The point of life seems to be to suffer and die.
إرادة الله
^^Do you know what that means?
When I lived in Egypt I was on a bus headed back into Cairo from the Sinai region that broke down in the middle of the desert. As an American (the only American/Westerner on this luxury travel bus that I had paid a higher fare for just for the AC)...I did not think critically about the *new* situation I had just entered into but rather made American-styled assumptions with regards to what would happen next. IOW, I pulled out my book, leaned back in my comfy bus seat, hoped no one became pissed and/or disruptive at the driver and began waiting for the 'replacement bus' to arrive.
Now, my first clue that the 'replacement bus' was a figment of my imagination was not the fact that everyone had disembarked and while that had been going on some nice man had tapped me on my shoulder and gestured towards the front...and I smiled and gestured a wave communicating a silent but clear "oh no thanks, I'm good...I don't need to stretch my legs." No, my first clue...my first glimpse into the fact I was being overly optimistic (story of my life)...was when I noticed approx. 30 of my co-riders hop into the back of an oversized dump truck with their luggage and drive off. "What? Oh, I bet those people are on some sort of schedule." I lean back again.
By the time I figured-out in my positive outlook mind that something wasn't going the way I thought it was going to go and had finally wandered off the bus... I saw the last of the passengers including the bus driver hopping into someone's private vehicle/van that had pulled-over to the side of the road. And as the driver started to pull away while *my* former driver was still in the process of attempting to slide the side door of the van shut with so many people packed into it ... I screamed "Wait, what do I do to get home? How do I get back to Cairo?" And that was the last thing I heard...before the door was shut...the van drove off...and I was all alone in the blazing desert sun. إرادة الله
I don't know how long it took me in my positive outlook mind to accept...to grasp even that I was in a pretty fucked-up situation. What I didn't tell you earlier was on the way over to the Red Sea I had not secured a luxury tour bus. No, I was on a bus where people had like goats and chickens and things. And so when we had crossed a check-point they took my passport...made me disembark the bus and detained me and the entire bus which kinda made me feel bad but no one seemed to give a crap for like an hour while they did whatever they did to check me (I'm a white, American female that was travelling alone which is not cool and we were headed towards Israel so I seemed suspicious to them.) <-In my positive outlook mind the luxury tourbus was going to insure my safety in all the ways I had previously overlooked...and in the end it didn't even provide me with much shade to be honest (the doors had locked behind me when I had run off of it after its driver. The one with the useless "God's will" info.)
I know I stood and stared at my own shadow in the sand for...so long...until I heard the first car that passed approaching in the distance and I ran and then crept down to hide behind the bus tire.