Day 46...Alexandria Orphanage

Day 46, July 30th:

Egypt Day 4!

After our awesome and fun filled day yesterday, we decided to spend the little time we had this morning near the port; however, we did want to walk around the city a little to get a true feel for Alexandria.  Around 09:30 I met up with Danielle and we decided to walk outside the gates of the port, as we were ready to explore.  Let me tell you that we explored so well that we stumbled across some really nasty stuff!  As we first walked out of the gates, we walked straight past all of the oldest payphones in the world.  Of course we stopped to see how much a call would cost, but forgot about the language barrier.  We could tell, however, by comparing the numbers on the screen to the numbers on the keypad that it would cost .25 pounds or about $0.05 to place a call.  The phone was covered in filth and looked as if it was 50 years old.  We then kept walking in search of a business district; however, we stumbled across an open-air market (basically a few sheds on a side road that pulled out “merchandise” to sell).  These little vendors sold everything:  meat, cheese, eggs, fruits, vegetables, whole fish, electric fans, grains, seed, coolers, etc.   It was a true eye opener and a great example of why you can’t eat hardly anything in Egypt.  They had hundreds of eggs sitting out loose on a wooden cart pulled by a donkey baking in the hot sun.  They had cheese sitting on top of a plastic box melting away with no form of packaging on the cheese.  Everything was just sitting out in full sun with no packaging or means of refrigeration, as cars drove by kicking up dust, etc.  They had whole fish stacked up on a wooden cart separated by rusty nails drying out in the heat and sun.  Whole animals were being skinned and chopped to pieces as they hung from the ceiling, again outside on the dusty public street. 

We continued walking around for a little while longer until we started feeling uncomfortable with how the locals were looking at us.  Every person we walked by just stared at us and we knew we didn’t belong.  I am sure it is the same feeling many of the fully covered Muslim women get in the US, but I got to experience it in Egypt, even as a young man.  We then promptly returned to the ship for lunch.  Around 13:00, Danielle, Nick and I headed down to the busses for our SAS trip to the Alexandria Orphanage. 

The Alexandria Orphanage currently has 34 children and they all live, eat, sleep, play, learn and grow together.  One family lives with and provides everything for the children.  With the help of many others from around the community, including some of the older orphans that have moved on in their lives, they start trust funds for each child, teach them how to work together, provide them with an education, assist them in figuring out their passions, and support them in learning more about each of their favorite subject areas in hopes that they will be successful in that field later in their life.  Our tour guide told us on the short ride over to the orphanage that you may not adopt children in Egypt, as it is against the law.  As a side note, there also is a law that no one can be homeless and sleep on the streets; consequently, the Egyptian government provides free housing to all of its homeless citizens. 

Once we arrived at the orphanage, we climbed to the third story of the ten-story building to greet the children.  We brought some toys and school supplies with us to play with and then donated them to the orphanage when we left.  All of the children were very happy to see us!  At first they were very shy, but within three minutes they were playing catch with little balls, blowing bubbles, making origami hats and paper airplanes out of construction paper, building various figures out of Playdough and having a good ole’ time.  The best part was the children’s fascination with our cameras. 

Many of them had never seen a camera before and they loved it when you showed them a picture of themselves on the screen.  After a few minutes, they all wanted to go take pictures of everything!  I spent a few minutes showing the children how to use the camera and then they were off taking pictures of everyone and everything.  It was a lot of fun to see who they wanted to take a picture of.  Many of the children wanted to take pictures of all of the caretakers and not of the other children.  Some of the children even wanted to be in pictures with the female caretakers that were fully covered.  That part was a little weird for me because how would you even know who that was in the picture a few weeks later.  I mean all married or engaged women wear the same solid black dress with only a strip of skin showing between their eyes, so that men besides their husbands can’t look at them.  It was a really unique experience!

I also spent a good amount of time talking to a few of the older kids there.  One was 12 (I have no idea how to even get close to spelling his name…let’s just call him Jack) and another that was 23, named Muhammad.  Muhammad was in the orphanage as a child and he is now an Economics Major at Alexandria University.  He is going to be a Junior this year and he spends a lot of his time at the orphanage helping the other children.  Four years ago, he agreed to take Jack from the orphanage and provide for him on his own.  Jack lived in the orphanage since he was 2 years old and has never met his real parents, but he was very open to talk about his life.  He knew a lot about his history, even as a baby, and discussed it with my roommate Nick and I in detail. 

Jack was even telling us stories about what it was like to live in Alexandria.  He had gone to show us around the rest of the 5 stories of the orphanage and we stopped outside on one of the balconies over looking the street.  All of a sudden, he just stopped what he was saying and said, “Please don’t stare or look at anyone that passes by on the street!”  Now, the street was four stories below us, but he wanted to make sure we didn’t stare or look at anyone.  Of course, we had to ask what his reasoning was.  He told us this story about the people that live in the “building” across the street.  It was very weird that he never called it a “house” across the street, always a “building.”  Anyways, he said that the guys who lived there were killers, drug dealers, murderers and thieves.  One day he remembers being on the balcony watching the guys come out of the “building” and steal a car from the side of the road.  He said that he knew that they had stolen the car, but the authorities never punished them because they were part of the mafia and the Police didn’t care.  He vividly remembered the day that they sold the stolen car because everyone on the street wanted to kill them.  They all were in this walled in section of the back yard throwing a party all day and all night with loud music and all of the other mafia members were there too. It was very personal to see a 12 year old boy tell this story so vividly and so openly to people he had just met one hour earlier.  It was a very intense conversation! 

After our very long discussion, we went back down stairs and played with the other children for a few minutes before we had to leave.  We all took a group picture and the family was so happy that we came to visit them and the children.  The children didn’t want us to leave, but of course we had to get back to the ship.  It was a truly unique experience!  I feel as if I could visit an orphanage in any other country in the world and not get the same feeling as I did here.  It was just truly remarkable to see how much that orphanage impacted the children’s lives. 

Once we returned to the port, we went over to the few shops to see if we could find any cool souvenirs or gifts.   This was the only place we have seen that has postcards, magnets, tee shirts, etc.  The postcards were all super ugly and didn’t even look like the place depicted on them.  The magnets were all cheaply made, very expensive and not that cool.  The tee shirts were all discolored from the sun and some of them looked like they have been sitting there for years.  I was very surprised to see that they had no good souvenirs at all.  Oh well!  We spent so much time there that we had to run back to the ship at 19:15 to get dinner before the dinning halls close at 19:30.  We ate dinner and then watched a pirated copy of Toy Story 3 that one of my friends had purchased along the way.  I was so tired that I actually fell asleep during the first 10 minutes, so I will have to watch it again sometime.  It was another very interesting day in EGYPT!!!