June 26, 2009 – 12:50pm (Egyptian Time)
I have missed my flight out of Cairo to Italy. I thought that my flight was leaving at 12pm but realized at the last minute it was 11am. I showed up at the airport at 10:15am and the guy told me that I could not get the flight because I had to be there an hour in advance. So after being given the run around, being told to go from place to place, and hassled by the locals trying to sell cab rides or even get paid for giving me information, I had to buy a different ticket for a flight that leaves at 5pm. The ticket cost me $335.00. This trip is truly breaking me financially.

I spent the night in downtown Cairo and stayed at the Ramses Hilton Hotel. It’s a pretty nice hotel, although it doesn’t have the charm of the Mena House Oberoi. I went to the Egyptian Museum and was able to see all the ancient artifacts. I saw things like the royal mummies, King Tut’s mask, statues, and sarcophaguses . I was able to get a few shots of the perimeter but they don’t allow anyone to take pictures inside. Walking through the museum gave me a feeling that I was bearing witness to the departure of a great civilization, a civilization mimicked countless times by the civilizations of today. The Egyptians were a strong, proud and prosperous people of many different shades. From light tan to pitch black I get the sense that they lived together in harmony. Much like Egypt today, aside from the poverty and opportunism, there is a feeling that people here of different colors and religions are one. In conversation with so many different Egyptians I was told that they felt that I was a part of them because we shared the same skin. Lots of them were even more hospitable to me even after they discovered that I was not Egyptian. The bellman at the hotel made sure I got a good price for my cab ride to the airport because he said “you have a face like mine…an Egyptian face”. And during the cab ride the cab driver sung many praises of his love for people of color and how he felt we were all united. This definitely inspired me because I get tired of seeing different cultures always fighting amongst each other…especially minorities in America. I think that we need to stop trying to pinpoint our differences and focus more on realizing our similarities. And not just minorities, I think this is the responsibility of ALL people in the world. Once we do that, the world will be a much better place.

Also, I’d like to add that there is much love for Obama here in Egypt. Everywhere I go when I tell them I am American they respond with OBAMA! LOL. In the words of the cab driver I was riding with, “Obama good, Bush bad!!”

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