For Beirut

On August 4, 2020, my words escaped me. Abandoned me, speechless, with a heart full of rubble and a mind shattered to pieces. It’s been seven long, heavy days since the Beirut blast glued us all to our screens, and I still sit here, lost, words nowhere to be found. I’m still struggling to piece…

Rage #InTheCity: I’ve been angry with the world, but mostly with myself…

‘You’re 17 going on 70, you know that, right?’ the “edgy”, older guy at high school had told me after we’d had a two-hour discussion about life and where we want to be after uni. At the time, I’d taken it as the biggest compliment ever. It meant that he saw me as someone who’s…

Isolation In the City: My Front Door Made Me Do It

I’m not going to sit here and type out 500 words about how you should be using your time to read more books again (you’re welcome). But I am going to share a story about a door.

So, the whole world is on lockdown… Now what?

Three months ago, Corona was, to the entire world, a vision – an often hazy one – of the infamous Mexican beer, with its cute little lime wedge sitting atop the bottle, waiting to be plopped down into its caramel-colored demise. To me and a hundred million other Egyptians, it was also our local, sub-par…

What Came First: the Chicken or the Mahraganat?

Picture the British population, with all their glories, their English Breakfast teas, their Harry Styles and Sam Smiths, their queens and princes, and of course, their frequent holidays to Spain. Now picture that same population, but instead of 20% of it below poverty line (not a great statistic to begin with), make that double. Now…