Disconnected thoughts as I draft a script of what I’ve seen here…

It’s 5:22 a.m. on Thursday, June 4, the morning of the day we leave to head back to Boston. (We arrive Friday afternoon.) I don’t think this will be my last post – I’ll be at my computer all day editing stories and captions, so I’ll have a chance to say more – but pretty close to it… I feel strange as I sit down to write – a bit emotional, a bit anxious, a bit overwhelmed. How can I begin to summarize an experience that’s been so varied? I fear it will read like a first draft of my beginning students’ articles, where they throw everything in because they feel they have to. Because they don’t yet know how to self-edit and hold back. I suppose that will be forgiven here, under these circumstances. Or at least, I beg that it is. So, here goes:

Draft 1:

• Our first full night here in Egypt, Patrick – one of the graduate students – had a grand mal seizure. I was standing next to him as it began, and stood bent over him as he lie on the floor in its grips. I had never experienced anything like that and, more importantly, neither had he. In the hospital, where he stayed overnight, there were cats running around, people were smoking, and the professionals weren’t wearing gloves. The diagnosis was exhaustion, dehydration, low blood sugar. But I refused to accept that and insisted Patrick return home to get checked. After many tests, it turns out the Cairo doctors were correct. He’s fine. Fine, but now heartbroken. (He gave me permission to write this post.) I’m so sorry Patrick. I think about you every day, and am haunted that maybe I altered your life by denying you this chance.
• I was born Catholic, converted to Judaism to get married, and now make a point of practicing nothing – which is a crime in the places we’ve visited. Two things have struck me related to this:

The convent at the base of the mountain that, way above, holds the shrine.

Thing 1: On the road to Aleppo in Syria, close to the border of Lebanon and along the path the Crusaders took, I and a few of my students, stumbled into a caveside shrine to Mother Mary. The stone floor was cold, and there was a tree inside, with vast branches reaching out to the sun. I looked at the paintings of her, and felt comforted by them, which startled me. Until I realized that in fact, they were prompting me to think of my own mother, who has been and remains a peaceful, loyal, supportive force in my life. What a testament to love and relationships that their influence can rise up out of nowhere, even inside a dusty cave, high up in a mountain on the other side of the earth.

Thing 2: One evening, I set out alone to say good-bye to Damascus, and found myself in a shop with a man who offered me tea and a seat. We talked for three hours about the strife in his region, his loyalty to his people and his land, and the sometimes-stifled life he leads because of that. He told me a story about a Christian woman he once loved, but who wouldn’t raise her children as Muslims. So seven years ago, he said goodbye to her, and promised himself that the next woman he kissed would be the woman he married. At the end of that evening, he asked to kiss me – not because he wanted anything, but because he felt connected. He was visibly shaken. I am at once Christian, Jewish, a non-believer, an American, and most of all, married, I told him. The obstacles to this request couldn’t have been greater. But the fact that he asked moves me to appreciate those quiet and memorable moments people can collect and share with each other, here and there in life.

A shot from above the newsroom at al Jazeera.

• When we arrived in Qatar, I didn’t know what to think about it. I stood on the street and looked up amid so many towers of shining metal and glass and etched or carved concrete – an army of magnificent skyscrapers. But there are no people here. The streets are empty, because no one walks in this heat. The stores are empty, because the native Qataris apparently have fleets of servants who do the shopping. The people I have met are British, or Canadian, or Malaysian. It couldn’t be further removed from the landscape in Cairo, which is chaotic, and crowded, and unkempt, and filthy and… much preferred. I have felt transformed here, though – professionally. That moment came at the studios of al Jazeera. For the first hour there, before we visited their beautiful sets and talked with a program editor among others, we heard about their commitment to balanced and fair journalism. We also heard about the smear campaign our previous administration created to make Americans believe the network was a function of terrorist interests. When I was in Cairo in January, I mentioned this to my friend Katarina, a reporter and editor from the Associated Press bureau there. She laughed at me. Al Jazeera, she said, has hired away all the best TV journalists from the BBC and other news outlets. It is the model of strong journalism here, she said. Still, I was skeptical, until I visited there on Tuesday. As a reporter for nearly 20 years, I know I can trust myself to recognize the real deal when I see it. The network seems to me to be as balanced and fair – and legitimate – as any of the big three at home. How is it that I teach journalism at the college level, and didn’t understand that? How is it that I had never seen a full broadcast of one of the most important networks in the world until I visited here? It’s shameful, and I have resolved, as part of my goals from this experience, to educate myself and not perpetuate these kinds of myths.

Draft 2:

Minutes ago, my husband Geoff sent two emails to me entitled “daughter, 10:37 p.m.” and “father, 10:38 p.m.” Their only contents:

Hang in there guys. I’m on my way…

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