Egyptian dispatch: Feb. 18, 2013

Our final day and the first order of business is to go to the US Embassy and get copies of Arda's Report of Death of an American Citizen Abroad (RDACA). Thank goodness she entered the country on her American passport, if she had come in on her Egyptian one this procedure would have been an absolute nightmare, taken weeks and would have cost a fortune as you would have to pay everyone off all the way up to the top of the ladder. We gained access to the embassy and took our queue number, but decided just to barge right in and we were able to jump the line at Mohammed's counter. Within seconds we had 20 official copies of her death certificate. The packet included a condolence letter signed by Matthew E. Keene, the Consul Chief of American Citizen Services. On the certificate of death and in the section titled "cause of death" it noted: "Severe shock and circulatory insufficiency and cerebral hemorrhage caused by car accident." As I said to Nina on the way downtown at least she died an exciting and romantic death — in Egypt, in a fascinating desert region south of Fayoum. At the very least is wasn't some banal death from falling down the stairs or some terrible long-term debilitating disease. As sudden and shocking as her death was, she at least went out in style and knowing who she was, she would have got a kick out of that.

After securing these documents we headed straight to the tourist trap of Khan el-Kahlili. On one of our previous trips we had purchased one of those cheap evil eye tin things you hang on your front door to ward off evil. I just wanted to buy a bunch and to be able to offer them to people at the upcoming House Party for Arda (March 16, 10am till late). Of course things never work out quite like you plan in Egypt and I ended up getting my boots shined and Nina bought a bunch of scarves and then had to fend off what seemed like hoards of young boys trying to sell wrist bands at incredibly inflated prices — it was only by the time that we had reached the tunnel to other side of the road that we had shaken them off.

Then to Nevi and family, with Chris outlining plans for coordinating the safe breakers to attack the safe. The guy who picked the locks on the bedroom doors came to try his hand and only succeeded in mashing up the lock and was unable to open it up.

Then the other guy who came across town had his turn, he was slightly older and seemed more experienced, but then he announced that he needed the help of someone who could cut around the door to the safe. Time was not on our side, so we decided to call it quits and Arda's brother Arlen will have to finish the job when he comes out from Australia. So after all this the safe won, and I have to give it some grudging respect for holding its ground. It's a tough old bird that was made in Israel.

Packing all our stuff, and finalizing the wrapping of the 4 rugs leaves me a couple of hours to work on the blog. I have no great conclusions to this trip, although it would appear to both me and Nina that my hair is whiter than when we started, and who knows what that is about! I make ready to leave with  a sense of being more at ease with the the reality of Arda's death. The process we have gone through in the last nine days has offered important staging posts in coming to terms both personally, psychologically and spiritually with the loss of our loved one. And while I intellectually recognize she is not on this earth anymore, I no longer instinctively think of emailing her when I have questions I want to ask her. I've carried her old passport in my back pocket for this whole journey and I have no idea at which point I remove my wedding ring.