How long Did It Take The Government to Build the Pyramids?
August 31st, 2007Since I was a child I dreamt of the day when I could visit the pyramids and climb them. The day came last month when I suddenly found myself among one of the world’s ancient wonders. I rented a carriage with a guide and our tour started. Though the guide was illiterate, he told me so many great things about the history of the Pharaohs, the great people who “as I used to believe” were the builders of the pyramids.
After 10 minutes of the tour I asked the carriage owner (i.e. my guide) to have some pictures, so I got down of the carriage, gave him the camera, and stood upright with one of the pyramids behind me. The man was about to shoot the picture when suddenly a policeman – in a white uniform- riding a camel came hastily towards the guide and hit him with a very long whip saying, “ Move! Move! Son of a b*.” the policeman directed the same insult to me also. The guide made a move to me with his hand to run to the carriage in order not to be hit by the policeman, so I did. The guide was really scared; his face was red and the tears were standing on his lower eyelashes. I asked him about the reason but he didn’t say any word. Then I looked in the distance and found dozens of those white devils riding camels and insulting people who stop to take pictures or just stand and stare at the wonders.
It came to my mind that the policeman did not realize that I’m a tourist, but thought I’m a native citizen so he called me those filthy words, especially that I look completely Egyptian in appearance. But a minute later I found them calling the same shameful words to other people who from their costumes and dialect I realized were Saudis. I was really surprised! how dare those filthy people do this with tourists in such an exceptional place like this? And are the government aware of the harm those brutes are doing to the reputation of Egypt? I have seen on Youtube.com and some other places the abuse of the Egyptian police to Egyptian civilians but it never came to my mind that tourists might be subject to such treatments.
“The dogs of the government,” explained the guide later on, “ do this with us every time and they don’t differentiate whether you are Egyptian or not, and what’s more catastrophic is that they chase us and take some of the money we are paid by the tourists.”
When I left Giza I started thinking of what happened. I remembered the information about the Pharaohs. But I found that the information this guide tells to tourists who rent his carriage is irrelevant. What does the story of the Pharaohs have to do with the pyramids which appeared were built and owned by the Egyptian government? And those policemen should have done a lot of hard work in building them so now they don’t want people to approach them or even have pictures. Aren’t they right?
Oh Great Pharaohs! Why hadn’t you left us something we could enjoy and be proud of ?
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It’s a bloody shame that the people who are entrusted with the welfare of people visiting the pyramids are so ignorant and untrained that they think that the antiquities of Egypt are only for the foreign tourists. I’m delighted every time I see Egyptian school children and families visiting the pyramids and other antiquities. Egyptians today should be proud of the centuries of civilisation that precede them…just too bad that there are some cracks in it now. I heard a visiting police official from the UK once comment about the American government that the two occupations that had to make life and death decisions for people were oddly enough one, doctors who were superbly trained and two, the police who were appallingly trained. Probably a good thing he never met the Egyptian police, who on the whole have no training at all.
This is awful Ahmad. Thanks for bringing it up. Was it a one-off incident or does this regularly happen? I am surprised I never heard about such brutality before and was under the impression that Egypt and Egyptians were in ‘love’ with tourists and the petro-dollars they bring with them! Something is amiss. Can any Egyptians or tourists who have been to the pyramids recently shed more light on the situation.
Wow, that same incident happened to me and my brothers when we were visiting Egypt and at the pyramids. A police person came up on a horse and started yelling and cursing at the guide and my brothers and actually started pulling the poor guide off his horse. We had to explain repeatedly that although we were Egyptian we were there as tourists. Only after he found out we were visiting from the States did he leave us alone. And at virtually every touristy site we went to my Dad and my brothers got interrogated and the police/security demanded to know what we were doing at these places and why we didn’t have ID’s.
Really, the only explanation my family could come up with for why my dad and brothers specifically were treated like this is because they are uberparanoid about terrorism and people blowing things up.
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