Nafha M. Ebrahimi
2 August 2009
column
Excessive passion for anything material, I consider a weakness, and I have one such weakness called Egypt that I passionately love! However, Egypt has a small weakness of a different kind called the transit area of Cairo International Airport!
After a dreaded early morning flight from Entebbe to Cairo, it is a race against time to make the few hours of transit worth the while before flying to the next destination, a bit of rest needed before rubbing shoulders with the millions of Egyptians living in Cairo.
Although the newly built airport is beautiful, transit passengers who are staying for long hours and need a hotel voucher/visa, still have to go through one of the most horrible waits filled with: "wait we are processing your papers", a statement that makes most passengers promise never to come back!
I tried to reason with one of the officers about this but for every sentence I uttered there was some kind of an excuse. So, after all these years and at the entry point of a country that depends heavily on tourism, I wonder why the descendants of the great Pharaohs who built the pyramids cannot find a smooth system for transit passengers.
But the moment I stepped outside the airport, all was put behind me for the Egyptians are very warm, kind and generous people. Although they speak several languages, if one happens to know Arabic it helps in getting a better perspective of things. Most people in Cairo are educated but jobs are very hard to find and some resort to driving taxis as a means of earning their daily bread. In general, Egyptians are well-informed people and if you happen to get a talkative taxi driver you are in for a lot of updates and interesting stories.
So, on my short ride in one of these taxis while the driver was bravely negotiating the heavy Cairo traffic, we had an interesting chat about the day-to-day life and the latest happenings on the shores of River Nile.
But then the most interesting part about Egyptians is that even when they are bitterly complaining about something, the sense of humour is always present, mixed with sarcasm. An illustration of this fact came out in the reply I got from a taxi driver when I asked how they were dealing with the latest credit crisis in the world.
He replied with a smile: "What latest crisis Madame? We the ordinary people are perpetually living in credit crisis, so for some of us on the streets its business as usual." I smiled at his response while leaving the taxi, indeed he managed to bring the smile back to my face.
Blocking out the transit area at Cairo International Airport, Egypt will remain one of my favourite destinations.
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