The Time of Troubles

Nobody enjoys international travel more than me, obviously, but there are things about it that are both good and bad, and I guess I've read enough Marcus Aurelius to know that I have to let the fleeting things (in this case bad) go. I just wish I had been able to display such a balanced, rational view yesterday during a day that will not go down as one of my best. As most people know I have a pretty volcanic temper and it was right on the edge all day, and there were a couple small eruptions. My travel wallet, which I normally cling to like grim death, and which contained my passport and all my credit cards, was stolen here in Cairo. It actually happened the night before when I left my hotel to go for a short walk and left my wallet not actually hidden in my room, but certainly not sitting out for a public viewing. It disappeared and I didn't realize it until the next morning when I was packing to catch a plane for Amman. Whoops would not be the appropriate word to explain my reaction - and I'm sure there is an angry cloud of curse words still floating above the Nile. Other valuables were completely ignored, which makes me think they were mainly concerned with the passport, which they can get a lot of money on for the black market. A very nice lady at the American Embassy (the only one there I met there who was competent) told me that passports are stolen all the time in Cairo, including from the nicest hotels. It drives me crazy because I am so meticulous in watching over my passport, figuring that if everything else falls apart as long as I have my passport life will take care of itself.

So, that left me stranded in Cairo - I couldn't fly out because I didn't have a passport so I had to cancel my flight to Amman, and also the meeting I had set up for that afternoon with new University of Jordan faculty members. This also meant trading a million emails and a few phone calls, all heading off to Vermont in the wee small hours of the morning because of the time difference. Luckily, my wife is a freakishly early riser so she was up cancelling credit cards by 5:00 a.m. Then there were calls to Rochelle at Child Travel and Christen at the Vermont Federal Credit Union about changing travel plans and getting a replacement bank card (I keep my travel funds at the Credit Union to always keep things separate from my personal account), respectively. Rochelle, per usual, was fantastic about arranging my flight schedule. The credit union apparently can't get a replacement bank card to me "over-nighted" until next Tuesday, although that certainly doesn't seem to be Christen's fault - she jumped right on the situation and pursued it with the higher-ups. So, it will eventually show up, although I don't think this qualifies as cracker-jack service (if it shows up on Tuesday at all) in regards to a company policy so it looks like I'll be changing banks when I get back.

That left me with the immediate chore of trying to get a replacement passport, which turned into a full day of madness. First if was off to the US Embassy, which was relatively pleasant although hardly designed to inspire confidence in your government (who saw that coming). I did meet one hyper-competent woman who turned everything around very quickly - including calling up the picture of my old passport on the computer to verify that it was, in fact, me. The other officials told me that I needed more personal ID, even though I tried to explain to them that all my personal ID was stolen. Normally I do a much better job of separating cards and ID into different bags so that I have a fall-back, but I've been so busy lately (or maybe I've grown complacent, in which some of this is clearly my fault, from travelling a bit and just didn't take my normal precautions). I also had a picture of my old passport, which allowed me some leverage - it also allowed me to enter the US Embassy - although I had to go outside to make a couple extra copies of the copy so that I could leave one at the front gate. It also cost a $100 to get a replacement, and I was lucky to have just enough to cover it in Egyptian pounds that I had not converted or was stupid enough to leave in my wallet. I also had to go get a couple new pictures, which was supposed to be in the wooden kiosk across the street - it was actually in a little hole in the wall about a block away hidden away down an alley (it wasn't a kiosk, although there was wood used in its construction). Overall I went in and out of the Embassy about four or five times, but did end up with a new passport, although this one is only good for a year (I can trade this one in for a regular passport for no charge as soon as I get home).

That was only the first part of the adventure. Then I had to go get an entry stamp in my passport. Egypt gives lovely entry stamps that take up about half a page in a passport, which is still much smaller than the entire page that an Indian visa occupies. Without the stamp I could not leave the country, and this meant going over to the Egyptian Ministry of the Interior and and the Immigration office. If it had not been so coincidently comical, it would have been pretty hellish. I can't begin to fill you in on all the trials and tribulations because it is a bit confusing to me now and it only happened yesterday. Suffice it to say I went up and down repeatedly over three floors - bounced back and forth between four different windows - pushed and shoved an astonishing mass of humanity - offered bribes - had the advantage of being an American - and it still took hours. The main staging area for this theatre of the bizarre was on the second floor (the copy machine was on the first floor and "the General" was on the third floor), where there was a long narrow hallway with windows (like an old bank) on each side. I went to window 43 and was sent to 12 and then was sent to 2 and then was directed to 42, which is sort of where I thought I should have been initially. It had the simple words "Lost Passports" stencilled onto the class. In front of it were dozens of people, from every imaginable nationality (including a bunch of American high school or university students) all piling up, pushing, cursing, and trying to push their passport through the opening and into the hands of an official - all in a hundred degree heat. I've spent enough time in India to know that queueing up patiently in lines at banks or offices or even movie theaters is such a quaint American custom, so I dove right in. I was angry and did my fair share of shoving, including women and children - and just about turned around and physically confronted a guy behind me, but luckily (probably for me, because I'm really a wimp) my absolutely murderous glare bought me a couple inches. Pushing for around an hour just got me close enough to get a form to fill out and a directive to get my new passport copied, and then a return back upstairs to the same window to start pushing again, only to be told that I also needed a copy of the letter from the US Embassy explaining that my passport had been stolen, and then back downstairs to get a copy of that, although when I went back to the window again they didn't want the form. I thought it was also interesting that the last line on the form was a request for me to sign a personal declaration that my passport had not been stolen, which I did. I wonder if this allows the Egyptian government to declare that while not many passports are actually stolen, a lot of clumsy Americans do manage to lose them. Then I was directed upstairs to meet "the General", where I had to sit for a while (but at least his office was air-conditioned) for him to give his approval - next to his office was another office full of computers so old that they weren't running Windows. At a certain point the General asked where I was from and I said American, and he immediately yelled over to one of the functionaries to hurry up. This is what always amazes me - it was a bad experience for me and it took hours, but I'd hate to think how bad it was for those poor souls from sub-Saharan Africa who are probably still sitting in line a day later. So, eventually my passport was hand-carried downtown by a diminutive guy in a uniform who delivered it back to window 42. So, I was back where I started with my passport in a pile of passports, but at least it had been processed up to a certain point and the General had OK'd it. At this point I looked into the cubicle and made eye contact with the little official who had carried it down from the General's office. He gave the universal sign for baksheeh (it's the same signal in India) - that is, miming putting food in his mouth (he did this on the sly). I nodded in response, and he reached over and moved my passport to the top of the pile. From there it was only about another twenty minutes. At a certain point another official took it in a back room, and I had this look of exasperation on my face - and the Egyptian guy next to me smiled and said, "Welcome to Egypt," as in, "yeah, it doesn't make sense to me either, but there you go," which made me crack up. Finaly the form was stamped (sort of) and I could leave. Everything else is up in the air, but, hey, I have a passport. Oh, and I looked for the little official later and I spotted him walking down the hallway towards me, and I turned to walk towards him with my hands in my pocket for the exchange of baksheesh but he gave me this very theatrical rolling of his eyes to show that someone was watching so the deal was off, and he just smiled at me and said good-bye.

Luckily Betsy and her friend Lee have arrived from Luxor so there's some financial support. Plus, I've brought Betsy's operations manager Darlene into the fray and she'll probably have the Egyptian government organized by this afternoon.