Everyday Egypt

The strong smell of cigarette smokes is the first thing that I notice when I enter the Air Egypt flight from Dubai to Cairo. Considering how stereotypical we can be, my first thought was this is some 3^rd world arab airline…. I would be surprised if they even have inflight entertainment.. maybe they have one TV for the whole airplane and maybe the flight attendants are all male or women in burkhas…. I know this is cliché, but I admit I actually thought that. So I was pleasantly surprised when the flight had a good in flight entertainment system better than Air Austria, Lufthansa, even Air France…The food wasn’t great but then vegetarian fare in non-Indian flights is anyway pathetic. The flight attendants had a modern uniform – comparable to any western airline and the service was great. Then when I land in Cairo – the ubiquitous cigarette smell welcomes me. There is a representative from my client who is waiting for me to expedite my passage through immigration. I actually thought he was going to slip in money in my passport or something… at least in India I have had a couple of instances of this when I tried to renew my passport etc…. slip a 500 rupee note and the hawaldar says everything will be taken care of. But nope, no secret handshake or note exchange – maybe it happened before I arrived or maybe it is like a monthly hafta. That is one notion that I am not ready to let go of – misery loves company and if Egypt is not as corrupt as India is, then Indians have a lot to worry about. This is the only one airport I have seen in my well travelled life where smoking is not prohibited.. people light up on will. I collect my baggage and the meet and greet guy leads me outside to the car. 

It seems so much like getting out of the airport in Hyderabad  - the lay of the land, the climate.. of the airports in India that I have seen, Hyderabad is the closest that I can compare to Cairo. Then on the ride to the hotel, the roads suddenly widen up and I get the feeling of being on the roads in Gurgaon…wide well lit roads with really fast and reckless drivers…. Something tells me that I am going to feel very much at home in the land of pyramids.

I am accompanied on this trip by two Americans, both from Houston, Texas. The male, lets call him Jim, confesses during the lunch break that sitting in the front seat of the car alongside the driver gave him the jeebies…. So I volunteered, don’t know what the fuss was all about, people being reckless, overtaking from the wrong side, potholes, honking, accidents along the roadside.. hey this was home base for me.

On the way to office, we would pass though areas of massive construction – buildings upon buildings, hundreds if not thousands of them – all unfinished and all empty. Given that Egypt is basically a desert, the whole underconstruction scene gives the place a pretty dreary and desolate look. Apparently due to the economy not doing too great, courtesy the recent revolution, money is tight. The apartments are quite expensive – say 300 to 500 K EGP (an Egyptian Pound is actually 9 times stronger than the Rupee – didn’t know that before I came here). 

When you go downtown, it is hard to differentiate the landscape from what you would see in any metro in India… the scene is replete with trash on the roads, clothes hanging off balconies, animals on the roads, huge sewers and even the occasional black and yellow autorickshaw. The vehicles on the roads - at least a lot of the cars are the same. I saw a Maruti 800, many Omnis, all variants of Hyundai from Santro to Verna to i30, lots of Camrys and Corollas, hundreds of Chevys... in fact the only brands I didn't see were Tata and Mahindra. The trucks were all Mercedes and Chevy, though they were pretty much in the same run down state that most of our Tata and Leyland trucks at home are. You can see people riding on the flatbed of autos, trailers and everything in between. This is also the first place outside India where I have seen people on Mobikes without helmets.

The people are warm, I feel safer with a driver here than I would with a driver in Delhi, but that is most probably a misplaced sense of security as our client sponsors the vehicle or the 5 star hotel at which I am staying sends it's drivers. I am sure such drivers in India would also be safe and dependable. It's the ones in the flag down taxis which you may want to think twice about.

This is my first visit to a middle eastern / Arabic / African country.. though Egypt feels more middle eastern than African. I haven't even been to Dubai and for a Malayalee that is indeed a great shame. But nevertheless, the one thing I was totally unprepared for are the ladies. I have never seen more beautiful women in my life. They are covered head to toe, but not in a penguin sort of way that most Muslims do (and I do mean to offend religious sensibilities here), but very tastefully. I have thus far met only one woman who doesn't cover her head with a hijab. The hijab always matches the dress that they wear - something like the duppatta in Indian lifestyle. All women are always in full sleeved clothes - shirts, t-shirts, tops, suits and anything else that would constitute upper torso clothing. They always have full skirts or pants covering their lower torso. So technically they are covering their whole body and are modestly dressed, but my oh my - are they stylish (and not in an Armani or Gucci kind of way, but just that they have so much grace and poise) and gorgeous or what. I wouldn't mind marrying 5 of them myself (this time I mean no offense to any one). They are extremely well educated, well spoken, profession and confident. Hope the whole Muslim world takes their example and brings women upto their standards.

                      All in all… being in Egypt is not all that different from being at home – even the language is not a challenge.. in a country like India where we pride ourselves on the hundreds of languages that we can speak.. Arabic is just one among them to me…