If an Egyptian Cannot Speak English

by Noor Naga

money and their drugs with them when they left. Even the Egyptians who flooded back in from abroad in 2011, in hopes of rebuilding the country, have since given up and returned to wherever they came from. At some point after the Rabaa massacre of 2013, after the sugar crisis and the floating of the Egyptian pound last November, after it became clear that all the men who had disappeared from their beds at night for tweeting were not going to be released, the unthinkable happened: people began to long for the days of Hosni Mubarak. He was a thief, but at least the economy was flourishing, they began saying. The wheel of production didn’t stop once in his reign. He didn’t lead us into any wars. He built bridges. It’s been six years since the revolution and the pound is worth a third of what it was worth in 2011, depreciating so fast that none of the shopkeepers put prices on their goods anymore. You have to hold up every can of ful individually, every pack of Cleopatra, and ask, How much is this today?