Friday November 5, 2010, I arrived in the Cairo International Airport, in Egypt. This represents a life long accomplishment and goal. I have wanted to visit Egypt since I was a small boy. I use to watch old black and white horror movies like the Mummy and Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy. These movies and the many days I spend in the encyclopedia inspired and early dream of some day becoming an archeologist. Today, I am not an archeologist but I still maintain an interested which has actually grown and evolved into an interest in anthropology. Maybe some day I will return to the University and take some classes. Until then I remain committed to learning what I can about Egypt and people of the ancient world in general and also about the human family.
This trip makes my third trip to the African continent. I began my travel to African with Senegal and the Gambia in 1997. Later, in 2007, my father, mother and I traveled to Kenya on Safari. During this trip we also had an opportunity to cross over into Tanzania for a short period. This trip to Egypt, however, has been burning inside of me for too long and now that I am finally here I look forward to seeing all I can. During this trip I will have a change to visit Alexandria, which is located on the Mediterranean Sea. This is cool because now I can scratch/check the Mediterranean off on my list of places to see. I do plan to revisit the Mediterranean at some later point but for now this will have to do. Later in my trip to Egypt I will visit Luxor, sail the Nile, see the Aswan Damn, visit Thebes and Karnak.
Now that I am in Egypt I can begin to plan my next trip to African in 2012, when I plan on visiting South Africa. I will have gone east, west, north and south. There is so much of Africa that I wan to see but after 2012 I plan on visiting some other places like the Southern Indian Ocean for a cruise of the islands there. I still would love to see Italy and France and possible the Spanish riviera. There is also Greece and its isles and I can not forget the South Pacific. I have a passion and love of the water and warm weather so its kinda my dream to visit as many of the worlds best beaches. I am making that my life's goal.
I have kinda gotten off track here. I originally wanted to talk about Egypt as this is my first day and to give my impression so far. Ok so my first impression while at the airport was "this is not America" but I could not quite put my finger on why. Of course the people appeared a little different and they spoke a different language, Arabic. But beyond that, there was something else. I kinda felt that, although very clean and and maintained, the airport was very much like the international airport in Sau Poalo, Brazil. There was this same second world feel about it. The people seemed nice enough. The woman walked around wearing burkas and the men dressed as men do anywhere else. There where woman operating machines and performing other jobs around the airport. There where men and woman waiting for arrivals all seemed fine. As we left the terminal, which I later found was relatively new, 2009, we transitioned to out transportation. The bus was a compfortable shuttle bus which took us to hour hotel which was roughly 1 hour from the airport. We met our guide during this period and her name is Ms. Shamia. A beautiful Muslim woman, who reminds me of someone at home. Her face I've seen before. That's the anthropologist in me. The structure of her mouth and eyes I have seen before in the African American community I grew up in.
As we road through Cairo to our hotel I could not help but notice what was REALLY a shock to me. The city of Cairo is very dirty. And not that "its so sad you are a poor country and that's why your streets are dirty" look. It was more like, "you ought to be a damn shame your shit is trifling" look. I am usually not one to judge and even apply my American values to places I visit, but this was warranted. Out guide talked about the extreme wealth in Ciaro and about the extreme poverty too. She spoke in terms of "high/upper class" and "lower class". In a nation that boast so much wealth how are its people living in poverty. An what make it so easy to sea is because there is no real middle class to kind of hind it from you. It is safe to say there is no real middle class in Cairo. I understand that a small middle class may exist in other cities by that remains to be seen.
