Jaundiced walls, humidity and visa-negotiation headaches greet us upon arrival.
Dwarfed into physical insignificance by my volunteer colleagues,
I find myself drawn into a social survival of the fittest
In which I am eighteen going on twelve.
We pour out into a lane-swerve culture of horn-honking.
Mosque-emitted neon green flecks flick past in light-speed.
No one mentions the beggars under sacks outside the block of flats
Where we are to spend our first night.
Morning light streams through shutter doors.
Carved African figurines stand around indifferently
As I lie with a full-bladder in my sleeping bag,
In fear of rising to the unknown.
Upon waking, in stark contrast, the intrepid explorers Andrew and Ben
Launch into action, venture out onto the balcony and face the day,
Whereupon I follow in their wake and inflict a three's a crowd dynamic.
A high-rise school roof football game translates into dread
At the thought of my impending teaching sentence.
Everyone's keen to meet the streets except me,
Who would rather remain, at least internally,
In the cotton wool-wrapped-comfort of
Watching Richard Gere in Sommersby,
Which is now playing on the telly.
"[L]ater we go to see the pyramids. The first thing you notice is the city comes right up to the edge of the desert. (You never see that in postcards of the pyramids and the Sphinx.) The sun is completely out of order – It is so exposed here. About 10 old men approach us for camel rides, about 10 people ask to see our tickets to tell us things we already know so that they give the ticket back for 'backsheesh' [...] [ A]bout 10 little boys (they choose the ones that look sweet) try to sell postcards [and] I eventually oblige. They are all dressed in scatty clothes – Is this for effect and sympathy or genuine signs of their poverty? We go inside one of [the] smaller pyramids and see the Sphinx. Where would we be without our supply of Japanese tourists loaded with vid cams etc and the American ones who all buy traditional Arab head dress to pose with the Sphinx? We leave the pyramids as we are being fried. We get back to the same flat, and I have a good night's sleep until we are woken at 6 am so that we can catch the fast train to Alex (so fast that it can travel in excess of 50 mph).
Saying goodbye to Andrew is hard as he is staying in Cairo with the VSO [Voluntary Service Overseas] people. We arrive in Alexandria, meet our host, Mrs Steadman, who is English and fairly old. Five minutes later as Muhamid (the school driver) pulls away in his Lada 1200, we break down in a busy street."
1st letter home to Mum
YOU ARE READING
Bad Ambassadors
Non-FictionIn 1995, when I was eighteen years old, I began a gap year overseas. My experiences in Egypt were character-building to say the least, and I have many fond memories of attempted muggings, freight hopping, jumping off moving buses, being stranded in...
