when they disagree, without tearing each other apart?” they say. I heard the same thing from my sister when I visited her at Christmas. I decided while visiting her and her family that I would ask my questions of everyone I talked to on this trip, whether it raised hackles or not. I would express my opinions as well, in as kind and inclusive manner as possible. Why be part of the silent, frustrated masses, afraid to open their mouths because they have been shut down the few times they dared to talk about the issues that matter to them? Surely it is possible if we remain polite and respectful. I will not keep silent. I say to Americans, keep speaking. But even more than that, keep listening, and always stay respectful. I hope this culture of mutual respect and honest sharing of opinions while listening to one another can grow in the land I am proud to be a citizen of. I may not live there anymore, have questions about where home is, and been influenced by my life abroad, but I am still a loyal American. And I want to see our country’s people open up to each other! I am sure we have more uniting us than dividing us.

Rhett tells me about one of the favorite causes of the “Black Lives Matter” movement, the killing of black man Michael Brown by policeman Darren Wilson. He defends the policeman, who he says was terrified for his own life, and did what anyone would do in self-defense. I haven’t followed the story carefully, living in Europe, so don’t really have an opinion one way or another. But I tell Rhett and Natalie that my black relatives have told many stories about how they have experienced racism. We are listening and speaking respectfully to each other.

For the record, here is what former President Obama has to say about “Black Lies Matter”. I found this quote in an article in the online publication “The Undefeated“.

“I know that there’s some who have criticized even the phrase ‘Black Lives Matter’ as if the notion is as if other lives don’t matter. We get ‘All Lives Matter’ or ‘Blue Lives Matter.’ I understand the point they’re trying to make. I think it’s also important for us to understand that the phrase ‘Black Lives Matter’ simply refers to the notion that there’s a specific vulnerability for African-Americans that needs to be addressed. It’s not meant to suggest that other lives don’t matter. It’s to suggest that other folks aren’t experiencing this particular vulnerability and so we shouldn’t get too caught up somehow in this notion that people who are asking for fair treatment are somehow automatically anti-police or trying to only look out for black lives as opposed to others. I think we have to be careful about playing that game because, obviously, that’s not what is intended.”

Rhett then goes on to tell me a story of something that happened in his own childhood, while living in Virginia. His father, my uncle, was a US Naval officer and the family was continually on the move. They lived in Brazil, Portugal, and various parts of the United States. I believe travel broadens one’s perspective on life, and so it was with my aunt, uncle and their family. At this time, my uncle’s navy career had brought him and the family to Virginia. My aunt and uncle didn’t believe in school segregation, so they sent their all their children to public desegregated schools. Almost everyone they knew was sending their children to private, segregated schools, but they courageously chose a different path for their children. One evening the family looked out their living room window to see a cross burning on their lawn. The Ku Klux Klan had targeted their family. The children remained in their public, integrated schools.

We go out that evening for dinner, oxygen machine and all, with a family friend of theirs. Over dinner I learn that this friend, a stranger to me, prayed for my husband with Rhett and Natalie faithfully for four years after he suffered his stroke, until he finally passed away last year. Something melts inside my heart. This is family, here in Texas, so far away from the northern State I grew up in, but we are tied together. Their lives are very different from mine, and we don’t always agree about everything. But here are people I can truly count on. I feel more settled and relaxed than I have felt in a long time.

Is it Still Home? My Trip to America

08 Monday Apr 2019

Posted by noreennanz in Uncategorized

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America, Christianity, Grieving, personal change, Pilgrimage, politics, travel

Prologue “What do you think you’ll do, now that Peter has gone?”  My sister Jenna had flown halfway around the world, all the way from Australia to Germany, to keep me company, and to say her last good-byes to my husband Peter.  I had done the same in reverse when her husband died.  Our son and his wife arrived from their home in Korea in time to be with Papa for his final hours on this earth, and stayed for the burial. August 24, our wedding anniversary, was the day we said our final farewell to him. Now my kids were leaving, tearing another hole out of my heart. Why does my family have to choose homes impossibly far and fantastically expensive to reach?

My family of origin, which consisted of seven children, now down to six still living, is literally a micro-United Nations. We have all married or live with people from different cultures, races and countries. I went to Germany and married a German. There’s Australia, where Jenna and her family live. Japan, where my brother Simon lives with his Japanese wife and family. One brother is living in America, but with a woman from Bangladesh. My brother Jason, who also lives in America, married a Malaysian. Naila’s Sam is African American. Their son Blair longs to go back to Asia to live, where he went to music conservatory. Knowing my family, that is what he will end up doing. My son went to Korea to study, and met and married a lovely Korean girl, and settled down with her in Seoul.

Because my family is so spread apart, there are many places for me to go to. “Go on some long trips and visit all the people I love,” I answered. I had already been to Korea and Japan last summer, so I wouldn’t go there just now. I would go back to America, the land where I spent the first thirty-six years of my life.

I’ve been back “home” so many times over the years, but there are people dear to me whom I haven’t seen very often, some not in years, who live in America.  Besides people, there are also places in America leaving holes in my heart, just like people.  Places like New York City, where my soul seems to be drawn, like a magnet to its pole.  The aching hole in my heart keeps finding reasons to go back to New York City and be filled again.  There are a couple other places I love too.  The Boundary Waters of Minnesota, too, where I was conceived and kept returning to, year after year during my childhood.  The wild coast of Oregon, the State where my sister lives.  She brings me back to the coast each time I visit her.  Other places I’m not so familiar with, and there are still one or two others where friends live, but whose homes I have never seen.  There is plenty for me to discover in the land of my birth. Where to go on this long trip back home?

My wonderful, strange friend “Serendipity” had already stepped in for me, months before I had any thoughts of going back to America. I had just come back from the States, where I attended both my sister’s funeral and that of my friend’s father. I wasn’t really looking to return to the States. But Serenditpity came in the form of a phone call a couple months after my return.  My timeshare company wanted to know if there was some location my husband and I would like to travel to.  “What? Didn’t you know?  My husband had a massive stroke over three years ago and can’t travel!”

That was one of the biggest losses I have had to face since Peter’s stroke. He and I were such good travelers, and he was never as interesting or stimulating as when traveling. We fed off and nourished each other’s curiosity with our contrasting insights and information.

“Oh – I’m so sorry,” the voice on the other end said.  After a pause, “Maybe YOU would like to get away somewhere.  Is there anywhere you would love to travel to?” I couldn’t think of anywhere.  All there was now was family, and I didn’t need a timeshare for that. A twinge of self-pity threatened to tug at a corner of my heart.  Then, just as I was about to hang up in disappointment, I remembered New York City.  “Well, there is New York City, but you never have any openings there.”   

“Let me just check,” the agent said.  “Ah, there is an opening at a hotel called The Manhattan Club for the first week in February.  Would you like that?  It is a suite that can sleep four.”

“Yes!” I said, with no questions or doubts in my voice.  So, months before Peter died, the seeds of a trip to the US were planted.  I would be a tourist again in the city I spent ten years of my life in. As soon as Jenna asked her question about what I would do, I knew I would make a long trip out of this week in New York City. I also knew just how I would do it. I had already found friends, people who had supported Peter and me throughout Peter’s entire illness. These friends had recently asked if they could travel with me to New York City sometime. And the rest was there, sitting in front of my imagination like a trayful of goodies.

America seems to be slipping away from me, the longer I spend away from it.  People watch TV differently. Now at least those of us with internet have Netflix and Prime, no matter what country we live in, but what do people in America watch? They eat different things too than they used to. What would I discover in the culinary landscape of America? New words keep creeping in, new expressions, new fads, new phobias. I am way out of touch with the bureaucratic side of America. I don’t have to deal with Obamacare or group health plans, thank God. But I wonder how other Americans deal with getting sick. How do they face longterm illness like I had just spent four years dealing with, as I became acquainted with the German system? By now, I know more about how Germans live than Americans, the people Germans keep asking me about. The longer I spend away, the less I know.

And then there’s the political scene. What on earth is going on in America, that a man like Trump can be President? How could the evangelical Christians ever support such a person? I consider myself an evangelical, but I sure don’t share any values with this man. Or at least, I don’t think so, but then we don’t get Fox TV in Germany. Still, I get enough information to ask how myself how Christians can explain their support for the current President and administration. It was time for a lengthy visit.

February is a strange month to travel, one would think.  It’s dark and deathly cold.  But nothing beats the winter blues like traveling, and where do many Americans travel to in the winter?  To the South!  It was clear to me that since the week of my timeshare stay in New York City was the first week in February, I would follow that week up by traveling to the three peope dear to me who live in the South.  Everyone was excited at the idea of my coming, so I planned a trip lasting five to six weeks. I would not travel north this time to my brother in Minnesota. I had seen him last year at our sister’s funeral, and Minnesota is infamously cold and snowy in February. It would have to be the South – and New York, which is cold enough.  

From New York I would fly down to Austin, Texas and visit my cousin and his wife.  From there I would somehow get to Louisiana and visit an old friend from college.  And I would travel by some unknown means from there to Tennessee to visit my brother Jason and family, who recently moved to Tennessee from California and were having some problems with their adjustment.  Then I would travel back to New York City from Tennessee and have plenty of time for family and friends.  I checked Google Maps.  The distances between  each of these places were quite far, but doable, either by renting a car or traveling by bus.  Why not?  I could take the Greyhound bus, just like Simon or Garfunkel does with Kathy in that song about being lost and looking for America.  That kind of fits me, I thought.   I feel lost too, and am looking for America.

But first there was Christmas to get through.  One piece of advice I got after Peter’s death was, “Whatever you do, don’t spend this first Christmas alone.  Go visit someone in your family.”

By the end of October, the days were getting cold and the nights long.  I sat in my living room, imagining Christmas.  Would I buy a tree?  No way!  Why would I lug a tree from my car, spreading needles and scratching myself, spreading pine resin on my fingers,  just for myself?  The idea of decorating a tree and then sitting there all by myself to look at it made me so depressed, I knew I could not spend Christmas at home.  I also missed my only other living sister Naila, who had not been able to come to the funeral.   I hadn’t had much contact with her since we’d seen each other in Minnesota after our sister’s death the December before.  Soon after her return home, a double whammy of bad news came to her.  Both she and her husband had cancer!  Naila ovarian and Sam prostate cancer.  And both would need  treatment.  Naila went in for six months of chemotherapy, and Sam radiation therapy.  Naila was told she needed to take time out from the world and go into a long hibernation of several months.  She was too vulnerable to infections.  She was also exhausted from chemotherapy.  We wrote, but she didn’t want to share her burdens over the phone. 

I risked phoning her on that long, cold night in October.  Chemotherapy would soon be over and she was feeling stronger.  Yes, she was up to talking now.  “I miss you, Naila,” I said.  “I wish I could just fly out there and see you for Christmas,” popped out of my mouth.

“Why don’t you do that?” she said.  “We’d LOVE to have you!  I just saw a commercial on TV from Condor Airlines.  It looks like they have cheap, direct flights from Frankfurt to Portland.”  Naila lives in Portland.

And so I booked another flight – to Portland, Oregon, but it wasn’t direct.  I’d have to fly to Seattle first.

In November, my dear friend Miriam from Seattle came to visit me for three weeks.  Unable to come to be with me for the funeral, she offered to come and keep me company for three weeks.  What a wonderful buffer that was from the pain of being alone!  We went on a couple of short trips to nearby tourist sites, did Thanksgiving together, another hurdle I needed to somehow clamber over.    We talked and cried nonstop for three weeks.  And then, before I knew it, it was time to fly to the States. 

Going to Oregon for Christmas was the perfect thing to do.  Both my sister and her husband were feeling pretty good by the time I arrived.  I was a caterpillar cocooned in familial warmth.  My nephew Blair, living for the time being with his parents, is a fabulous cook and we were treated each evening to feasts.  The Christmas tree was decorated when I arrived, and everything was as I remembered a Christmas or two in the past, spent with my sister.  But there were stabs of pain, too.  Remembering a Christmas and other visits to Oregon with Peter stung.  He loved Oregon.  We had sat on the living room couch, opening Christmas presents together. Now I had to sleep alone in the same bed we both had slept in on our many trips to Oregon.  Mornings, we would gaze together at Mount Hood, sometimes peeking through our bedroom window, sometimes hiding from view.    

Mount Hood is showing itself this morning!

Together we discovered a popular Oregon activity – tide-pooling. On several vacations at the beach we would head for the rock pools formed at low tide, identification book in hand, identifying and marveling over the sea stars and anemones.  Sometimes we would see little crabs climbing miniature rock cliffs. We had enjoyed the seagulls and pounding waves together.  Sam and Naila’s home is our son’s American home, and Oregon became our home away from home, after my parents had both passed away and their house was sold.

But there is comfort in shared sorrow.  There is healing in pain that is shared.  I felt warm and secure, spending Christmas with my family.  The warmth spread over the pain like a balsam.

I had asked Naila if there were any choral concerts in Portland during the Christmas season we could go to.  I love the Christmas concerts in Germany, and was singing in several myself with my choir and vocal ensemble.  It would be nice to partake in some of the lovely things of Germany in Oregon, I thought.  “There’s the Festival of Lights,” my sister said.  “For two weeks or so before Christmas, an abbey in Portland puts up loads of Christmas lights and choirs come from far away to sing in the chapel.  We could do that.” 

Christmas lights at the abbey.
Christmas lights at the abbey.

We did that.  We went out in Portland drizzle to see the lights and hear some music.  That was perhaps my first truly touristic American experience this trip.  The abbey gardens were giddy with lights of every color and shape, everywhere you looked – overwhelming after years of pristine white lights in Germany.  Almost all the Germans I know consider colored lights to be garish. 

And stations, like stations of the cross, with recordings recounting the Christmas story.  The choir we heard wasn’t very good, in my estimation, but at least they were singing Christmas music.  And I was doing something Christmasy with my sister, who a month before this could not have left the house. 

I baked their favorite Christmas cookies for them.  We went to church together, and we watched TV together.  We discussed politics.  Here my sister and I were of kindred minds.  Her entire family and I felt alienation from the current political situation in Washington. I discovered something in this alienation that I hadn’t expected. Naila and Sam, also evangelical Christians, feel alienated from the political attitudes of almost all the people in their church. They say this sense of alienation is not unique to them. Evangelicals all over America feel politically estranged from other evangelicals, something that never existed before the last election. The estrangement is so severe that people even feel unable to talk about their opinions with one another.

So Naila keeps company with Rachel Maddock. “Let’s watch Rachel Maddock,” she said. “She explains it all better than anyone else.” We watched Rachel Maddock and fretted together. Here, even on the political level, we were able to share our feelings. 

I did get sick while in Oregon. I came down with sinusitis and by New Year’s Day really needed to be treated badly. “I’ll take you to urgent care,” Naila said. I had to ask what urgent care was. Another new development since I have lived in the States. A pretty cool thing, actually. You can go there at any time, even on New Year’s Day and be treated, generally by a nurse practitioner. There is no such thing as a nurse practitioner in Germany, nor are there urgent care clinics. Naila’s urgent care clinic accepted my German insurance card, so all was well on that front. And with medication, my sinuses were also soon healed.


I had booked an airline ticket I could change.  Perhaps, if all worked well, I could also visit Miriam in Seattle at the end of my trip. 

Things did work out, and I rode the Amtrak train to Seattle in the New Year.  Miriam greeted me at the train station, just as I had greeted her at the Cologne train station just two months before. 

Miriam lives on a island off of Seattle, which to me has always sounded very romantic. I was so curious to see how she lives! Of course,you have to ride a ferry boat every time you go to the mainland, but the ride is only fifteen minutes. Miriam tells me that the wait can be up to an hour and a half, however!  This island is lush with majestic pine forests and huge ferns. 

There are so many forests, human settlement feels like something of a rarity.  On this island, Miriam and her husband live close to nature.  I thrilled to see an everyday occurrence for them – deer grazing in their garden.  Beautiful blue birds and squirrels came to feast on peanuts Miriam’s husband feeds them every day. 

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Dear grazing in the garden.

This is America too, the America I love, just like the Oregon coast.  Here I saw the Puget Sound, dotted with so many islands, so peaceful it reminded me of a lake in northern Minnesota.  When I am out in nature in America, I feel in touch with myself, with my family, the animals and all the other people living in America.  Peter had never been here before, so for the last part of my journey I felt less pain, enjoying this beautiful landscape with my friends.

Peaceful Puget Sound

Watching the Puget Sound in Washington with Miriam, I remembered also having stood a few days before on the Oregon Coast. There, in contrast to the still waters of the Sound, I had experienced the foaming, turbulent waves coming from the same ocean. Even more than the calm water, tamed by the many islands in the sound, it was the surf that touched me the most. The surf, pounding and crashing onto the rocks, transforming into dazzling waterfalls, calmed my soul.

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The wonderfully wild Oregon Coast.

I had gone for long walks along the beach each morning, allowing the constant movement of the waves to move my turbulent heart. I would stop and feast my eyes for minutes at a time, gazing at the powerful waves.  I missed Peter, but also felt the peace of sensing that he was perhaps somehow standing there with me.  Perhaps he was also able to see the perfect rainbow given to me one morning, a promise of happier days to come.

A perfect rainbow near the beach.

Rubies in the Rubbish – Digging through Trash to Find Truth

01 Sunday Dec 2013

Posted by noreennanz in Uncategorized

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Cairo, Christianity, Egypt, fundamentalists, Morsi, Obama, Pilgrimage, politics, travel

One thing about our evening chats – they’re stimulating, and sometimes downright confusing.  I cherish all my conversations with Marleen, Reda and Emet, the afterschool director, who also presides over the Mahaba School.  These are the only people I can talk about life outside the convent with.  When Emet joins us, though, I have to rely on Reda’s translations.  Emet speaks very little English.  I think he understands a lot, though, because when Reda and I speak in the evenings and Emet is also there, he nods his head as though he understands us.  With Emet, I get a third perspective on Egyptian life.

It seems that every time we talk, at one point the subject comes around to Obama and the Americans.  “Sorry,” Reda says each time.  “You are a wonderful person and I like Americans personally.  But we don’t like your president.”  Emet echoes his sentiment, as does Sister Maria and everybody I meet who mentions the name “Obama”.   I tell Reda that I voted twice for Obama.  The first time I was really excited about having him for President, but by the second time, I wasn’t sure whether President Obama and I shared the same values at all.  After all, Guantanamo is still there, there’s more internet spying than there ever was after Bush signed the Patriot Act, America is still high-handed with other nations, and now my military uses anonymous drones to kill non-military “objects”.  I don’t really know what Obama is trying to do when he talks about easing sanctions on Iran, when it seems obvious that the Iranians are hell-bent on developing their atomic bomb.  I know the Israeli government is really afraid of this happening.  If anything, it seems the world is a more dangerous place under Obama’s presidency than before.  So I’ve got my questions.

“Why did Obama support Morsi?” Reda asks me.

“Because Morsi was elected democratically.  We want to support democracy.”

“But he wasn’t elected democratically,” say Reda and Emet in unison.  “Amed Shafik actually won the election.  It was rigged.”  It’s the first time I’ve heard this news, but I later find the same claim in the internet.
“Morsi supports terrorism!  The Muslim Brotherhood is like Al Qaida – they’re terrorists!  Why did Obama spend American money for the Muslim Brotherhood?”

“To promote democracy,” I answer.

“You are deceived,” they answer.  “How can the Americans support a terrorist?” they ask.  I want to say that my government wants to support a democratically elected leader, even if he may have some undemocrtic ideas.   In a democracy, you don’t have a revolution every time someone who has different ideas than you are in power.  You try and work together.  You support the process, even if it isn’t a smooth one.  But what do I know?  My government has supported plenty of undemocratic tyrants in the past, and even helped to overthrow democratially elected leaders.

Reda tells me that he loves the military.  “Egyptians love the military,” he adds.  “Each time I run into one of the soldiers, I walk up and shake his hand.  I tell him that we support the military.”

He goes on to say that what happened in July was not a military coup – it was the will of the people.

“We, the Egyptians, wanted no more of Morsi.  Not just the Copts – the Muslims too.  They want no more of the Muslim Brotherhood.  Eighty per cent of the Egyptians are in favor of the military takeover.

“You should have seen the demonstrations!” he says.  “Fourteen million Egyptians on the streets.  I was there too.”

I seem to recall that about a year ago, everybody hated the military, especially those who favored democracy.

One evening I tell Reda about an article I read in the New York Times about a man named Tomahy.  He’s never heard of Tomahy.  “He is the new head of the intelligence service,” I say.

“It says in the article that Tomahy was responsible for the military killing about a thousand Islamists.”

“No, the military didn’t do that,” answers Reda.  “Where are these thousand dead?  These are lies.  The American press is deceiving you.”

As with each other time I’ve been in Egypt, at some point I feel almost dizzy with disorientation.  The version I hear about my government’s role in Egypt is diametrically opposed to what Egyptians tell me.  Last time I was in Egypt, I heard that the young Americans and Germans working for nongovernemtal organizations were actually spies sent to foment agitation among the Egyptians.  Now I’m hearing that Obama is a sponsor of terrorism.  I wonder if it is possible to know the truth here.  I think Egypt is a country rife with conspiracy theories about everything.  But when I’m in Egypt, I start to wonder if the powers at be in the world aren’t indeed parties to conspiracy.  Who is to know?

One thing about Obama and the US government that does disturb me deeply is all the internet spying that’s been going on, and their witch hunt for Edward Snowden.  I tell this to Redy.  He’s never heard about the internet spying.  He’s never even heard of the name “Edward Snowden”.  I wonder who is being misinformed.

“You think we are a divided country,” Reda says.  “You Americans think the Muslims and the Christians are opposed to each other.  But it’s not true.  How old is America?”

I tell him the US declared independence from England in 1776.

“You see?  Your democracy is only a little over 200 years old.  Our country is over 4,000 years old, and we are united.  I’m not sure whether your nation will survive.  Ours will.”

At one point, Reda notices that I am visibly uncomfortable with our discussion.  “Shall we talk about something else?” he asks.  “This talk makes you unhappy.  You shouldn’t be unhappy.”  This immeasurably considerate thought delights me, but also throws me into further confusion.  My own German-American son would never try to protect me from an unhappy discussion.  I’m not even sure I’d be unhappy in such a discussion.  I might be confused, but I’d be in the thick of a stimulating discussion.   I’m not sure if I’d be any surer of the truth at the end, but there’d be a heck of a lot to think about.  As there is now.  I’m grateful for these discussions, because they show me what concerns the Copts and perhaps a lot more Egyptians, and it makes me a bit more hesitant to swallow everything I read in my own press.

It seems that, the older I get, the less sure I am about the truth of anything.  It so often depends upon one’s perspective on things.  I grew up in a dogmatic, in some ways fundamentalist Christian family and church.  I was taught to tell the truth, and I was told in no uncertain terms what the truth was.  Either I was on the side of their version of truth, or I was opposed.  The militancy of these conservative Christians in their religion – and their politics – intimidated me so much, I believed I had to know where I stood on everything, and I had to be able to defend my position.  If I was on the other side of an issue, I had to even trump their arguments, because I’d have to prove to them that they were wrong.  Someone was always wrong and the other one right.  This put me under a lot of pressure.  Looking back, it was pressure I never asked for, and demands for me to hold positions on issues the others were concerned about.

This need for truth is deeply ingrained in me.  I’m grateful for it, for the most part.  I still try to tell the truth as much as I understand it, but I find it really difficult to discern what is true in some areas, particularly in politics.

My fellow Americans always seem so sure of themselves, whatever side of the issue they’re on, and whether they’re fundamentalists or die-hard liberals.  I’m not sure those liberals are any more tolerant than the fundamentalists they love to mock.  I’m not sure of a lot of things anymore.  How glad I am not to have to work in politics, or in a job where I’d have to persuade people of my version of the truth.  It feels good to know that my cut-and-dried job of teaching English suits me much better.

I decide to leave the conversation and go to dinner.  I doubt I’ll never know whether Obama intends to support terrorists or not.  I can’t imagine this reasonable, calm-sounding man could ever be on the side of terrorists.  But I’m finally learning, late in life, that I don’t have to have a position on every issue.  There are some things I don’t know, and that I don’t have to know.  And that is a relief.

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