The Irony

Now that everything has calmed down, I've noticed more and more ironies in this thing.

I've never been particularly fond on politics, like I've never been very interested in numbers, yet I seem to be following politics without any trouble, reminding me of the first time I scored a 50 out of 50 for Algebra and Statistics. Good times.

Egypt's never been very clean. People don't seem to care that they litter the street.

Now, there's been a few weeks of people not going to work, because they were busy protesting, busy standing up for Mubarak, busy trying to keep out from stress. So even the waste collectors stopped doing their job, which resulted in garbage in the streets and on piles being worse than ever. Now, seeing as even in winter times the weather is about 20º C out there, that means there's probably smells of rotting all over the place.

There was a whole group of volunteers (some of whom I know personally) in Alexandria, for example, who tried cleaning other people's rubbish. Now, suddenly everybody is going on about the litter, and there's the "Keep Egypt Clean" motto everywhere.

Also, in the beginning of this wonderful revolution, the entire government and army were so scared they blocked all forms of (social) media and communications otherwise. There was no twitter, no Facebook, after that they just cut off the entire internet, took down the mobile provider satellites and all tv-channels with an even slightly correct version of the truth, and watched the landlines like hawks. Now, people are getting frequent (daily) updates from the "Armed Forces" about how things are, that everything's safe and back to normal.

For some people though, it won't ever be "normal" again.

There's irony in when someone tells you that they have bad news, the first thing you think of is disease or death, unless you already in a situation that'll have a good/bad outcome. Then this someone tells you it's about someone who died, and your head will immediately make a list of all possibilities, which'll be crossed out as you ask, or when you hear.

It wasn't any of the ones I had in mind.

Unexpected blow, and a way of increasing your worry about that list you made in your head.

Mr. Adel, an ex-ex-neighbour (we moved first, then they moved, too. We still keep in touch though. Good people.) of ours, died roughly ten days ago. He couldn't handle the stress of Alexandria, and the country and people he loved, getting into such a position as badly as it was two weeks ago, had a brain hemorrhage, there were no ambulances working to take him, and after they'd gotten him to the Military Hospital where the doctors said that he'd be okay after taking a CT-scan, went into a coma within three hours and died two days later.

I couldn't believe it when I heard.

Part of me still doesn't, really. It's so far away, yet so damn close.

I feel it worst of all for his widow, one of the sweetest women in the world, and his two children.

Wish I could just, give them a big hug.

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On a completely different note: I haven't been reading.

I haven't been able to concentrate enough to really like whatever I'm trying to read. (Big surprise there, right?)

I'm only on my fourth book since January. And guess what? That means I'm reading roughly two books a month. Which'll result in me having read 24 books by December. Which means I'll read even less than I did last year..

I better get into some kind of faster pace, else that's one wish/hope/want/fact/resolution down the drain. xD

Xx

The Gypsy.