I was so tired last night, I don’t think I included very much information with the pictures. Allow me to elaborate. Egypt has a lot of poverty. Many of the buildings are modern day ruins. You can see new construction right next to a collapsed building. It makes you wonder if the new building will soon join the neglected and deserted building next to it. Egyptians do not borrow money to buy a home. They save their money until they can afford a basic house structure. The structure will have corner posts and floors and ceilings. It may be three stories high, but only have walls and windows on the bottom story. They will then save enough money to put walls on the second story. Then at some later day put walls and windows on the third story. Many of the corner posts have rebar sticking out of the top. It looks like they are allowing for an additional story. The truth is that they are manipulating the tax system. Unfinished buildings were not taxed. So, all buildings were incomplete. The government recently changed this and all buildings are taxed whether finished or not.
You see lots of laundry drying out the windows. Even in upper and middle class homes, you see the laundry. In some of the poorest houses, you might see beautiful tapestry rugs drying. That is just how you do the laundry. And it suggests to me that they may have nice things in houses that look very bad from the outside. Along these same lines, notice all the satellite dishes. They have lots of televisions. So, maybe they are not destitute, but making choices.
The day we arrived in Cairo, it looked like it was foggy. It was a dust storm. The dust storm deposits silt everywhere. Nearly all the houses look dirty. The dust storms make it very difficult to keep you house clean. According to our guide, this is also true for the inside of houses. The dust comes through the windows and settles on the furniture. I wondered how clean all that laundry was going to be by the time it was dry. They cannot escape the dirt.
Let’s talk about garbage. It is common to see the banks of the canals and rivers strewn with garbage. They obviously do not have a recycling program. We saw thousands of plastic and aluminum containers on the tops of houses, in the streets and along the canals. We were told that in one section of Cairo, the government made it against the law to put garbage in this one irrigation canal. The people insisted, so the government is replacing the canal with a large pipe and covering it with grass and plants. All this because the people living there refused to stop throwing their garbage in the canal. Even at the pyramids, you had to walk carefully through the plast bottles, aluminum cans, chicken bones, etc.
Let’s talk about Egyptian salesmen. The moment you get off the bus, they approach you with trinkets for sale. They might have a book of postcards or a guide book. They might have cast pyramids, stuffed animals, bowls, goblets, etc. There are also rows of guys with a tarp with more treasures. Prices are very negotiable. One item Linda wanted started at $25. Just as we were walking away, he accepted by offer of $10. If you encourage them at all, they will follow you. At the Valley of the Kings, you ride a Disney like tram to the top of the hill. They were actually hanging onto the outside of the tram trying to sell you stuff. There are people in uniform who look like they are there to control things. Actually, they are just selling their services – take your picture or advise you on how to take the best picture. We had one man with a camera who indicated he was from NCL. He took our picture on a camel. By the time we finished lunch, he had the developed picture in a nice folder and was waiting outside the hotel. It was priced $10. He accepted $5.
Let’s talk camels. We had been cautioned on the ship. A camel guy will offer a camel ride for $10. Then tell you it costs $50 to get down. Our guide yelled at the head camel guy for a while and negotiated a standard fee for all that were interested on the bus. The price was $10 per person. That included up, down and a 50 yard ride. Our guy insisted on using my camera to take our picture and then insisted this was extra. It cost me $5 each for the photo session.
There are beggars - children. There are those who just look sad. Others offer a paper that contains the hieroglyphic alphabet. You can get up to 10 for a dollar. In Mexico it is chiclets. In Egypt it is alphabet papers. It is very difficult to say no, but we were warned that if we encouraged them it would get worse.
One person told us that we did not need to worry about thieves. Stealing is not a part of their culture. However, we were also encouraged to have a second wallet. Keep small money in the second wallet and only open that wallet when making purchases. Recently an NCL passenger had opened his full wallet and it was quickly stolen. So much for the culture.
I had two odd circumstances. At the Valley of the Kings, there was a guy in a uniform offering to allow me to go into an roped off area to take a picture. He was actually somewhat insistent that I go there and take the picture. I didn’t do it. He just seemed too insistent. He may have wanted to charge me for this service. I was concerned that once I got there, he was going to tell me I shouldn’t be there. It is difficult when you don’t speak the language. The second situation occurred at night in the Luxor Temple. A guy was sitting in one of a few chairs spread around the Temple. Usually, the chairs were occupied by someone who had an official reason: No pictures or no touching. This guy suggested I take a picture of a carving in a rock. Our guide had pointed out this particular carving, so I took the picture. Then the guy motioned me down a passage between a wall and a row of columns. It was very dark and I didn’t think it was a good place for picture taking. When I turned around another guy was sitting in the chair.
The Egyptian people were friendly. School children waived and enjoyed speaking an English greeting. Even the “salesmen” were friendly when they realized we weren’t going to buy from them. At the Pyramids, one salesman said “no way Jose”. Women on the street would smile and waive.
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