Here I am again, this time, flying Egypt Air from Rome. No monitor informs me just how close I am to the ground. To the pyramids? But the same excitement and some nostalgia fill my heart. Dazed, with knees that don’t want to bend, I climb down the stairs of the plane and board the shuttle bus. I am still caught up in a reverie of memories and of hope. The bus pulls up at the airport gate and brakes with a lurch, sending passengers every which way. Its automatic doors whoosh open, sucking in the real Egypt Air, delivered in a dust-laden gust on this warm November evening. A potpourri of scents, not altogether pleasant, greets me. Diesel fuel and cumin. Is that possible? Oh yes, I am reminded, anything is possible in Cairo.



What I did not know those many years ago when I left Egypt was that I was to be granted many more mornings of light in the country that I had grown to love. Egypt was to claim my daughter Bernadette’s heart and eventually bless our lives with Nadim, my Scottish-Egyptian son-in-law. When it was time to leave Egypt in 1999, I thought my heart would break. But Allah is good. It was as if life placed in my hands and tied around my heart, a long unbreakable cord that would pull me back to the Nile over and over again. And so I continued to write. “Afternoon of Honey” is the sequel to my first book about Egypt – “Morning of Light.”