A Stop in Africa

When I was applying for and got accepted by Peace Boat, I very naturally thought about which ports and parts of the trips would be the best. For months before embarking I looked forward to two parts of the trip, the Panama Canal and the Suez Canal. To get to our next port of call, Port Said, we traveled through the latter. On that day, there was nothing going on on-board. There were no classes to teach or events to attend. The pools were full of clean sea water and it was a sunny glorious day when I opened to door to the top deck.
As I walked out I realized what an amazing thing the canal was. There were massive freighters navigating through this channel of water that had been cut through the dessert. On either side of the canal were large sand dunes and nothing but pale browns and yellows. I imagined that if you were behind a dune, looking at a ship, it would seem as if it were floating through the dessert sand. Every once in a while I would see a small structure along the side, but beyond that the area didn't seem to be inhabited. There was almost something otherworldly and certainly something very unnatural about the whole thing. So, we spent the day swimming, eating hamburgers and enjoying the hot African sun.
We pulled into Port Said at night. It was nice for a change and I think it was for the best because, as I would soon find out, the days are unbearably hot and sunny in this area. I ran off of the boat with a group of friends and was quickly searching for one of my favorite foods in the whole world, falafel. I would not find a falafel for quite a few hours but when I did they were in a pita, fresh, delicious and about at about 10 cents a sandwich. An awesome meal.
Before finding the falafel though we headed to a tea shop for...tea and some hookah smoking. It was a cool place to hang out. Tables lined the streets, sometimes spilling into the streets and at each table there were between two one and three men sitting around puffing and sipping away. They seemed to relaxed and content. We sat for a while and shared a full bowl of the apple flavored tobacco. It was sweet and smelt wonderful. That is when we ran into another group of teachers and who told us where to get the highly sought after falafel.
So we headed down the street and asked a man for directions to the falafel shop. He gave us directions and as we were walking away offered to buy us all a tea and another bowl of tobacco. We could not turn him down. When you are only in a country for a day or two, a chance to talk to a local and get an insiders perspective over tea can't be passed up. So my three friends and I pulled up some chairs around the table and went through the same ritual with the tea and hookah, sharing with our new friend (whose name I can unfortunately not remember). After talking for a while I discovered how lucky we were to be speaking to this man, as he was a reporter for a major Cairo newspaper. He was filled with information about everything that was going on in Egypt from the local to the global. We sat for an hour and pretty much just listened, firing a question every once in a while between sips of tea and puffs of tobacco in the hot evening air.
After all of that there was only one more thing a man could do in Port Said... go to the barber for a shave. I found a place on the way back to the ship. It looked as if the shop was closed for a second but the owner welcomed me and my friend Brian in. I immediately took a seat at in the chair and got one of the best shaves on the trip. I thought that everything was done, when the barber then pulled out a long string about the thickness of floss and stretched it between his fingers. He then put the string against my face and started pulling out all of the hairs. It was then that I embarrassingly started to get glassy eyes. He laughed and pulled out more hair at a faster pace. Parts of my face started to twitch and before I knew it I was looking back at my completely hairless (except for the eyebrow) shiny face. It was a strange experience and I didn't really like it. But I did bring three friends back the next day to get the treatment.
Brian and I then headed back to the boat with falafels in hand which we gave out when we got on the ship much like an Egyptian Santa Clause.
The next morning we all climbed on buses with about 95% of the ship to visit Cairo and the pyramids. While going to the bus I noticed that there were plain clothes police officers with each bus. I thought that this was a bit strange but because of the problems in Egypt and their dependence on tourist dollars it kind of made sense.
The pyramids are pretty much amazing. I did not think that they were beautiful really but I did think that they were amazing feats. In actuality though the thing that struck me most was that this was once a fertile area with a river running directly in front of the Sphinx. It was now a barren wasteland on the border of a town and the Sphinx was staring at a Pizza hut. I was happy that I went though while heading back to the bus.
Our last stop in Egypt was really up to us. The bus dropped us off in the center of Cairo and we could go wherever we wanted. Jamie, Yaquob and I made a very wise choice and asked the undercover tourist cop if he would like to join us for a couple of hours. When he said “Yes.” we were happy. It is always good to visit a place with a local. And I soon found out, when his coat waved in the wind, that we would not get messed around with as the officer was strapped with a sub-machine-gun. In seconds we were in a cab at half the price of everyone else and were headed to the market to go wandering with a real local. Driving in Cairo is, well...insane. I think there are some rules but I wasn't really able to figure any of them out. After about twenty minutes in a crammed taxi we arrived at the bazaar. We couldn't have been happier to get out of the taxi, especially Jamie who had a fever and was looking green for most of the ride.
Unfortunately the bazaar was another disappointment. It was much like a New Jersey boardwalk scene. Lots of places selling junk at ridiculous prices. Noisy, dirty and made for tourists, it was not the place for us. But we had a plan to take us down the back streets. Yaquob had gotten the barber bug as well. He asked our police guide where he could get a shave. We wound through the back streets getting further from the market and after asking around, found a small opened storefront with a chair and a table that had some archaic instruments on it. What transpired after that was one of the most memorable things that I witnessed on the trip.
So we looked around the door and saw nobody but a kid sitting in the shop. The cop inquired in Arabic if Yaquob could get a shave and the boy affirmed that he could. And to all of our surprise asked Yaquob to sit down and started to prepare him for a shave. This boy was at the most 12 and he was working on a school day in a barber shop. I wondered when his father would be back to shave Yaquob’s thick beard. Well... that never happened. Before we knew it the kid had a razor in his hand and was starting the shave. Jamie, the cop and I smiled at each other and Yaquob looked really nervous and let out a laugh that indicated that he was shitting himself. I thought to myself. "No problem. This is funny. This kid probably does this all of the time. " Unfortunately for Yaquob, that was not the case. In about three minutes he was bleeding from two different spots on his face. In another 5 he was poring out enough blood to necessitate tissues and some strange stone was rubbed on his face. It was gruesome and at the same time a bit funny.
In another two minutes an older guy came over. He was probably about 16. He came with confidence to solve this mess. I wish that I could say that that is what he did but unfortunately things got worse. Yaquob's face was covered in cuts and scrapes and he wasn’t even finished yet. In the end, we were all laughing and the kid got a nice tip.
We had little time to get back to the boat bus but just enough time to stop and have tea with the tourist cop. He took us to a really ordinary shop. We talked for about 15 minutes. I found out he was younger than all of us with aspirations other than being a police officer. He was smart and funny. I was amazed that a man that takes tourists around with a machine-gun at his side could be so personable. But soon we had no more time and it was back tot he bus and the boat. Just after fitting in one more falafel.

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