By now my gentle readers will have either been totally bored for 11 installments and will no longer be reading this or you may have actually found something interesting over 11 days and are here for the final analysis. For those about to read, I salute you.
This vacation to Egypt was a lifetime event. I remember significant family vacations as a boy, driving to Colorado and climbing Pikes Peak, visiting Washington D.C. as a family. As I look back now I think that children rarely can assess the impact until later. Our girls enjoyed our vacation but it will be the photos that spark the memories years from now.
The travel contained all the great elements for a good vacation; the nervous excitement of going to a place where you have never been (for me, it was an excitement to see what was the same and what changed), the touring of ancient historical sites, the contrast in weather (from cold, rainy Addis to hot, sunny Cairo) and fun things to do (eating at NA fast food places and swimming every day).
I must admit that I thought about money. I saw a lot of it slipping away from our MCC PDA account in Akron for this vacation. I knew that in the end we would appreciate it. I tried not to think about all the dollars flowing out. I tried to think about what we got for our money. A reliable tour guide and driver for 12 days, freedom from being in charge (arranging hotels, driving, touring, etc.), nice hotels where we were bumped up both times (which made a huge difference in the end) and eating out at nice places (with just Wanda or the whole family). Yes, I enjoyed going to McDonalds, KFC, Hardees, Pizza Hut, Chilis. I am also glad we ate a couple of times at Felfelas and the Thai restaurant in the Grand Pyramids Hotel complex.
Visiting Cairo after 17 years was a jarring experience. It was familiar and comforting several ways. First was that MCC is still in Egypt and doing similar work. It is good to see they have branched out into other areas besides teaching English, the only job for all of us MCC’ers from 1990-93. The office moved but it still felt familiar to me because it was the home of the CR’s during my years in Egypt. I remember many fond visits to MCC CR home of Frank and Holly, and later Rick and Jan, and now I found myself sitting in the same flat but with an extreme makeover. In our short meeting with the MCC’ers, I found myself marveling at the quality of volunteers and national workers MCC manages to attract, the same earnest, friendly individuals. Yes, there are personnel problems in all units from time to time but overall quality of personnel MCC’s retention and cohesive unit rate must be higher than other NGO’s. Just a hunch.
The second comforting and familiar thing was the language. It is unfair to compare my Arabic and Amharic for I was given more time to study the former. However, I think Arabic is the easier language to learn. I found that a dormant part of my brain started waking up upon hearing many familiar words and speech patterns. I loved it. Each day I would reclaim more and more vocabulary. I wasn’t speaking sentences by the end of 12 days but I was understanding a whole lot more than when I arrived. It was fun throw out greetings and phrases. Most Egyptians don’t expect westerners to know any Arabic so it was fun to speak enough to impress.
Another comforting and familiar thing was the rhythm of culture and Cairene life. Yes, the city was still big and bad. There were even more vehicles, more people, possibly more pollution than before. But the rhythm of life was still there and even though we were a step removed in our hotel environs, I could still see it and feel it. Yes, the call to prayer was the same. I am a Christian and I don’t like competing loudspeakers for either Muslim calls to prayer or Christian chanting of mass (which happens in Addis) but the day we were up at the top of the minaret, at the ancient Ibn Tulun mosque at the midday call to prayer, was spine tingling. All of the sudden there were hundreds of different voices (and different volumes) all at different places in their call to prayer. At midday, I enjoyed the call. I remember the midday siren every day in Kidron (and later Scottdale, PA) so that rhythm of life was familiar even from my youth.
One other thing that was comforting and familiar was the food. As I said before we ate at NA restaurants because our girls were so excited about doing this. Yes, I did enjoy my Big Mac, FF and Coke. I also enjoyed the hot fudge sundae as well. I have to admit that my Hardees meal was good, especially the vanilla shake. And the KFC chicken was good, even our driver Ashraf and tour guide Mohamed came in and ate. But I was more excited to eat at Felfelas. The baba ghanoush, tahina dishes with aiesh baladi was such a treat, not to mention the fuul and falafel, the kebab and many other dishes we had. Yes, I know the girls will remember the ice cream desserts as the best ice cream we’ve had outside of NA (so will I for that matter). But eating at Felfelas restaurant and a Felfelas fast food outlet (fuul and falafel in pita bread pockets) was a great experience. Fast food is something we miss in Ethiopia. Not the food per se but the idea of fast food when you are out in the city and don’t have time to sit down to eat. Everything takes longer in Addis. Finally, it was also wonderful to find a Chilis restaurant next door to the Sheraton in Alexandria. We ended up eating there several times. But it did seem a bit odd to have SW USA cuisine and atmosphere (especially the music) on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea.
Some things changed greatly for better or worse. Cairo has even more highways than before. The highways are wider and more extensive. A good thing too because I think there are even more vehicles out on the road. There are more Metro lines as well. We didn’t take the Metro while we were there and I am sorry about that. But what amazed me the most was the desert highway between Cairo and Alexandria. Yes, the 8 to 10 lanes of highway was most impressive, but even more so was the development springing up along this highway. Obviously land developers saw the highway and instantly bought up land on both sides knowing that it would be worth a lot. Huge billboards advertised in English the future; green lawns, large houses and shopping complexes, all self contained. If the reality will be like the billboard, it will be like a piece of suburban Americana. Yes, the beginning of the end of old Egypt but if a middle class is a good sign of stability in a country, then this is a good sign. Is the Chinese saying true that a ‘rising tide lifts all boats’? Then good for Egypt.
Except I mourned that the western desert monasteries are no longer in the desert. The city of Wadi El Natrun sprung up about a decade ago (so I’m told) and the development encroached all the way to the edge of monastery property. The monastery has subsequently developed its own lands and into livestock and grain farming and fruit trees to be even more self-sustaining. But it is no longer alone. Is that what will happen in the Eastern Desert to the monasteries of St. Paul and St. Anthony? I hope not. Maybe new monasteries will have to be built further out. Or maybe the monks will no longer want to be isolated.
Was it a coincidence that we didn’t see as much begging on the streets as we do in Addis? I remember a substantial amount of beggars 20 years ago so either we weren’t in the right places or there has been progress in giving assistance to beggars. I think it may be the latter because even when we were out on the street we felt much freer as a family. We were not ogled or harassed in general. People went about their business. In Addis not only do we as a family stick out but we are ogled and harassed at times. Egyptians are so used to foreigners (after centuries of invasion) and the city of Cairo is so big and cosmopolitan that a foreigner is not an unusual sight. Addis is moving in that direction but the extremes of poverty and class still prevail. Maybe Addis will be like Cairo is today in 20 years.
We’ve been back in Addis a fortnight now. Life is almost back to ‘normal’. I do enjoy sleeping in my own bed and being in familiar surroundings but Egypt will be a pleasant memory. Wanda said at some point during our time there that now she understood me better having been to Egypt and seeing where I lived as well as seeing the culture, language and people in Cairo. She liked Cairo too, a lot. Maybe we’ll be back . . .
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