Where am I?

Standing in line at the dorm cafeteria’s register, I am suddenly overwhelmed by the feeling of everything moving towards my center. My extremities feel light as if all the blood had left them, and I worry that if I don’t lie down soon my core won’t be able to support the rest of me. I briefly imagine my neck flopping over under the weight of my head and my legs collapsing underneath me. I begin to panic, annoyed by the Egyptian girl who has cut in front of the line. She’s pretty, and she ignores the rest of us and speaks to the cashier in rapid Egyptian Arabic conveying that she’s a classic AUC student: over-privileged, under-worked, and utterly self-involved. My panic seems to raise my already high fever a degree. I can feel it burning in my eyeballs. Things are getting blurry.

I’m sure now that if I don’t at least sit, I will collapse. I’ve hardly eaten today – just a quarter of a granola bar that made me nauseous the moment I swallowed it. I had gone home at lunch, missing half of my classes on the first day of school here in Egypt, and despite sleeping the whole afternoon, my condition had only gotten worse. Now there had been nothing on my stomach all day and though I don’t have a thermometer, I can tell that I now have a higher fever than I’ve ever had before.

I rummage for some one-pound bills so I can quickly give the cashier money and make it to a chair before I collapse or throw up. The closed-in feeling intensifies. Everything is blurry. The bill is 3.75 EP. I hand the man 4 pounds. He slowly begins to get change but I cut him off – mish mushkilla – and turn to go back though the cafeteria up to my room. I know now I won’t make it that far. I WILL throw up. But I don’t want to. There are people around. And I just don’t like that feeling. I see a blur that I assume is a chair and make my way towards it, trying to hold myself together just long enough. I try to put my drinks on the table next to the chair, but my depth perception fails me, and I let the Sprite and water bottle fall further than they should.

I am so sure now that I will throw up that I know I must decide whether to push my body to make it to the restroom across the courtyard or to let the inevitable happen here in the cafeteria. I stand and begin making my way across the courtyard. I know when I make it to the other side because I feel my foot nudge the step. Blind and clutching the doorframe, I try to feel my way over the step.

I don’t remember the fall.

When I open my eyes, I can see again. People are swarming me as I lie on my back on the floor. Most of them are the dorm’s bawabs – doormen – in their navy and red uniforms. A round man with an air of authority pushes through the bawabs urgently to kneel beside me. His hair is neatly trimmed and on his forehead is the distinctive mark – like the gray smudge of Ash Wednesday – of a Muslim who has prayed five times a day for many years. He begins asking me questions – what is my name, am I on medication, do I feel sick? I try to answer, but my own question, which has been nagging me from the back of my mind since I arrived in Cairo two weeks ago, has grown stronger.

How did I get here?