WELCOME TO AFRICA

Well after my first installment, I thought I would mix things up with an adventure: My first step on the continent of Africa. Cross one off Matt’s To Do List.

When I took on this opportunity, I landed a new boss as well. He is from Cairo, Egypt and has worked with our parent company for over 25 years, not Wilson. So the past few months he has been learning the Wilson organization by making trips to Houston, Dubai and Bahrain to meet his various new reports (including me). He decided a few weeks ago that it was time for the whole team to meet, so he invited us all to Cairo. So this past Tuesday, I headed to Egypt with another manager from Houston who was in town visiting.

Now I had heard that driving was the roughest in Cairo, except for maybe Bombay. Well I haven’t been to Bombay, but this was other worldly driving. I’ll just make a few statements for the record:

1. We never stopped at a stop sign or stop light.  In fact, there were no stop signs or stop lights.
2. Nobody adhered to street lanes. If there were 3 lanes, we were up to 5 cars wide.
3. Pedestrians cross anywhere, anytime, and expect to dodge traffic and not have cars stop for them.
4. There is always traffic, except Friday morning, which is like a USA Saturday.
5. There are 18,000,000 people in this city, and during the workweek, an additional 2,000,000 drive in from outlying cities to go to work. It is the second largest city in the world behind Mexico City.
6. Most importantly, we never had an accident, despite points 1-3.

Here’s a picture just to give you an idea, although I don’t think it does any justice.

So we truly lived life in the fast lane, but it was all worth it when we started to see the historic sites. It’s amazing to see these locations and think about Biblical times. It’s all right here, everything we read about! We went to the pyramids, the sphinx, the Egypt Museum, drover over and under the Nile River, saw Saladin’s castle and a number of other awesome sites on our drives around the city.
After each site we were rushed into the ultimate gift shops: Papyrus, Real perfumes and scents, and jewelry. I grabbed some winners and expect they will be catching the DHL train soon enough. Here are some pictures from the trip.

Matt, Unni (Wilson Oman) and Marty, chilling with the pyramids in the background

At the base of the largest pyramid – Unni, Matt, Marty and Tommy (Wilson Dubai)
Look at how big it all is!

The Sphinx with two of the pyramids in the background

Most importantly, the Nile River…with safety motorcycle rider in foreground; no worries, this guy was nimble on his scooter.

A story wouldn’t be good without a travel warning. I was the last of the group to leave Cairo. Our driver rushed me to a book store to grab something for the plane, as I’d finished my last book, and then dropped me off in front of an airport that clearly lost the battle with communism in the 1950s.
GULP. If you’ve never been through an airport in the Middle East, the picture is hard to explain. It is a wonder that anyone ever gets a ticket. I was standing in the ticket line when all of a sudden the two ticket ladies yell to the lines, “The system is down here, please all move to this station!!” Order and respect are thrown out the window as everyone piles over women and children to get in the new line. I get my tickets, but not without a, “We apologize sir, but this flight is now at 8:40, not 7:40 due to delays.” Great news, thanks! Onto security and immigration I march, where the real run started.
I have done a lot of traveling over the past few years and still got hoodwinked and beat-up in this airport. In less organized airports, like Cairo, there are guys running around with uniforms offering to help you through security and immigration. Like a true ‘merican, I thought the guys that spotted me from 2 miles away were legitimate because I was inside the airport. Wrong. $40 later I was through to immigration, but kicking myself for paying to save 3 minutes in line. How are con-artists inside the airport? As I licked my “cheap” wound, I pulled up to immigration glad to be headed back to Saudi. “Where is your immigration card!!!” I mean stern, sharp, halting, staccato words from this guy. Yep, here it is, NOT FILLED OUT! Not going well. I sit down, complete the card, and back to the end of the line. Back in front of the Soup Nazi and through successful this time.

I am having a blast, but everyday has its new quirks and funny situations.