A SHORT STORY FROM CAIRO TO CAPE TOWN

I was born in Cairo, Egypt at a time when we used to refer to this magical land as: “Le pays de Cocagne”: a land of opportunity, cultured and cosmopolitan, the cradle of sublime civilizations, archaeological marvels like the Sphinx and the Pyramids and its Pharaohs’ Temples.

I am Italian by Nationality, French by education, of Spanish descent, my background sounds more like a Pot Pourri of Mediterranean cultures.

On my long journey to my present home, I have travelled and lived in many countries. After departing from my birth country, I spent a year in France, at a boarding school in Versailles, where I continued my interrupted education, due to the political circumstances which caused my family’s sudden exodus from Egypt.

This was followed by another year in Milan, Italy, where I joined my parents and where, thanks to my knowledge of English, French, some Spanish and Arabic, I got to start my early working career as a foreign language interpreter at the “Fiera di Milano”.

A year later, a move to Tel Aviv, Israel, started the next phase of my life during which I started to work for “ Alitalia, Italian Airlines”, as PA to the Administrative Director, learnt a new language: Hebrew, got married and had my first child.

In 1968, I followed my husband to his country of birth, South Africa, where I lived in Johannesburg, had my second child, started my own business in childrens’ fashions, later becoming a tourist guide for Simmer & Jack Gold Mines and the newly opened Gold Mine Museum.

I completed a Diploma for Tourist Guiding with the “Wits Technikon College” and started touring in the Transvaal, North, North West and Natal for a few years until, bitten by the studying bug, I resumed the life of a student and joined the University of the Witwatersrand to take up: Social Anthropology, Psychology and French, through “UNISA”, a few years later.

With the ushering of the last decade of the 20^th Century, I began to travel with my husband, going “Around the World in 80 Days”, as well as, many other trips to Europe, Israel, Asia, Australia, Brazil and the USA.

By the mid-90s, I followed my husband to the USA where I lived till 2001, in San Diego, California.

Those were years of travels, attending workshops of personal interest (such as: Body & Soul conferences) given by well-known American authors and psychologists, and learning many arts and crafts.

A short return to Israel allowed me to open an arts and crafts studio, where I created my own works and taught lessons to interested students.

This time also marked the end of my marriage and my decision to return to my country of adoption.