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Letter From Egypt |
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March 7,1997 Sir Grand Poobah: I guess that I better start by explaining what the hell I'm doing in Egypt. I'm over here starting up a new power plant about 120 km south of Cairo. I've been here since the 1st of December, and I'll probably be over here a couple of years or so, and. Living in Egypt is really different from living in Cincinnati, but I've been enjoying it. I'm speaking a little Arabic so far, and learning Arabic is my major "on the side" activity at work. During the week, (Sat. thru Thur.), I live in a little village named Beni Suef which is about 20 minutes from the jobsite. On the weekend (Thur. night and Fri.), I go back to a flat in Cairo that I share with some guys I work with to get some decent food, find some decent beer (really expensive), etc. I joined the Cairo Hash House Harriers the first week that I was here, and I'm set to be the hare soon (if you don't know what hashing is, ask Larry H.). Since I got here, my weekly mileage has been about 5-10 miles/week and my long run is the hash. I am one of the few runners in Beni Suef,and I receive a lot of attention when I run (no, so far nobody has thrown rocks or shot at me with an AK-47). Mostly it is little kids yelling hallo, hallo, what your name? Since everyone walks, rides their bicycle or donkey in the middle of the road here, so I don't have any trouble running on the road also. Local drivers are a lot better about moving over to give you more room than the local indigenous drivers on Route 8. The local dogs are really well rock trained also. Pick up a good throwing sized rock (plenty to be found here), and they're gone. I'm driving now, and I'm doing pretty good at for a Amreci (American). After my first week of driving, I drove straight into downtown Cairo at the end of evening rush hour. Cairo driving is one continuous near collision, and wimpy drivers should not try it. Lanes have absolutely no meaning here, but neither does the center divider, etc. I've already got my left mirror folded by a bus when I almost got caught between the bus and a donkey cart. Earlier on the same trip to Cairo, I had to dive off the side of the road (what shoulder?), when I met a large over-loaded Mercedes "double bottom" semi passing another large over-loaded semi in the middle of a curve on a two "lane?" road. I'm sure it was a Mercedes because noticed the prominent three pointed star coming at me while I was trying to avoid the really large rocks on the right side of the road. Right now, I have a rented Peugeot 405 and it is well suited for driving here (enough mass to get some respect at the round-abouts (rotaries) and a lot of ground clearance for the huge speed bumps here). They assembled this model in Egypt, and it still has a carburetor and a manual choke so it can be maintained here. I thought that I knew how to drive a manual choke before I got this rental car, but after about a week I called my gray haired dad to have him explain the finer points of manual choke operation. The project I am working on is a really screwed up mess, so I'm glad that at least I'm being paid well (expat & hardship bonuses, overtime pay etc.). Take my company that is in bad financial shape and laying off half the company. Place them in a consortium with an Italian construction company that is in worse financial condition, and the result is a corporate marriage made in hell and a really dysfunctional work environment. We are late on the project, so we have been told by the highest management to make every effort to get the project back on schedule. However, we have also been told that we can not spend any money to accomplish this task. It must require an MBA to come up with a directive like that. The Italians are even worse because they fight about every dam Piesta (less than 1/3 of a cent). The other day, I spent about one hour of my time as a lead commissioning engineer arguing to get a couple of tablets of notebook paper and a couple of pens from them for a couple of Egyptian Engineers that we hired to help start-up the project. Some of the Italian foreman are OK though, but most of them speak little or no English. One of them is teaching me all of the bad words in Italian. Since I started writing this letter a couple of days ago, we got a new directive from our ace top management. We must increase our visible corporate presence on site, and we were given a list of company T-shirts, hats, belt buckles to were told to order from to accomplish this objective. With the project over budget and behind schedule, the company in a serious cash flow situation, what we really needed was hats and belt buckles. Plus they will have to pay a LOT of customs duties plus steep shipping charges to get this stuff here. I though Mel would appreciate this type of mentality. Well now that I'm living in Egypt, there ought to bet a Team Generic Road Trip to Cairo. There is a marathon coming up in March, but I don't know how many Generics are still into that sort of suffering. There is a little triathlon in Cairo every year, but the swim portin is in a pool. (You could swim in the Nile if you don't mind deadly microorganisms and raw sewage). Scuba divers and dirt bikers (motorcycles) really like this place. The Red Sea has some really good Scuba diving and you can rent the equipment here. I see the dirt bikers tearing around in the desert while we are out running the Friday Hash. They are restricted to a few million square miles of desert to tear arounf in as they please. Finally, there is all kinds of really old stuff to walk around an take pictures of. You can visit the pyramids (2000 BC), temples (really old), 4th century Copic churches, the Citadel (really new - 1200 AD). Plus you can even get your picture taken on a camel in front of the pyramids (I did) and buy all kinds of tourist stuff (really nice water pipes(bongs) are one of the big tourist export items). Its been another week, and I'm finally finishing up this letter. My work has gone from only 11hrs a day to more like 12-15 and now I'm working 7 days a week. Worse yet, I have to ride home with people I work with, eat with them and share the satellite TV with them etc. My weekly mileage is climbing in an effort to keep my sanity. I am now running at 5:30 in the morning (well 6:00 this morning - I slept in) which is a big improvement because I pretty well have the streets to myself. I did have to run around some early risers cutting up a water buffalo in the middle of the street this morning though. Kind of reminded me of the morning activities down on Route 8. Take Care Bryce
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