Alive in Egypt
By Larry Johnson on December 1, 2009 at 4:00 PM in Current Affairs
Sorry to have dropped off the circuit, but at least the blog has been in the able and creative hands of Susan, Ani, Amy, Pat, Linda, Lisa, Craig, Mel, Amy S., J. Batchelor, and others. I am humbled to have so many talented folks willing to pitch in and vent a spleen. Thanks to all.
I have had the privilege of traveling the last nine days in Rome and Egypt. Nothing like two ancient tourist traps to get the juices flowing for the holiday season. I will make this simple–if you can find the way you should visit both places. Rome, the city, and Egypt, the country, are living museums. Rome’s antiquity seems daunting to grasp and then you go to Egypt. Going back 5000 years in time has a way to humble you.
I will include some happy snaps at the end of this piece (I’ll save you the pain of inviting you to my house for a slide show) but I did want to tell you about my Thanksgiving train ride.
First a question. What do you call a picture taken at the Sphinx?
A “SPHINCTER”! (Okay, that’s a terrible joke but after you read about my train ride you’ll understand where I’m coming from).
My wife and I, accompanied by two old friends (old in the sense we have known them for more than 25 years but they are younger than 50) arrived at Giza’s train station on the eve of EID–Eid Ul Adha to be precise. Eid marks the end of Ramadan, a month of fasting, and is something akin to our own Thanksgiving feast in the United States. It is a big festival day. As you drive along the streets of Cairo you can look in almost any direction and will see a cow, a sheep or a goat riding in the back of a pick up truck (or even shoved into the trunk of car) heading for their last hurrah. Instead of killing a turkey, Eid is celebrated with the ritual slaughter of a cow or sheep as a reminder of the time that the prophet Abraham, who was prepared to sacrifice his own son, Issac, but instead sacrificed a lamb.
Add to the chaos of animals in trucks and cars a Thanksgiving-like crush of folks trying to get out of town and home for this particular holiday and you could easily be persuaded to think you are at Grand Central Station heading to Grandma’s house for some pumpkin pie. Except there are a lot of guys wearing head scarves and “dresses” and the city is choked with a cloud of gray dust and diesel fumes.
So we arrive at the train station and the platform is jammed with Egyptians heading home for their holiday. Our guide was supposed to provide a sleeper train (the company, 2travel2Egypt, remember that name). We pushed our way thru the crowd and found a spot on the platform to wait. It was 8:45 pm and we had already spent a long day touring the pyramids at Giza and seeing the Sphinx. The six year old son of our traveling companions crashed and we arranged a bed made of three suitcases laid flat, side-to-side. That kid can sleep through an air raid. Two hours later we were still waiting for the train and I was ready to push the little guy off of the suitcase and take his position.
Shortly after 11pm the train rumbles into the station. Our guide hurriedly shoves us onto a railway car that does not, I repeat NOT, bear the logo “sleeper car.” The group we are touring with also includes a family of seven Indians (who live and work in Saudi Arabia). They guide tells us we have seats 16 thru 27. We get on the train and discover that instead of sleeping cars we are in a compartment with six seats–three on each side. Think of Southwest Airlines and you get the idea. All of us face a night of sitting upright with no place to recline and catch a nap.
I ran back to the door of the train and the guides had disappeared. We were stuck. How bad was the train? On a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being Cary Grant’s train in North by Northwest (i.e., white linens, train porters with white gloves and clean sheets) and the death trains to Auschwitz as a 0, we were looking at a strong 3. The conditions gave a new meaning to the term dirty. Grime and grit covered the compartment. You could have done an archeological dig on board the train. At least we had water, some granola bars and nuts, and a toliet on the train.
Maybe I am being generous with the term, “toliet.” The bathrooms were an homage to a Stevie Wonder/Michael Jackson–as long as you had no seeing eyes and no nose you could survive. At this point you just settle down and accept the karma. Fortunately our wives have a robust sense of humor. For the next 14 hours we experienced the Egyptian view of Egypt. Good news? We survived without contracting any disease.
There is actual good news. We were surrounded by muslims who were decent, caring souls. The rightwing nonsense that all muslims want Americans dead is just that–hooey.
Egypt actually is very tourist friendly. They understand that tourists, not terrorists, are their lifeblood. Tourist police are everywhere to ensure that tourists are not taken advantage of or attacked. When the police learned of our dilemma they confronted the tour operator’s representative who was waiting for us in Aswan. That guy had a bad morning after.
I was in Egypt six years ago. Egypt is a better, more prosperous place today. US assistance has made a difference and Egypt is in the process of transforming itself into a modern society. Cars and people fill the streets. The city continues to expand and apartments are sprouting on all sides. I’m glad I came to Egypt. Great experience and hospitable folks (for the most part). Don’t be surprised to discover that the Loud Family, formerly of Saturday Night Live, has taken up residence in Egypt. The Egyptians love to talk to each other in loud voices and oft times sound like they are on the verge of a brawl. Once they realize that foreigners are watching dumbfounded they stop, look surprised, smile and say, “Welcome to Egypt.”
Happy Thanksgiving.
by Ronald Scott
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