Walaahi – A Firsthand Account of Living Through the Egyptian Uprising and Why I Walked Away from Islaam: The Relentless Rebel duology, #2

By Dawn Bates

The world watched as Egyptians rose up together for the first time in history to overthrow President Hosni Mubarak. It could've been a gripping tale straight out of a movie, with communication blackouts, violent and bloody protests, police and army brutality, curfews, and fighter jet flybys. But for those living in Egypt this was real life. Living through it all was British author Dawn Bates and her family.

Walaahi is her epic account of living and working in Egypt during this unbelievable moment in history, kick-started by protests in Tunisia, which spread across the Arab world.

With deep honesty and openness, Dawn shares what life is really like in Egypt with its broken education system, sexual harassment by civilians and police thugs alike, dirty streets and corruption. This is life through the eyes of a white British Muslim who not only speaks Arabic, but understands the intricacies of the politics, Islamic faith, the food, and cultural nuances the world has never seen before.

Interwoven with the beauty of the country, the warmth and strong desire of the Egyptian people to better themselves and their country, Dawn takes us on an emotional ride through the paradoxes, wonderful aromas of delicious food, toothless grins and shining eyes, relaxing quiet moments of felucca rides along the Nile, and the chaos of the Khan el-lKhalili bazaar.

Discover the questions she asked herself as she walked away from Islam. And how cross-cultural love, when transferred to a different setting, truly impacts the children of mixed ethnicity and background.

Detailing the start of Mohamed Morsi's presidency in accurate detail, being followed by secret police, and appearing in the world's media in an attempt to get the facts across to those around the world, Dawn's bravery in the face of adversity shines through.

Highlighting how a sexual predator followed her and her children through the metro system, only to have the harassment dismissed as 'nothing to worry about', to celebrating the entrepreneurs driving change in a country best known for the Pyramids of Giza, the Sphinx, the Library of Alexandria and diving in The Red Sea and Sharm el-Sheik, this epic memoir packs into four years what many do not live through in a lifetime.

As many began to switch off from the horrific events, Dawn and her family continued to live through the curfews, home invasions and stories manipulated for inflated viewing figures.

Dawn writes with a refreshing and engaging voice as she describes this momentous time in history which saw the Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohammed Morsi become president in the first democratic election in the country's history; before Human Rights Watch declared the Rabaa massacre the bloodiest massacre ever reported in one day.

Bates shares her heartbreak of seeing the Egypt she loves and the will of the people of Egypt destroyed before her eyes, only to see them rise up together again to rebuild stronger than ever, much like their Arab cousins in Lebanon after the Israeli bombings.

Navigating the vast cultural landscapes belly dancing amongst one another, watching Christians, Jews and Muslims live harmoniously together, what Dawn shares is enlightening.

We learn of the inadequacies in Egyptian schools, racism and prejudice faced by her and her children, and are left in awe at her fierce love, courage and strength as she takes on hatred and turns it into powerful action.

With a devastating blow at the end, this book is guaranteed to make readers stop and reflect on how they respond to events in their own lives and sets the record straight on untruths about Egypt many only know through resorts and all-inclusive holidays.

With brilliantly funny anecdotes, tear-jerk moments and a heart worn on her sleeve, Dawn Bates is the voice of humanity, cultural diversity and inclusion the world needs to hear from.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dawn Publishing
• Release date: May 21, 2023
• ISBN: 9781913973377

Book preview

PREFACE

Walaahi = seriously

Pronounced: wa-lar-he

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Things to note about this word:

When used at the beginning of a piece of dialogue, it has come to be known as a precursor to a lie. For example, Mubarak started his last infamous speech before his resignation with ‘walaahi, walaahi, walaahi’. Anyone who knew the subtleties of Egyptian culture knew that whatever came next would be lies. (That doesn’t mean that what you are about to read is all lies, though! Kinda shot myself in the foot there, didn’t I?)

Walaahi can be an exclamation of shock or surprise, both in a good way and a bad way.

Walaahi, when used amongst friends, can be used as sarcasm.

Walaahi can also be used to confirm something someone has said or done.

In a religious context, and literally, it means ‘swear to God’, but for the sake of this book, I’m using the more colloquial expression of ‘seriously!’

Why did I use an Arabic name for my book, one that the English-speaking world wouldn’t know or connect with? Well, because it just felt right. It felt right due to reasons two and three above. It felt right to use a word that Arabs across the world and those who understand languages such as Arabic and Urdu would connect with.

I also wanted to introduce the non-Arab-speaking world to a word that is used so much and can bring so much joy within a conversation.

My life in Egypt was one of shock, disbelief, and joy in equal measures, and I found myself using this word so much in so many different conversations. Even now, after being back in the UK, it is still a word I use regularly, along with many others. I flip between English and Arabic all the time and it can be something as simple as smelling cumin that makes my brain flip. It confuses a lot of people, especially when I speak with Kelt, my dog, in Arabic … and he understands what I’m saying. It’s great having a bilingual dog!

PROLOGUE

The choice to live in Egypt had been made before ramO and I even got engaged. I had informed him that should he wish to marry me and have children with me, then we would need to live in the Middle East. The reason? Well, he is Egyptian/Palestinian. I wanted to understand my future husband more and couldn’t bear the thought of having children of mixed culture and languages and not understanding the culture or speaking the language. My thinking had always been to lead by example, and if I wasn’t prepared to learn the language, how could I expect my children to learn it?

Plus, having known many mixed-culture and mixed-language families – families in which the children spoke both languages and knew the culture – the children were more confident in who they were. I also knew it helped them to relate and connect with family members, especially cousins their own age. I didn’t want a disjointed family simply because culture and language weren’t understood properly. I also didn’t want to set a bad example, or cause offence to the Arabic side of my new family.

We had discussed which of our three options we would live in over the fourteen years that led up to our move. As we couldn’t live in Palestine due to it being a no-go area, the only choices were Lebanon and Egypt. We knew Egypt better, even though I had a better relationship with the Aysha family in Lebanon. Lebanon had stolen my heart upon my first visit, and to be near the sea, well, that just made sense to me. But ramO was a city boy, and the infrastructure was ever so slightly better in Egypt due to the number of attacks on Lebanon by the Israelis. It was deemed safer to live in Egypt and be nearer to ramO’s mother, since her health wasn’t as great as Baaba’s (my father-in-law, Dr Merhi Ayche). Oman, where Baaba was based, was another one of my preferred choices, not just because we would be closer to Baaba, but again due to its proximity to the sea. Although I hated cities, it was time to step out of my comfort zone and embrace the madness.

Before the boys were born, I had taken Arabic lessons and continued with them until baby brain took over and my tutor moved away from the area. Unfortunately, there wasn’t another tutor who came anywhere close to the standard I had previously been used to. I encouraged ramO to speak with me in Arabic around the boys and to speak with them only in Arabic. He didn’t, and this was to become a bone of contention between the two of us. His boys needed to speak Arabic, we were both agreed on this, but he never took the time or made the effort to speak with them in Arabic fully, just the odd phrases.

I bought cartoon DVDs and we invested in Arabic TV satellite stations, but they were as annoying as hell – sugar-coated sickness in a way that would have even made Disney look sour. And the voices! How I wanted to throw something at the TV every time those channels were on. The programmes were such a stark contrast to the world in which they would live. What we saw on the Al Jazeera channels was worlds apart from children’s TV and even the teenager channels – it was almost as if, overnight, the children would have to be ripped out of the sugar-coated lifestyle and thrown into the war-torn lifestyle. Not a healthy or wise jump for anyone! But these were the extremes of the Arab world that I would get used to over the years.

After Naasir, our youngest, was born and I had recovered from his premature birth – which had seen me nearly die due to having HELLP Syndrome – I sprang into action. We had to be living in Egypt in time for Naasir to start school, and early enough for Khaalid to absorb the language before it became more challenging than it would already be.

I gave myself eighteen months to pack up the house, organise tenants for whilst we were abroad, sort out all the utilities, and, of course, log all my books into an Excel spreadsheet. I was not going to lose any of my beloved books or have them damaged in storage. I had spent a small fortune on investing in my knowledge, from all things business and leadership to how the brain works, religion, politics, personal development, different kinds of healing, health and nutrition, and, of course, my classics and (auto)biographies. I logged almost two thousand books with the help of my beloved friend Amera.

We spent many days and nights going through every room in my home, packing things into bags for charity, bags for the bin, and boxes to be stored. It took us months, many pots of coffee, several Chinese meals, roast lunches, dishes of Moroccan lamb, and more giggles than I had ever experienced.

Amera was one of my closest friends and a true inspiration considering everything she had been through in life. Never one to play the victim card or feel sorry for herself, she would always have a smile on her face and a giggle session coming shortly – not to mention her fiery Scottish-Yemeni temperament. When she got a bee in her bonnet, the pair of us would put the world to rights for hours, and God help anyone who crossed our paths. They would either have their ears chewed off or they’d laugh so much their sides would hurt. Either way, it was pure entertainment. There was never a dull moment when Amera was around. Never.

It took me almost a year to pack up our home and arrange for tenants to live there. Saying goodbye to the UK was easier than I had imagined, simply because I had gotten frustrated with the breakdown in community and the increased level of racism and ignorance towards other cultures and ethnicities.

Leaving my friends was a different story, especially as they had been my lifeline over the past five years, the past four in particular as I had faced my own mortality during my pregnancy with Naasir. Debbie Miller saved my life. Amera Adams and Ali Buxton saved my sanity. It really is as plain and simple as that. Leaving these three behind was the hardest part of the move. But we were excited, the boys and I. ramO was apprehensive and was away working whilst I packed up the house, closed our business, and dealt with all the necessities of moving.

Weeks before we were due to fly, the boys came up with an idea to sell some of the items from the house. They wanted to raise money for charity, and I was loving their entrepreneurial fundraising ideas, given they were only three and seven years old. They were going to bake cakes to tempt the customers in, and whilst they were also drinking tea, it gave the customers time to look at the goods and buy them. The boys made signs, told everyone at nursery and school, all the neighbours, and everyone in every shop we went into. They didn’t hold back, and I was so incredibly proud of them. On the day of the sale, they made a princely sum of £50 and told our neighbour, Cathy, that it was for motor neurone disease (MND). As someone who had MND, Cathy was very touched by this. She told them to keep half the money and she would pay the other half. The boys left half the money with her and were so excited. They were going to buy lots of things when they got to Egypt because £25 was 250LE – and that was a lot of money.

They were so excited about what they had done that they told An’na ¹ (my mother-in-law), who always knew how to burst someone’s bubble. She was horrified that I had allowed them to sell our things in the street. What would the neighbours think? That we were so poor we had to sell our things? There was simply no reasoning with her. She couldn’t see the selfless, beautiful gesture the boys had come up with, nor could she see the entrepreneurial spirit they had. Khaalid wasn’t perturbed and eagerly told Gidu ² (my father-in-law), who was incredibly proud of the boys and gave them an additional £10 each for their efforts. At this point, both the boys started shouting, ‘AWESOME!’ and agreed to give Cathy next door another £10 and split the other £10 between them both.

I cried tears of pride. Here were my two little boys selflessly giving to help others. It was an emotional time anyway, moving home, leaving friends behind, and leaving everything I knew. I was excited, nervous, and also sad to be leaving. Yet I knew this would be great for us – for all the family.

ramO arrived back in the UK four days before we flew to Egypt, and got stuck into sorting out his ‘pile’ of items. If there was one thing I had learnt about ramO in the fifteen years we were together, it was to leave him to sort out his own stuff; plus, I didn’t want to disturb his prized games consoles that ‘one day will be worth a lot of money’.

So with ramO having sorted out his stuff, me having wandered around the home remembering all the happy and precious memories of raising our boys, endless get-togethers, parties, dinners, and general mayhem, having checked that all the windows and doors were locked and the keys ready to hand over to the letting agent en route to the airport, and with the boys running around excited, it was time to head off and start our new life in Egypt.

I was confident the boys would enjoy their new lives. They were great boys – they still are. They took everything in their stride and just got on with it. My mother-in-law had arranged for them to start at Sahara International School. We just had to sort out certain bits of paperwork in the first couple of weeks and then they would start at the same time as everyone else.

Our apartment was also sorted – it was one of my mother-in-law’s and overlooked the Nile. Nothing really needed doing; all we had to do was sort out visas and begin our new life in Egypt.

The boys and I would learn more of the culture and language on a much deeper level. My months of planning had paid off. I was exhausted but relieved to be going. I had had enough of many things in the UK and just needed a break from it all. I couldn’t wait to fall into my new bed and sleep.

I read a book and slept a little on the plane whilst the boys and ramO played on the Nintendo DS’s. As we landed, the passengers gave the pilot a huge round of applause for a safe landing. Naasir, being Naasir, said, ‘What are they clapping for, Mummy? Did they think it was going to crash?’ I told him to ask Baaba and he would explain. It was the only airline I had ever travelled on where the passengers would always clap the pilot, and it always made me chuckle.

1 An’na – the term used for Grandma. Comes from Turkish routes but is used within Egypt.

2 Gidu – the term used for Grandpa/Granddad.

ONE

ARRIVING HOME

Stepping out of the arrivals gate and into the chaos of the airport, I was immediately overcome by the deafening buzz of a thousand shouted Arabic conversations, the thud-thud-thud of rolled suitcase wheels, and the screaming of children – some excited at seeing missed family members and others protesting at something or other. My thoughts were confused by the sensation of being overcome with the noise.

It wasn’t like it was a new sensation arriving in Egypt. I had been through this airport enough times to know where everything was and what to expect. I put this new sense of overwhelm down to the fact that this time I wouldn’t be leaving in two- or three-weeks’ time. This time, I didn’t know when I would be leaving – if I would be leaving. I had arrived home. It may have been my second home, but it was home nonetheless, so no wonder everything I was experiencing was intensified.

The workers were grabbing at our luggage greedily, demanding tips. ‘La3 shukrun,’ I repeated firmly – ‘no, thank you’. The shock on their faces at seeing a white woman speak to them in Arabic with such authority and precision of pronunciation was amusing, still, it had the desired effect if not the first time, then most definitely the second time I said it.

Stepping outside the airport, I felt like I’d stepped into a pre-heated oven. We were swarmed by masses of people, surrounding us from every angle, amplifying the overwhelming heat. Why was everything amplified? Surely it couldn’t just be because of the emotional rollercoaster I was on? I’d never been able to adjust to the heat of Egypt in the middle of July, being more of a spring and autumn person back home in the UK, and this time was no exception. Arriving in the middle of July had been based solely on the necessity of schooling issues. I was, however, looking forward to my first winter in Egypt. Still, I had to focus on the here and now and just get through the airport to the taxi with both boys and husband in tow, without losing any of them in the mass of people.

Once in the taxi, I started to relax. I was used to the crazy driving. I saw five members of a family all riding along on a motorbike with no crash helmets, with the youngest child being carried under the arm of the mother, the middle child sitting between her and the father, and the eldest child sitting on the handlebars at the front. This no longer phased me. Nor did the eight- or nine-year-old driving a large cart, led by a donkey, carrying a huge supply of vegetables through the Cairo busy ring roads.

All of these sights reminded me I was home. My second home. My chosen home. Cairo, Egypt was the place I had chosen to live. No one made me live there. It was completely my choice, and I was going to give it my best shot. Being a country girl from a small village called Friday Bridge on the Norfolk/Cambridgeshire border, living in London was a nightmare for me, and yet here I was moving to the fourth largest city in the world, with a very different climate and culture, and a population of twenty million people. It was going to be great. It was going to be the best move we’d ever made. Or so I kept trying to convince myself – had to tell myself. This was a choice, after all.

We pulled up in Ma’adi and drove into the carpark of the compound where there were seven twenty-five-storey apartment buildings. I felt dizzy just looking up, and also very relieved that the apartment wasn’t in a typical expat compound. I was not up for that ‘us and them’ mentality. I wanted to live amongst the Egyptians. I was a mother of two Egyptian-Palestinians, the wife of an Egyptian-Palestinian. We were not going to live in an expat compound and separate ourselves from the very people we had gone to Egypt to learn from and live with.

As we arrived at the fifth building in the compound, we were met by the ba’waab ¹ of the buildings, who offered to help carry our bags. This, I allowed. I couldn’t offend the ba’waab on the first meeting now, could I?

He took us up to the apartment and showed me – not ramO, just me – how to operate the gas bottle for the oven in the kitchen. Was this a sign of things to come? I called ramO in and asked him to translate what the ba’waab was saying and then explain it to me. He refused, saying I had to learn to tune into the language now we were living in Egypt. So I listened, and thought, You know what, I think I get it. Feeling slightly confident (I mean, I had been camping before and used a gas cylinder and camping stove, so how different could this be?) and in desperate need of a coffee, I filled the kettle with water from the filtered tap and turned the gas on ready to light the hob … and hey presto, I did it! I was so excited I jumped up and down, clapping my hands. I was so proud of myself. I had actually understood the ba’waab!

Next, it was onto dinner. I wasn’t going to spend my first night cooking on the hob, so it was just going to have to be roasted veg and chicken, which ramO went out to get. He was back in less than ten minutes, so with all the veg chopped up and chicken ready to go, I set to lighting the oven. I carefully turned the gas on and lit the match … and KABOOM! A massive roll of flames came out of the oven. ramO came running into the kitchen with the boys not far behind. ‘What the hell was that?’ ramO asked, slightly concerned but smirking at me as I stood there checking my eyebrows were still intact.

‘Oh, you know, just lighting the oven for dinner and trying to blow up the apartment,’ I replied with a hint of sarcasm, because all I could smell was burnt hair, which I was not pleased about. I wasn’t really bothered about the kitchen, it could have done with a makeover anyway, but my eyebrows … you bet I was worried about them! Call me shallow, but I like my eyebrows and I wanted to keep them.

Thankfully, ramO reassured me that everything was okay and apparently, ‘It’s normal for the first lot of gas to come out of one of the gas bottles like that.’ Thanks for the heads up, ramO! You could have warned me beforehand!

Coffee on the go and dinner in the oven, I could finally ring my mum and let her know we were in the apartment safe and well – albeit nearly with singed eyebrows, but at least it gave her something to giggle about.

I fell asleep before dinner was ready, so as soon as we’d eaten and I’d made the bed, I climbed in and slept. I was shattered. Little did I know this was going to be an ongoing state of being for the foreseeable future.

I was woken throughout the night, a bit disorientated, by gunfire. The first time it happened I thought it was the bird scarers I had grown up listening to as a child out in the fields behind my childhood home. But something inside me told me this wasn’t right.

Gently rocking ramO awake, I said, ‘Babe, I just heard gunfire, wake up!’

He told me, ‘Don’t worry, go back to sleep. It’s just the people in the area nearby.’

‘What do you mean?’

He rolled over and told me to go back to sleep. He didn’t seem in the least bit worried, so I went back to sleep, only to be woken a few more times that night by more gunfire. Lying there listening to it, I hoped it wouldn’t be a regular occurrence.

When I woke up for breakfast, the boys and ramO were already up and making pancakes. It was such a treat, especially as ramO had been working away in Zurich and I had been dealing with the boys, the move, and closing our businesses.

They had already been over to the local shop and purchased everything we needed. My mother-in-law had stocked the cupboards with tinned and dried foods as well as some teabags, but I needed fresh coffee and fresh foods; especially as sardines are not my thing and the dried foods would need soaking for at least a day before cooking.

When I probed further about the gunfire during the night, ramO told me that there was a beladi area next to the compound, which basically meant people with next to nothing, and I mean nothing, to their name. The beladi were the slums of Egypt, like the favelas of Rio de Janeiro. Even though I had been to Egypt many times, ramO and my mother-in-law had taken great care not to show me these parts of Egypt. Why would they? People like us had no business there, and just like when I was growing up in Friday Bridge and having my parents tell me, ‘People like us do not live in Elm,’ my interest started to pique. My curiosity would soon get the better of me.

‘Middle- and upper-class areas next to beladi areas is very common, and sometimes the men will fire guns into the air, even more so when there is a wedding. The only difference will be when there is a wedding going on, because the music will be loud. So don’t worry about it,’ he said, looking at my face and seeing the concern