Egypt. December, 2002. Copyright Corinne Alsaidy
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I stepped off of the plane and headed into the airport. The first thing I did was get my visa (15 bucks). Then I stepped into line in order to get through customs. The airport in Cairo is small and simple. Customs consists of about 4 booths with guys inside that check your passport as you go though. I’m an American citizen and I got through with no problems, Midu took a little longer due to his Syrian citizenship. They love us (Americans) so much that they give us more respect then we deserve sometimes. Since Midu was taking a while getting through customs I decided to go pick up our bags. I wanted to rent a cart. This was my first problem. I spoke no Arabic and the cart guy spoke no English. He said “Hamza” and I knew that meant five, so I gave him five bucks. He smiled, thanked me and handed me the cart. I was proud of myself, I must admit… I can get around on my own! Well… When Midu finally came over to join me at the luggage belt thing he asked how much the cart was. I told him five dollars, and he turned and walked away. He came back a minute later and informed me that I had paid two times more then I was supposed to, it was five pounds. Oh well. We grabbed our bags and headed for the doors. I was walking ahead of Midu so I didn’t notice when he was no longer behind me, he got pulled over by security for a luggage check. So, here I am, a young American woman standing in the middle of a bunch of middle age Egyptian men. “Cell’a phone ma’am?” “Um… no…” I look around hesitantly, was he trying to sell me a cell phone? No, I find out later that he would let me use it for a cost. (I should have known that, right?) “Yes, ma’am. Taxi, taxi ma’am?” The cell phone guy is still smiling and waving a phone at me; the taxi driver is smiling and repeating himself. I say, “La, la… shukran” in shaky Arabic, and they smile and turn away. “Ah, ma’am. Phone, cell phone… you need, yes?” Okay, you get the picture. This continues for the next ten minutes while I wait for Midu. Every freaking guy in there has a phone or a taxi. I decided to just ignore the guys (it doesn’t matter if you say no, they’ll keep asking you) and look for Midu’s family. The difficult part of that is the fact that I didn’t know what they looked like. This is where the anxiety starts to come into play… I had forgot to worry about meeting my boyfriend’s family for the first time. I had been so excited about actually going to Egypt that I didn’t think about the people that would be watching my every move (or so I imagine they would be doing… that’s what I’d be doing if I were them). After what seems like an eternity Midu comes out of the security area with his luggage rolling behind him. I bitch for a minute about all the guys bugging me about taxis and stuff. He laughs at me and tells me to stop smiling at them. Oh. As soon as we emerge from the throng of people crowing around the gate a beautiful woman comes up and hugs my boyfriend. His sisters good looks intimidate me immediately. I suddenly start thinking about my hair and my clothes (how vain!). I can’t stop staring at her and thinking about how jealous I was that I wasn’t born with her good looks. Of course she’s as sweet as every other woman I meet in Egypt, which doesn’t help with my jealousy. Why am I such a bitch? I want to be sweet, too. Poor me. I got over it. We step outside and I feel as if I’ve just stepped into the sauna at Bally’s. Back in Michigan it had been about 75 degrees, here it was near 90. The main difference with the heat in Egypt is that if you’re in the direct sunlight you feel as if you are on the sun. Driving and Staring My main observations on the drive to Midus mom’s apartment: 1. There is a magnetic attraction between horns and drivers. 2. Nobody stops at intersections. 3. Everyone stares. I have to expound on the staring thing. Every time I look around people are staring. They did this the entire time I was in Cairo. They watch me sit in the car, they watch me eat a hamburger, smoke a cigarette, scratch my nose, sneeze, ect… Against Midus advice I would stare back. I did it because it was fun and I’m all into having fun. Why was it fun? I don’t know. If I were to analyze it I’d say it was fun because I’d never have the chance to do that here. Nobody really stares in the U.S., and if they do stare and get caught staring they look away. It’s like when your cat stares at you and you stare back. It’s a game that I can’t win with my cat or with Egyptian men. I always look away first. With the cat I look away because I’m bored, with the Egyptians I look away because I feel psychotic staring after a few minutes when that person is staring back. I also lost this game a few times due to Midus bitching. “Baby, stop it! Why you doing that?” Home Life The elevator in the apartment building has no door and is roughly the size of a coffin. We all pile in and ride up to the 19th floor. I must say that I felt safer in the plane. The first thing I wanted to do was sleep. I had been awake for almost 26 hours. Well, I was forced to eat first. Yes, I mean forced. It is impossible to turn down an Arab when they offer you food. After a few days I became adamant about No meaning No. If I was hungry I would accept food, but I was so tired of eating when I wasn’t hungry that I had to toughen up! This wasn’t easy. They would offer food, I would say “No, I’m really not hungry. We just ate chicken shwarma on the way home from the market.” They would say, “NO no, you must eat something. Here, just have some lamb chops and grape leaves!” “No.” “You must.” “I’m really not hungry, I’ll eat some later if I feel hungry.” “Here, just have a small lamb chop.” “No, really.” “Okay, just a few stuffed grape leaves then.” “Midu, tell them I mean it, I’m not hungry at all. I couldn’t eat even if my life depended on it right now.” Then I’d feel guilty for being rude and not eating, so I’d accept some grape leaves. I would eat the grape leaves commenting the whole time on how good they were. I would turn my head to look outside or talk to someone, and when I looked back to my plate there would be two more grape leaves. This would continue until I’d eaten about 50. I gained 10 pounds in one month. I was sick for 3 weeks of those two months. Not terribly sick, just ahh… you know… travelers sick. Midu didn’t think it was a big deal, but it is a big deal if you are the one running full tilt towards the bathroom every few hours. Why was I sick for 3 weeks you wonder? Well, I ate fresh fruit and veggies (including watermelon which my doctor told me was the worst thing for anyone to eat while traveling). I had ice in my drinks, brushed my teeth with tap water, and ate leftovers. Even with all that you’d figure that after a week I’d adapt? I might have, except for the fact that Midus mom was filing my bottled water bottles with tap water. I didn’t know that I was drinking tap water and she didn’t know that I couldn’t drink tap water. Oh well. I’m fine now. The John This is the perfect time to tell you about the bathrooms. They never have toilet paper in them. You are expected to squirt your ass with water when you are done. Some toilets have a squirter right inside. Other bathrooms have little half toilets (bidets) next to the main toilet. I guess you’re supposed to squat and squirt, I don’t know and I didn’t ask. I never ran into any of those holes in the ground that I had heard all about. The worst toilet situation was at the stables. The Worst John in Egypt We went to rent some horses to ride in the desert one day. As soon as we get to the stables I have to go use the bathroom. It was an emergency. Midu tried to talk me out of it, but I had no choice in the matter; my bowels controlled my body while I was in Egypt. The horse guy showed me where the bathroom was. I was expecting the infamous hole in the ground, and felt quite lucky when I saw that there was a toilet. Then I looked in the toilet. There were flies in it. Not one or two flies- I mean flies. Like a swarm. I was going to barf. I was going to shit. I had to do something. So I used the toilet. This was the grossest thing I’ve ever done in my life, and I’m not exaggerating. Thank God I remembered to bring toilet paper at least. Getting Back to Home Life Okay, let me stay on track here- back to when we arrive at the apartment for the first time. We get to the apartment and spend half an hour on introductions and crying and hugging. Then we eat a 7-course meal. Then people start coming over. Remember, we haven’t slept for a long time. Then everyone wants to go to Midus sisters house. I insist that I must sleep, and they all go without me. I’m in the apartment alone. I walk around and look at the pictures, go out to the balcony to see the view, and then decide to grab a drink of water before I go to bed. There are two fridges. I stand in front of them and stare at them for a second, then I turn the light on to get a better view. I pulled on the handle of the white one and nothing happened, it wouldn’t open. I pulled on the handle of the brown one and it opened to a vast array of leftovers and Pepsi and 7-Up bottles (the glass ones!). No water. I figure my water must be in the other one, so I go back to the first fridge and pull the handle again. Nothing. I pull harder. The handle broke off in my hand. I look at the handle in my right hand, I look back to the fridge. I try to think of an excuse to tell Midus mom. “Um, yeah… I know I’ve only been in your house for 2 hours, but I broke your fridge.” I consider putting the handle back on the fridge (I could get it to stay if I carefully set it in place) and acting like nothing happened. I figured that someone else would think they broke it. I decided against that for some reason. Instead, I left Midu a note telling him how much I liked his family and oh, by the way I broke the fridge. They told me the next day that the fridge was already broken, yeah right. Aft least that made me feel a little better. This is typical of Arabic hospitality, and it’s always appreciated. The Pyramids After a few days of begging and whining on my part, Midu agrees to take me to see the pyramids. My whole life has revolved around this moment. I have always had a passion for everything Egyptian, and now I finally get to see the Great Pyramid. I have spent hours upon hours reading books and watching films about Egypt. I found some papers from when I was in grade school that specify my dream occupation as an Egyptologist. I even dated and later married Midu, who had spent his entire life there. Now that’s dedication to a country! It’s hot outside, so Midu suggests that I just wear a light dress and sandals. I ask if I should wear sneakers but he says it’s not necessary. I rush him out the door, and we hail a taxi. If you plan on traveling to Egypt, let me give you a pointer or two about taxis. Number one, negotiate the price before you get in. As a tourist you can expect to pay more than a local would. As someone at the hotel what the rate you should expect. Number two, they don’t usually speak English. Get someone to write down your destination in Arabic before you go. If the cabbie gets mad at you and starts bitching, don’t worry. One time we had a driver throw our money back out the window at us after we paid. He eventually got out and picked it up after we walked away. If you feel like your getting ripped off, you probably are. As we drive down Sharea El-Haram (The Pyramids Road) my eyes are locked onto the horizon, I can see the Pyramids from here! When we get to the Giza Plateau I jump out and pull Midu over to the Pyramids. Okay, I won’t lie… I was disappointed. I was trying to psych myself up by thinking about how old they were and how big they were… but it was a definite anti-climax to my life long dream being realized. Don’t think for a minute that I don’t have the same love and passion for the country, but now I focus less on the Pyramids and more on the Ptolemaic reign. Why the let down? Because it’s a tourist trap. As you stand there (in supposed wonder) at these great monuments, you stand next to a group of Chinese tourists and a German family. Everyone is talking too loud and bumping into you. We pay the guy at the booth for tickets to go inside the Great Pyramid (Khufu). They won’t let me take my camera unless I pay them, and I was not in the mood to walk back over to the booth to pay another ridiculous amount for a few pictures. I had to give my camera to an old guy at the door. We step inside and climb up some weird passage (not easy to do in my sandals). I think to myself that this is pretty cool- then we get to the ascending passage. It goes up at a 45-degree angle, and is about 3 feet wide. It’s a plank with little pieces of wood nailed to it for traction. There are railings on each side of the passage for you to hold on while you climb up. It’s a long passage (don’t look behind you). Okay, I tell myself. No need to panic, are you panicking? Why are you sweating so much? Shaking, too? I can’t breathe. Breathe. Yeah, leave it to me to have a panic attack inside Khufus pyramid. I started crying. Don’t laugh. I’ve never before had a panic attack or cried in public. Midu laughs at me. Some lady is asking Midu a question in Spanish (or maybe it was Italian), and Midu points at me and says, “Corinne, you speak Spanish, what is she saying?” I speak Spanish? Midu pulls me over to her and expects to here some conversation coming out of us. I say, “Ah… No intendio el Espanola.” Midu gives me a weird look, so does the woman. I say, “Yo Americano, no hablo espanol”. They both stare at me some more. I still don’t know why. Why did Midu think I knew Spanish? One year of high school Spanish doesn’t get you too far! We reach a platform. You can either go straight into the Queens chamber or up a little more into the Kings chamber. The passageway to the Queens chamber is about 2 feet high, and there’s no way my panicking ass is going to crawl anywhere in a dress (and sandals). So we opt up. We climb just a little further (amazingly we were alone) and enter the chamber. This is where I become awe stuck. It’s maybe 8 feet wide and 12 feet long (I could be off on the measurements). The walls and floor are smooth and cool to the touch. On our right sits a stone sarcophagus with no lid. I walked over and peeked in. There’s nothing in there and perhaps there never was. I could have stayed inside the chamber all day. It was a touch cooler then the air outside, but not much. I was glad that my panic attack had abided. As soon as more tourists started coming up we left. On the way out the guy with my camera took a picture of us. I should have been mad that he was messing with my camera, but the fact that he wouldn’t accept baksheesh surprised me so much that I forgot to be annoyed. Tipping Tipping in Egypt is another issue. Everyone expects to get a tip- even if they don’t actually do anything for you. When you pull up to the curb to park they will open your door for you and want a tip. When you go into a mosque they expect a tip for taking your shoes for you. Tipping is called “baksheesh” in Arabic. Usually a few piasters will do, and it’s really not very much money. Fifty piasters or a pound is not more then a few cents. It’s easy to see how much these people need the money, and it’s easy to be generous but it can get annoying. Maybe it’s my American mentality, but I started to wonder why should I give these guys money for doing something that I didn’t ask anyone to do. The simple answer is that it doesn’t matter. There are many people living in Cairo that don’t even make one hundred US dollars a month. The city is overpopulated; there simply aren’t enough jobs to go around. The City of the Dead The City of the Dead is proof of the problem that faces Cairo. There are five cemeteries that sprawl over southeast Cairo. Following the Cairene tradition of mourning the dead for forty days many people built small enclosures above the graves of their loved ones. They would stay in these small structures for those forty days and use continuously after that to show their respects. In the past decade many of the people from the countryside moved into Cairo in hopes of finding a good job. When they arrive they are confronted with the housing crisis. There aren’t enough apartments for everyone. The obvious solution was moving into the structures in the City of the Dead that are no longer in use by mourning families. These cemeteries have evolved into communities. Some of the structures now have electricity. Most of the electricity comes from the many mosques within the cemeteries; people simply tap into their power supplies illegally. The government has even provided legal power to some areas in the cemetery. Most people don’t have running water; there are wells shared by the community. Burials still occur, and since immigrants are now using most of the plots, at times some people do have their days interrupted by a body being interred into the earth below their home. Crime isn’t a problem in Cairo, the little crime that does exist in Cairo usually originates in the City of the Dead. These people are not drawn to the life of crime because of its ‘perks’, but out of necessity. Sites You Shouldn’t Miss The Citidel overlooks old Cairo. If you’ve ever seen a picture of Saltan Hassan mosque it was taken from the grounds of the Citidel. Mohamed Ali built this fortress in the 19th century. The walls of his mosque are built from the limestone casing that was originally on the pyramids at Giza. Ali was famous for his slaughter of the Malmulukes. When he took over Cairo he invited all of his political competition to a dinner at the Citidel. As his guests were leaving he had them slain. The Cairo Museum holds an enormous amount of Egyptian artifacts. There is an entire room devoted to mummies. This room is humidity and temprature controlled. It is amazing to be able to look at the face of Ramses II (I named my cat after him). The mummy of Seti I is so well preserved that you wouldn’t be too surprised if he opened his eyes and looked upon you. Of course the Tut collection is worthy to note. I can’t imagine how Carter felt when he found these amazing artifacts. Khan-a-Khalili is a bazaar that has endured centuries of tourists and Cairenes. A lot of people have told me they wouldn’t wander too far in the bazaar because they were afraid to get lost. Well, so what if you get lost! Wander around and try to get a good deal on some things to take home to your mom. I bought a lot of small statues that were shaped as cats or beetles. They are really inexpencive and it’s exactly the type of thing your mom expects to get. I also purchased some silver jewelry and a couple glass perfume bottles. I bought one ring for around 30 US dollars. When I got home I had a jeweler appraise it at 150 US dollars. This is typical of the deals you will get if you know how to bargin. Speaking of bargining… first of all, don’t do it unless you are really interested in buying the item. It’s very insulting to the shop keeper if you refuse to buy after you have the price you want. So, once you have your heart set on something try to figure out how much you would pay for it. Ask the seller how much he is selling the item for. You do this to get the ball in his court (this way you don’t make a fool of yourself by offering too much). Remember that he is going to start out high, so you start out low. If you think that a chess board is worth 30 bucks and he says it’s 75, smile (chuckle if you want), and point out some flaw or undesireable trait and say that you really couldn’t see paying more than 20 bucks for it. He’s going to act insulted and he will drop his price down to 60 “Because you are so beautiful, I give you for 60.” Insist on 20 one more time. He’ll come down to 50, then you can say, “Okay, you know what, I’ll pay you 30 for it. But that’s it.” If he says no, leave. Yes, leave. If he really can afford to sell it to you for 30 he will follow you out of the shop. If he doesn’t follow you out, come back in an hour or so and agree to a higher price (if you really want it). We were buying a sheesha (which is a water pipe for tobacco). While Midu and the shop keeper were talking prices the shopkeeper was putting the sheesha into a brown bag for us to take home. When Midu refused his price of 30 US dollars the shopkeeper made a big display of unpacking the pipe and yelling at Midu about how insulted he was at the offer. Midu shrugged and walked away. Five minutes later the shopkeeper was behind us on the street saying, “Okay okay, fine… 25 dollars, robbing me… such a shame”. There are tons of mosques and museums to visit, too. One cool place was the Gyer Anderson Museum. It’s right outside of Ibn Taloon mosque. It’s where one of the James Bond movies was filmed. It was restored to look like a villa would have 100 years ago. It has secret little hidey-holes and a cool court-yard. Since women were supposed to be neither seen nor heard, there are these things called mashribeas that allow the women to overlook the street. They are windows covered with this wooden screen that allowed them to look out without allowing anyone to look in. This particular villa also has some of these screens overlooking the ballroom. There are bars at every five star hotel. Have fun, but remember... drinking is looked down upon, and public displays of drunkeness is a huge no-no. The bars that we went to were full of men. I didn't see many women, and when I did they were usually American or European. Speaking of intoxication, leave your weed at home and don't buy it in Egypt. Drug use is not approved of in the Middle East, and the punishment for having it is worse then you would find here. The penalty for selling drugs can be the death. What I haven't done yet, but advize you to do Take the train down to Aswan. Check out Abu Simbel and the other temples and statues in the area. Then take a cruise up to Luxor/Thebes and stay there a day or two to check out all the stuff there. Midu didn't want to go last year because of the heat, but we are definatly doing it this May. There's a thing in Cairo (I can't remember what it's called) that is a re-creation of ancient Egypt. There are actors doing everything from fishing to building monuments. There's belly dancers at a lot of the five star hotels, but I'm told Palmyra has the best shows for the money. Sharm el-Sheik The best part of our trip was the week in Sharm. Sharm el-Sheik is a resort village on the Red Sea. It was built by Israel during their occupation of Sinai. It’s about 4 hours from Cairo by bus. First I’m going to warn you about the bus ride. Overall it’s comfortable and spacious, clean and modern. There’s even a t.v.! What I need to tell you about is the temperature and the unexpected stops. The air conditioning is on full power, the whole time. That sounds good, huh? No, it’s not good. The bus to Sharm is an overnight bus, meaning it leaves Cairo around 10pm, that way you can sleep on the way. So when the air is pumping out sub-freezing air at 1am you will be sorry. Don’t underestimate this. I was warned and I thought I was prepared. I had socks, jeans, and a long sleeved top on. I was freezing; honestly I think the temperature was about 60 degrees (and that is cold when you’re used to 95 degrees everywhere else). What else? Oh, the unexpected stops. There are two kinds of these. The first (which is also the most annoying) type of stop is smoke breaks. The driver and his little friends on that bus is feigning for a cigarette. About once every hour or two they pull over on the side of the road and announce that there’s going to be a ten minute stop. As in most of Egypt, ten minutes isn’t ten minutes… it’s forty five minutes. I was so frustrated that I wanted to cry. I kept watching the men smoke from my window seat. I asked Midu if we could complain, but he said that wouldn’t help at all. The second type of stop is the government stops. There are quite a few check points on the way through Sinai (are they checking for Israelis?). A guard comes on the bus and checks all the passports of the men. I was one of only 3 women on our bus, and they never even looked my way. Once you get to Sharm el-Sheik you will forget about the bus ride. It’s hotter than Cairo by about 15 degrees, but almost every hotel has a pool. Most of the hotels also have a slice of the beach on the Red Sea. For most of the week we stayed at Sanifir. I loved this hotel! It has white walls and brown roofs… this might seem insignificant to you, but the look of the structure embodied paradise (for me, at least!). You can walk up to the roof and sit on one of the many couches, sip on a Pina Coloda and smoke a Cleopatra Mild. We got a suite for about 70 bucks a night. We had a large bedroom, full kitchen, 2 bathrooms, living room, and a private entry. The pool was equipped with a waterfall, bridge, bar, and hidden cave. If you decide to lay out and get some sun, they have these mist machines going to keep you cool. They have a nice restaurant (which we didn’t eat at, since we had our own kitchen), and one of the most popular clubs on the strip. Midu decided he wanted to stay at Montepiliar for our last two nights. This is the most expencive resort in Sharm. It’s famous because Mubarak always wines and dines his international guests at this hotel. For twice as much money we got a smaller room, and it was way off of the beaten bath. The pool looked awesome, but it was always really busy. There were more families here, Sanifir was full of younger people. I don’t mean that Sanifir was rowdy (it wasn’t), I mean that Montepiliar had kids running around screaming. If you don’t have kids that might annoy you a little. While we weren’t relaxing we had pleanty of stuff to do. We went snorkeling, which was scary for me. I almost drowned, Midu had to save my life. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m a good swimmer, but I’m also afraid of jelly fish. There were jelly fish everywhere! I was snorkeling quite a way off shore and found myself amidst a plethora of these clear demons. I panicked, and Midu had to drag me back to shore. While all of this drama is occurring, Midu got some sort of sting on his leg. We had a doctor look at it when we got back to the resort, and his medical explanation was, “You got hit from a thing of the sea.” He didn’t tell us what it was, and I’m assuming the word “hit” was used incorrectly. I also got a henna tattoo on my back. This was cool for me, since there’s no way I’d get a ‘real’ tattoo. It lasted almost 3 weeks. Before we came back to the states I bought some henna and various other ‘stuff’ required to make the tattoo mixture, but I couldn’t get it to work for the life of me. Eventually I found a store online that sold the mixture pre-made for five bucks, so that’s where I get it from now. It’s not anywhere near as dark as the henna from Egypt, but that guy was a professional… so he knew what he was doing, where as I don’t. We took a glass bottom boat ride out into the sea. Actually we didn’t really get out of the bay, but it was good enough. We saw these huge fish called “Napoleon” fish that can weigh up to like 500 pounds. They dropped anchor so we could snorkel, I was the first to hop in. I swam out a little bit and looked to my left, and I saw one of those huge fish… so what did I do? I swam back to the boat as fast as my little feet could kick! That thing is 4 times my size!! By the way, almost all of the tourists in Sharm are Italian. Since Midu looks more Italian then Arabic everyone tried to talk to us in Italian, and they absolutely wouldn’t believe us when we told him we didn’t speak English. Even when Midu talked to the shopkeepers and hotel clerks in Arabic they thought we were Italian. Alexandria To sum it up in one word? Boring. We drove from Cairo and it took about 2 hours. If you can’t drive, you can take a bus or a taxi. If you do take a taxi, remember… set the price before you go. It’s cooler then Cairo because of the breeze from the Mediterranean. We stayed at The Palestine hotel, which was once the summer house for someone (a king or something, I forget). The hotel grounds are a beautiful park, and if you’re not staying at the hotel you have to pay to get through the gates. Like most of the hotels in Alex, it was undergoing some sort of construction. Our view was great, except they were working on the balconies next to ours. The hotel didn’t seem too busy, I would say that it wasn’t even 25% full. From what I hear, tourism in Alexandria has slowly been going down the drain as Hurgada and Sharm el-Sheik have established themselves as resort hotspots. While we were in Alex we relaxed a lot. There’s not much else to do. We took a felucca out to a small fishing island. I liked being on the island, there was even a small archeological site which really piqued my interest. The seafood in Alexandria is exquisite. There are some very nice open air restaurants that serve fresh fish. This is a “must do” if you go to Alexandria. The only other thing we did was lay out in the sun and splash around in the bay a little. After 3 days we were ready to go back to Cairo. Before we went home Midu’s family threw a going away party for us. Midu missed it because he was stuck in traffic. By this time I was homesick and stressed out from being ill all month. I don’t even want to think what his family thought of me breaking down and crying because Midu wasn’t there. Everyone kept saying ma’lish, which means “everything will be okay”. I felt like such a dork, oh well. Homeward Bound Our luggage was overstuffed with souveniers, and one of our bags actually fell apart on the way to Italy. When we arrived at the Italian airport we found our bag wrapped in that clear packing tape. We were really surprised to find that not one thing was missing. We spent the weekend in Rome (which of course is another story in itself). The Airport The first thing you do at the airport is go through customs, so after we did that we went to check in to our flight. We were flying with Northwest as we had tons of times before (it has a hub in Detroit, so there’s always a Northwest plane going somewhere). The girl at the ticket counter was very nice to all of the passengers (including me), then Midu got up to the front of the line (he was right behind me). She asked for Midu’s passport, and when she opened it she got this look on her face. Then she said that she had to go talk to her manager. Then this guy comes over and asks Midu 20 questions about who he is and where he’s going and why he was in Italy, ect… They put all of our luggage on a cart and pulled it into a little room. Midu was also pulled into that little room, and I was told to wait outside. Okay, yeah… I was starting to get mad. What was this all about? Nobody would answer any questions, they kept saying it was ‘routine’. I lit up a cigarette in order to keep myself from throwing a tantrum. A guard came over and told me I couldn’t smoke, so… I threw a tantrum. Then he left me alone. After about half an hour five guards and Midu came out of the room. I asked them what this was about (for the 10th time), and they refused to answer again. I asked to speak to whoever was in charge and a lady came over. She said (and I am quoting), “People from some countries are checked because it is known that they are usually bad people”. I tried to teach her about racial profiling and stereotypes, but she didn’t want to hear it. To clarify, I said, “So, you searched all of our bags and my fiancée because he’s from Syria, and for no other reason?”. She smiled and said yes. Our flight was due to leave in 10 minutes so we had to get to our gate, no time to argue. We were followed through the airport, all the way to the X-ray machines. We put our bags on the machines and tried not to look embarrassed when all five of ‘our’ guards stared at the monitor while our stuff went through. Everyone was watching us. I was furious, but I kept my mouth shut. Our guards left us after we passed security. When we got to the gate we saw that they had two lines for our flight, so we both got in one (you know that trick, if one line goes faster, the person in the slow line just hops over and joins you in the fast line). The lines both went at the same pace, so we both went to board at the same time. No, it’s not that easy. We were both pulled aside (again, in front of everyone else that is boarding our plane) and our carry on luggage is taken from us. They set our bags on a table and open them. I scream “what the hell are you doing? Don’t you remember that you just searched our bags five minutes ago in that room?”. They smile and nod and continue to rummage through our stuff. Okay, I always worry about losing my luggage and being without underware, so I always keep it in my carry on. (It’s rational!). At least 50 people that were boarding our plane saw my underware. The manager woman that I talked to earlier told me, “If you weren’t traveling with him we wouldn’t do this to you”. Was that supposed to make me feel better? We finally are allowed to get on the plane. We are both pissed, literally shaking with rage. The guy sitting next to me on the plane says, “Gee, what did you guys do wrong?”. When we got home I called a couple of lawyers who said there was nothing we could do about what happened to us. I finally conceded to just write Northwest a letter. About two months later we received an apology that wasn’t really an apology and a voucher for three hundred bucks to use with Northwest. After the whole September 11 disaster I know it’s even harder for certain people to get through the airport. I support the security measures they have put in place, we all wish that they had done this earlier. I think it’s important to note, however, that there is a proper way to do such things. We were embarrassed, humiliated, and ashamed by how we were treated. I’ve heard a lot of reports since 9-11 about how guys who ‘look’ Arabic have been asked to leave the plane because other passengers are uncomfortable flying with them. There was a flight out of Detroit (with Northwest) that 3 men were asked to leave because there was a passenger onboard that was uncomfortable flying with them. One of the guys was Hispanic, one was African-American, and the other was Indian. Speaking of people not knowing the differences between other nationalities… have you heard Howard Stern and his cronies when they try and rip on Arabs? They use Indian accents! It’s so annoying. That’s like trying to make fun of Mexicans and using a Canadian accent. “It’s a-boot time we go grow that marijuana, eh?” (I don’t think that all Mexicans grow weed, that was just me trying to illustrate my point). But, ah… this is the end of my trip to Egypt. Don’t Forget… You’re going to want to bring bug spray. The mosquitoes are horrible at night, and when I was there I just could not find any bug sprays in the stores there. The weird thing is that Midu and I were the only people bothered by the bugs. Yousra (Midu’s sister) and I were out on the balcony for like 2 hours one night; I was covered in bites and she had none! Don't forget sunscreen (for obvious reasons). Bring some wet-wipes so you can wipe off pop cans before you drink. This might seem extreme to you, but if you get as sick as I did you’ll do it. Sanitation just isn’t what we’re used to. You'll need toilet paper. I can’t tell you how important this is. There will not be toilet paper anywhere you go. Sometimes they have someone standing in the bathroom handing out toilet paper, but if you need more then five squares you’re in for it. Pack an extra bag. One of those canvas gym bags will work good. That way you have something to bring all your purchases home in. We had to buy another suitcase since we didn’t think this far ahead. Ma'salema |