So, as the more observant amongst you may have noticed, my latest update has been somewhat delayed. The last couple of weeks have been long and exhausting and the hardest I’ve had in Egypt, but in order to tell the full story I have to go way, way back to Some Time Before Christmas and introduce you to someone who, until now, has only had fleeting references in this blog (for reasons I with which I shall not bore you but about whom I will write with beautifully positioned prepositions).
I first met Andrea Alice Richardson in the upstairs of the TAFL centre, where she introduced herself to me in beautiful flowing Fusha with a charming American accent. At the time I was confused as to why we were speaking Arabic, English made more sense to me, but she was sticking earnestly to a “Pledge” she had made to speak only Arabic. This thankfully only lasted until an English/American sojourn to a Café and Bar, where I was impressed by Andrea’s remarkable sheesha-smoking ability and captivating smile. Apparently won-over by my remarkable eyebrows, my not-so-secret love of JT and my shorts and dad-sandals combination, she agreed to go out with me a few times and before I knew it we’d been on a wonderful weekend trip to Cairo and Andrea had become a huge part of my happiness and feeling of settled-ness here. Time and space do not allow for accounts of the many unforgettable adventures we’ve been on together and I will always regret being unable to write about them at the time, but it suffices to say that my time here would not have been the same without her.
Andrea and me somewhere in the Western Desert
On Saturday, 23rd February I awoke to the sound of my phone. Still half asleep I staggered over to answer it, smiling as I saw “Andrea Calling” written in Arabic on the screen accompanied by the little picture of a chick which she chose for herself when she first gave me her number 5 months or so earlier. Writing about the 24 hours that followed me answering that phone call is a near impossible task, as my memories are a kind of painful, terrifying blur, but I will never forget how, in broken English, an unfamiliar voice told me “This person has had an accident in the road”. These last few weeks has been dominated by two moments, the second of which will follow. That moment, just a split-second before Andrea snatched the phone from the woman telling me where she was and vaguely what had happened, unwittingly putting me instantly at ease, lasted a lifetime. In that second, a flood of questions instantly hit me, the answer to every single one of which I didn’t want to know, dreading my darkest fears would be realised. I don’t think I’ll ever feel more perversely grateful to hear someone tell me they’ve been hit by a car and are lying in the road as I felt when I heard Andrea’s voice. That glimmer of relief vanished in a heartbeat as I raced to find her, thankfully arriving before the ambulance, from where I could only look on helplessly as the person I love screamed in heart-wrenching pain.
Andrea had been hit by a kind of minibus called a Mashroua which drives up and down the Corniche taking passengers for the equivalent of 5p. The Corniche is an enormous 10 lane freeway which runs the 18km length of Alexandria. It is perilously fast and claims tens if not hundreds of lives a year, as people attempt to cross in the areas where there is a sickening absence of tunnels or walkways. At the point Andrea crossed at, the Corniche is 5 lanes wide, with all traffic travelling in one direction. I found her in the road, conscious and surrounded by helpful and concerned onlookers who had phoned an ambulance, made sure she was not moved and applied first aid to a cut on her face. 3 hospitals, a lot of x-rays and hours of pain later we discovered that Andrea had suffered a nasty break (that’s the medical term ;) to her upper right femur which needed surgery fairly urgently. As you can probably guess I’m being fairly impressionistic in my overlooking the details of the day, it was completely horrendous and involved long hours of negotiating with parents, insurance companies and doctors the world over as well as a programme manager.
The evening of the accident and the few lonely nights that followed were indescribably tough as I tried to come to terms with what had happened and the implications were for our relationship, my time in Egypt, the plans we’d made and, medically, for Andrea. The second moment began to nag at me. The “what if?” moment. What if Andrea hadn’t tripped? What if I’d been with her? What if she’d come straight to my place? What if, what if, what if? For those first few days it engulfed me, leaving me angry, frustrated and completely unable to deal with anything. What didn’t happen plagued me more than what had, and I almost completely missed the flip-side of the “what if?” coin. What if the bus hadn’t been able to swerve? What if it’d been going 5 mph faster? What if I hadn’t arrived before the ambulance? What if she hadn’t been conscious when I arrived? When I consider the darker possibilities, I can only be left feeling grateful for the sad reality of what happened.
I’m now going to scan-forward, like a video tape, giving a very general gist of what happened in a squeaky voice. Andrea was in a lot of pain. The nurses gave her lot of pain killers. Many important visitors came and went, leaving the hospital room full of flowers. Most of the TAFL centre visited, which cheered Andrea up endlessly. Her girlfriends were amazing at taking care of her. The pain continued, as did the drugs. Daddy Richardson arrived from the States. More negotiations with aforementioned problematic insurance company ensued. Andrea managed to get a flight back to the States 10 days after being admitted to hospital and is now sat at home in Arizona recovering and recuperating. At least I hope that’s what she’s doing.
I’m now starting to try to adjust to life here without Andrea, and it’s going to be harder than I’d ever imagined. We always knew we’d have to say a tough goodbye sometime, but neither of us had been prepared for it to be so soon and under such difficult circumstances. Thankfully before she left I was able to buy tickets to visit her after I get back from my eagerly anticipated trip to Pakistan, and knowing when I will see her again helps a lot. Still, everything here holds a memory of which Andrea is inextricably a part (one gold star for that delightfully fronted preposition) and I will miss her terribly. I’ll keep writing over the next few weeks, in two weeks you’ll have to temporarily suspend belief as I write not as Tom In Egypt, but as Tom In Pakistan, followed closely by a Tom In Tucson exclusive. All these special editions, you lucky readers you.
In other news, Friday saw my international debut on the rugby field as part of the all-star rest of the world team that beat Team Egypt in their first match. Watching a hapless England lose to Scotland on Saturday leads me to think my Six Nations call up is only a matter of time...
Tx
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