A Brief Layover

I didn’t know what to expect when I arrived. I just thought I was passing through. Sometimes, though, we’re led to transformative experiences without even searching for them.

I had about 8 hours before my connecting flight was scheduled to board. Just barely enough time to explore. Despite the language barrier, I clumsily navigated the airport as best as I could when the EgyptianAir Boeing 777 landed. The kind man at the customer accommodations desk was looking out because technically I shouldn’t have been eligible for their courtesy overnight stay. Still, he approved my 24-hour visa handing me my hotel check-in information. I thanked him multiple times before continuing on to customs.

I was all turned around. I felt flustered from a long day of traveling, and not being able decipher any of the signs that were in Arabic. By this time it was well after 6pm. I walked to the baggage claim area, where a woman approached me holding a pen and notepad. It turned out she worked for a travel agency and asked if I wanted to explore Cairo. That was all I needed to hear. I felt the ancestors working overtime. She explained all of the services her company offered as we waited for my bags to come around on the conveyor belt. When it finally surfaced, she insisted on helping with my luggage. I laughed noticing she wasn’t much taller than my suitcase, that she pushed around confidently as she led me to a kiosk so we could finalize my plans.

We met a man chilling behind the desk and she told him that I was looking to book a few excursions. “A few?!” I said in my head. He handed me a booklet that outlined their available trips and tried convincing me to select the popular shopping and dinner options. Since I had never been to Egypt and it was already getting late, the decision was pretty clear to me. I booked a tour of the Giza pyramids and handed him a stack of the currency I’d just exchanged. The travel agent walked me outside to a taxi. The driver, Muhammad, loaded my belongings into the back of his truck. As I sat in the front seat I told him instead of stopping at the hotel first, to head straight to the pyramid complex trying to save time. We exited the airport terminal and my adventure was officially underway.

The sun set quickly over the city. I started to doubt that I’d even be able to see much once we made it to the destination. We drove through New Cairo and to my surprise, I could see modern architecture alongside ancient ruins. I caught glimpses of mosques, museums, and the Citadel—home of Egypt’s first Sultan. I could not believe that I was en route to the last surviving original World Wonder.

Muhammad and I tried our best to communicate as he pointed out the historical landmarks in fragmented English. We exchanged smiles, large hand gestures, and awkward laughs when we couldn’t understand each other. The highway suddenly became more crowded than any rush hour I had ever experienced. Eight lanes fully packed with cars, buses, vans, and trucks filled with people riding in the back hatch. Street vendors, pedestrians, and motorcycles dangerously weaving between the vehicles. After we sat in bumper-to-bumper traffic for what seemed like hours, we crossed over the Nile river and eventually made it to our exit.

The surreal feeling of living out a lifelong dream continued to wash over me. Driving through the main strip of old Cairo, the blocks were lined with shops, restaurants, street food carts, and bars. The street lights and business signs illuminated the sidewalks where dogs sniffed around the dirt roads looking for food. The stench of musky horses filled the back alley we rolled through that was in the vicinity of the sacred grounds. Muhammad parked the car. “We are here,” he said.

We entered the building’s main lobby where I was introduced to “the boss”. He was an older man with white facial hair. He stood from the table where he was smoking hookah, approaching us with much excitement. He welcomed me with a cup of, “the best coffee in Cairo,” as he proudly boasted, and explained that a portion of the tour included a tour of his perfume shop. My “spidey-senses” tingled immediately, picking up that there might be a catch afoot. It reminded me of childhood family vacations to Orlando when my parents would get roped into timeshare presentations in exchange for discounted resort stays. Aware of the situation, I played along. The shop owner assured me his wife would have something that I was going to love. I waited in a showroom lined from the floor to 12-foot ceilings with glass bottles in every hue and shade of the rainbow. After preparing her demonstration, she presented the products she had to offer.

In that moment it felt transactional. In hindsight it was ceremonial. She anointed me with several aromatic oils and serums, a few that I ended up purchasing. After everything was packaged up, I was escorted upstairs to the rooftop by a strikingly handsome Middle Eastern man with the bushiest eyebrows. My personal weakness. He asked if there was anything he could get me, and there was, but I didn’t want to force it cause Egypt is definitely a violently homophobic country. That’s when I saw them in my peripheral. As they came into full view, my chest tightened out of pure astonishment. There I stood, basking in the magnificence of the pyramids of Khufu, Khafre, and Menkaure. Even from the distance I stood, the sheer magnitude of these majestic structures was breathtaking, mystical even.

For a moment everything disappeared, including me. All that remained were the pyramids, stoically commanding reverence. The air was just warm enough so that I wasn’t cold. A slight breeze accompanied the uncanny yet peaceful silence that filled the night sky. I suddenly remembered Bible stories about Moses and the Israelites, the partial Egyptian histories I was taught in school, and the dreams I had after watching The Mummy movies. None of them compared to what I saw from that rooftop. I wasn’t just admiring stones. I was experiencing proof of permanence.

Time distorted by my imagination vividly picturing the people who erected the tombs of their deceased Pharaohs, as if I was actually there. Reflecting on the unity and cooperation required to build them, the monuments captivated my attention for about 30 minutes. It felt like I was gazing upon them for hours, though. Before we left, I took in a deep breath and said an affirmation that I had been repeating often around that time. Overcome with gratitude, I descended from the rooftop. I held onto that feeling the entire drive back to the hotel with Muhammad. I sat with it on the twelve-hour flight back to JFK. I’m even feeling it now, as I write, still inspired by the empowering symbols of what becomes possible when you unite intention with shared responsibility.

My brief layover excursion turned out to be the most beautiful demonstration of Igwebuike, an Igbo philosophical concept that translates to “strength in numbers.” As Kanu (2017b) describes it, “When Black people come together in solidarity and complementarity, they are powerful or can constitute an insurmountable force or strength, and at this level, no task is beyond their collective capability” (p. 69-70). Collectivism is more than a cultural paradigm, its ancestral, anti-colonial, and antithetical to everything we’ve been taught about navigating this world. In a society that sustains itself from our fragmentation, community in many cases means survival. It can also create pathways for so much more.

Our individual and collective sovereignty begins with remembering. The pyramids of Giza are not merely monuments. They serve as reminders that we share vast and brilliant lineages. As mnemonic devices of historic potential, their geometric precision, cosmic alignment, and architectural longevity are physical embodiments of the strength that truly lies within Black solidarity. We are certainly capable of redefining our futures on our terms by activating that resilient will illustrated by the Black experience. Just like the pyramids, we are still standing. Together, we have the power to reclaim what has never actually been lost. Our divine right to be sovereign.