EGYPT ... MEMORIES OF THE PAST

This article was written shortly after the uprisings of January 25th, 2011, started in Egypt, shortly after a similar uprising occurred in the neighbouring country of Tunisia. This was referred to as the 'Arab Spring' and the article below are my memories of a visit to Egypt back in 1983.

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Well, some days after President Hosni Mubarak was toppled from ruling the country with his iron fist, it has proven to be a rather interesting time.

I personally had the chance to visit Egypt as a child back in the early eighties. A friend of mine had moved over to Cairo with his family as his father was a geophysicist (now retired) and he'd had the opportunity to work over in Cairo for a three year contract. So the entire family rented out their place in Bedfordshire and moved out to an apartment in Heliopolis, one of the boroughs of Cairo in Egypt.

Memories of the trip itself are getting slightly vague and hazy now, but I certainly remember being on some excellent daytrips whilst we were there. The family took us to the site of Giza, where the famous Pyramids and the Sphinx are / and the area itself had the aura of history about it. Bearing in mind that a lot of Egypt's history dates from a time before Jesus, it is amazing how the history itself comes to life, even from visiting as a tourist.

The largest pyramid was the tomb of Cheops, a king from the era. It is possible to go inside but it is quite a long walk up the walkway ramps. You then have to bend double to get into the tomb itself and it is rather striking when you get in there.

We also had the chance to visit the famous Egyptian Museum, in the centre of Cairo and close to Tahrir Square, the place where the people finally ousted President Mubarak. Here, the wonders of the ancient world were in prominence, the main event being the chance to see, in the flesh, Tutankhamen's famous death mask. It is an eerie but interesting item to view ... and is priceless when you think about a value. Put it this way, you wouldn't want anything nasty to happen to it.

The museum itself is quite a large building from the outside and feels bigger inside, though this is due to it being divided up well into different galleries, featuring all kinds of historical artefacts. Quite a few of the currently discovered tombs from the Valley of the Kings at Luxor had been emptied of items that were on display at the museum. There was also, from what I recall, a replica of a mummy on display which was of King Ramses II, who was around shortly before Tutankhamen's reign.

I had the chance to visit the Lonely Pyramid at the small town of Saqqara, to the southwest of Cairo. Now it is fairly well developed as a suburb, but back when I visited there wasn't a lot there to see. However, the area around the pyramid itelf was certainly striking. Some years after our visit we heard that the first of (hopefully many) tombs had been discovered not too far from that location. I personally think that different areas of Egypt will continue to confound us as more historic artefacts are discovered, including artefacts which are mentioned in the Bible too.

My parents took a few days break (I stayed in Cairo with our host family) to visit Luxor, Aswan and the Valley of the Kings. From the pictures they took it looked superb and it is an area I would like to have the chance to visit at some point during my lifetime.

We visited a petrified forest just outside of Cairo as well one day, this was an odd place where the old wood had, quite literally, turned to stone, therefore making it sound like somewhere out of Middle Earth. However, another interesting trip out was with some friends of the host family to the Red Sea. From what I recall it was rather hot on the beach and we ended up with a makeshift camp in between our two parked cars, consisting of a sun sheet over the top of the gap between the vehicles. This helped to screen us a bit from the sun, which was very hot at that time of year. Despite this, we still got a slight bit of sunburn but also developed decent tans too.

Seeing and hearing the news of the uprising in Egypt shocked and saddened me to an extent, particularly in the early days, as I was concerned for the safety of the people, along with the artefacts in the museum. The pictures and footage, about halfway through the people's uprising, were also getting rather worrying, when the riots broke out. Thankfully this all changed by February 11th when Mubarak stepped down. Now, things are slowly (hopefully) returning to normal where they can.

From an outsider's point of view, whatever domestic difficulties Mubarak faced as the President, he was always seen as being a relatively stable leader, compared to other countries nearby, such as Iran, where the real dictator, Ahmadinejad, rules. Mubarak was respected by the rest of the world for the relative stability of Egypt as seen by the outside world.

However, one thing that was noticeable even back in the early eighties was the large amount of homeless people within the city, living, literally, in cardboard boxes on the street. We used to drive past an area which we (as kids) christened 'the smellies' as there was a strong sewerage type smell in the area. The homeless people in this area literally did have nothing at all, unlike some of our similar families in the UK who live on benefits by choice but who still find time to have the latest plasma television and Sky box to pump nothing but rubbish into their flimsy heads.

Egypt as a country has an uncertain future at the time of writing, but I hope and pray that they can find a way through and gain a government who can bring real democracy to the people as they require it. It won't be an easy job though economically, but I think they will get help if they come to other countries for it. The help would be well deserved too.

Although tourists have stopped going to Egypt in the aftermath of the historic events that happened, I would recommend that people start to visit again, as there are many wonders to be seen there.

Reflecting back on the historic events of the early days of 2011 in Egypt, and, more specifically, Cairo, things do appear to be moving in the right direction. The economy will take a while to pick up, this is entirely natural and it will, in my opinion, be interesting to see just how things progress over the course of time.

The first free elections are, at the time of writing this article, due later in 2011 or maybe early 2012. The good thing also to report is that even though the army is running the country now, things in terms of reference to the outside world are just the same as they were before, such as the Suez Canal, which was not closed even during the uprising ... it remained firmly and fully open, helped on this level by members of the army who didn't want to see it have problems as a result of the people's uprising.

Cheers,

Felice.

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