Some love stories start with fire & passion and whether they continue with that flame is dependent on both parties making a choice and putting in the effort and work. That’s what’s our love story is about, love made up of consistent effort, compromise, self reflection, and care. Love that we worked to grow, love made up of communication and honesty. Somehow, worlds apart, we discovered we are mirrors for one another.

We met one another on a path of momentous change, and helped each grow, showing one another things we needed to learn or areas we needed to work on. Our love story didn’t quite start with the fire.. it was like a river flowing into the depths of the ocean, deep and ever changing and adapting. Shaping to accommodate one another - to learn one another. Discovering that compromises are essential, as is sacrifice and vulnerability and effort - to show in true faith that you really want to make each other happy.

Our love story started with an international trip, a Quraan class & a coffee shop. Salma had come to Egypt for a short trip for a large, long awaited family gathering. That’s where we met - or at least when Seif “noticed” her, that night we agreed to go swimming the next day to check off the box something Salma hadn’t yet done in Egypt… but the 12pm meetup turned into a 4pm meetup and Salma decided she wanted to join Maie in a discussion about Islam.

She was sure there was no chance that Seif would want to join, but she decided to invite him anyways in the off chance he didn’t want to wait in the car… to her surprise Seif had been going through a journey of truth seeking and had started reading the Quran himself.

Poetically so, that was the first thing that brought us together. Our love for God and our desire and effort in wanting to become better people. We left that class to have a drink at a coffee shop (Coffee Berry), it wasn’t supposed to be a date, actually just that Maie needed to finish something and couldn’t join us so we ended up going together.. but what started as two people going for a coffee turned into a never ending conversation about life and music, about change and intentions, about God and past experiences. It was the first time either of us realized that two people, living over 7,000 miles apart, brought up in completely different environments and cultures could really have so much in common.

Little did we know that this conversation would never end… that this little coffee shop chat would actually be our first date… and the rest as they say, is history. ❤️

Granita Cairo