Egypt • Joan Hust

Here I was with my husband, Bill, and two sons, Pepper and Jacob, on our way to Chingola, Zambia and had a layover in Cairo. Bill had a 3 yr. teaching contract to work at the Kabundi Secondary School.

It was quite a sight to see the Pyramids on the banks of the river Nile.  I had only seen photos of them in textbooks in school. Pepper was talking to a family who had a son his age and it turned out that they were on holiday from Zambia. They had walked through the pyramids and now they were leaving and told us that they would look forward to seeing us in Chingola. Our first home in Chingola turned out that they were our neighbors.

The pyramids are huge.  It is unbelievable that the Pharaohs built the pyramids to keep their mummies and treasures safe. They are all built by hand and some are over 4, 500 years old. The pyramids at Giza and their sides face perfectly North, South, East and West. Our sons ran through them but Bill and I were too tall to do that and had to bend way down to walk through them. When we finally walked out at the other end Pepper and Jacob were able to take a short ride on a camel.  Jacob would not sit on the camel alone so he sat on the camel with his brother, Pepper.

 We stayed in a hostel in Cairo that was next to a garbage dump, and bus depot.  It was very noisy.  There was not a plug for the sink. One of the employees came to our room, and took a wadded rag out of his pocket, and stuffed it in the drain. The water stayed in the sink for a few minutes. The population in Cairo at that time was over six million. It has a very high level of pollution and traffic.  The city is located along the Nile River Valley.

 

We toured the Egyptian Museum.  It took us an entire day to walk through the museum. It was very dusty and extremely hot.  Everything was most interesting to Bill and me but our sons were not enthused, and the extreme heat did not help.

The airport has four terminals.  It is located several miles out of the city. One of the workers that were collecting our boarding passes told us that they have over a million passengers weekly. I believed him.  It was a relief to be seated on the plane and we welcomed the air conditioning and cold juice drinks that were served within the hour from takeoff. Even though we were tired, hot and clammy we were excited to be in Africa as we only had two more flights and we would be in Zambia which would be our home for nine years.  

Praise the Lord for the wonderful people we meet in our travels!