Cairo Airport, April 2005
A friend of mine once said, that because he traveled so much as a little kid, whenever he gets to an airport, that's when it feels like he's come home. I wonder if he would feel that way about the Cairo airport? I was there a few weeks ago on my way to Greece. I was flying Egypt Air which uses a terminal that is quite different from the one international airlines use. As soon as I arrived, I remembered the last time I'd been there a few years ago. It always seems as if I am the only foreigner in the building and it feels a bit like one is in the middle of a Jackson Pollock painting with everything swirling around you and nothing static to hold on to – not even the language. But everyone smiles when I surprise them and speak a few words of Arabic.
I checked in at 8am for my 10am flight. After passing through customs I found myself in a hallway that used to have rows of chairs for people to wait in before the gates opened. But now the chairs are gone and the only places to sit were the two cafes which were overflowing with people. I went to my gate but it said Tel Aviv. So, I wandered down the hallway and eventually saw a room with the door open that contained lots of empty seats. I noticed a man at a desk not too far from the doorway and I asked if I could go into the room and sit down. He said that I could, so I gratefully went in and took a chair.
I've lived here long enough to automatically not look anyone in the eye and to basically avoid seeing who is around me. Occasionally an official would come in and announce the departure of flights which I thought was quite nice, since they weren't being announce over a loud speaker to the rest of the airport. But I began to notice that all the people who would leave the room were Sudanese. And I slowly became aware that almost everyone in the room was Sudanese. Eventually, an official came up to me and asked me if I came from Khartoum. I was quite surprised by this and said in Arabic, "no, I live here and am going to Athens". "Then what are you doing in this room?" he asked me. I told him I wanted a chair to sit in and he accepted that answer and walked away. But I realized, that this must be a kind of holding area for people who had just flown in from Sudan!
Since it was getting closer to boarding time, I decided to go back to my gate. The Tel Aviv sign was gone but it hadn't been replaced by anything. There was nothing about Athens at the gate or on the board. And that's when I began to worry. It was boarding time but there was only one other person I recognized from the check in. I remembered that he was going to Greece. No one seemed to be around who could answer any questions. But finally I spotted some official looking people inside the next gate so I decided to go in. Immediately an official appeared from nowhere and asked me what I was doing. "I'm trying to find my flight to Athens", I explained. He pulled out a sheet of paper and informed me that the flight would not be leaving now until 2:30pm. I couldn't believe it. Four more hours in this airport?! Not enough time to get through Cairo traffic to go anywhere and I had left my mobile phone at home in the apartment. I didn't know what to do.
Then I saw the big internet cafe signs. The sign was above a stairway so I walked upstairs only to be told "no, it's down there" the man was pointing at four computers behind some glass walls that I had completely missed. No one was with the computers and I tried a couple of them but they didn't seem to work. There was a sign that said $6.00 but no visible place to pay. Another man who didn't look Arab but who also didn't speak much English tried and gave up. He then pulled out his palm pilot and showed me something about email. I think he might have been offering to let me use it, but I'm not sure and I wouldn't have known how to use it anyway.
Some ladies across the way were selling jewelry and I asked them about the computers. They told me to go to information, and information told me to go to Thomas Cook and pay $6.00 and then come back to them and get a yellow envelope with my password. After doing all that I returned to the computers trying one then a second and finally the third one took my password. But suddenly a large Sudanese man interrupted me. He was waving his yellow envelope and it was clear that he wanted me to connect him to the computer. He was saying the word "phone" over and over. I tried to explain to him that I didn't know how the computers work but he didn't understand English and was getting very excited. He must have thought that I was the computer attendant and that it was my job to help him.
As I kept trying to get to my webmail, he kept trying to get my attention. Then an American backpack couple peeked their heads in and started asking, "Where do you pay? How much time to do you get for $6.00?" I had no idea about the answer to the last question, I had just been happy to get the access. And the couple realizing I felt hassled between their questions and the Sudanese man, thanked me and left. The Sudanese man finally also gave up, the computer connected me to my account and I finally felt at home. I guess for the modern traveler, cyberspace has become our home away from home!
The rest of the wait was not so bad. I discovered that upstairs there is a beautiful waiting area but with not many people in it. This upper part was airy and light and had lots of glass windows; it was so different from the crowded places below. It wasn't clear if this was a restricted area or not, but no one stopped me. Up some more stairs was a restaurant but when I asked them what time they would open they replied, in a month! So I spent the rest of my four hours happily reading in the spacious airy part of the terminal.
Happy Spring to everyone!
Marrin