Aly Genena -

To Aly Genena,

                 To a person with hands so big, they leave you wondering one thing when you look at them. No, not THAT ya aly. It's hard not to wonder whether the whole world with all it's good and bad, water earth and air, could fit in the palms of his hands. I believe it probably would. And someday, when the world is ready for him, and when he's ready for it, the world will run to him and hide in the warmth of his hands.

I met Aly Genena three years ago, and since then I've taken excessive pride in announcing I'm his friend. Saying it out loud to someone else always made me smile, because I'm sure the person I'm saying it to, must have talked to him, and shaken his hands. They must have seen him laugh and seen how every time he laughed, his whole face would conspire to turn his eyes into two little lines above his cheeks. They saw how he squints when he laughs causing his eyelashes to meet and hide the blood clot in his right eye.  And it must have been as endearing to them as it is to me.

So, there he is today, standing tall at eighteen years of age. And I can already see he's on his way to somewhere. It doesn't ever matter where that actually is, he could be a pilot, a guitarist a business man, or a house painter with a tooth pick in his mouth, dirt stuck in his fingernails and paint all over his face, for all I care. Whatever it is, it will be incredible. And everyone will know it's incredible.

I'm sure he doesn't believe me and he won't until that actually happens, and then I'll be chasing him around the streets of zamalek screaming "I told you so". But until that day, the one important thing is that he should have a happy birthday as a start for one happy year after another. And not the "I'm naive, w kol 7aga 7elwa 3ala fekra" kind of happy.. but the, "I can get through anything" kind of happy.

So have a Happy Birthday, big handed friend (and back up husband =P)

Your fan, big sister (mesh big awi ya3ni), (and back up wife),
Eman Eldeeb