Sugarbee's World

The first time I heard the word "nadi," I was vacationing in Michigan with my friend, the Correspondent, and her daughter. They were on a month-long hiatus from their real life in Cairo, Egypt when I secured my sister's Michigan cottage for a girls getaway. At the time, Sugarbee was a bilingual two year old who sifted through English and Arabic, picking and choosing the words she liked best from each. Nadi may technically translate to "club," but for her it simply meant the place with the swings. She wasn't picky, any swings would do.

But this nadi of hers? It's located on an island in the middle of the Nile--an island where most of the embassies are located, and the neighborhoods are renowned for attracting foreigners. Imagine picking up a couple of your favorite  neighborhood parks and rec centers and putting them next to the most exclusive golf club in the city. Then put a wall around the whole shebang and post guards at the entrances. And the rest of the city? No real park-like spaces of any kind, unless you count the grounds of the international hotels and embassy compounds, which, it goes without saying, you can't exactly play on.

Sugarbee's baby sister is turning one later this month. The Correspondent isn't sure where to hold the party, but she knows for certain that it won't be at the nadi, even though it's a natural choice for a kid's birthday party. Not only can Egyptian nationals no longer become members of the Club, they can't even get a guest pass for the day (Heaven forbid toddler partiers revel with anyone who doesn't share their birthright).

Years earlier, when I first met Sugarbee's Egyptian dad, the Cameraman, he was taken with the lushness that is springtime Wisconsin. I found out then that the only real usable green space in Cairo was in the Gezira Sporting Club. During the course of the conversation, the Cameraman and my ex began trading economic information; things like average annual income, the price of cars, gasoline, a round of golf. It was a fairly benign conversation that would normally make no lasting impression on me. What I remember is a throwaway comment about the dues for the club. While quite modest compared to American country clubs, it was well above the average annual income for a typical Egyptian.

Last year, I took a hiatus from my real life to trek to Egypt for a visit with Sugarbee and her parents. Until that trip, the disparity between the classes in my friend's adopted country wasn't something I could completely wrap my head around. The Cameraman is very down-to-earth, if a bit crazy for anything Harley-Davidson or golf-related. He could be anyone from my very middle class, unpretentious circle of friends.

On one of my first days there, we took a trip to the nadi and its coveted swings. Not growing up in a particularly privileged environment, I was expecting the Club Experience to be like something pulled out of The Flamingo Kid and reek of money. It was, after all, the brainchild of British imperialism. Carved out of palatial botanical gardens in the late 1800s, it sports a history rich in polo matches and debutante balls, not to mention the country's first golf course. Instead, it more resembled the public rec center I took my charges to the summer I nannied. Stay-at-home parents chatted on park benches while their kids played, nannies pushed swings, working parents grabbed a few minutes outside with their family over lunch before heading back to the office, grandparents watched the next generation learn the ins and outs of playground politics. My western sensibilities said this was something that should be available to everyone in this bustling city. (all 16 million of them? yeah, probably not...)

Near the end of my trip, the Correspondent secured a taxi driver to chauffeur my travel partner and me to some of the city sights we hadn't yet seen. This enterprising driver has been featured in British and American newspapers and is a favorite of the ex-pats in part because he speaks beautiful English and is known to take out-of-towners around without incident. A Coptic Christian, he was also extremely open to fielding (and anticipating) questions we had about this very Muslim city, questions we'd been a bit reluctant to ask Muslim locals. Aside from his faith, his intelligent demeanor could easily have fit right in at one of the Cameraman's family gatherings.

When we passed the nadi, our avuncular driver motioned to the walls and said that we were now passing the Gezira Sporting Club, one of the most exclusive places in all of Cairo where only the richest of the rich could go. Almost as an afterthought, he said "I'd like to go inside and see what it's all about some day."

As a visitor who wasn't a member of either club--haves or havenots--I was able to get a taste of life on both sides of that wall. It was clear that beyond being a physical barrier, it served to sort their society. The walls are rarely that tangible on my side of the world. Fortunately, that's a concern for grownups, because Sugarbee, she's just happy to swing.