Impressions of Egypt

I had mentioned in my first blog entry that I would take you back to my first impressions. Well, here is a list of things that I have seen from my time here thus far that I have found to be interesting, head shaking, or at times, downright mind blowing.

Women veiled from head to toe in black, and I mean they are covered even with gloves and the only thing you see are slits in their head covering. Imagine this in 100 degree weather. There are also women who wear headscarves with skin tight clothing below their neck.

Dingy brown buildings everywhere from years of pollution. (Once) magnificent villas in crumbling disrepair that tells of a very different era. There is one that sits right across from our living room window.

People walking on the side or median of freeways with cars flying beside them. The really freaky thing is that these people will sometimes cross the freeway. Also, people walking in the middle of the desert where no life seems to exist. What I’d like to know is how do they get to their destination before passing out from heat and exhaustion.

Pedestrians never using sidewalks. Most people just walk on the street right beside the moving cars. I have since realized why. The sidewalks are in really bad shape. The pavement is uneven, often cracked and torn up from neglect. They are also so high off the ground, at least a foot off the street. It makes you wonder why they even bother putting in sidewalks.

Donkey carts and herds of sheep and other animals on the streets in residential as well as business areas. I always wonder where these animals are kept at night. Most people live in apartments, so where do the animals go? The outskirts of the city consists of the barren desert, so they can’t possibly live out there.

Potholes the size of craters and speed bumps the size of small hills. You truly have to be alert when driving or your tires can get mangled in no time. And you could be four wheeling when you least expect it.

Policemen and military personnel with machine guns everywhere you look in the streets. Quite alarming when I first arrived. Now they are just part of the landscape. There are also security guards who are often napping in front of apartment buildings. And traffic police posted on street corners who do nothing but eat their bread and beans.

Narrow residential streets with cars parked on both sides of the street. And when you find a wider street, there will be cars double or triple parked. So you are often driving in streets that are just wide enough for your car to pass (although we frequently have to turn our side mirrors in so they do not get damaged).

This is certainly not an exhaustive list of what used to be unfamiliar sights to us. It’s an adventure to go outside our apartment everyday. Everything that we experience here has given new meaning to how differently we live in the world.