COMMENTARY:

In Egypt, the Message is "Yes to Americans, No to America"

No one can seem to believe I would willingly bring up a subject as distasteful as world politics. But I persist.

Entering my hotel I’m greeted by an airport-style metal detector. Unprepared for security of this kind, my assorted gadgetry sets the machine buzzing. I stop, nervous, rigid, prepared for a tedious defense of my disregard for procedure, but the armed sentry simply waves me on. A few steps toward reception, I turn back in mild disbelief, feeling as if I’m about to be tackled from behind, but then I hear the buzzer again as another tourist passes through, then again, and again. No one, it seems, escapes without a buzz confirming: Yes, they’ve got metal! And no one gets stopped—not guests, guards, janitors, or clerks. No one during my stay had ever to explain the metal they wielded, and no doubt you’re wondering, “Then what’s the use?” Well, I’m with you on that.

photo by Tyson Koska

Then he thrusts a packet of 1971 postcards into my hand and three miniature metallic pyramids. Obviously, I am delighted and confused by his generosity to which he responds by pulling out a traditional scarf and wrapping it around my head. I realize the situation is getting out of control, so I try to hand back a few items. The gentleman is aghast at my attempt to decline his good will, mentioning, however, that he’d be happy to receive a small (cash) token in return. I ask him how much, but he’s shocked at my indelicacy. So opening my wallet I explain I have only 50-pound notes—he happily snatches one, and while I attempt to do some currency math in my head, he disappears. Apparently, I slowly realize, I’ve just been taken.

But I’m not bothered. Fifty Egyptian Pounds (L.E.) is about $8.50, and though I got only $2 or so of touristy “souvenirs” (which I quickly stuff in my bag) I figure it could have been worse. I shrug it off and take out my camera for a few snapshots. Almost immediately a portly, jovial man dressed in a traditional galabeya and missing his front teeth rushes into the frame of my photo. It’s a good shot, I must say, and he then offers to take one of me in front of the pyramid. Before I know it, his headscarf is on my head and the picture is done—ha-ha-ha we’re laughing together—how funny I look!—we’re the best of friends—Egyptians are so warm and kind!

That was a harder 50 L.E. to part with, but had become necessary after several minutes of demands from the portly fellow. I resolve that I must get a supply of smaller bills before taking any more pictures or speaking with anyone—these folks are absolutely expert at the short con. So for the next hour I avert my eyes from all direct gazes and practice an inability to speak any known language.

Near the foot of Menkaure’s Pyramid, I am drawn to a harmless-looking teenager holding the reins of a camel. It is here that passers-by are urged to mount these smug, self-satisfied animals with wise eyes and pouty lips and to ride blindly into the desert. I’m told the price of an excursion often increases dramatically at the midpoint, so it is with apprehension I begin the conversation, though I want only a photo.

“Hi there.”

The boy nods and smiles. I hold up my camera, and he shakes his head, standing a bit straighter. After a few shots I ask, “What’s his name?” and point to the beast.

“Short name KFC,” he replies, “long name Charlie Brown.” I nod my head knowingly and consider this yet another positive sign of America’s influence. I look up to see that in the distance my tour bus is loading, so I make my excuses and get away clean.

On board, I decide to ask our guide a few questions. “So,” I say leaning over my seat, “how do Egyptians feel about Americans?”

His smile is wide and benevolent, “We’re quite fond of Americans,” he replies. “They are very good people.”

I get the sense he’s missing my real question, so I rephrase it slightly. “I mean... America,” I say.

photo by Tyson Koska

He still hasn’t gotten the thrust of my question, so I try one more time, expressing myself as clearly as possible. “I mean the American government.”

His smile freezes in place. I can see him struggle under the weight of propriety and professional courtesy. “Hmm,” he considers tight-lipped. “Well...”

I can see it he’s suffering—after all, it’s like asking an English-major vegetarian waiter to recommend veal. He’s probably thinking: Now why would you go and bring something like that up? We were having such a nice time here—learning a little about history, getting scalped by the locals. What is wrong with you?

“No, no. It’s okay,” I say, trying to console him. Relieved, he takes my comment as the end of our talk and quickly turns to stare at the desert. No matter, I think, there will be time.

On the other side of the bus kids are playing soccer among blocks chiseled and brought here 4500 years ago—they toss out candy wrappers and Coke cans into ditches alongside the road. It seems ironic to me that the pyramid builders were working for the future needs of their pharaohs, filling tombs with chariots and treasure, foodstuffs and preserved organs for use in the afterlife—but it is in this life that the monuments give back to Egypt. Tourism represents a huge portion of their economy—$2.75 billion in 2006 (although, in the same year Egypt received $1.7 billion from the U.S. alone). It’s fortunate that tourism, I muse, won’t run out the way oil will in other mid-east countries; although that’s not even a sure thing. In 1997 when Islamic terrorists disguised as police fired from the cliffs above Hatshepsut’s Temple in Luxor, tourism took a dive from which it is only just now recovering. For the moment, however, tourists seem to feel safe, and I feel safe. Armed police swarm not only the “sights” but are present on nearly every avenue of size in Cairo. As long as those really are police, we tourists should be well protected.

After the Pyramid and Sphinx tour, I journey to Khan Al-Khalili—arguably the world's oldest bazaar and shrine to fined-tuned tourist traps everywhere. Allow me to give some advice to the first-time visitor:

• No matter how many times you’re asked, don’t stop to say where you’re from (unless you want to be caught for the next 10 minutes trying to escape),
  
  
• If a shop keeper does convince you to go in and “have a look,” upon departure from his shop you will be urged to visit his cousin’s shop—to which he will personally, hand-in-hand, escort you. His cousin will also have a cousin, as will his—this sequence will repeat until you’re insane,
  
  
• All claims to the contrary, shopkeepers have exactly the same items as the guy next door—his items are of no better (or no worse) quality than any other shop,
  
  
• Any price the shopkeeper is willing to accept is a bad price for you. The only “good deal” is one in which the money is taken reluctantly and/or angrily (and maybe not even then),
  
  
• You will not change a shopkeeper's “luck” by simply entering his shop, no matter how sincere and/or superstitious he seems to be—so don't sweat it,
  
  
• A look of dejection on a shopkeeper’s face when refusing to respond to “Where are you from?” is not real, no matter how impolite and/or embarrassed he makes you feel,
  
  
• Regardless of the number of times a shopkeeper claims he “doesn’t need the business,” his store is NOT a safe, no-pressure zone,
  
  
• Don’t accept tea, coffee, or even oxygen if offered—everything comes with an eventual price,
  
  
• Egyptians have beautiful smiles... even when they’re ripping you off.

In any case, I eventually find myself in an ornately decorated tea shop smoking a shisha (water pipe) and wishing for a beer. At the next table, three teenage Egyptian boys seem particularly interested in me, so, in keeping with local tradition, I ask, “Where are you from?”

The boys turn to each other in a moment of shocked amusement. The nearest one eventually answers, “We are Egyptian.” I decide to pursue the same unsuccessful line of questioning I began earlier with the guide, and I am met with the same confusion. No one can seem to believe I would willingly bring up a subject as distasteful as world politics. But I persist, eventually earning this response, “I think America is kindly and beautiful. It has opportunity and treats people equally—to each other.” I will come to find a similar view again and again. Egyptians see the actions of our government as frivolously inconsistent, and though they realize and seem to appreciate on some level the investment our country makes (or has made) in theirs, they know, as any one who’s visited the pyramids or Khan Al-Khalili knows, gifts come with a price.

After finishing my pipe and assenting to a shoeshine (which puts me in a state of paranoid helplessness for about 30 minutes as my shoes are whisked off to some undisclosed location—but return eventually glossy and clean), I say goodbye to the boys, thank them for the chat, and taxi-off to the Museum of Egyptian Antiquities. Suffice it to say that place is simply packed with stuff—none of which will translate well in this article, so I won’t bore you except to mention that in addition to all the statues, tombs, and impressive works of art, there’s also an ancient male condom.

Back on the street I sit rubbing my feet and watching a street cleaner lean against a trash bin as he drinks tea from a small glass cup. I can’t understand how this man got tea, in a glass cup, in the middle of the street, in the midst of sweeping it clean. But then I see a young boy run across the street with a tray of similar cups. All of this puts me in the mood for tea, and near the museum I find in a small café called Button, or Function, or Muffin or something like that. The tea turns out to be Lipton Yellow Tea (in a bag) but what’s more interesting are three girls sitting at a table in the corner. Approaching slowly I say, “Sorry, but are you American?”

They smile politely, and we make pleasant introductions. It turns out that across the street is the American University in Cairo (AUC). I ask them how they like Egypt, and they ask me the same. I mention I’ve been wandering around catching a few sights. Katie, a blonde sophomore from New York, remarks, “Yeah, you can wander Cairo for hours, isn’t it great?”

Wow, I think. Yes, that is great. If this 105-pound Poly-Sci major feels safe walking aimlessly around Cairo, it is great indeed.

They are, however, just leaving, so I don’t keep them. I finish my tea and go across to the AUC entrance. No fewer than eight guards surround the gate to the school—all of them armed with various rifles, pistols, knives, and clubs. It seems to me a good photo-op, so taking out my camera, I raise it to my eye...

Shouting! Whistling! Very aggressive pointing! I whirl around to see what’s behind me, what’s causing such commotion—but there’s nothing. Turning back to the guards, still holding my camera, ready to capture some fantastically well-timed shot, I realize they’re closing in on me. I pull the camera back to my side. They stop their advance. I look at them, shocked and submissive. They eyeball me in return.

Nervously, I start down the street, getting the message but still wanting the picture—just to spite them now. But it’s getting dark, and I understand their reasons. They don’t want recon work done on the school, and I don’t want them to shoot me.

So I make my way over to the Nile and head south. I pass the Four Seasons Hotel and see what I think is six or seven stars under the name. That seems to me an awful lot of stars, so I wander in to use the restroom; it’s magnificent, as one might expect.

Back outside it’s now fully night. I walk along the paved bank of the river watching the water. Then, out of the shadows, emerges a small wooden hull, and by the light of the six- or seven-star Four Seasons I see a woman rowing and a man laying out a thin line. Every few feet he attaches a bait or a hook or something too small for me to see. A young boy sits between them staring blankly at the passing riverbank. Rods and nets, twine and wooden boxes clutter their little skiff—canvas bags and wire traps hang from the side of their home—cars woosh and honk through downtown Cairo’s mild evening only fifteen feet above.

The next day, to make my sight-seeing more efficient, I hire a car. Stops will include the Al-Azhar Mosque, the Citadel Of Salahideen, and the City of the Dead. My guide charges by the hour ($6.50 including fuel and history lessons), and drives frustratingly slow in an obvious attempt to milk the clock—and yet his driving is a welcome relief. At the end of the day we stop in at a small mosque whose significance I don’t know. We enter though stone gates and inside, watching the kneeling faithful, I finally understand the dark depressions I’ve seen on so many Egyptian men’s foreheads—it’s the pressure of the ground made during prayer. I realize, too, that I’ve never been in a “neighborhood” mosque before, and to be honest I don’t know if non-Muslims are allowed, or what, if any, particular etiquette is required. We simply shake hands with a few folks and meander through a series of arched columns—it feels so... inclusive and gives me the idea that maybe, yes, we all can just get along.

My guide, Hassan, explains that before minarets were equipped with loud-speakers the muezzin (the men who perform the calls for prayer) were required to be blind. He seems proud that they would never have, even accidentally, seen the top of a woman’s head through an accidentally open window, and I think to myself, this is just the sort of man I need to ask about America.

Once outside I venture, “So, how do you feel about the war in Iraq?”

His eyebrows shoot up and his head tilts down. He stares at me over his glasses. “Well, you know, this is a Muslim country.”

“Yes,” I reply.

Another pause. Then eventually, “Well, I think Americans are very good people.”

“A-ha,” I say encouragingly.

“But...” he pauses again. I wait. “Many people do not like... Bush.” He pronounces “Bush” as if it’s an example of onomatopoeia—like pop, zing, or boom!

“Do you think,” I continue, “that American foreign aid to Egypt has an effect on people’s opinion?”

He shakes his head and counters, “America gives more to Israel than to Egypt.” Which is true: after Iraq, the largest recipient of U.S. foreign aid is Israel—Egypt is second only to them. Then he adds, “Clinton was a good president. Clinton was a good man. But Bush, he is not fair.” There it is again, the notion of fairness—that the U.S. would be just fine if only our policy were more even-handed.

“What about U.S. products?” I ask, staring at a billboard for Colgate toothpaste above his head. “Do Egyptians like our products?”

Hassan nods but explains that many Egyptians, when they’re particularly upset over the policies of western governments, come to resent so many foreign goods pushed on them. He says boycotts are not unusual, but are short-lived. “Egyptians' memories are not long,” he says.

“Yes,” I say, “Americans have been accused of that as well.”

Day three finds me on a crowded bus out of Cairo and on my way to the Red Sea town of Hurghada, where I will finish out this trip in relative leisure and laziness. The road stretches west into featureless desert until we reach Suez. There I see massive ships laboring toward the canal (fees from which total about $2 billion per year). Of course on the other side of the water is the Sinai Peninsula, and it is that bit of land whose return to Egypt allowed peace to be made with Israel in 1978—the result being that Egypt was booted from the Arab League and massive foreign aid from the U.S. begun.

The bus stops at a roadside market where locals appear from out of the desert—camel in tow—to be photographed for cash. Young girls in bright robes hold baby goats to increase their cuteness. I notice that few of the houses have roofs and that those that do appear to be unfinished, as if waiting for a second floor that has yet to be built. According to a fellow traveler, this construction technique is intentional. It seems that one can avoid property taxes if a building is not completed; therefore, roofs are something of a rarity.

Hours later, as nightfall approaches, we pull into the resort where I will complete my stay. Over the next few days I settle in to a routine of pool—bar—pool—shower—nap—bar—dinner—show—bar—bar—sleep. The staff is pleasant, the complimentary meals surprisingly good, and the weather a typical winter 75. I am caught off guard, therefore, when in the midst of a some groggy afternoon, a man sits on a beach chair adjacent from me and asks, “Where are you from?”

“America,” I respond suspiciously.

What ensues is a medium-pressure sales job to get me out of this “boring” hotel and onto a souped-up quad for a half-day scamper around the middle of nowhere. He calls it—“a safari.” I decline with as much patience as I can manage, but he persists, handing me a scarab for luck. I am, of course, immune to these techniques by now and drop his gift into my bag with two dozen others. Back in my room, though, I decide that perhaps I should get out for a while.

After a 25-kilometer sanity-testing taxi ride, I’m dropped off in downtown Hurghada, once again fighting a frontal assault of relentless merchants—but here’s the difference: this time, when I say I’m American, their faces light up. Of course, that’s a disconcerting reaction, and I can’t remember getting it in Cairo. I assume it has something to do with the perceived amount of cash I might be carrying, but the real reason, it turns out, is a bit more complex.

Speaking with Mahmoud, the owner/proprietor of a quiet restaurant a few doors down from the Hard Rock Cafe, Americans in Hurghada are rare.

“There used to be many—ten, fifteen years ago,” he says with what I think is regret.

“What happened?”

“I don’t know, they don’t come anymore.”

I do some quick math: 2007 minus ten—a ha, 1997, Luxor, 71 dead, 24 wounded. That has to be it.

“Do you like Americans?”

“Yes, Americans are wonderful people, but I like all people,” he adds, “except Russians.”

I chuckle. “Not Russians, why not Russians?”

“They are angry, clever people,” he says.

I’d heard something about this already—Hurghada, they say, is run over with Russian prostitutes. Rumor has it that Russian prostitutes outnumber Russian tourists. For all my efforts, however, I am unable to confirm or deny this accusation.

It’s my last evening in Hurghada. I sit in the hotel bar watching our nightly show. This evening it’s a comedy routine performed by the same two guys who’ve been on all week. Mostly it consists of a raunchy kind of sexual humor universal to all nationalities. The skit at the moment takes place in a men’s toilet and is centered on the following stereotypes:

• a Chinese guy who can find his member only with chopsticks,
  
  
• a German guy too drunk to reach the bowl,
  
  
• a Japanese guy who takes pictures before, during, and after,
  
  
• a homosexual who doesn’t have one,
  
  
• an African guy who must unwrap it from around his waist,
  
  
• and, a Spanish guy who lures it out with a scarlet red flag.

I order another beer from Tamir, a warm man whose pretty wife lives in Cairo (I’ve seen her picture). He has a typically kind Egyptian smile and always greets me with a two-handed shake. The friendliness—not only in the hotel, but everywhere—still has me wondering. Of course I’m a tourist in a tourist-town doing touristy things, but can there be some subtle kinship built by the dollars we’ve poured into this land?

Egypt’s current president, Hosni Mubarak, took office in 1981 after an Islamic fundamentalist soldier gunned down Anwar Sadat. Twenty-four years and $60 billion later, Mubarak finally announced reforms to allow multi-candidate elections in the 2005 presidential race. The new law, however, made filing difficult and prevented popular opposition candidates from running. Only about 10% of the population took part in that election, and afterward, accusations of fraud and vote-rigging, police brutality and pro-Mubarak violence were asserted. And just this week, in February 2007, it took a court five minutes to sentence blogger Kareem Amer to four years in prison for insulting Islam and calling the president a dictator.

So, in any case, it’s difficult to point to direct economic or political reforms as a consequence of the U.S. investment, and certainly, if my experience is any gauge, Egyptians overwhelming disagree with our government’s actions over the past several years—but then again, so do many Americans. I suppose you get what you give. If you hand out cash without stipulation or expectation, you get smiles and kind eyes and a free scarab for luck. You won’t get support for a war against Arab brothers or an unshakable sympathy for acts of terror you may have suffered in the past. Of course, on the other hand, there’s no lack of McDonaldsy convenience here, and the homesick tourist will find enough familiar products to make him- or herself comfortable.

But it’s time to settle my tab and try for a few hours sleep before my flight. As I sign the check I ask Tamir the same question that’s preoccupied me all week. He pauses, eyes me suspiciously and tentatively replies, “Well, sir, the American government... you have to understand...” He doesn’t say more, just gives me a sad look, pleading a little with his eyes. Then he brightens and adds quickly, “But Americans—they are great people.”