Leaving Egypt, Part VI: Pipe Dreams

For the first hour, we stared at each other across the Formica table at Burger King and shared our thoughts. Any thoughts. There weren’t many, for it was 6:30 a.m., the sun had risen, and we’d been up for almost 24 hours. The ups and downs had exhausted us.

We shared pipe dreams of Germany. Our tickets had us flying from Cairo through Frankfurt on into Washington. If only there were some way for the diligent travel agent in Kentucky to get us on the first leg of the flight. We could spend the night in Germany. Anything to GET US OUT OF EGYPT.

I love Egypt. But on this day, I hated Egypt.

Our stories turned to naps on the Burger King booth-benches, and we took turns watching the luggage.

I visited the restroom, and remembered to bring a crumpled, rumpled 50 piaster note with me. To tip the toilet lady. She smiled graciously at me – a foreigner in the airport at this hour knew to tip the toilet lady! I smiled. I knew to tip the toilet lady! I considered myself to be building culture karma.

One and a half bleary naps later, at 9:30 a.m. (not at 9, as the sign outside stated. This is, after all, still Egypt) the Lufthansa office opened. I swooshed in, exhaustion mixed with angst on my face, and spoke to Nagham, the woman who would help save our lives.

Well, you know, not SAVE our...I mean...you know what I mean. She helped us a lot.

She just GOT it. I told her our story ONCE, after asking in Arabic if she spoke English. Once through, and she got it. Simply GOT it. She was a polar opposite of The Blue-Lined Bitch who ran us in circles while failing to inform us that our quest was futile. Ran back to the Burger King benches, its stench now reminding me of psychedelic hours hallucinated away wondering what the next step would look like, I informed my classmates of this latest development.

Despite Nagham’s help, everything remained a struggle: I offered classmate C a piece of gum, and the tinfoil container sliced open his thumb. We heaved two months’ worth of luggage onto the elevator that separated Burger King from the main floor of the terminal, pushed the “down” button and went up. We bounced back and forth between floor 1 and 3 until some hungry flier requested the elevator and brought our sweating, trembling bodies to floor two. In the Lufthansa office, Nagham offered her spare computer to us to use the internet, which we soon discovered required entering a password. The password had to be re-entered when bringing up ANY new page. An hour later, after waiting for breaks in her workday for her to type in the password, she finally GAVE the series of letters and numbers to me. A phone sat just a swivel away from the computer, and she graciously offered it to us to make any calls we needed. When making my first call to Washington D.C. (where it really WAS 3 a.m. by that point) she picked up the phone on her desk and began dialing a separate call – into MY phone call. Our D.C. correspondent’s first moments on this land-line call with me went something like this: “Hi, it’s *beeeep* Liz *boop boop* again *BEEEP*.”

So we sat then…in the office. We napped then…on Lufthansa benches. They were surreal naps nuanced by occasional meaningless but exciting updates. Nagham connected with our Kentucky travel agent! Oh, but we have to wait for another e-mail to arrive. So tired. The travel agent found us alternate flights! Oh, but we would have to pay for them out of pocket…not a possibility. So deeply, deeply exhausted. And hungry. And hopeless.

Around 1 p.m., nine hours after our classmates left Egypt behind in dual turbine-trenches of dust, we regretfully realized we wouldn’t make our overnight vacation in Germany. The afternoon passed waiting for pre-dawn e-mails from the States, faxes that never arrived, and our Washington coordinator who worked through a battle with food poisoning.

4:30 p.m. arrived. We had literally spent all day in the travel agency. Nagham informed us regretfully that the office was closing, and she had to leave. Her kindergartner had to be picked up from school, and the office was closing.