Leaving Egypt, Part VII: It's Looking Up

It was 4:30 p.m., the Lufthansa office was closing, and our agent Nagham had to leave to pick up her kindergartner from school. We had waited all day – literally – and even that wasn’t enough time. Despair rose the pitch of my voice to a whiny E minor, but Nagham cut in –

Don’t worry, she told us. I’ll come back after I pick my kid up. I’ll come back and finish this job.

So we left our suitcases – two months worth of desert clothes and pyramid figurines in increasingly battered bags – in the office, and climbed to one of the upper-level cafes. We looked across the half-mile terminal, and could see Burger King on the other side. Twelve hours earlier we despaired over there.





To kill time, we told travel stories. Our worst travel stories. Like, that time we got stuck in the Cairo airport for an entire day…

But seriously, my classmate C – a former Marine in Iraq – told one of his worst travel stories, about driving a convoy across a highly dangerous desert stretch and the flat tire one of the trucks rolled up with. The replacement Humvee tires were huge, and unwieldy. After about five minutes of unsuccessful attempts to replace it, one of the Iraqi officers ran up and asked frantically what the holdup was. After all, they were in one of the most dangerous spots in Iraq, sitting like cattle. When he saw the flat tire, he dropped to his knees, spun the jack like a top and had the new tire on in 90 seconds. They made it through their trip unscathed, despite the holdup, despite the incredible danger inherent in their route.

Our unexpected layover didn’t seem that horrendous anymore.

Really, we weren’t missing anything back home. We’d arrive – if Nagham pulled through – a mere 24 hours after scheduled. We were now just spending a day of our lives waiting. And hungry. We were really hungry. And tired. God, were we tired. But it could have been worse.

Just as she promised, Nagham came back an hour later with a curly-haired moppet in tow and some apple juice to pacify this pre-schooler during what would certainly be a boring experience for a three-year old. Back inside the Lufthansa office, we resumed our positions: perched on an oversized bench chair, elbows projected forward onto our knees, chin in hand, eyes anxiously on our thin-framed agent as she logged back into her computer. She poured some apple juice for her kid. Then poured some for us. The sugar rush was magnificent.

“Oh,” she said as she glanced at her computer. “Your flights have been confirmed.” AL HAMDULILEH!

(Stay tuned for the final part, coming soon. Real soon. I promise. Complete with more photos!)