fleeing to Egypt

These past few months my life has felt like one big survivor reality show. But finally my time was up and my fire was put out. It was time to move on. The vote hadn’t come from the rest of the contestants; instead the producers stepped in had had me removed from the show. I wasn’t done yet, I didn’t feel like my life in reality tv had come to a close. So, I called my agent (God) and found a place on another tv show called, the Amazing race.

When I got laid off, my boss and I talked about my next plans and she said she would get me to the bus or airport when it was time to leave. After all, I had gone WAY beyond the realm of kindness and call of duty in both picking up and dropping other people off these past few months. I even told her I would go to Jerusalem by bus on Wednesday night and spend the night there so that I could catch the Egyptian bus easily. She told me nonsense and that she would take me herself there or find me a driver on Thursday morning.

But when I called her the night before at 9pm to remind her that my bus was leaving the next morning from Jerusalem, she had no memory of any such promise and I was left on my own to figure out a way to get there. It was far too late to go to Jerusalem that night and I was going to have to find a way in the morning to get there.
On average it takes 3 hours to get from Nablus to Jerusalem. There have been times that I have done it in 2.5 hours and then other times where it has taken 4 or 5 hours. Even thought it is less than 60 miles away, the checkpoints, and road blocks add too many variables to play with.

In Nablus the Palestinian Soldiers go home between 12 am to 6 am because it is what I call, Israeli Time. Meaning, that those are the hours that the Israeli soldiers in their armored cars patrol the streets. You don’t want to be out on the streets during that time. So sharply at 6am I was in a shared taxi on my way to the bus station. There we had to wait a bit for a service (bus) to arrive. The first checkpoint was not a problem at all. We got through relatively easily. The next one at Zatair Circle was a monstrosity. We sat there for at least 30 minutes not moving at all when the lady who was sitting in the front seat turned to me in perfect English and asked which nationality my passport was for. When I told her American she asked for it and told the driver to switch into the Israeli only line, which was empty. We drove up there and she showed the guard my passport and her UN id and he miraculously let us through. At that point I begged the driver to take us to Kolandia the checkpoint that separates Ramallah from Jerusalem instead of taking the back way directly into Ramallah. Several other people on the bus were trying to get there too so he lamented. I got through Kolandia faster than I have ever before. And it was only 8am. Now I needed to jump in a city bus, battle J town’s morning traffic and get to the bus stop all in 30 minutes. It was not looking good for me. But somehow we did it. When we got to the arab station I jumped out ran to the taxi stand got a taxi the rest of the way and got on the bus just in the nick of time.

As I sat down I realized that there seemed to be a “tour group” on the bus. I asked one of them what group they were with, and she told me they were missionaries traveling around the world with a group called “the great race”…. Irony at it’s finest.

They were actually really sweet people and the bus ride down to Eilot was peaceful. I slept most of the way, an anomaly in Maggie World. When we got to the Egyptian border we were lead in to the immigration room where we were suppose to pay a border tax and cross over. There was a huge confusion because the company we bought the tickets through told us it was one bus taking us all straight to Cairo and clearly the bus we were on was filling up with people and leaving. In addition we had all paid the tour company the tax for the border, which they said would be paid for us when we got there. No one there knew a thing and the 20 of us from the bus were downright confused.
The immigration manager eventually called the company for us and figured it all out. We were suppose to wait for the bus from Tel Aviv to come down and meet us. Then the people from the Egyptian side would come over and walk us through to the Egyptian bus waiting on the other side of the border.
The whole reason I had used this company and not taken local transit (which would have saved me a bit of money) was that I was coming to Egypt on a visa run. I figured that if I disguised myself with a tourist group it would take away all suspicion of what I really do, work in Palestine. The fact that I came down with a group of missionaries was more then I could have hoped for. I have to admit sitting in immigration for FOUR hours had me sweating. When I looked up to the ceiling I could see random microphones hanging down like they would in a box ring. They were obviously there to “listen in” and find people like me. Plus they had this lady there doing a “survey” who wanted to know where you spent each and every night of your stay while in Israel. How was I suppose to have accounted for my last 90 nights, ALL of which had been spent in the West Bank. I gave her an elaborate detailed (very fictional) account of my whereabouts. She sat there with us making small talk the entire time. It was an interesting act of charades trying to blend.
But in the end, after hours of sitting there, the rest of our group did show up and I stood in the middle of them and got through immigration with out a problem. Now I am just worried about getting back in.


Once we crossed over the border and I walked in to the Egyptian immigration office, I had to hold onto every bit of self control not to turn around and scream out back towards Israel, “I WORK IN PALESTINE”…..

Instead I moved on with the travel agent guides who bribed the Egyptian border guards to get us all Egyptian visas. It was a bit strange to see it happen so obviously right in front of me but it was a good introduction to how things are done here.

Since I have been here the police are constantly asking me if I want them to do things, like stop traffic so I can cross a busy street for a “tip” or at the pyramids to let me climb them for a “tip”. In a way it is amusing and in a strange way liberating because I think I could get away with anything here for a small “tip”. But then on the other hand obviously it would suck to try find justice in a place that obviously doesn’t know the meaning of it.

Back to the new bus….. At this point but the time they bribed a visa for everyone and after waiting for the other group we had spent more time on the border than actually getting to the border. After another short wait an Egyptian bus showed up that was nice but not nearly as nice as the Israeli bus. We all piled in and started off and drove 100 meters down the road to the first checkpoint where it was discovered that the one Israeli on the bus had not paid the border tax and refused to. I didn’t actually understand why or what his justification was but all I knew is that the whole bus sat there for over an hour as he argued with them about paying the 15$ US. That was the point that I started to loose it. 11 hours into the trip and we had only gone 5 hours worth of driving. Eventually he gave in when he realized the rest of the people on the bus were going to turn on him and might physically remove him our selves.
Around 7 pm we were finally on our way up through the mountains of the Sinai. Even by moon light they are intense and barren. We went hundreds of meters worth of switchbacks up and up and up the mountains. There was no vegetation at all. And it looked like one huge rock.
A dear friend Marybeth had made a comment the week before that I was fleeing the holy land to Egypt just like the holy family did 2,000 years ago. As we were winding our way up the mountain I reflected not only on the Holy Families trip but also on Moses’ trip with the Israelites as they were fleeing the Egyptians and parting the red sea which reminded me of my friend Gabriel’s trip. Gabriel is my South Sudanese friend who escaped Egypt and ran to Israel seeking asylum ( go to www.4asylum.com) for his story. Eventually we reached the plateau and stopped several times for dinner in this little desert shack. I thought it was tasty but the missionaries on the bus were freaked out by the lack of cleanliness and bathrooms. What do you expect from mud brick huts?
One of the missionaries lent me her pillow and I was able to get a few hours a sleep as we continued to cross the desert. I assume that at some point we went down, I don’t know. I missed it and woke up as we went through a tunnel under the Suez canal.
Indisputably I was finally in AFRICA!!!!!
I called Lacey, a co-worker from summer camp in Palestine who now lives in Alexandria. She was going to meet me in Cairo and take care of me for the week. My first glimpse and impressions of Cairo was overwhelming. I don’t know why I didn’t realize how huge it was. I had never felt so intimidated by a city before. Maybe it was the exhaustion and lack of sleep or maybe it was the fact that we were pulling in at 1;30am. Either way I was too tired to process it at all and was beyond thrilled that Lacey was going to meet me there. Along the way before I got off the bus, one of the guys on the bus who was not with the missionaries mentioned that he also had lived in Nablus as a teacher a few years before. Since there are less than a dozen teachers in Nablus at any one time, it is a small group of people and the chance of meeting one was highly unlikely. We became instant friends and he decided to hand out with Lacey and I for the next few days.

Lacey met us at the Sheraton Hotel with a couple of her friends who very kindly drove us to the hotel where Lacey had already checked in. I immediately fell into a coma like sleep for 8 hours and only woke up because I was starving and my skin was itching it was so dirty. After a quick shower we headed off to a restaurant that Lacey knew where we met her other international co-workers, Sarah and Kirsty where were also in Cairo for the weekend. The menu had pages and pages of international options and I couldn’t make up my mind, I was so overwhelmed. It reminded me so much of way back when I was in China and would come home for holidays and not be able to make up my mind in restaurants or stores. When the food finally came, it has a huge platter. Someone made a comment about the American portions there… really? That is what we are served? Have I been away that long that this dish could feed 3?
From there we headed over to the world famous Egyptian Museum. One of the girls kept calling it the “British museum” And I had to laugh since really that is where the other half of the museum is.
I personally have been to a LOT of museums in my day but NEVER to one like this. It is HUGE and there are antiquities EVERYWHERE…. You could trip over them they are so jammed in there. Plus they aren’t behind anything and you can touch them!! Well, I don’t think you are suppose to touch them; but there isn’t anyone stopping you and you actually can’t help yourself. At this point. I was still tired from the bus trip and from the past month of Palestine in addition to just in awe of the place. I walked around for hours in a daze. The human mummy room and the animal mummy room were fascinating but gross. I would love to go back and send years exploring that place but never do I need to go back into either of those rooms.
All the history classes I took in college came flooding back. Someday, many somedays I will go back there and spend time really really looking around with a guide book and more focus. The whole time I was there I kept think about the movie, a night in the museum and how they really should have made it about this one. You can’t help but have your imagination run wild there. I also thought that this is the one place every 10 year old should go; or at least a 10 year old with an imagination and any sense of history or culture at all.
There was one other thing that really threw me off, so much so that I actually at one point had to find a bench to sit down and deal with it. I was really thrown off by what the other tourist were wearing. At first I thought it was because I had just come from Palestine where ALL the women (okay, you can find one here or there) wear full head veils and big coats all year round. But these women were wearing clothes appropriate for a beach or pool ONLY. I assumed they were Eastern European, but many of them were American and British. Didn’t they read the guidebooks or didn’t their tour tell them that shorts of any length are inappropriate much less ones where their butt checks are hanging out? Or that they should wear a bra with that itty-bitty tank top? I was uncomfortable and the people I was with were uncomfortable. It really was too much and kinda ruined my museum experience.
We left there and went to Konokolili where the famous bazaars and mosques are. They were everything you imagine. We stopped at the oldest coffee/ tea house for a drink and were just enraptured by everything going on around us. After wondering the bazaar, (I only took pictures, I couldn’t imagine buying another thing) we headed off to the Nile river for a “cruise”.