Tahrir Square in quieter times.
In the previous installment you may recall Dana Walker and me have just finished our business at the Interior Ministry where you must go to get your visa extended....
So we walk out of the building and through a corner of Tahrir Square....it’s funny to be strolling through the place that has seen so much violence.
Dana’s on a mission....and since I don’t have anything else to do I tag along.
In 2006...Dana’s husband Craig got stationed here in Egypt.
Dana had to bring her three pre-teenaged kids over....the Canadian Government put them up in a hotel in downtown Egypt... not far from Tahrir Square.
Dana wanted to find that hotel today...so off we go...it was a nice walk...and we were asking people along the way where this hotel is.....and we’re zeroing in. There’s a detachment of young police ....obviously on a training exercise in the street...there’s a sergeant telling them what to do....and the commanding officer off to the side. Dana walks up to the commanding officer and asks him where this hotel is....he says I don’t know but I’ll help you find it. Off they go into a store where the commanding officer asks the store keeper where the hotel is. He knows...it’s just around the corner.
Thank you so much commanding officer “shokrahn” thank you.
I know I've been saying pretty detrimental things about how Egypt is being run...and it's all true....but the people for the most part are very friendly and helpful.
When I'm out and about... four or five times a day someone will say to me "Welcome to Egypt"!
It happens so often that now as my greeting to them...I say "Welcome to Eygpt"..it usually gets a laugh.
But I digress..
So we find this hotel...and it ain’t pretty...we have to go up a circa 1950’s elevator to the fifth floor and get out .....it’s dark and musty...and absolutely nothing like any hotel you have seen before....but that’s where Dana and her three young kids ended up.
She wants to see a room....we go down kind of a dark Egyptian looking... winding hallway...to a room where there are three cots ....it’s not very nice...but it’s clean and well run...and honest....but you have to share the bathroom facilities.
The cost was about 15 dollars a night.
She thanked the woman and we went back to the elevator....I was thinking wow that whole experience must have been really tough on Dana and those kids.....Dana says to Walker who was about 12 or 13 at the time...do you remember that???....he said.......yeah it was fun!
Enough said....
I left them and went to the Nasser subway station....it was an uneventful ride home....but I knew I had to come back the next day...
It was a dark and stormy night....
No I’m not kidding...I told you about Cairo only getting about an inch of rain a year....well that night it got about three quarters of an inch.....almost unheard of in these parts...
Sleepy ...wakey.....it’s 6:45 and now I’M the one on a mission.
I have to grab the metro...down to Tahrir into the Ministry of the Interior building and claim my visa.
It’s cold and all that rain overnite has changed the world into a quagmire.....totally.
Out the door.... hopping over big puddles ,tip toeing through mud...dodging the taxi’s coming by that splash right through a puddles and you have to get out of the way.
Onto the metro platform.....but the deluge has caused as we used to say in the television industry......technical difficulties...no train for a long time....and when it comes...it is absolutely and irrevocably crammed with humanity. I bullied and pushed and squeezed my way on...and found the tiniest little spot in a corner by the door and there I staked my claim. At each stop....no one got off the train.....instead more got on...I had three guys as close as any woman has ever been to me....coughing sneezing breathing... it was not pleasant.
There are nine stops to Tahrir ...25 minutes...and I counted every one.
When the doors opened at Sadat....where everybody is getting off...thousands of people spilled out onto the platform.
The women’s cars were filled to overflowing too.
I got up against the wall and waited for this wave of humanity to pas
Protest mural in Tahrir Square
When the crowd was gone....I made my way out into the cold and windy air of Tahrir Square...past the tents through the muddy street....through the portico...up the stairs through security down the hallway of death to window 40....where I was first in line but early.
It was 8:30 and the women don’t come on shift ‘til 9....
That is okay....I’m here first in line.... strategically this is exactly where I want to be.
Nine sharp...the woman walks up to the wicket...okay..she takes my passport....which is now going to be magically matched up to all the documents I submitted yesterday...and PRESTO .....I’ll have my passport with a visa in it...
The woman says come back in two hours.
The statue of the Prophet...Tahrir Square
Okay no problem....I take the long walk around to the gardens of the Egyptian museum. I don’t go in....you could be in this museum for a week and not see everything...I’m going to do it in a day...but not this day.
I go to a cafe and spend the next hour and a half reading “A Hundred Years of Solitude” .
But what I’m thinking is a need about “Two Hours of Fortitude” .......
It’s 11:30....back to my favourite building in the world....up the stairs ..through security..down the hallway of death....does this seem like “déjà vu” to you?
I arrive at my wicket.....bedlam...there are twenty people ahead of me trying to do the same thing I am...and no one is going anywhere anytime soon.
So I stand there and wait for my chances...wiggle push....sidestep...drawing ever closer to my goal.....the wicket...then.... I’m there.
The woman says it’s not ready....come back...I turn and look behind me...a multitude...and I just thought no way...I’m waiting right here.
I could go on with this forever...I was almost in a fight....I told a guy to get f--------.
But I held my ground....right there in front of the wicket...where every time the woman looked up she saw me.
Finally a miracle....a Dutch woman was standing beside me...and poked me in the arm and pointed down to a stack of papers.....there was my visa application.... you could see my picture and my passport.
I pointed it out to the clerk...and said that’s me....that’s me...just give it to me and you’ll never see me again....
She gave me the stuff....I had to borrow a pen from and Egyptian guy....because I was wedged in there so tightly I could not move my hands down to my pocket to get at my pen.
I signed ...I turned...and there were all the young people that Dana had brought in the day before...all waiting to do what I had just done. They had been trying to get my attention to say hi....I said hi..thanks.... good luck...and as I walked out of the throng..with my visa in my hand...I yelled as loudly as I could.....”Welcome to Egypt”.
I’m not lying!
Talk soon....b
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