Hurghada - Repeat Customs Document

Shops along the Marina, Hurghada

Apart from the money that was snatched from me by the taxi driver, my broken foot, and now a small spate of diarrhoea (try running with crutches!), another thing that has gone a bit pear-shaped is the delivery of my shipped items.

As you know, I spent all that time going from place to place, from the passport office to the immigration office, to get the power of attorney so that my goods could be released to customs. As requested, my lawyer sent the document by courier. After a week’s postal strike in Cairo, we finally ascertained that actually it had disappeared into a black hole.

Meanwhile, I was receiving emails every other day informing me that I would be charged storage fees for the delay and that these were steadily mounting up. Help! My lawyer was in the process of moving to Germany (so, ironically, I moved from Switzerland to Egypt as he moved from Egypt to Germany) and he was the one with the documentation for the courier.

In the end, there was no option other than to start all over again. So, it was another taxi ride to see my lawyer. I’d tried to warn the lawyer over the phone that I had a broken foot, but he clearly didn’t understand. I guess it’s not surprising, since it’s not really the sort of thing you expect someone to drop into conversation.

During the journey, the taxi driver let me know that he’d had two British women (customers) to help him with my shopping list the other day, which probably explains the Flora margarine. He quipped that I was lucky because otherwise he didn’t know what I would have ended up with; I was thinking that I must remember that if he says he understands something (I’d talked through the shopping list with him), I mustn’t assume he does!

We arrived and the lawyer was suitably taken aback when he saw the driver bring me my crutches as I climbed out of the car, particularly because the lawyer had greeted me in passing relatively recently in Sahl Hasheesh (he owns an apartment there as well), and at that point I’d been in fine form.

The lawyer merrily led the way to the immigration office. I asked him where we were going, and he explained that it was up the two flights of narrow stairs (the expression on his face said “like last time, of course”). Pointing at my leg, I explained that it was impossible. He hesitated, started to insist, and then I suggested he could bring the people down to see me, so he nodded and said he would try.

He kindly asked an old guy to let me sit on the only chair outside of the building – I managed to catch the word for chair as he spoke, and in the conversation with the taxi driver, I’d managed to catch that the driver was giving the lawyer his telephone number so that he could call him when I was finished, so a few words of Arabic are obviously slowly sinking in.

The old guy who gave up his seat was very kind and even offered me tea, as is typically Egyptian. I was expecting him to resent having to give up his place for a foreigner. I sat there and read, but felt guilty at being the only person who could sit, with others standing all around me.

Eventually, the same officials from when I was there before came down the stairs, offered me their expressions of sorrow for the state of my foot (they are all tremendously polite), explained that the document was all the same as before, and got me to sign again.

The lawyer demanded that I should courier the document this time, since it had been so much hassle. I objected, and he said he would show me how to do it, but that he was doing the new power of attorney for free and I couldn’t expect him to courier it again as well.

He phoned my taxi driver, I think to tell him to show me where and how to do the courier, but my driver was busy. Consequently, the lawyer had to drive me to the DHL office after all. He zoomed along, only to find that the DHL office was closed; the lawyer raised his arms in frustration. He drove on to another courier place nearby – a local company – and parked the car. Fortunately, due to my foot, I wasn’t able to get to the building which was upstairs (the foot is sometimes a great excuse!), so he ended up going there and getting it for me (phew!). In any case, it didn’t look like the kind of place where much English would have been spoken.

He returned to the car, made me pay for the courier and gave me the receipt so that I could follow it up. He wanted to get me a taxi, but I said I’d agreed with my own driver that he would pick me up. The lawyer nodded, took his phone and called the taxi driver. All I could understand in the Arabic was “not a problem”.

When he came off the phone, he told me that he’d told my driver that it was ridiculous for me to wait for him to come when I was sitting there with a broken foot and there were plenty of other taxis around. In any case he, the lawyer, had work to be getting on with. I felt bad for my taxi driver, because now I hadn’t paid him for my trip into town (I will pay him next time), although I could understand that the lawyer had other work to do and didn’t want to hang around.

Anyway, the lawyer flagged down a taxi for me, negotiated the price (interestingly, the same price as I pay my taxi driver, which was comforting), and saw me into the car.

The new taxi driver was a young guy whose English was a bit difficult to understand, yet he talked non-stop, firing questions at me, with the occasional pat of my arm as he drove. I’ve noticed that the Egyptians always like to ask how old you are (obviously not taboo here!) and how much various things cost you. It was all a bit full-on and made me appreciate my own taxi driver.

He repeated the tale that Hurghada is often called Russgarda due to all the Russians living there. I expect I may get a bit sick of that bit of information after I’ve lived here for a while! Any Egyptian to whom I speak starts conversation with the topic of the excessive number of Russians.

The poor guy was obviously talking so much at least in part because he was keen to get me as a regular customer and he was clearly disappointed when I refused to take his card (maybe I should have done so out of politeness?). I hope he does OK.

 So, now, it’s fingers crossed that the document gets there this time, that customs proceed quickly with my stuff, that the storage fees aren’t too horrendous (but they will see it’s from Switzerland, so I fear the worst), and that I eventually receive my shipment (although at the moment, I’m not able to unpack it, even if I receive it!). Maybe, once all that is over, I can start the new chapter of my life in earnest.