Oh the Places We’ve Been–Memories of EGYPT

Fourteen years ago this month Papi and I were privileged to travel in Egypt for a few days after a tour in Israel. We were very interested in making this trip because Papi loves Ancient History and we had some acquaintances that were from Egypt.

One of my most favorite doctors is from Egypt and he took care of my mother for a few years while she was in a nursing home. Dr. Famy never wanted anyone else to take call for his patients and was available 24/7 for their needs. It was too much for him and so he is now teaching, but what a wonderful compassionate man he is.

The other acquaintance was with a family who had two children i n the Day Care Ministry where I was director. Two, more beautiful children, I have NEVER seen. Susie and Tamer were in elementary school and I can still remember Susie’s sweet voice singing in a musical we presented. Her parents told me they had no idea she could sing like that.

Well, on to the memories of Egypt. We’ll never forget the SPEEDY trip our convoy made across the Sinai Dessert from the Israeli/Egyptian Border to Cairo. There were several tour buses along with an armed guard vehicle in the front and one in the back. We also had an armed guard riding in the back of our bus. The buses stopped for nothing and all traffic pulled to the side of the road to allow the convoy access. The drivers kept changing the position of their bus in the group of buses, we never did figure out why.

Of course, it was exciting to cross the Suez Canal on a barge, but I cannot recommend the bathroom on the western side.

In fact, I’m not sure if this is the Ladies’ Room or the Men’s Room.

Oops, guess it was the men’s. You see our line was VERY slow and the bus drivers began honking their horns to leave and with several of us still in line, well, we made use of the empty Men’s Room. It didn’t make much difference, they both were horrible.

The traffic in Cairo was UNREAL. Even though they did have traffic lights, no one paid attention to them. You just honked your horn and the most daring, biggest, loudest driver had the right-away. Since we were in a bus that was usually our vehicle. Actually, our bus sideswiped a car and knocked off a mirror, but no one stopped, we all just kept going. Of course the tourists who were seated close to the impact certainly had a big surprise. Everyone shared the same road including the donkey cart and Mercedes.

My heart broke to see the children living in such poverty.

Everything. everywhere, seemed so dirty due to the sand. We even were in a sand storm one day.

I’ll close for now but will share more memories and photos of Egypt in a future post. Thank you for traveling this memory road with me.