short trip to the Internet cafe. The first thing I saw on the new York
times website was a a missile attack on Israel in Elat. Thanks to 20th
century history I know where Elat is and I knew that it was on the
gulf if aquaba where we happen to be staying. This is all well and
good, the attack was far away (a hundred miles?) and it had no
immediae effect on us except as a conversation starter. When I read
the article they had no idea who shot the missile but the main
suspects were Palestinians launching it from Egypt. As the story
progressed however information was released that the missile came from
the southwest. We happen to be southwest and all of southern Sinai is
south west of Elat. The other suspect using the information was Saudi
Arabia who have some land souh west of Elat. I will stop here and
correct myself a bit. The attack wasn't directly on Elat, it hit Aqaba
a Jordanian city a little ways away. The problem was the intention to
hit the israeli city.
The problems for us are going on as I write. We are on the bus back to
Cairo in time for our evening flight tommorow. As we left the hotel
management paniced a bit. We are six Americans travelling without
security and a terrorist attack is suspected to had come from Egypt.
It doesn't matter that the attack was on israel, the Egyptians are on
alert to protect all americans in Sinai where the suspected terrorists
launched the missile from. The hotel manager who arraned the bus told
us to right down on a piece of paper our names; passport number, and
"any nationality except US". I wrote German so as not to fully lie
but the rest of US are now Canadian and australian. This goes back to
the corruption within this country. Instead of showing our passports
at checkpoints they ask to see the paper and they see Germans candians
and Australians. Immediately. They let us go without assigning us
protection because none of those countries provide Egypt with huge
sums of money and arms.
In Egypt American citizens are better than Egyptian citizens or any
other nationality. We give them money to not fight with israel. They
need the money and the only way they continue to recieve it is if
American tourists are happy. To the Egyptians a safe tourist is a
happy tourist. The hotels disagree and think that the police just
cause more problems (personally I agree) so they do their part to
screw over the police. Honestly there is no threat to us here but
there is a chance for the police to make more money by using events
like this as propaganda to be hired on as security. I fly tommorow at
this time so I'm going to get some sleep now but I thought I would
share. Inchallah there will be no problems and I will be in Cairo
tommorow morning in time to pack and say goodbye to this beautiful but
sometimes spectacularly corrupt nation.
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