Thinking Back on "Ancient Egypt"

"Interesting and Informative" pretty much covers Lee and Heidi's instant response to our fifteen days spent exploring Ancient Egypt when asked our reaction by friends and others. Our Overseas Adventure Travel tour was very well structured, nicely paced and brought together a very companionable group of travelers we very much enjoyed being with throughout the trip. Our guide, Ibrahim Taha, proved an inexhaustable source of information and used each site we visited to provide yet another link in a chain of knowledge that allowed us to acquire a wonderfully broad and nuanced understanding of just what "Ancient Egypt" was all about, what it represents -- historically, culturally and religiously -- in the long pageant of world history.

While Lee's approach as a Trip Leader for the Smithsonian in Japan usually focused on providing sufficient background information to tour participants BEFORE we disembarked to explore a particular site (thus allowing folks to wander on their own, exploring their own particular interests), Ibrahim instead kept us together, paused the group in front of an object or a bas relief or a temple facade, then used it to point out details and interpretations of what it was we were looking at so as to enhance our understanding and appreciation of the larger site.

This approach proved essential to our growing appreciation of Ancient Egypt since none of us carried around a visual image bank filled with all the variety of gods or architectural motifs or decorative designs needed to grasp what it was our guide was explaining. We usually had enough free time afterward to explore on our own anyway, but Ibrahim's selective approach to whatever or wherever we were always helped keep us focused on the important aspects of the place we were currently visiting while also threading it into a larger tapestry enlarging our understanding of the culture we were exploring as a whole.

Putting together our exploration of Ancient Egypt with the contemporary culture in evidence everywhere around us was accomplished to a certain degree through three home visits and an afternoon round table discussion with Ibrahim but still left us a bit frustrated. We often seemed to be subject to the "party line" ("Egypt is safe" -- not the terrorist bastion we might have feared; "Everyone - Muslims, Christians, Jews -- gets along just fine;" "No one imposes restrictions on women; it's purely a matter of personal choice"). Some inquiries about aspects of contemporary life were essentially brushed off with minimal comment. There's so much more we'd like to have learned.

We still experienced modern life sufficiently to gain a feel for contemporary Egyptian society and culture. Traffic in Cairo, particularly, often gave us the opportunity to observe life along the road and, again, our home visits always added specific detail.

Clearly tourism is an economic mainstay, but neither of us would say that it was all that welcomed an intrusion, however necessary. After all few tourists were there to learn about modern Egypt, and the "Ancient Egypt" many came to see was of little interest to today's Egyptians. Those is contact with foreign travelers were inevitably gracious and courteous but not particularly warm and welcoming. Not that all tourists were worth the effort -- we saw enough evidence of disinterest and cultural disrespect to warrant the disdain lurking just below the surface among some of our Egyptian hosts! Europeans, especially, seem to have come to see Egypt the way Americans often view Mexico, as a vacation escape destination, not as a distinct modern culture worth getting to know.

Trip highlights: for Lee, the Temple at Kom Ombo visited while on our Nile cruise; for Heidi, our visit to the Nubian Village family in Aswan. We both liked the camel ride through the Sahara and the Aswan market stroll. Aswan was a favorite stop. And we enjoyed our time in Cairo, too, on many different levels -- just riding around town was great fun!

Looking back to the blog entry on our anticipations, Lee would have to say he found Egypt less trash strewn than he thought it might be; the touts, less problematic (but still a major distancing factor preventing us from fully interacting with or enjoying our surroundings). The abysmal povery of India wasn't present either, replaced to some degree by the disconcerting drab and dull appearance of Egyptian women, particularly older married women. Egyptians in general struck us as a bit angry with their collective lot, discontent but without evident hope for the future motivating their behavior or outlook on the world. The food was good but little distinguished it from "Middle Eastern" cuisine in general (except for the cool hybiscus tea -- absolutely delicious!).

So, there you have it. Some preliminary observations drawn from our current thinking about our Egyptian travel experience. The last entry should direct interested readers to a set of images drawn from the more than six hundred photographs we amassed while there -- look for it soon ...