My thoughts take me back to my childhood. Living in a little village beside Hadrian's Wall on the outskirts of Newcastle upon Tyne.
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| #Come2Newcastle |
Newcastle, the Architectural Jewel of Northumbria, the ancient Holy Kingdom of a proud, friendly and tough people. World renowned Engineers, ship builders, miners, inventors of the steam locomotive, driving force behind the industrial revolution. Our Language, Northumbrian, retains many words of old Angle-ish, and my dialect of Northumbrian is known as 'Geordie'. I am a Proud Geordie, hawea! *
Egypt
A few years ago, after some tumultuous life events I needed a holiday quite badly. A place to relax and free my mind. Egypt sprang up in the search engine, hmm Egypt, the place school spoke of years ago. The land of pharaohs, pyramids and ancient temples. How little I knew back then, but it sounded interesting, 'why not?'My friend, Lynne and I stayed in a small Red Sea town, near Hurghada, called El-Gouna. A little jewel.
We did the customary tours and visits and while captivated by their scale, beauty and history, one thing more than anything else shone through. Egypt is not just a land of fascinating monuments, it is a land of shining stars; people whose personality, passion, love and good will, outshine the sun.
On our first visit to Egypt, we traveled the customary trip to Luxor during the last days of Ramadan; on a bus full of camera clicking tourists with their noses in the air. Well, in Britain, people say "the further north you go, the friendlier and more down to Earth people get". With Lynne being from Lancashire and me from Northumbria, 2 northern lasses let loose in Egypt, we speak to anyone and everyone as friends. We chatted away with the tour guide, Emad, a very well educated Egyptologist and a sound Man (Canny Lad) we got to know him, and the 2 drivers. We visited all of the sights of Luxor and were astounded by them. But, the thing I remember most of all occurred on the way back...
On the bus in the outskirts of Luxor, the sun was setting and the red, desert glow of evening was upon the streets. We passed an army checkpoint on the road, young lads they were. After about 200 yards, suddenly hundreds of people came streaming from the side streets, waving at the bus, wanting it to slow down. People in the seats behind us looked tense. One Guy on the sidewalk had a gun and fired it into the air a couple of times and some people on the bus let out a distressed 'yelp'. Emad leaned over to me and said, "don't worry, they are celebrating, it's just breakfast, they want to invite you into their homes to eat". I smiled from ear to ear! I could see the smiles on the faces of the people in the street and smiled with them. I waved, they waved back and blew kisses, while others on the bus looked on in distress.
After another mile or so, the bus began to slow down, Emad and the 2 drivers looked exhausted, being Ramadan, they hadn't eaten or drank all day. The bus slowed right down to walking pace near to a young guy with a donkey pulling a wooden cart. On the cart were plastic bottles, old used pop bottles, full of a cream coloured cloudy liquid. Next to it was another guy with a bigger cart stacked maybe 5 feet high with sugar cane and he was running the canes through what looked like a mangle, squeezing out the liquid through a funnel into the plastic bottles. It struck me that this was how these lads had to make a living and I felt guilty. Emad jumped off with the bus still crawling along and bought 3 bottles. One for each driver, and one for him. He jumped back onto the bus and sat down in his seat in front of us. Now even though he had gone all day without food or drink in 50 degree heat, he turned and offered me a drink first. It was un-processed freshly squeezed straight out of the cane. It was like nectar, if only they could export it and sell it. Emad saw that I liked it and smiled. So, without me asking, after another 300 yards he asked the driver to pull over again, Emad jumped off, and bought me a bottle. What Kindness! Nowhere else in the world have I experienced that sort of unselfishness and caring from someone who was to all intents and purposes a stranger. I never saw Emad again after that day, but his memory lives on in my mind. He fundamentally changed me through that simple action.
From then on we were no longer tourists. Now we eat at the places Egyptians eat. We socialise with Egyptians, share tea & sisha pipes with them. We go clubbig just like we do in England and make friends, real friendships that have last through distance and time
I fell in Love with Egypt that day, a love that is still as strong as that of my home, Northumbria. I consider the people of Egypt to be my brothers and sisters. Every year sometimes twice a year, when i can afford it, my body travels back to Egypt to reunite with my heart.
To Follow... The Ambassadors Report - Visit to Cairo, March 2011
*'howea', is a Northumbrian word, sometimes spelled howay. it means "Come-on!" or "Hurry-Up" or "Yes!!" or sometimes if followed by man "What are you playing at" or if followed by "The Lads" is a shout for the local football team, Newcastle United - all depending on context and inclination - similar to Arabic 'Yalla!'
