Dateline Egypt, part 4

Egyptians don't do lines.  They're into flocks and herds and clusters.  Wait in line until it's your turn?  Unheard of!  Join the herd and see if you can out-shout your herd mates.  If you holler loud enough - and the amount of currency you're waving wildly above your head is large enough - you may be called up to the counter next.  Bribes and kickbacks spell corruption in Western countries.  In Egypt and throughout the Mideast it's a way of life, business as usual.

This no-lines tradition extends to driving.  The main drag heading into downtown Alexandria had 6 lanes, 3 lanes of traffic going each way.  At stoplights, drivers who were several cars back from the front, boogied on over to the left and filled up the incoming lanes.  And, across the intersection, oncoming drivers did the same.

So, 6 lanes of cars facing each other.  When the light turned green it was one big game of chicken., horns blaring, drivers shouting obscenities at each other.  Actually, I just assume they were shouting obscenities; I don't speak Arabic.  Given the tone and volume however, I doubt they were asking to borrow a spoonful of Grey Poupon.

Another delightful habit was driving at night without headlights.  It was considered rude to have your headlights on at night.  This wasn't a problem in town where there was adequate ambient light to see oncoming vehicles, but in the country it was a different matter.  The custom was to keep your lights off until you were a few hundred feet from the oncoming vehicle, then flash your lights on and off to alert the oncoming driver.  Makes a lot of sense, huh?  Suddenly blind the oncoming driver with your lights, scare the crap of him, proceed onward at a closing speed of 120+  MPH.  Asinine!

Your average Egyptian driver appeared to have the emotional maturity of a 2-year old.  Here's one for you.  Heading downtown for a negotiation session with a City official one afternoon, we saw a small sedan bounce off the front right side of a fully loaded bus.  The bus driver turned his steering wheel to the right and returned the favor.  The little sedan reciprocated.  And on it went.  Mile after mile.

Another time I witnessed 2 cars meet, head on, in a narrow alley.  They both sat there for several minutes, revving their motors, honking their horms.  Finally, one guy turned off his engine, got out of the car, sat down on the hood and glared at the other guy.  Other guy, not to be outdone, followed suit.  Although I was curious about the final outcome, I didn't have time to hang around.  I wonder if they're still there in the alley, glaring at each other until, finally, one of them keels over dead and reaps his 72-virgin reward.

Forgive me for bringing religion into it, don't mean to offend anyone, but haven't you wondered where they get all those virgins?  Do the math: every day, thousands of believers die honorably.  You'd need at least a million virgins in the holding tent at all times.  Plus, you'd need several thousand eunuchs to guard the virgins from those who already have their 72-virgin quota, but were issued 6 dozen toothless old spinsters and want to trade up.  And you know eunuchs, always bitching about their lack of career choices, cranky as hell.  Talk about a major HR nightmare!  Allah, I don't envy you your job. 

Dateline Egypt, part 3

We had a fleet of 30 cars for project-related use on work days, and for personal use after hours and on weekends.  Engineers needed to inspect current and future job sites, surveyors were always in the field doing what surveyors do, other professional staff had frequent meetings with City officials downtown. 

Expats who lived more than a few blocks from the office car-pooled, and could use the vehicles for shopping and such during off hours.  During the week, spouses could take a bus or tram downtown but it wasn't a pleasant transport mode: crowded, dirty, slow, Western women ogled and pinched.  

There was one Egyptian driver for each fleet vehicle.  They knew the City, the quickest routes, alternate routes when traffic was snarled up by accidents or farmers delivering produce in donkey carts.  The drivers had it pretty easy.  On any given day, only half of them were needed.  The rest would sit around all day smoking and joking and drinking Turkish coffee.

One of my responsibilities in my prior assignment in the Corvallis, OR company headquarters was fleet manager.  We had roughly 500 company vehicles.  My job was to negotiate deals and financing on new vehicles, dispose of old vehicles, establish maintenance and cleaning schedules.

When I arrived in Egypt in '82 I was thinking only 30 cars in the fleet, piece of cake.  Boy, was I wrong!  The cars were poorly maintained and disgusting, filthy inside and out.  And there sat a dozen or so drivers, doing nothing all day.  I wrote up a set of cleaning and maintenance guidelines and gave them to Hamid, my fleet supervisor.  I expected a dramatic, overnight improvement in vehicle cleanliness.  I expected in vain.  Nothing happened.  Cars still filthy.  Drivers sitting around.

I gave Hamid the what for.  Waited a few more days.  And.............nothing happened.

Finally, Tarek, my accounting supervisor, took me aside.  "Drivers won't wash cars because it's beneath them.  Doing such a menial task would be degrading." 

'When in Rome .........'  So, I hired a guy, full time, to wash cars.  Problem solved.

Egyptians were, most likely still are, extremely class conscious.  We can thank the Brits for that, I think; they ruled the country for 74 years.  However, clan/tribal/religious connections probably play a large part also. 

Dateline Egypt, part 2

My prior post mentioned that I was in charge of housing.  There were about 35 long term American staff on site, mostly married couples, several with children, and a few singles as well.  Most were there for 1-3 years so there was a fair amount of turnover.  We rented houses and apartments for the expats, close to the office if possible, so they could walk to work.

We scoured the immediate area for appropriately-sized units, find 2 or 3 possibles and show them to the new arrivals.  We then negotiated the rental terms on the dwelling of choice, and determined what was needed to 'Westernize' the living area.

Alexandria's climate is similar to San Diego, very livable, but occasionally quite hot, and in the winter months, sometimes quite chilly.  Central heating was unheard of so we installed wall-mounted heat/cool units.  We also installed washers, dryers and refrigerators, and sometimes plumbing and lighting fixtures.  Although the rentals were furnished (by Egyptian standards), additional furniture was often needed, especially beds and chairs.

We chauffeured the newcomers around town to purchase bedding, towels, cookware, silverware, all the stuff needed for everyday living.  We chauffeured them around again, this time to various suks to purchase food.  There were no supermarkets, just suks (souk, suq), most of them the size of a large closet.  One suk for dry goods, one for meat, one for fresh produce, etc.

When I arrived in the City, I selected a 4th floor walk up, across the parking lot from the office.  It was summer, pleasant weather, so installing the heat/cool unit wasn't a high priority.  I'd lived there a couple weeks before the crew got around to the installation.  They started at 11 AM, bashing a hole in the wall, and were half finished when I went home for lunch at noon.

As I approached the front door, I noticed water running down the hallway, obviously coming from my apartment.  What the hell?  I entered the apartment, water all over the floor, a steady stream flowing out of the bathroom.  Looking into the bathroom, I saw one of the guys dumping a wicker basket of concrete debris into the toilet.  The toilet was merrily overflowing but he kept flushing it over and over anyway, dumping in more debris between flushes.  Unbelievable!

I grabbed Hossam, my housing crew chief, and read him the riot act.  Hossam was bright, well educated, spoke excellent English, but was apparently oblivious to the proper care and feeding of flush toilets.  I gave him a short course in basic plumbing, told him to clean up the mess and come back the next day to finish the job.  Sans flush.

The scene of the crime was actually a half bath.  Luckily, there was also a full bath, so I avoided using the half bath, not wanting another flood.  I suspect the other building occupants had plumbing issues after the incident, especially those on the first floor.

Dateline: Egypt, part 1

Alexandria, Egypt.  November, 1983.  I'm half way through a 30-month assignment with WWCG (Wastewater Consulting Group).  It's a consortium of 2 US and 2 Egyptian companies, doing the engineering/design for an expansion/upgrade of the City's wastewater system.  

My job is finance/admin manager, in charge of support services: facilities, housing, purchasing, shipping, customs clearance, transportation, accounting, word processing, communications and so on.  In the military, I'd be called the DLJO - Dirty Little Jobs Officer.  My staff is all Egyptian, about 200 in total.

We occupy the first 4 floors of a 12-story office building.  The top 8 floors are vacant, due to a building permit issue that's been brewing in court for 7 years.  Things move slowly in the Mideast.  Although I've been aware of the permit problem for some time, it doesn't impact our operation so I'm not concerned about the outcome.  

The issue: the builder got an initial permit for 5 floors.  Later, a permit was issued for the top 6 floors.  5 + 6 = 11.  But, the building has 12 floors.

I'm both flabbergasted and amused when the court decision comes down.  What was the court's decision?  Remove the 6th floor!  

For the next 4 months, a bunch of Egyptian laborers, armed with sledge hammers and wicker baskets, methodically demolish and remove everything on the 6th floor.  Everything but the columns supporting the upper floors, that is.  Day in, day out, these guys pound away on the concrete block walls. Chunks of concrete rain down on all sides of the building, bounce off the A/C units, threaten anyone standing near the building. 

All the debris was hand-carried in wicker baskets.  They'd load up the baskets, bring them down in the elevator, tromp through our first floor offices, out the front door, dump the baskets, tromp back to elevator.  For 4 months! 

Gotta love the Egyptian legal system - and the thoroughness of the permitting system as well.

Cat Tale

There were 4 of us milking that afternoon, my Dad and 3 of his sons: Larry, Gerry and yours truly.  It was the 50's and we were still milking cows the good 'ol fashioned way.  Squeeze.  Squirt.  Squeeze.  Squirt.  Each of us had our own little milking stool and our own 3 gallon pail.

It took about and hour and half to milk the 2-dozen-odd cows.  We'd dump the milk into 5-galllon pails after each cow, these larger buckets in a holding pattern, waiting for the milking to be done, after which the milk would be run through the separator.

After the milking, we'd pour some milk into a shallow container for the cats.  Barn cats.  Not spayed. Not neutered.  Not fed anything other than milk.  They were expected to live on rats and mice and anything else they could catch.  They did alright in that regard, never saw a skinny barn cat.

The brothers had just finished milking, and Dad was just finishing his last cow.  He came striding up the walkway behind the cows, his last pail of milk in hand.  Out of the corner of my eye I noticed one of the cats up on its hind legs, drinking milk out of one of the 5-gallon buckets.  Not an unusual occurrence, we frequently had to shoo the cats away from the buckets.

It seems Dad was in no mood for shooing that day.  Without breaking stride, he lofted that cat into the air with his foot.  The cat screamed, "ROWR!"  It flew five feet through the air in a perfect arc - and landed, dead center, in another full 5-gallon pail of milk.  Cat grenade!  Milk explosion!  Cat's in the bucket, panicked.  Rowr!  Rowr!  Rowr!  Clawing at the sides of the bucket, trying to escape, milk flying everywhere - and we 3 brothers laughing so hard we could barely remain standing.

After a couple failed attempts, Dad managed to grab the cat by the scruff of the neck and set it aside without getting too badly scratched.  The cat took off like greased lightning, not to be seen again that day, and never to be seen drinking out of a bucket again.  Dad finally saw the humor in it, chuckled, "Pretty good shot, huh?"

Plunk Your Magic Twanger, Froggy!

Folks in their 70s may recall Froggy the Gremlin.  Froggy was a naughty little fellow who constantly played tricks on guests of the radio show, Smilin' Ed's Gang, in the 1940s.  The show was one of several 'cereal serials' aimed at kids, although this particular show was sponsored by Buster Brown shoes instead of cereal.  "I'm Buster Brown, I live in a shoe. That's my dog, Tige, he lives there too!" 

Ralstson-Purina sponsored the Tom Mix Ralston Straight Shooters radio show.  Tom Mix, a famous cowboy actor, starred in hundreds of silent movies, always wearing a big white hat. The bad guys, of course, all wore black hats.  Mix himself was never heard on the radio show because his voice wasn't good enough, the result of a bullet wound in the throat and a broken nose.

Sergeant Preston of the Yukon was another popular kids radio show.  Preston was a mounty, who with the aid of his lead sled dog, Yukon King, pursued evildoers in the frozen north.  It was sponsored by Quaker Oats.

Yet another show, Bobby Benson and the B Bar B riders, was set in Texas.  Bobby was an orphan who inherited a large ranch, and rode along with his cowboys in pursuit of rustlers, thieves and other miscreants.  It was sponsored by H-O Oats.

On Saturday mornings in the late 40s and early 50s, I listened to all these shows, plus a few more.  And I, like millions of other kids, pestered my parents to buy the advertised cereals so I could save box tops and send them in for assorted worthless junk.  The cereal companies raked in the profits.

Cattail Cove State Park

We, and 3 other RVing couples from LHC, just returned from a very enjoyable 3 days at Cattail Cove State Park, which is about 30 minutes south of LHC.  The beach picnic area is shown above and below.  Those tiny figures in the center of the lower picture are Tom and Louise, part of our group, getting a kayak ready to launch.

The campground area of the Park with our 4 rigs grouped together, lower left.  Lisa and Elaine are approaching each other, prior to sitting down at a picnic table for a morning chat, lower right.

The kayak group launches at the Park.  Trish, Elaine and David in foreground, Louise and Tom behind.  Tom was having trouble getting his pedals seated properly.  They all have Hobie pedal kayaks.  David and Elaine's are inflatable; the others are traditional hard shell types.

They spent 2.5 hours on the Lake, then Terry and I took the trucks down to Havasu Springs to pick them up, and join them for lunch.

Thanks to David for bringing the firewood, and providing the evening ambiance.  Thanks to Trish for the s'mores makings.  Thanks to all for the delicious snacks and desserts, and the enlightening conversation about converters, inverters and extroverters!

Finally, congratulations to Lisa who finally had her groping fantasy fulfilled.