Risking Death to Get to a Meeting

In 2017, I worked my tail off to go to Egypt for the international meeting. So exciting!

I couldn’t afford the Mena hotel, which was some princes castle at the base of the pyramids. Nooooooo. So, my friend Laurie Dameron, Chair of the Environment and Sustainable Development Committee, and I shared a room across the road.

Well, turned out not to have been such a great choice.

Our first morning, we needed to get across the street for events at the Mena. Sounds simple enough.

Oh, my goodness if you haven’t been to Cairo, it’s insane on the streets. We saw one street light in all of Cairo! One-way streets and no way to turn.

Getting across in 24/7 traffic turned out to be a life-threatening task. It was 7:00am. Honk! Honk! Yelling! Men driving, almost no women driving.

We were all covered up in the stifling heat to respect the traditions of our host country. We headed to the corner to cross. Cars, donkeys, wagons, tiny taxies, Holy cow – oh wait, that’s India. Holy something! We were terrified!

So, we zig-zagged across, almost getting hit – surely because they somehow knew we were white female tourists. They just don’t stop!

We managed to get to the median. That was it. There we stood, getting flipped off, yelled at, told to take a taxi, etc. Geez, it’s just across the street!

There was a local woman, properly covered, who started across and they pushed her back! Whoa.

So, about 15 minutes passed and we were already half an hour late for the meeting, and we are getting afraid for our very American lives!

Then, just as I’m ready to be the sacrifice, a male taxi driver pulls over on the other side, gets out, and stops traffic for the local lady with her cart of fruits and veggies.

They stopped!!

We scurried across with her, let me tell ya, we were so happy she was there. 

We got to the other side and that same man stopped us, asking if we were ok. Uh no!

He said, “You know, in Cairo, you call a cab and go to your destination.”

I’m shocked. I said, “It’s right there!”

He told us, “Thats the way it is. You can’t cross unless you are a local man or sometimes a local woman and even then traffic isn’t happy but it stops. It’s just an understood thing.”

Somehow, I got us upgraded to the Mena for the rest of the week, putting an end to death-defying road crossings.

Another interesting thing; carts pulled by donkeys pick up recycling from the hotels. In her position with the Environment and Sustainable Development Committee, Laurie was naturally fascinated by the huge clay pots outside to collect recycling. She asked the guy at the front desk where they went.

He shrugged.

We asked our taxi driver.

He shrugged. Hmmmm…

Funny thing is, there’s garbage is all over the side of the roads, and it’s mostly plastic bottles and cardboard. Made us wonder if the whole recycling process at the hotel was just for show for us tourists.

The whole trip was filled with cultural surprises, most of which were more fun than these two. This was one conference I will never forget.

Life is not what it’s supposed to be. It’s what it is. The way you cope with it is what makes the

Sharon Simmons
CO/WA