When a bus load of trust fund tourists turn up in a place, the streets come alive with a congregation of pilgrimage proportion once the touts have elbowed their way amidst angry shouts from the horse carriages and passing traffic. Everyone wants to sell you that piece of Papyrus scroll, help you to get some pyramid fridge magnets, convince you that you do really need someone "local" to guide you through the confusing maze of the city streets.
Fact is that you don't. Unless you have an Aunt Magda who insists on collecting fridge magnets, nobody is obligated to spend, least of all, to contribute to the vicious cycle of baksheesh.
So why does this menace persist?
Once you get beyond the irritation and the shame / guilt from staring back at the reflection in your mirror when you have calmed down from spitting like a roast coated with goose fat on a fire, you may perhaps develop just an inkling of compassion for the mess that you are most likely to forget once your plane homebound hits a safe distance of 35,000 feet above sea level, and the unscrewed mini bottle of Scotch has wound its way down your tract.
Not a good time to be a normal citizen of Egypt huh?
It's hard to fathom that a country this rich has to settle for its people something less charmed than a hot tub of bubbling enjoyment. Instead of a relaxed period of contentment and equal income distribution, the rich keeps getting filthily corrupted and the poor, well, they just keep getting more damned by the day. In short, it's like waking up with a really bad hangover and realising that you had witnessed a party gone all wrong where the music sucked, the DJ was an asshole, the party host had ran off with all the gifts and you're puking into that warm stinky water inside the jacuzzi, now messed up with the expulsion of bad beer and expired chips, all chomped down by everyone else not in the know or just didn't care, but completely too passed out - leaving you, the sober one, to either leave or to clean up.
Hubby and I had our fair share of observation throughout the week-long stay within the walls of the East Bank. This morning, I got news that the town council will be demolishing the church that laid along some sites marked for "touristic development". My mind ran frantically to the mosque that leaned casually on the wall of the Temple of Luxor. I knew it's local election time for the Congress but to go this far for a cheap vote?
We trespassed mountains of cat urine mixed potently with their more solid excretion. The dogs? These emaciated beings look on in a sorry glance at the uncaring passer-bys. Who could blame them? The latter barely had enough to feed themselves but surely sufficient (at least for the working males) to drown their sorrows and angst in rolls of hashish.
The buildings looked adorned only because of the political party posters. The streets were just teetering on the border of a cowboy town. Police force was recognised as an official measure of extortion. The locals refused to speak up freely, looking bewildered and haunted with the look of a believer that the walls indeed have ears. You can't even head out to the glitzy diving haven of Sharm El-Sheikh without documenting a legitimate reason because your President doesn't want to see "poorer" locals spoiling the projected lifestyle of the "rich and famous" so enthusiastically marketed by his cronies for his cronies.
The look of many men squatting outside on the streets at night - waiting like an addict for the pain to subside
What's the whole point when you just see no way of escaping this tunnel? The pyramids, tombs and temples bankrolled free money that nobody really care because they are too focused on the big boys' moolah coming in from the Suez Canal. What is theirs to care about? We hardly see them. Now the Canal? Yeah, maybe that can change, right?
Oh yes, the government needs the tourist money to build roads and schools. Egypt is a growing population. A child is born every 20 seconds, so they claimed. So yes, that is the reason that they have closed off the Nefertari's Tomb unless you can fork out 4,000 LE to spend 10 minutes looking at one of the greatest treasures of Egypt that should have belonged to the people. Oh trust the antiquities expert, they know.
The diggers? They get paid U$6 per day to work in the hot sun excavating loose burning stones with their hands and wicker basket. Who paid? Oh, the visiting American Universities and their archaeological departments' funding. Our government really kept mum about the whole thing. The guards there? It's really to run after you to fan you for a bit of baksheesh. The semi-automatic gun? Don't worry, just in case some terrorist attack is revived, perhaps he's in a position to switch off his mobile phone, and if you are lucky, runs off to the nearest reporting booth to call for help. But that's if the terrorists haven't bribed him off yet. So no promises.
Why the houses don't have completed roofs? Because we'll be levied a 40% tax upon completion. Yes, you read me right. Let me put down my tea. That's why you see all these satellites jutting out of the roofs. We hardly get any rain anyway. Will I pay capital gains tax when I sell? I really don't know because I don't think I can sell it anyway...
Why the houses don't have completed roofs? Because we'll be levied a 40% tax upon completion. Yes, you read me right. Let me put down my tea. That's why you see all these satellites jutting out of the roofs. We hardly get any rain anyway. Will I pay capital gains tax when I sell? I really don't know because I don't think I can sell it anyway...
How much does a roll cost? A normal one is about 150 LE. We, the five of us, split our costs for the better tasting 500 LE. Everyone smokes it every night. It keeps the thinking away from the pain. The women? Maybe sometimes they help out to spike the teas because well, don't tell anyone, but the sons make a profit luring unsuspecting visitors to their places to get to know the Egyptian culture a tad better. We aren't assholes, we are just desperate.
What's the whole point? I see pain and distress everywhere. I don't see the treasures and all the glossy brochures promise me in an unforgettable trip of a lifetime. I don't regret stretching my stay here but part of me, the weaker human part - can't wait to get on that train tomorrow night and head off to Cairo to catch my flight back home.
Anywhere but here.
