Journey Back to Eden.pdf - St Mark Coptic Orthodox Church Chicago

A TIME OF UNCERTAINTY 7Without their knowing anything about my being a Catholicpriest, I had been “discovered,” as it were. The first person I metwas a Catholic Copt who asked me very quickly if I am also aCatholic. The second encounter I had was with Muslim boys whoaccused me of trying to build a church. So it’s really an interestingplace of discovery for me: seeing the character of these people andhow deeply their religious concerns and issues preoccupy them andhow they tend to interpret everything they experience through theprism of their faith. In seconds, the boys kicked down the towers ofmy castle and ran away. . . triumphant, or afraid?I note that my skills in speaking Arabic are less than I hadhoped for. The classical Arabic of my last year of study in theStates is not at all the colloquial form spoken by everyone here!A Stranger in CairoSEPTEMBER 5, FRIDAYI took the train today from Alexandria to Cairo and arrived inthe afternoon, very hot, with all my bags. There was no one tomeet me at the train station in Cairo. I have no contacts here. Noone from the patriarchal office nor any of the people to whom Iwrote at the University of Cairo ever responded to my letters. Sohere I am in a strange city, barely speaking the language, withoutknowing anyone at all. It’s chaos out there. Well, I’m sure it’s notchaos, but to an American accustomed to other kinds of urban organization,it seems impossible to negotiate.I finally got into a taxi. It seems to me that the taxi driver actuallyappropriated me; he grabbed me and all my bags. He asked mewhere I wanted to go and I asked his advice. He looked over mygeneral demeanor, my clothing, and my bags. He took me to theShepherd Hotel (an old English hotel from the nineteenth-centurytime of English governmental occupation) and I checked in.SEPTEMBER 6, SATURDAYThe Shepherd Hotel is quite nice. Yesterday evening I met alovely German couple. I traveled around with them a little bittoday, an elderly couple. Like good Germans who are always verywell-studied travelers, they had done research in their guide books