The Post-Dubai Chronicles

It’s nearly impossible to describe what it’s like to look at a thousands-of-years old obelisk carved by hand from a single piece of stone. Or to see brilliant yellows, reds, and greens painted onto the walls of the tombs of pharaohs, preserved by egg whites. Or to hear about Ramses II who commissioned hieroglyphic paintings of himself (a mere mortal) giving sacrifices to himself (a god). And for anyone who has studied the Book of Abraham in the Pearl of Great Price, touring Egypt really reminds you that the mark Abraham left on ancient Egyptian culture was deep. For those who didn’t hear, we finally fulfilled one of Rich’s lifelong dreams: we visited Egypt: one day each in Cairo, Aswan, Edfu, and Luxor, the latter three by cruise on the Nile River. It was while we were sailing on the Nile that some of you in the States likely heard about the Book of Judas coming out of obscurity—a reminder fairly soon after our return that we had just been in the land of scriptural discovery. We realized that once again we had come to a place where we most certainly must return to spend more time.

And for all its majesty, we found out we’re just too manic to be “cruise people.” The upside of an organized tour was that we had a tour guide with us everywhere we went. In fact, sometimes, it was just the five of us and a highly trained Egyptian expert who walked us through some amazing places, giving lessons in Nubian history, reading hieroglyphics, and Egyptology. Being in Egypt was cool, but I could have settled just for the lectures! I can’t overemphasize how good the guides were: they each must take five years of courses in various topics to qualify as an official guide, earning the equivalent of a Bachelor’s degree. One of our guides was stopped outside the tomb of Ramses II by younger tour guides who informed all of us tourists that he had taught them everything they know.

The downside was everything was so arranged. When we arrived in the Valley of the Kings, our guide gave his spiel and told us to meet back in twenty minutes. Maybe you can picture it: being in the bullseye of ancient history and having less than half an hour to soak it all in. Also, for as professional as the tour guides were, it was a bit too obvious that they had built-in shopping time to our schedule, no doubt at stores where they got a kick-back for bringing dumb, rich Americans to frivolously throw their cash around. We resisted most of the time and gave in when we came to a papyrus shop that had what we truly consider some beautiful artwork. And, heck: we got to try our hand at old-school middle east bargaining techniques. Still, we would have much rather spent the time in the Cairo Museum or visiting Coptic Cairo.

So we know we have to get back to Egypt and we know we have to go back on our own time.

If we could somehow go back and avoid all the peddlers, that would be nice, too. One thing we had become used to in Dubai: everyone just about everywhere has a bit of class and isn’t into pressure salesmanship. Egypt is the photo negative. Every site we visited had what we started to call “the gauntlet”: a rather long passageway with no alternative route lined with anywhere from six to two dozen small shops, each one selling the exact same souvenirs and each one watched over by one or two rather forward salesmen. The tactic of the aggressive shop tenders is to man-handle, grope, and otherwise encourage any European who even glances in the direction of their wares to come in and have a look. Even blatant lies like, “Everything is free,” are completely acceptable. At one site, we were a bit surprised that Egyptian police officers (who, by the way, are supposed to be preventing a lot of this activity) cozied up to us just to ask us for a “souvenir” American dollar. Perhaps the best were the camel drivers at the pyramids in Giza. They told tourists that camel rides are free . . . getting off the camels, however, costs five bucks. Or others that threw out prices in dollars only to reveal at the time of purchase that they meant Nubian Dollars (which don’t exist) at the exchange rate of twenty US Dollars to one Nubian Dollar. Back in Dubai, we were happy to ride home in a taxi whose driver didn’t even hint that he expected a tip.

I suppose the other reason we can say we’re not cruise people is that two of our motley crew of five were sickened, possibly by cruise food, a cuisine unto itself, usually served in buffet fashion with large quantities of fat, lard, suet and/or butter. While those of us with steel stomachs didn’t seem to mind and even had seconds, Amy got a particularly bad case of Ramses’ Revenge and spent our last day in Luxor either resting on the bus or popping out for a token glimpse of some of the world’s oldest ruins. Her stomach still hasn’t returned to normal.

On the flight to Cairo we finally settled on a possible name for our third child (if it’s a boy): Seth. Both of us have always liked the name, and it has something of a middle eastern flair. Only trouble is, it’s also the name of the Egyptian god of the underworld, the evil brother of Osiris who murdered him and was only centuries later avenged by Osiris’s son, Horus. Amy was quite convinced Seth wouldn’t work under these circumstances, but I merely had to point out that Horus, while having a clean conscience, has a less appealing ring. Better to have a name with some Egyptological baggage than one he’s going to get beat up for throughout elementary school. If it’s a girl? What else but Osiris’s sister’s name, Isis?

Henry can now say “heddo,” “bye-bye” (which he repeats no less than a dozen times while waving his hand), and “dada.” He’s catching on to prayers, too. He puts his hands together and shouts “AAAAAA!” when everyone else says, “Amen.” And from the pews last Sunday, Christian saw Bishop Stewart near the pulpit and rather unexpectedly shouted as loudly as possible in the quietest moment of the service, “Hi, Bishop!” Something else unexpected that Christian did was sit through a 2-hour movie in a theater! We took him to see “Howl’s Moving Castle,” an animated feature by Hayao Miyazaki whose films we rather enjoy (thanks to Jessica and Kevin Quire!). We predicted he’d lose interest after an hour or so and just run around the theater, but to our surprise, he watched the whole thing and still talks about the magic scarecrow.

The day before a birthday party, Christian helped pick out a gift for his friend. It was a toy airplane which he repeatedly insisted belonged to both his friend and himself. Besides missing the concept of ‘gift,’ he also missed the concept of ‘surprise.’ We instructed Christian over and over again not to tell anyone, especially the birthday boy, what it was. Thirty seconds after arriving at church the next day, Christian ran up to the Primary leader and said, “It’s a surprise! It’s an airplane!” Thankfully, the birthday boy was not there at the moment, however, later that night at the birthday party, Christian presented the gift to his friend and said, “It’s a surprise! It’s an airplane!” before he could so much as think about unwrapping it!

Well, that’s about it folks. We will spare you all the slide show of Egypt--everyone, that is, except our family members whom we will be visiting really soon. You’ll have to come up with your own excuses to miss it then. We are excited to see you all soon.

Movie Quote:
“What have I always said is the most important thing?”
“Breakfast.”
“No, family.”
“Oh, I thought you meant of the things we eat.”
Arrested Development television series