So the checkout went smoothly and we were able to finish our payment of Mohamed thanks to the ATM machine actually giving us money. Our driver, Ashraf met us with his minivan and we took off through the streets of Alex along the Mediterranean all the way from east to west before heading south on the desert highway back to Cairo.
The trip was uneventful but it was the last time for many things; last time to see the Mediterranean Sea, to see Alexandria, to see the western desert, to see the pyramids, etc. We kept rolling all the way from west to east in the city of Cairo until we got to Heliopolis and found the MCC guest flat again. There we lugged up all our luggage, took a breath, got back into Ashraf’s minivan and headed for the largest mall in Egypt (perhaps in Africa). The Star Centre Mall is 6 stories high and filled with every type of western store (NA and Europe) you can think of. I think every major NA food chain is represented there. It has a huge center with a fountain that you can see on each floor. There are wings the go off in several directions with more and more shops. We thought we would shop in the local supermarket store on the main level. It wasn’t fun at all, suffocating is the way I would describe it. It was Wal Mart Superstore sized with all the same departments and 1000’s of people swarming everywhere. I just wanted to get out of there, it was making me physically ill. So I went and sat at the designated meeting place by the fountain. Amani and Abby had gone off shopping with the strict agreement that we would rendezvous here at 5 p.m. Wanda and Sophia continued shopping and I breathed somewhat easier.
The large fountain was made of marble designed with phalanges that made for perfect seating. At least all of us in the general public thought so. But the mall guards were apparently instructed to shoo people off of them. When he came for me I asked, in English, why but his answer, in English, wasn’t coherent, at least to me. But his answer in Arabic must have also been questionable for many people argued with him as time and time again weary mall shoppers stopped to rest for a bit. The mall guard would wait for a couple of seconds before slowly ambling over and asking them to move on. I noticed that the young women and young couples usually got up and went with little dissent but it was the older people who argued the most and, in the end he would often back off and walk away. At least until more people sat down, then he had a bad precedent on his hands and would try again. Young men were his hardest work. They would argue with him, then get up and simply move to another part and sit down. That got under his skin. I was, at the same time, annoyed by this silly and unreasonable policy (who came up with this rule? If they didn’t want people to sit around the fountain they shouldn’t have made it so obviously ‘sittable’) and felt some sympathy for him having to enforce an unenforceable rule. The policy makers obviously gave him strict instructions to enforce their rule but must have also trained him in PR in order to present a friendly face to the public. No force, just state the rule and encourage them to move on. I told myself I was leaving in an hour, (likely) never to return so it didn’t make sense to complain. Still I felt badly for all the patrons in the mall who will continue to be annoyed by such an asinine policy.
We found a cab and made our way back to the MCC guest flat in Heliopolis by 5:30. It was a hot and sultry evening and there was lots of noise next door at the Nasser Club, which we could see from our 4th floor windows. No one was tired, no one was ready to sleep. But I knew I needed to sleep, even if for a short time. So I showered and, as I was also not particularly sleepy, I took my time ‘getting ready for bed’. Red eye flights are no fun, especially with a family. But I managed to close my eyes and soon it was dark. Finally the phone alarm rang at 12:25 and by 12:35 our family was slowly in motion.
Cairo never sleeps. It was not quiet on the streets, although much quieter than at 7 p.m. It was still warm. One MCC’er named Rowan was in the guest flat and we talked while waiting for Mohamed and Ashraf to come. Ashraf was late. Apparently there was a big accident on the main highway from Giza and he was stuck in traffic. He finally arrived and apologized, looking harried. We said goodbye on that city street to Rowan and were off to the airport. Traffic was heavy at 1:30 in the morning, believe it! But we got to the airport and it turned out that we had plenty of time. Mohamed and Ashraf said farewell and I quickly tipped Ashraf for his good service to us over 11 days.
The flight back to Addis was really quite uneventful. We asked to be seated as a family together and this time the man at the checkout complied. We were given as good a seating as one can get in economy class, the first row behind the first class. That part of travel went well. But ‘no good deed goes unpunished’ they say and we paid for our good luck with the extremely bad luck of standing in the passport/ customs line for 2 hours while the customs agents acted like lawyers going over fine print on a legal document for every person who came through the line. In addition they were understaffed (4 out of 12 counters were open), but naturally no one in customs thought to call in reinforcements. People would just have to wait. Soon people in line struck up casual conversations with each other. A brother and sister in front of us were from Calgary but were born in Ethiopia. They were coming back for the first time since leaving 9 years ago. They were polite and well spoken. The crowds of Ethiopians and foreigners (they had separate lines for us) were for the most part well behaved. People grumbled but no one tried to cut in line, as far as I could tell. There was a conservative Muslim woman with a number of crying children who finally decided they couldn’t wait in line and went to the front and sat right under the counter. The children were finally given something to eat and we all watched them as they sat there.
Finally we were through and went to find our luggage. It was no surprise to see the luggage carousel overcrowded with luggage from several flights on all 4 carousels. Our luggage was supposed to be on carousel 4 but we only found 2 pieces there, even after it went around several times. It dawned on me that the disorganization was rampant this morning and to look on other carousels. Sure enough, the balance of our bags were on carousel 3. We hurried and picked them up and ran them through the x-ray machine before the line got worse. Then we headed out the door.
Our MCC driver Assefa was waiting for us. If all of our luggage, and our persons, get back to our MCC house healthy and complete, then the whole trip would be a success. And that is indeed what happened. The MCC staff and help came out to greet us, the animals seemed happy to see us (particularly Peanut the dog, who goes nuts [no pun intended] when we come back after being gone a while). Home sweet home with good memories from a vacation of a lifetime.
No comments:
Post a Comment