Greetings From Prague
I am entering this post on behalf of Betty Tegtmeier, formerly Wallwork, formerly Peck. For those of you who may not know, Betty is my cousin, the only child of my mother's older sister, Bertha, and her husband, Jim, Peck. Betty lives in Prague, Czech Republic, having gone there in the early '90s to teach English after the fall of Communism and the opening of Eastern Europe to travel from the West.
I have to say here that Betty deserves the Gold Star award for perserverance on registering for the family Blog and attempting to post. She had registered initially some time back, then lost her password, so I deleted her account and sent her a new invitation. She signed on and attempted to post but realized she was not on Enscussions but had, in fact, created a totally new Blog which she really did not want.
At her request I sent step-by-step instructions complete with screen shots and little boxes and arrows pointing to the correct fields to enter. (This document is available for anyone else having difficulty using the Blog.) Betty emailed me yesterday and thanked me for the instructions, and said she was now confident she could go online and post text and pictures.
This morning I received an email from her saying she could connect to the Internet to send and receive email, but she could not access any web sites, so she could not get to Blogger to post. She had a post ready to go, and asked me to enter it which I have below.
She also has pictures, but did not think her email service would handle it (the downside of living in Eastern Europe). So, what follows is her description of a visit to Egypt and her perspective on the situation there. I am sure when she gets her Internet access back she will upload some pictures to go with the narrative,
Betty mentions Adam and Sylva. I know that Adam is a concert pianist who is one of Betty's closest friends—she travels with him to concerts, which was the reason for her visit to Egypt. She sent me one of his CD's featuring Rachmaninoff's Third Piano Concerto. I believe Slyva is Adam's girlfriend and perhaps wife by now. I am sure Betty will clear up that point when she reads this post.
It is Sunday, July 31, 2005. Betty sent me this picture of her and asked me to post it for her. I am placing it here with her description of Cairo, as I assume she is in a museum in Egypt. I am confident she will correct me if I am wrong about the location.Here is Betty's description of Egypt:
CAIRO
There are buses, trams, and hordes of taxis, but the streets are jammed no matter how wide or narrow—black and yellow taxis, minivans, donkey carts, parked cars, double-parked cars, slowly moving cars, a few kids on bikes, horses-and-buggies—and mobs of people, toting, standing, sitting, leaning and talking, talking, talking. Mostly men, sitting at outdoor cafes, leaning against parked cars, standing in the street, always in groups, talking and talking. Nobody appears to be working, even people who ARE working.
Cars honk; vehicles and people move over just enough to keep from being hit. People walk literally everywhere; cars have the restriction of being unable to park/drive on the sidewalks, only because the curbings were built high enough to prevent it.
The streets are an enormous pedestrian mall where people swarm around the parked or moving cars with never a care. Trams run with open doors. People hop on and off as trams crawl through traffic. I saw a man holding his little girl's hand, chasing a tram through heavy traffic, always reaching it but with never enough time to hop on. So he keeps running until the next traffic tie-up.
In the narrow bazaar streets, as you ooze along, you actually have time to shop the open-air stalls. See something you want? Stop the car, jump out, you'll most likely be back before traffic moves on because somebody else has done the same thing down the street ahead of you or some horse has gotten balky. It's a place where everybody looks out for everybody else and, conversely, nobody looks out for anybody. Horns honking like crazy. A honk means, I'm going to do this—and they do! Never mind if someone is in the way.
All cars are champion jackrabbiting lane-jumpers, so from above, the highways look like some monstrous writhing snake. Somehow it all works out. Never saw an accident.
People: Very warm, friendly, outgoing. Noisy. Talking, hanging out everywhere. In streets, cafes, leaning on parked cars. Many police in snappy dark blue uniforms with lots of gold braid, epaulets with tassels, and each has at least one civilian standing with him just passing the time of day. Many say 40% unemployment (4X official rate). Never any trouble with pickpockets or scam artists. They like to fleece you in a business-like way. Rule of thumb: Asking price starts at 10X fair and expected sales price. Very polite but persistent hawkers. A fewbeggars, usually women carrying small children. Some children work all day and until late at night selling wallets or beads. Often adults are holding only one small packet of tissues. Sylva says it's because some people have too much pride to just beg, so they sell one small item at a time to save face.
Whole families do this just to stay alive. I bought some small thing from a small boy and then gave it back to him to re-sell. He thanked me profusely and ran off. I never expected to see him again, but soon he was back dragging his mother with baby along. The mother thanked me over and over with tears in her eyes. Somehow I didn't get the impression this was an act of the kind I often get from professional beggars. She didn't ask me to buy her product.
Partly because I had read the U.S. State Department's over-the-top dire travel warnings for Egypt, I found that only the Pyramids and the Sphinx were as I'd expected. Of course, they've been sitting in the same place for quite awhile now. Everything else was different. People were very welcoming—to a hated American? Everywhere I went people were the same; very polite, very helpful, very interested in meeting an American.
There were no pickpockets, no quick-change artists, no "Yankee Go Home" shouts, nobody clutching at me, nobody hassling me. The car could be parked anywhere, packages left in full view. Even the horse-trading in the oldest bazaar in Africa was done in polite, smiling dialogue.
In the streets of Cairo and Alexandria, people were aware that they live close to Iraq, but while they are undoubtedly discussing war, as they sit smoking their waterpipes in the street cafes, much more time is spent just trying to get on with their daily lives, making business deals, shopping, figuring out how to have a better life, which in most cases there, means JOB/MONEY.
Amani, studying social work at the university, needs money to go to school abroad. Hossam, the water boy at the Czech archeological dig, needs at least $3,000 before he can approach any family for a bride.
In the huge bazaar, I watched a man busily reorganizing and improving his display of clothing. I thought he was the stall owner, but no, a man came from the back, gave the fellow a few coins, and shooed him away. Ten minutes later, the same fellow was back working with the stock, until the owner ran him off again, this time with no coins.
In Alexandria, all parking on the street was filled near the concert hall. Sylva double-parked the car, telling us to watch. An old man appeared from nowhere. He told Sylva exactly where to double-park so that the car would not have to be moved, and we walked away. Hours later after the concert, we went back to the car, found our bags still safe inside, Sylva tipped the old man and thanked him. That old man had not been hired for his job. He created it as a way to survive.
The only incident revealing the simmering political underside involved the Israeli Ambassador. The Czech Embassy got a couple of irate phone calls complaining that the Israeli Ambassador should not have been invited to Adam's Cairo concert. It was explained to the callers that protocol demanded invitations be sent to all ambassdors, no exceptions.
The protestors insisted the Czechs should warn the Israeli to stay away or there would be serious trouble. They politely refused. The Israeli Ambassador attended, sitting toward the back of the hall, one bodyguard seated directly behind him.
The only 'incident' occurred outside. VIP's cars were parked in the circle drive with drivers waiting beside the cars. Two men were shouting very angrily at each other, coming close to blows, even disturbing part of the audience, but stopped and separated as the audience came out at intermission for the garden buffet.
I got the impression from a couple of comments I overheard at the buffet table, that the Israeli driver had been harrassed by another driver. Probably accurate since all people were carefully screened at the entrance gates. Not likely somebody slipped in unnoticed, and the only people outside during the concert were the drivers.
Except for this one threat of violence to the Israeli Ambassador, our entire ten days in Egypt was totally serene. You'd never have been able to guess that trouble had been brewing for many years.
posted by David Broadus at
9:02:00 AM
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