Exhausted with Cairo, I prescribed myself three months in Prague to complete a demanding writing assignment. No-one understood why I had to travel with 35 kilos of books. ‘Can’t you get them on the internet?’ friends asked. Not these, I told them; besides, I scribble in the margins, underline, highlight and pepper the books with Post-it notes. I remember passages by their position in the beginning, middle or end and flitting through the pages helps me think. In short, the book’s physicality serves memory and inspiration.
On my return to Cairo I went to the airport to retrieve the bags from a place called ‘Cargo Village’. I had to show my ID at the entry gate, where the veiled woman in charge checked my purse to make sure it contained no camera. I could understand why they didn’t want pictures. The entrance was littered with house-sized canvas bags split at the seams and leaking their innards. Observing the orphaned crates stranded amidst parked cars, the battered forklifts and men in their makeshift uniforms scurrying about, shouting and waving papers, I tried, unsuccessfully, not to worry.
