Memories of Michael;
This one is exceptionally beautiful also.
“It was 1989. I was traveling through Cairo during a college semester abroad. I had been mugged near the Pyramids and was having a generally rotten day. From a distance, someone called out, “Hey, soul sister!” I cringed reflexively, prepared to stare down the cat-caller. It was a smiling 12 year-old boy named Mohammed, who grabbed my hand and invited me to his home. I should not have gone. I had just been robbed. But he was a sweet child, and he grinned as he told me he had a horse that he wanted me to see. His home was as modest as they come, a dusty shack with an enclosure on the side that held a dusty brown horse. Mohammed’s boyish grin brightened to a full beam. “Michael Jackson!” he exclaimed proudly.
Everything bad that had happened that day receded. I saw no evidence that Mohammed owned anything on which play music, or any posters, or any fan buttons or t-shirts. But that horse was clearly the center of his world, and he wanted desperately for me to know that. Michael Jackson was, quite simply, the most famous black person in the world. And his impact prompted a poor Egyptian boy to take a “soul sister’s” hand and make her day. It remains one of my favorite memories of Cairo. One of my favorite travel memories, period
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