I hope you all noticed the subtle harbinger of doom in my last post - I booked a flight to Hurghada for 19th September and here I am still posting from Switzerland on 24th September. What happened?
First of all, there was an uprising in Egypt, Mursi was removed as President, the military took over, curfews were imposed and a state of emergency introduced. Well, I didn't see that one coming. Not to that extent anyway. I was aware of upcoming elections, I was aware of dissatisfaction with Mursi, when I visited I saw all the queues at petrol stations, and I'd experienced a power cut at the airport. But from what I'd read, the Egyptian people were not really expected to protest enough to change anything. I believe it took the country and the world by surprise.
At this point, lots of people asked me if I was still going to go. I'd been following the expat bulletin boards and news pretty closely and from what I could gather most of the unrest was in Cairo, some 400-500km away from where I would be. There was a peaceful demonstration in Hurghada, but for the most part, those in Hurghada seemed to be saying it was relatively safe. As for Sahl Hasheesh, it's an international resort, mostly tourists, not very well-known. It has security gates to get in, my block has a security building beside it and security guards inside. Without wishing to tempt fate, I felt that I would be safe (inshallah).
In fact, I was worried about other things - would I get bitten or stung by the fish when I went swimming? How would I order home delivery of KFC if they couldn't speak English and I couldn't speak Arabic? If I swam too far out could I get run over by a boat? These were my nagging doubts, but they weren't enough to put me off my grand plan.
Unfortunately, the world saw things differently from me (I cannot think why!), and the airline cancelled my flight. I spent quite a few hours trying to find someone that would sell me a flight to Hurghada for 19th September and eventually booked with another airline. Perhaps a month later, that flight too was cancelled.
And then thirdly, just to make extra sure that I didn't try to go out there any time soon, I had an email from the management company telling us that the resort company had threatened to turn off all water and electricity in the entire block on September 1st, if the management company didn't pay their debts. The management company in turn threatened us, saying it could only pay their debts if the owners paid their maintenance fees. Attached was a list of all non-payers and the amounts owed and it was a huge sum!
I managed to find my way to a private facebook page for owners and the plot thickened. Some owners hadn't paid because they were in the middle of court proceedings against the management company, due to the management company not having done various things that they were contracted to do. Court proceedings of various kinds were planned - one to the attorney general in Cairo to argue that cutting off electricity and water was a violation of human rights for those who had paid, one to allow the owners the right to manage the property themselves, then there was the existing court case against the management company. The management company sent out another message threatening to pull the security guards in the middle of October.
Meanwhile, the water and electricity were indeed turned off. Families, people renting holiday accommodation, owner-residents, all these people had to move out and somehow find temporary accommodation. Only the two security guards remained. The residents organised water to be trucked in from Hurghada to keep the plants alive and bought a generator so that the security guards could see. The pools turned green. My paradise was being destroyed.
At this point, even I had to give up on the idea of going over. However, I'd resigned from my job, handed in my notice on my flat, had organised the cleaners, so I too somehow had to find temporary accommodation. And how do I ship my stuff when I don't know when I'm going to be there myself? But I needed to do something with the items I wanted to ship? It was all a big mess.
For all my worst-case scenario thinking, I never predicted any of these things! How life likes to take a laugh!
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