Sahl Hasheesh - Absorbing the Changes

Progress in Sahl Hasheesh

I’ve mentioned before that although living in Egypt is like living in a timeless bubble where it’s always summer, there’s also always constant change with shops opening and closing all the time.

This time, it was a bit bizarre. When I came back to Egypt last year for Christmas, there was the first ever horse jumping competition taking place in Sahl Hasheesh. This time, when I came back, the first ever international horse jumping competition was taking place. I had a strange sense of déjà vu. There are never any horse jumping competitions here, and now I’ve returned on two occasions running, and each time there’s been a horse jumping competition. Weird.

I’d really enjoyed the spectacle in December, so I went to watch. It was still free to attend, although the this time announcements were in English and I didn’t see trainers shouting at their jockeys across the fence. Although it was international (there were Dutch and French, for example), it was predominantly the Arabic countries and maybe even predominantly Egypt.

I walked round the whole arena, but only the VIP tented area was shaded and the day was very hot. I tentatively went into the VIP lounge and sat on the edge of a comfy armchair positioned right at the front, overlooking the competition arena. Everyone else in the tent seemed to be wearing a blue armband and seemed to be related to the jockeys. I felt quite nervous, but once I decided I wasn’t going to get thrown out straight away, I sat back and tried to put on an air of entitledness that only the wealthy seem to be able to carry off. I hoped that this might stop anyone from daring to challenge me. I probably just looked like a prat.

The backdrop to the competition had also changed. The new building behind the Premier Romance hotel had come on leaps and bounds and instead of looking like a half-building of bricks, it was now standing tall behind the competition area with flags draped down it, presumably in honour of the competition. Although shops open and close with great regularity, buildings tend to remain unfinished for years on end, if not for decades. So, to see such progress was a surprise.

There were more surprises. Ever since I’ve lived in Sahl Hasheesh, a piece of ground by the Entrance Piazza has been blocked off advertising that a boutique hotel would be coming soon,. I’ve been told it was like that for years before I came, too. However, I now saw that building had actually started –its skeleton was rising up from behind the billboards. I was astonished.

Also to my surprise, just by the competition arena, large posters were advertising that apartments (and a spa, and a café) were going to be built behind the boutique hotel. It seemed that things were really starting to progress in Sahl Hasheesh rather than staying stationary with just a change of occupancy. It was as if I’d been away for a decade rather than just four months.

Safi drove me and some other friends to the back area of Sahl Hasheesh, where only a few villas previously used to stand. Now, there was a hive of building activity. It seemed that apartments and villas were sprouting up as we looked. With tourism so bad at the moment, I hadn’t been expecting this. But it was good to see, even if I can’t understand how they are going to sell these places. However, as others have said, they are maybe preparing themselves for when tourism does pick up again. Or maybe it will just be another group of skeleton buildings, never fully developed, that will end up just staring out at an empty expanse of desert for decades to come. Who knows!

In complete contrast to all the building activity, the shops were very sad. Many units had closed. My favorite ice cream place has shut down. There are hardly any shops left selling tourist souvenirs and clothes. The places that remain have no customers and I don’t know how even they can survive. I just have to hope for Egypt that this is temporary and that tourism will return. Even in Hurghada, I heard that a new Lebanese restaurant had opened, only to discover two weeks later that it had already closed. A supermarket that had opened during my year away had been shut down before I’d even had time to look at it.

Times are tough just now, but in Egypt there is always hope.

El Andalous - Settling In

My Cleaned Balcony

My return is now almost a predictable routine, but somehow the same things still surprise me at this stage.

I entered my flat and was pleased to see it was clean. Like last time, they’d put things back in different places, and they’d obviously not been able to fit all my bathroom stuff back into the cupboard, because they left a basket-full of stuff sitting on top of the cabinet.

Interestingly, in the kitchen, they’d put my knives, forks and spoons in that order but from right-to-left (ie, in the direction of their writing) rather than left-to-right, as I usually have them. I left them all in their new Arabic order. After all, when in Egypt…

There are always a few problems. Again, my washing machine didn’t work properly on its first use but was fixed fairly easily.

To my horror, I had mites, or maybe ants, crawling in my sugar, so I had to throw that away. We seem to be overrun by ants this year – I’ve not had that before. As soon as I leave anything out on the counter, ants are swarming all over it. Ants also raided my replacement bag of sugar almost immediately, so I had to buy a new airtight container (my original airtight container was evidently not airtight enough!).

I’ve had the occasional cockroach before, but this time I seem to be getting around 3-4 a week (they are gradually getting fewer now). They’ve visited me frequently enough for me to buy some spray. I feel a bit guilty about this environmentally-unfriendly approach, but I’ve heard treading on them can spread their eggs and they won’t cooperate when I try to usher them out of the flat. Still, at least I don’t have rodents of any description (touch wood), so it’s not too bad.

The wall in my bedroom was looking quite bad as it still hasn’t been repaired. It was never fully resolved (see blogs of 21/22 Dec 2013) and about a year later they decided it was a leak after having protested for 12 months that there was no leak. They were supposed to start work on it in January while I was away, but forgot. And then in the mean time another flat above me had a leak, so now they claim they need my wall to dry out again from that. There are huge cracks and bubbles in the paint and some of the paint has even peeled away to reveal the bare brick.

I arrived back to a bit of a heatwave and I needed my fans on at night. At first, I thought I could smell the paint peeling off the wall and drifting into the air with the breeze of the fan as I lay there in bed. As I inhaled the bad air, I fretted that it wasn’t healthy to sleep in a room with decaying walls. But the next day, when I turned on my ceiling fan on the balcony, clouds of dirt exploded onto my newly-cleaned furniture; it was my very own localized sandstorm. Obviously, although they’d cleaned the flat, they hadn’t cleaned the top of the ceiling fans. So, what I could smell at night was the dust from the fan above my head and not my decaying wall after all.

I never seem to learn about the internet. I’d gone to Senzo Mall on my way back from the airport and bought some top-up cards so that I could get my internet working as soon as I got back. However, as on previous occasions (see, I don’t learn), I couldn’t work out how to get it to accept the cards. So, I had to go all the way back to Senzo the next day to ask how to do it, and I discovered that it wasn’t possible because my internet SIM had expired. The SIM shouldn’t really have expired because it’s supposed to be able to be dormant for 4 months and I was last there in December, but it always does expire (but I insist on remaining optimistic and am always let down). Weirdly, my personal mobile SIM card was still working even after one year, but it may be because I don’t have a package on that but just credit.

I also stocked up with some wine; I order this online as it’s the easiest way to get alcohol in this country that is predominantly Muslim. I knew they usually delivered your order pretty quickly (within 2 hours of ordering online, usually), and I was pleased to see they’d got a new size of wine box that complied with the minimum order amount. This meant I didn’t have to order a rogue bottle of wine or two on top of the box of wine just to make up the minimum order. I ordered at about 9.30pm and by 11pm it hadn’t arrived.

I assumed they would deliver the next day at this time of night and also reasoned that due to lack of tourists these days, they may not be working such long hours any more. I was feeling tired, so went to bed. At midnight, my doorbell rang, and it was my wine order, so I had to scramble out of bed and receive the mysterious item in the black bag giving them the payment in return. It always feels as if you are doing some underhand deal like in the films.

I don’t know if I’ve mentioned before that the Egyptians are a night-time people, so Spinneys, for example, stays open until 2am. I like this aspect of Egypt, but I’d completely forgotten about it.

And they still haven’t really quite got the right idea about wine boxes. The bag inside the box is never packed with the tap facing the hole for the tap; the bag is always packed in the box upside down. Consequently, you have to rip the box open, shift the bag round in the box, put the box back together, then pull the tap out of the allocated hole. It’s a right fiasco!

So, I was back in Egypt, warts and all.

El Andalous - Arriving Back

Back in El Andalous - Everything Just Waiting for Me!

It turned out that a business class flight with the extra baggage allowance was cheaper than going economy and paying for excess luggage, so I ended up flying away from Zurich in style.

Denise very kindly picked me up in her car at 5.15am (!!) to take me to the airport. As usual, I’d fretted about this early morning start, but my nerves about oversleeping ensured I was fully awake at the allotted time.

When I checked in (they tried to stop me going in the business queue!), my first suitcase actually turned out to be overweight, but they didn’t charge me since my second suitcase was quite a bit lighter. I felt sure that being in business class helped (it probably didn’t, but it felt good to think that!).

I wasn’t expecting much of business on a relatively short flight, so I dashed into the lounge to grab some coffee and cereal on the principle that you should always try to get your money’s worth. The woman at the reception informed me that I didn’t have much time, but agreed that I could certainly grab a coffee. It wasn’t the most relaxing breakfast I’d ever had, but at least I got one!

We boarded the plane and I was a bit disappointed that they didn’t offer champagne. Admittedly, the idea of champagne at 6.20am wasn’t actually that appealing. They offered fresh grapefruit juice which filled the spot surprisingly well. The champagne came later, so I guess that’s from experience about what people can stomach at what point in the flight. The drinks were flowing, the food was good, so it was an enjoyable journey. Also someone told their child I was sitting in first class, which made me feel like I’d just been promoted, so that was also a little boost!

On arrival, I was completely surprised to find that I had to queue for a visa. I spent a moment feeling disgruntled that I didn’t have a re-entry visa and was now just like any normal tourist, but also remembered that when I do have a re-entry visa, I just worry that they won’t recognize it. I’m dooming myself to feeling edgy whatever happens. However, the queue was very quick and when the guy saw all my past Egyptian visas, he yelled over to a colleague of his that I was returning home and then turned to me and said he was so pleased to meet me and he wanted to welcome me back! Ahhh, and people wonder why I like living here! Egypt can be very bizarre but sometimes in the nicest of ways.

And then it was the return to reality. I arrived and my taxi driver wasn’t there. Esmat had told me there would be someone standing with “Esmat Limos” on a sign, so I knew it wouldn’t be Esmat, but nobody was in sight. I waited about half an hour with it suddenly dawning on me why people think it’s hilarious that I pack my mobile phone in my luggage.

Finally, and much to my relief, the taxi driver appeared. He wasn’t bad, but he did ask me to go out for a coffee with him, which is not something I expect from one of Esmat’s drivers (I informed Esmat of this later). He wasn’t forcing me to go and have a coffee with him at some point, but it was just a hassle I didn’t want to contend with when I’d just arrived. I’m so used to Esmat being reliable, kind, and trustworthy, that it was a bit of a jolt to the system.

Arriving back at El Andalous was also a bit weird. Quite a lot of staff have been fired or let go due to the downturn in tourism, so I had staff who were complete strangers greeting me with “welcome back!”  They’d apparently been told to treat me well by Kathryn! It was nice but a bit odd – a bit like seeing your old furniture in a new flat. Nevertheless, I had finally made it back.

Switzerland - Packing to Go

Zurich - All Packed Up!

Theoretically, my return back to Egypt should have been quite easy – I had only brought three suitcases over with me, so that was all I could bring back. How hard can it be?

However, I was living in Switzerland.

On the positive side, unlike when I first moved to Egypt from Switzerland, my deposit this time was relatively modest and since I was sub-renting the flat, the whole handover procedure was less fussy. Denise wasn’t going to be moving back into the flat. On top of that, the owner of the flat (from whom Denise was renting) planned to combine my flat with the one next door, so she wasn’t too particular about its state of cleanliness because it was going to descend into chaos anyway with the building works. In addition, Denise had kindly provided me the phone number of a cleaner. So, really, it was relatively easy. The fates were smiling down on me yet again.

However, it took me some courage to ring the cleaner as I don’t like phoning and especially when it’s not in my own language. The first few times, I couldn’t get through. Then, when I did, I ended up speaking to a stranger who was going to relay the message on for me. She sounded Chinese and was speaking Swiss German. I felt less than confident that I had made myself understood in my English-accented High German and was vaguely worried that maybe I shouldn’t have spoken about the cleaning to this stranger.

Nevertheless, the cleaner’s husband visited my flat, nodded, and said “same as last time?”, so I just said “yes”. He asked the date I wanted it and left. After that, I didn’t get any further confirmation. I was a little worried. So worried, in fact, that I phoned again (they hadn’t asked my name, they hadn’t asked for my phone number). She confirmed she would be there the following week like I was some crazy neurotic person. I had to trust to the gods.

The cleaners were good, but I always find cleaners in Switzerland quite stressful to deal with. I walked past the kitchen and one of the cleaners was drawing air between her teeth and muttering “dirty, dirty!” I went into an instant internal panic. Was I expecting too much of them to do it for the same money as Denise had suggested? Was I really a very dirty person? Was it now going to go horribly wrong?

To add to the stress, Denise had told me that the owner of the flat had expressed great displeasure at seeing a black mark in the bathroom and that this black mark had to go. Of course, this was the only thing that the cleaners could not remove. To my credit, I then became very determined somehow to remove the black mark, even though the cleaners had told me it was impossible. I managed it with vinegar in the end (and a wire scrubber) and felt suitably proud of myself, even though it meant I was behind on my packing.

I’d booked a day for washing my clothes and bed linen, etc. However, when I went down to the basement, someone was using the machines. I had booked the machines for the wrong week. Disaster! My timetabling of all the cleaning left no room for error. In the end, I carted a load of washing over to a friend’s place. It was like my student days all over again where I had no washing machine and had to walk to the university launderette and back with all my laundry. I bet that university accommodation is more sophisticated these days!

The other major problem I had was to get rid of my microwave. Since I’d been in Japan just before, I hadn’t had enough time to put it up for sale. In the end, I did the opposite of theft (but still felt suitably guilty). I trundled down the streets of Zurich at midnight with my microwave on a set of wheels, getting on and off trams, and sneaked into my office building at the dead of night and dumped it in the kitchen as a freebie. I hear that someone did take it, so all’s well that ends well.

Finally, I thought I had three suitcases, but I’d totally forgotten that I’d taken one suitcase back with me at Christmas and left it in Egypt, rationalizing that I’d never be able to take all three suitcases back at once (the three suitcases originally came over to Switzerland in two journeys as well). So, I’d been happily calculating that everything would fit into three cases and then discovered I had a third less space than I thought. Eek. But I managed better than I imagined.

Oh, and then there was the whole fiasco of remaining registered in Switzerland in the hope of still having employment in Switzerland after September. I got somewhere in the end, but it was more difficult than I had originally anticipated.

With all this to think about, I’d hardly had a moment to consider what it would be like to be finally back in Egypt again.