Unofficial Figures

To borrow a Brit-ism, overwhelmingly, Egyptians are lovely people. While I of course haven't come across all the approximately 75 million of them I can say that, along with my family, I've met several genuinely, generous specimens. Egyptians have gone way out of their way to explain elaborate directions to me, peppered of course with plenty of dramatic arm movements and some itfudel habeebys thrown in for good measure. Egyptian cab drivers have forgiven my fare if I was without any bills smaller than 50 LE to pay them (a much too common occurrence in Egypt). My Egyptian mug has also landed me liters of free chai (tea) and awha (coffee), along with many phone numbers as anyone with a mobile has to program their number into your phone whether you like it or not. Unfortunately, all my programmers have been men.

Due to circumstances out of their direct control, Egyptians are also a resourceful bunch. Guards at the tombs of the Valley of the Kings in Luxor augment their laughable salaries by taking tourists, illegally, through additional tombs beyond the 3-tomb limit their 75 LE ticket allows them. As they lead you inside, the guards, disheveled AK-47s slung across their backs, keep repeating, "America Number One" in case I hadn't heard it by the 23rd loop. Pointing at ancient hieroglyphs and colorful scarabs, my armed escort mutters something in Arabic, and encourages me to quickly snap a flash photo of the interior, also illegal. Upon the first glimpse of daylight, I expect the outstretched hand and, when it comes, I deposit the customary 10 LE. It's not as if I mind so much forking over what amounts to 33% of their monthly salary, I just balked when they held up the dirty tender and questioned where the rest of my contribution was. 

The average, resourceful Egyptian has plenty of competition. Anyone taking in the melee of smog-perfumed Cairo or the bric-a-brac disorder of Alexandria's Anfushi district, could swear that perhaps, Egypt's 75 million were all right there, clipping their laundry to clotheslines or sipping tea outside lazy storefronts. But truth be told, roughly only 20 million, or about 25%, live within Egypt's two largest metropolitan areas. Most of the other 75% cling desperately, as Egyptians have for millenia, to the fertile banks of the Nile.

Over the last three weeks, I'm slowly realizing the most disappointing thing about Egypt, the lack of toilet paper aside. It's the cumulative waste. As I sat across the table from Mohammed, a 22-year old felucca captain at a shanty restaurant alongside the Nile, we discussed (over a grotesquely lacking lamb meal) his plans for the future. They included buying another pack of cheap, domestic cigarettes and hanging out by Luxor's main boat mooring until he spotted a new customer. His state-financed, 4-year geography degree's only real purpose was most likely to locate that boat mooring. I wanted to suggest to him that perhaps the restaurant business may be the way to go as I was charged an appalling 53 LE for a meal with less lamb than a sheepskin condom.

Ahmed takes his 150 LE-a-month pittance and spends it when he has a chance, which is rare considering his 12-hour workday; 6 days a week. A rigid schedule for an electrician, for which he was educated, yet quite another story for a newsstand clerk, which he is. After purchasing the night's bottled water ration from him, we met up the next day for tea on his invitation. Over chai koshry (loose-leaf tea), we discussed politics, women and an odd encounter Ahmed had when employed as a waiter involving a gay foreign customer who reached for more than the bill.

Traipsing the lightly beaten back streets of Luxor, Ahmed showed me "his town." Luxor looks like most Egyptian urban areas once the, sometimes thickly applied, package tourist veneer is removed. The average, college-educated Mohammed is selling pens and knick-knacks from large wooden street carts and chicken from glass rotisseries. He is sweeping sidewalks in front of his store and/or peddling dozens of live birds in overcrowded cages. The quest for LE begins early and ends late. Before parting, Ahmed took me to a juice stand and bought me a sweet glass of fresh sugar cane juice. In fact, he insisted on spending the 5 LE, e.g. an entire day's work, for the tea and juice despite my pleas. It was after all, "his town."

Malik saw me barreling up a steep incline in search of a restaurant claiming to serve authentic Nubian food, in visually gorgeous Aswan. The Nubia are most prominent in southern Egypt, where their ancient ancestors came from Sudan. I was somewhat lost and panting a little, when I asked Malik for help. The boy of twelve was completely bereft of English and we just stood there talking at each other when a man clad in a traditional galabayah made his way up the steep side of the hill to my right. His name was Omar and he insisted that I accompany his neighbor Malik down the steep ravine to his small brick enclosure for some tea.

I found myself ten minutes later sitting on the edge of one of two beds nearly filling up a tight, dimly lit space where three construction workers in their 20s lived together. The place had no doors and a dirt floor. Corroded metal slats lay above, serving as a makeshift roof. Their lone window was, of course, glass-less and looked out on one of Aswan's enormous 5-star resorts sitting on Elephantine island, about half a kilometer away. They served me tea and we discussed politics, women and what Omar thought America doesn't understand about Egypt and Islam. Needless to say, it was a long conversation. After about ninety minutes, I left their modest home and their gracious hospitality but not without a new mobile number to add to my growing phone book.   

Sitting at the restaurant I finally found, the sunset over the Nile more than made up for the hard fact that there really is no such thing as Nubian food. Someone neglected to tell the large tour groups sitting near me. My bill came out to about 35 LE. The monthly salary of a rookie soldier in Egypt is about 30 LE or in tourist parlance, some fried fish, a few scoops of rice and a Coke. Egypt has mandatory conscription, so unless you are the only boy amongst your siblings, you're forced into a two-year sentence of economic hardship. No wonder Egyptian soldiers look bored and complacent.

The stunted economics was, still is, hard to get my head around. It's to the credit of the Egyptian people that I rarely see it getting them down. They seem to somehow get by despite rising inflation and decreasing buying power, Insha'Allah (God willing), as they like to attach to the end of most sentences. As of this writing, even the floundering U.S. Dollar is still worth 5.75 LE. Luckily, the Insha'Allahs are still free.   

Comments

[Rosemary]

Brilliant my friend, brilliant! I can't wait to read the next one.

[Liz & Tom]

Hey!
"less lamb than a sheepskin condom" You are awesome, George! Wish we had a web page so we could link to you!

Waste and the miracle of the planned economy! You are getting to see the evils of a lack of capitalism first hand.

In Sweden, the government not only educates you for free, but they also pay you a salary while you are in school. The only problem is that no one in the government demands that you get an education with an eye towards getting a job. Also there is no limit on how long you can educate yourself. You can always major in basketweaving after you have finished leatherwork. We have met several lifelong students going to school on "Uncle Gustav's" buck.

Keep em coming,
T&L

[jill]

I think it needs to be called the Monthly Wad.

[Chadron]

Absolutely fantastic. You are gifted, and I am envious.

[Wyatt]

Sounds as if you're having (or had by this point?) an amazing trip. I would chide you for being less than weekly, but I've let most of my routine chores slide, and I'm not traveling the world. Keep it up - it 's great to hear about your travels. Take care George,
-wq