By John Macfarlane
It was the fourth time Culham students had visited Egypt. This time there were twelve students, an assorted collection of the weird and wonderful taken from years four to six. They had been learning Arabic for at least a year in after school classes and had been avid watchers of the news as the revolution unfolded.
Would it be safe to visit Tahrir; or even Egypt? Yes …. No …. Yes … Mmmmmm We’ll see. The risk assessment needed its own risk assessment, but eventually we were off, winging it to the land of defaced Pharoahs. We arrived at the same time as an unseasonal heat wave and made our way immediately to the central bazaar area of Khan El-Khalili.
This was not the success it had been for previous students. This lot complained that everyone was trying to sell them things! OK. It was not Oxford Highstreet, but it was much more fun. Surely? We drank mint tea and sipped fresh lemon juice to mull over extortionate sums certain individuals had paid for tourist tack.
And slowly we started to relax and realise we were in a different place .
Next we piled back into the minibus and picked our way through the traffic to our guesthouse in the countryside. The Blue Lotus offered us tranquillity, comparative comfort (comparative, that is, to what was coming) and excellent food. It was our home for a week as we explored, first the green green fields of rural Egypt and then the mad mad world of cairene chaos.
Our activities were so numerous and so off-beat that it is impossible to do them justice here. Indeed, looking back, it was something of an ‘Alice in Wonderland’ experience.
We saw waterwheels raising water, farmers sharing endless teas, joined in playing chess and dominoes in a local coffee shop, got harassed by mosquitoes, got put on camels against our will, we heard first hand of the battles of Tahrir Square (and, yes, we had a guided tour as we discussed politics and revolution), we drifted on a boat in the Nile dancing by night, met a local artist and learnt some Arabic calligraphy, visited the Turkish Baths (now that was an experience…), went on a long camel ride, tried to get a some quad bikes to work, joined a street party dancing as if there was no tomorrow, saw some pyramids (boring!) and enjoyed the tranquillity of the inside of Hussein mosque. We also visited a massive rock-hewn church, and wandered through the backstreets belonging to the rubbish-collectors of Cairo, a local family cooked a magnificent meal for us before getting us on our feet to dance (yes, Egyptians love dancing!), we took taxis, got lost in taxis and… and.. so it went on. We even found time to have ten hours of Arabic tuition at a local institute.
And that was just Cairo. On day 8 we went four hundred kilometres into the desert and stayed at the oasis town of Bawiti. There life slowed. The hole in the ground became the major talking point as the students sorted out which bit of the floor they were going to sleep on. We were staying at Sabah’s. She was the guide who had been with us in Cairo and now we were able to see the reality of her daily life and that of her family.
In Bawiti we were able to refresh ourselves at the hot springs; we wandered amongst the palm groves; and checked out the sleepy dusty outback town centre. Internet was difficult to come by and our regular facebook updates faded. We helped cook and keep house, doing the washing up in the open air. Our students went for a day with some local friends to climb a mountain; we also went sandboarding and had a lot of fun rolling down sanddunes.
One last step to Farafra, a further two hundred kilometers along the raod. On the way we spend a night in the White desert, powering through the sands in a 4X4 amongst unearthly chalk shapes populating a moonlike landscape. We had a camp fire, told stories, watched a persistent desert fox and then slept under a brilliant night sky.
It was now all over. Or so we thought. In Farafra we had another delicious meal and visited the local folk museum. Then we stumbled across the local school and some were invited in to see a class in action. Even in the oases of Egypt they use the same chemical symbols and equations as we do! The lesson was full of interaction and activity with the girls participating as much as the boys.
Now for home? Visions of hot showers and KFC were beginning to resurface. But Egypt had one last surprise for us. On the way back to Bawiti, the skies grew dark, the lightning lit up the skies in all directions and then, without warning, we were attacked by the mother of all sand storms. We had to sit it out besides the road as the car was buffeted and the wheels started disappearing under the accumulating sand. And then the rains. Big drops at first and then torrential. So we were able to see the tarmac, glistening and freshly washed as we drove back into Bawiti.
The next evening we were in Amsterdam and it was all over.
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