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1925 - By letter, Wyatt Earp beseeches his friend William S. Hart to portray him in a movie, to correct the "lies about me." Hart never did. [story]
Hart-Wyatt Earp


The Good Long Road | Commentary by Jennifer Fischer
| Saturday, Jul 26, 2014

JenniferFischerFifteen years ago I arrived in Cairo, six weeks ahead of my first day of my “study abroad” program at the American University there. I would be staying in a Cairo suburb for four weeks and taking a basic Arabic class.

Upon my arrival, I knew little of the language beyond a simple “hello.” My excitement over this new journey quickly dissipated and turned to fear and a sense of overwhelming anxiety that first night as I found myself in an apartment in a suburb of this very foreign place where no one spoke English.

I realized I had no toilet paper, no idea how to ask for toilet paper, no idea how to turn on the hot water (or if I even had hot water) and felt like I was suffocating in the intense desert heat. The regular call to prayer was disorienting.

It is amazing to me that just months later, I would converse effectively in Arabic with other Egyptians, would have traveled (by myself) to Jordan and Jerusalem and then traveled with just one other student through Lebanon Syria and Jordan. By then, I found comfort in how regular and peaceful the call to prayer was. I think back and am amazed at how much had changed in just a few months – and how much would change.

There were many disorienting moments in those first weeks where I wanted to give up and catch the next flight back to New York, but I worked through my discomfort. I focused on learning more Arabic. I stepped out of my comfort zone and made friends. I discovered, of course, that despite what seemed to be huge differences in religion, culture, class, there were also so many similarities between myself and many of the Egyptians I met. I learned of the diversity of Islam and how it is practiced and lived in so many ways, just like Christianity is in the United States.

That trip truly did change my life. It is cliche to say that about travel and study-abroad experiences, but often it is also true. I would meet the future father of my children there – another American also studying abroad in Cairo. We would start our romance with a trip to Bethlehem for Christmas and kiss at the pyramids at Giza to ring in the new millennium. We still, on occasion, request a kiss from each other in Arabic. I also made other lifelong friends and gained a valuable understanding of the region and its people, so many of whom were extremely warm, generous, accepting and caring.

Given that experience, the daily news right now can be challenging for me to read-watch-follow. During my trips to Syria in 1999 and 2002, I spoke with people in Damascus who longed for freedom and desperately wanted to contribute to their country in a truly democratic way. I listened to hushed whispers in Egypt about the tight dictatorship of Mubarak and disappearances of opposition leaders working toward democracy. I even had many of these individuals tease me about my vote “also not counting” after I returned to the region for a summer visit following disputed Bush-Gore election.

I want to be optimistic about a truly democratic future for Egypt and Syria, but I am also fearful this change will not come or that too many lives will be lost in the process. I sometimes struggle to forget the faces of the children I taught English to, and the mothers and grandmothers who treated me with love and protection as a woman traveling alone. I want to forget because it is hard to think of those same children grown up now and living in the throes of such instability and violence, or of those mothers and grandmothers grieving the loss of their children in all of the bloodshed.

What I learned is that they are no different from me and no different from you. They want freedom. They want opportunity. They want a safe and stable home for their families. They want to live lives full of love and joy. And I also know that the families of the unaccompanied children who have come across our border want the same things. Many already have family members here who are contributing to our society. I appreciate the way people around the world have treated me so warmly and with such care as a foreigner among them, and I want to do the same for anyone coming to my country in need of help – no matter the circumstance in which they come.

I see so much divisiveness, so much anger, hate and fear, and I long to find ways to help us all cross those divides and realize what we all share. I wish for a media cycle that is not driven by fear but is driven by a commitment to tell stories of hope, to empower us to channel anger and fear into ways to help, ways to engage in constructive dialogue, ways to work together, despite our differences, toward positive changes.

So I’m challenging myself: What will I do today, this weekend, tomorrow, to promote positive change? How will I reach across a divide to find common ground? How will I empower myself and others to “be the change?”

How will you?

It might seem scary, uncomfortable, disorienting at first. Trust me, it probably will, just as my first weeks in Egypt did. But I also suspect it will be worth it in the end.

Start small and see where it takes you. You might be pleasantly surprised at where you end up.

 

 

Jennifer Fischer is co-founder of the SCV Film Festival, a mom of two, an independent filmmaker and owner of Think Ten Media Group, whose Generation Arts division offers programs for SCV youth. She writes about her parenting journey on her blog, The Good Long Road. Her commentary is published Saturdays on SCVNews.com.

 

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6 Comments

  1. Bernadette Torhan says:

    Thanks for your wonderful commentary. As a person who travels, and loves meeting people from all over the world, I found it profound. This is a country of immigrants, unless you’re a Native American, and we need to take a look at our behavior, and find solutions, not screaming at children.

  2. Annette Uthe says:

    Thank you for the beautiful message from your heart.

  3. Your story was very heart warming,but— the families these children are brought here to join, are also here illegally, some children have been murdered and raped and are now being sold into sex slavery. Many are not children at all but gang members and drug cartel members slipping through as “children”. Do they have birth certificates. They may be 19-22, short,young looking terrorists from the Mid East. We need to enforce our laws, secure the borders so we as Americans can decide who comes,who becomes citizens,and what country is being represented fairly. Our food stamp program is up 147%since 07. Deficits are out of control, hospitals are overwhelmed with welfare illegals. So a bleeding heart story is touching but out of place right now. Sorry!

  4. Kathy Baty says:

    I so totally agree with Shirley Vercelli. I do not want to live in a land where I can no longer speak English. I don’t want to live in a land with Sharia. Law is allowed. I do not want to live in country that all but irradicated childhood disease only to see it mushroom again and bring devastation to our children. I do not want to live in a land where other regions are not one of our freedoms. We cannot support our own poor and sick and elderly why should we put these ilegal people/children before our own citizens. Our schools are overwhelmed and way below parr. Flooding them with more illegals is not going to fix the situation. America cannot be everything to all. She must protect and support her citizens first. Open the doors to those who come here legally.

  5. Theresa says:

    I really like your point that people everywhere want a stable home for their families and lives full of love and joy. I love your invitation to promote positive change. I think that is something we can all do in the areas where there is a need and causes we feel passionate about.

  6. Todd says:

    I love this piece. So much conflict, whether among family and friends all the way up to nations is due to what I’d call “assumed intent.” No matter who we are – on any side of a border or a reader of any religious book (or none) if we’re prone to fear and we don’t know anything about another group, there’s a risk we will assume ill intent. In reality, as you’ve seen, we’re all just trying to get by, to be successful in our own lives and to help create a world for our children worth living in.

    A chef, Marco Pierre White, says “Perfection is doing a lot of little things well.” This is true not just in cooking but in life. Positive change doesn’t always come from massive initiatives, but tons of small ones. Want to raise over $3M for a charity? Just get every American to donate a single penny. The same is true for our own small actions. But like money, our own actions also earn interest. Positive actions inspire others, and those inspire others, and so on. (The same is true, sadly, for negativity). So your idea of searching daily for positive actions is a good one.

    In the end, though, I think we all need more “Egypt Moments” in our lives. This doesn’t mean we all have to be able to travel the globe. But we *do* need to have our assumptions challenged. That’s a big force for change.

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