The Sakkara (NOT the Sahara)

Today was the highlight of my time here in Egypt, thus far. The Fall Retreat for our youth group is about to take place this coming weekend. Naturally, that means there is a busy week ahead of us. Today we drove out to the area that our retreat is going to take place at. As we drove, houses became more and more run down, donkeys became more common, the water in canals appeared more polluted, and garbage became a part of the landscape. Along the way, we picked up John's Egyptian friend, Ramadan, to help us negotiate with the country club we were headed to.

Ramadan was a friendly man who spoke excellent English. He took us to the Sakkara Country Club (where we will be holding our retreat this weekend) and showed us around the area. He also interpreted our requests to the country club manager so that everything would be ready for us when we showed up with 70 students later in the week. This was a really nice looking facility, complete with a pool, horse stables, playing fields, sand dunes, etc. It should be a lot of fun there! But that was not the interesting part of today’s trip. The interesting part came when we drove back to Ramadan’s village and visited his house.

As we drove through the village, it was apparent that these people live a much simpler life than those in the industrialized world. The only thing I could think of to draw a parallel to it would be the way settlers lived in the Wild West. Animals were more common than cars (donkeys would be tied up outside of shops, just like a bike). People would sit in the shade on each side of the road and perform simple tasks such as shaving wood into small pieces, weaving baskets, and chopping metal bars (this was really funny to watch. One kid would hold the metal bar in the chopping mechanism, the other kid would hang himself from the end of a handle that was up in the air and bounce until his weight forced the chopping mechanism through the metal bar).

Eventually we drove into what seemed like a palm tree forest and parked the car. These palm trees actually had bunches of dates growing from the tops of them. We walked through a number of little pathways that passed in front of various local people’s houses. While doing so, the children from these houses would run out and say “Hallo” to us. A few of them saw that I was holding a camera, and motioned that they wanted me to take a picture of them. John, Ramadan, and Heidi just kept on walking, so I had to try and snap a few pictures as we walked.

Eventually we arrived at Ramadan's house where geese (Maybe they weren’t geese, I suck at naming animals… they were big and white with long curved necks and orange bills) and roosters were mulling about in front of their doorway. Inside, we stepped into their living room/bedroom where we spent the duration of our visit. After eating flatbread and drinking some tea, Ramadan asked us if we liked dates (the food). None of us had ever eaten them fresh, so we didn’t really know. Ramadan was convinced that we had to experience fresh dates, so he sent his son out to climb a palm tree and gather dates for us. The first batch he brought back were yellow and brown dates. They were really sweet tasting. After that, he decided we needed MORE dates (we already had a big bag of them to take home with us) so he went out and gathered a different kind of dates. These ones were a reddish color and were much harder. They had a texture sort of like the white portion of a coconut. These ones were sort of sweet, but also quite bitter. They left our mouths with a really weird gritty feeling. Ramadan gave us a bag of them to take home as well.

After snapping a few quick pictures, we headed back to John’s car where the highlight of my day began. Behind the car was a huge sand dune. John mentioned that the step pyramids were behind that dune and that if we were quick, we could run up to the top of them while he got the car backed out. I took off across the street and started racing up the side of this sand dune. This was no small sand dune. After I got about half way up and my lungs were about to burst, I felt as though I wasn’t moving at all. With every step I took, my feet would sink into the sand, slide downward, and make it feel as though I was simply working on a stair-master machine or something. I pressed on for another few minutes and eventually made it to the top. It was worth the heart attack that I had on the way up. The scene up there was breathtaking (or maybe I was still catching my breath from sprinting up a sand dune, I don’t know). Directly in front of me was the great Step Pyramid. Surrounding it were numerous other pyramids. To my right was a view of the massive village. As I turned around and looked down to where I had just come from, I saw an enormous forest of date palms and scattered homesteads. Behind all them were the silhouettes of more pyramids. The whole time I stood up there, the wind was rushing at me in one big, continuous, refreshing explosion. I climbed up another sand dune that peaked at the top. From there I stood in the rushing wind and turned around and took in this amazing view of Egypt (I also took a few low quality video clips on my digital camera). Hundreds of meters below, people were waving and shouting through the wind. I waved back and couldn’t help but notice that it felt as though I was flying high above the countryside. Everyone was so far below me, and the wind was swimming all around me. I could’ve stayed there all day. But then I realized that the person shouting and waving at me wasn’t looking quite so friendly as he got closer. Turns out he was the groundskeeper and was probably coming to collect some baksheesh (monetary tip) from me. I ran down the hill, jumped into the car, and we drove away. What a day that was.