Girl with the Green Eyes

The small black kitten was purring in happiness on the lap of the young girl. Its eyes were screwed tightly with pleasure. Hearing the thud of my heavy footsteps it opened its eyes to look at me enquiringly. The bright green eyes opened suddenly and in my imagination it was a witch’s cat! I continued on my quest to lose the excess baggage that I had put on in the last year! The sea was thunderous and even with the music in my ears I could still hear the angry but beautiful waves crashing against the concrete piles on the shore.

I reached my target distance and turned back the same way that I had come and paused at the “kitten place” The kitten was nowhere around but the young girl (around thirteen or fourteen maybe) was setting up a corn stall. She was wearing a long frock over a pair of jeans. Her head was covered with a hijab as is normal in this part of the world. Her head was bowed in concentration... setting up the pile of coals to smoulder over which she would roast the corn and offer it to the passerby. Her cart was a rough wooden one – a flat piece of wood balanced on a few rocks. On one side was the pile of corns and the other side held the smouldering coals which she was fanning vigorously. She saw I was looking curiously at her and thinking maybe I was a prospective customer she looked up and I was floored! The beauty of the startling green eyes almost made me stumble- they were clear and bright and what was strange was she had dark skin- normally one does not associate green eyes with dark skin!

Egypt, like India has a mixture of races and you see all kind of colour combinations here and all kinds of features. But there are too many races- you have a mixture of Greek, European, Arabic and African features but normally the colours remain true- that is a fair person may have different coloured eyes and hair and a dark person has the black or brown eyes and hair but this girl was startling. I wish I could have taken a picture and put it up (remember the National Geographic cover of an Afghan girl?) but I didn’t know whether she or her guardian would object so I went on mulling over the strange combination of features and colours.

The next day again she was there. She gave me half a smile of recognition. The smell of roasting corn wafted by and almost tempted me to stop and pick one up from her. What stopped me was the fact that here they do not add salt and lime like they do in India (and of course the calories!) After this I saw her regularly and smiled at her. She was always kneeling down on the rough concrete tending to her cart quietly. I never saw an adult near her or any friends who came to meet her. Her customers were few as they were more sophisticated gleaming stainless steel carts offering more hygienic corns around and naturally people flocked there! In fact I thought I would give her a pound just like that or pretend to buy a corn and then throw it away later on but I never did!

I used to go on this same track for a walk about six months ago and it used to be pristine – the path was always swept clean, there were no vendors allowed here and only people who loved to walk or to exercise could be seen trundling to and fro. But now the path looked like Juhu or Chowpatty in Mumbai. It was filled with people specially couples who hid behind rocks. The vendors were scattered here and there, shouting and advertising there fares. The path was littered with coke cans and chips packets with only a harassed janitor trying to collect the trash as fast as he could! The tea vendors washing the cups from broken plastic buckets and throwing the water on the path (You were lucky if one such throw did not hit you!)

Fortunately the sea here was too rough to swim otherwise it would be filled with families who put up two chairs and an umbrella wherever they felt like and made it their private place! The Corniche extends for about thirty two kilometers – why take away a mile of this beautiful stretch to indulge in commercial activities? I wonder where those young people are who had vowed that they would keep Egypt clean after the revolution (remember they painted the sidewalks and the wall so it would look beautiful)

Coming back to my girl with the green eyes I wondered how much she made each day to make it worth her while to spend hours on this path waiting for a few pounds. Does she go to school? (It is holidays for all the schools now) Is she trying to make pocket money? Giving up her friends and play time. Or is she just trying to survive? Or what...?  Is this what freedom is all about to be able to earn at the cost of childhood? Freedom should be a beautiful and peaceful feeling – maybe this young girl could be used as an icon of freedom- her beauty and serenity is captivating to say the least. I just wish I dared to speak to her and lead her away from what she thinks is right (I am not sure about that) to bring her to what I think is right (But I am not free you see!)