Greetings from London. I have left Egypt, but have not yet returned to the US. I left Egypt the morning of August 2. My flight was scheduled to go from Cairo to London, and then from London to Seattle. My thoughts were if I needed to wait at Heathrow airport in London for a couple hours to catch my flight to Seattle, could this time be extended to about 2 weeks? I asked about this and fortunately for me the travel agent was able to get me a flight to London on August 2, and a flight to Seattle on August 11. So now I am enjoying a short vacation in England and France before returning to the US.

Soon after my last letter in June, I traveled to Upper Egypt (south Egypt) for a short vacation. There are many Pharonic monuments there, and I wanted to see the cities and meet the people there. Later June is not a very common time to travel to the south, since temperatures can be 110 to 120 there, but I traveled with my friend Juan, who was a volunteer French teacher, so he had to wait until school was finished. In some ways this was good, since crowds would be lighter.

The monuments were very impressive. There were Pharonic tombs, and temples, and museums. It was interesting, but not what I was really interested in. For me the travel was better than the tourist sites. The first example was the train trip to Aswan, the furthest south major city in Egypt. We took the train to get there. In Egypt foreigners are supposed to take special trains. These trains are filled with foreigners and police. These rules a left over from the past where there were a few isolated attacks on foreigners about 10 years ago. Now foreigners are not prevented from riding on the normal trains, although I have found it impossible to buy a ticket to Upper Egypt from the ticket office in Cairo. To get around this problem we had an Egyptian buy us three tickets (one for me, Juan, and Ben – the grandson of Carole, the Egypt volunteer coordinator). The train was a 12.5 hour overnight train that cost us about $7.50 each. We sat in a group of four seats, where since it was a full train, a Nubian man from Aswan had the other seat. Like most Egyptians, he was friendly, and we started talking together. A police officer was making the rounds in the train, and saw this, then started questioning the man. Unaware that we can understand a little Arabic, the office asked the man who we were, and why he was traveling with foreigners. The Nubian man tried to tell the officer that he did not know us, and that he was only sitting in the seat assigned to him. This was not effective, so he was taken away for questioning. Fortunately he was allowed to return about 2 hours later.

This may bring to mind a couple questions. First, I will explain what a Nubian is. Nubia is a name for the area that covers the south part of Egypt and North part of present day Sudan. The Nubian people are black and have their own distinct cultural tradition that is different from the rest of Egypt. There are still many of them in the very for south of Egypt. The next thing I will explain is the idea about the police. Egypt is a police state. There are armed police everywhere. It is difficult to go a few blocks without seeing police. They are in every town and village. They ride the trains, and have checkpoints every 50-100 km on the Egypt’s highways. They are very concerned with protecting foreigners. It is safer to be an American in the cities of Egypt than in the cities of the US. Unfortunately, the police are still over-protective of foreigners, and focus so much on this that sometimes innocent Egyptians are harassed as a result. This was the case on the train, when an innocent Egyptian school teacher, returning to Aswan for the summer to see his family, was detained for two hours on the train.

My last month was marked by illness. I had a throat infection that turned into pneumonia. This lasted the first two weeks of July. I then had a week and a half of recovery before I ended up in the hospital with another problem. Fortunately now my health is good, but I have lost a lot of weight. There is not much to write about for the time I was sick, but there are a couple observations I would like to pass on. Many women were working in the hospital, especially as nurses. Egypt is a place where there is very little physical contact between men and women, except for a possible quick handshake. When inside the hospital, this is totally different. The women working in the hospital were doing the same type of work as their counterparts would do in the US. Nurses were in contact with their patients and did not leave the room during ultrasounds or x-rays where shirts may need to be removed. The hospital I was in was a private hospital, so its patients are mostly from the upper middle and upper classes and therefore the social rules may be more closely followed at a public hospital. The nurses were both Christian and Muslim.

It was difficult to leave. I have many close Egyptian friends. When I was not sick, I spent most of the last month saying goodbye. Other than trying to meet with everyone I could, saying goodbye in Egypt was not much different then meeting. It usually consisted of smiles and a handshake. My hospital stay prevented me from being able to say goodbye in person for some people, and it consisted instead of either cell phone text messages, or short phone calls. I miss Egypt, and it is strange for me not to be there. I am even considering returning to Egypt next year, although I probably won’t.

On August 11, I will return to Kent (Seattle) for the first time since August 19, 2003. I look forward to seeing my friends, family, and church. August will be a busy month, since I will need to renew my drivers license, renew insurance, and get situated in my new living situation moving back in with my family. I plan to travel to Japan for two weeks in September, and then take a road trip across the US in October. I have decided that I need to see more of the US, since I have never been outside of the west coast, except for Chicago. I want this trip to be one where I meet with and visit people, so my route will depend on who wants me to stop by. If you want me to stop by during this trip, please send me an email. It is also a goodbye for my pickup truck, since I will sell it at the end of this year. What a year in Egypt has taught me is that despite good friends, and people who are like family to me, Egypt does not feel like home. This is also true for the US. I am hoping to be out of the country soon after the New Year. This means August will also be busy with me looking for a job. My experience this past week in Europe has been good, so I am considering Europe, as well as Asia, Africa, and of course the Middle East.

This will be my last letter from Egypt. If you would like me to keep up with you, please send me an email. I hope that your impressions of Egypt, like mine, have changed over the year. In summary Egypt is a place where people have great love for each other, both for family and for the visitor. They want a brighter future for their children, and have great hospitality. There are also problems to overcome as well such as, women’s rights and harassment, religious issues and social expression, and poverty. I believe that there has been improvement in these issues, but sometimes the progress is slow. Egypt is a very dynamic and changing place, so it is difficult to say Egyptians believe this or this, especially since opinions different from one person to the next. If you visit Egypt, your experience may be positive or negative, but you will certainly be safe. I hope to see some of you on my road trip this October. Thank you for all the support and encouragement you have given me this year.

Peace,

Rob