Africa – The Final Leg

Our journey to Rwanda was over and we flew to Cairo for the last leg of our African adventure. Cairo is an amazing city! It has a population of over 10 million and its streets are crowded with cars, buses, trucks, donkey carts and camels. And it seems that everybody smokes. We often drove by outdoor cafes and saw men sitting around tables sharing water pipes. One of the most amazing sites was Giza, home of the pyramids and the Sphinx. I stood beside one of the pyramids and found that the layers of stone reached up to my shoulder. How did they move and position those massive blocks of stone? We went to a laser light show and the opening act was a troop of Egyptian bagpipers. Yes, I said bagpipers. Who knew that the Scots had invaded Egypt and left them the gift of bagpipes? Also visited a fascinating museum filled with artifacts. We weren’t allowed to take cameras into the museum. For a few Egyptian pounds we were able climb on a camel and were led around the pyramids. The camels were sitting on the ground when we climbed on and first their hind legs straightened out and it felt like I was about to pitched over the camel’s head into the sand. Then he stood up on his front legs as well. I had to squeeze the camel with my knees as I took the most uncomfortable ride of my life. When we dismounted, the camel’s front legs folded first, again threatening to pitch me over its head. That day I took two camel rides – my first and my last. A few years later Iona and I traveled to Israel, and she had the pleasure of riding a camel named Michael. I wasn’t tempted at all to take a second ride on a camel.

I couldn’t believe the religious tourism industry that was thriving in Cairo. It seemed that almost every second street corner had a sign that said something like “The holy family was here.” Boy, did Joseph, Mary and Jesus ever travel a lot when they were in Egypt. We visited an ancient olive tree where Mary was supposed to have rested. It was referred to as Miriam’s Tree. We visited a papyrus factory where we saw the process of making this precursor to today’s paper. Bought small pieces of papyrus with traditional Egyptian art painted on them.

Legend has it that the evangelist Mark brought the gospel to Egypt and was father of the Coptic Orthodox Church. Coptic was the language spoken by Egyptians prior to their defeat at the hands of the Arabs and Islam taking over as the official religion of the nation. Coptic is related to Greek and uses its alphabet. We went to the cathedral of St. Mark in Cairo and saw an icon of St. Mark, who is also celebrated as the first pope of the Coptic Orthodox Church. We just felt that we were walking in the pages of ancient history as we spent time in one of the oldest cities in the world.

We stopped by an old cemetery that is referred to as “The City of the Dead”. Some quarter million people lived in the crypts that stood above many of the graves. It was technically illegal to live in these crypts but a quarter of a million people defied the law. When there was another death in the family of the people who owned the crypt, the squatters would leave their home while the interment took place, then immediately move back in when the family left. We paid one family a few Egyptian pounds to let us come into their home. Because they had to be ready to move out at a moment’s notice, they had very few furnishings in their homes.

Another settlement I had heard of was Garbage City. Again, about 250,000 people lived in the city dump. There they scavenged the garbage and recycled what still had some value, and sold it. A Coptic Orthodox Church was the centre of the life at this unlikely settlement. It was built on solid stone. The government had given the church permission to erect a building but how do excavate this stone mountain? If you guessed dynamite, you would be right. Even though they had permission to be there, they didn’t want to call attention to what they were doing. An inconspicuous dynamite explosion? How could you achieve that?

Their solution was ingenious and relatively simple. They waited till the month long celebration of Ramadhan, when faithful Muslims fasted each day from sunrise to sunset. A feast would be prepared and then eaten at the moment that the sun went down. Traditionally Egyptians would explode fireworks and fire guns into the air at the moment the sun officially set and evening began. The dynamite explosions were timed to coincide with the celebrations that began when the sun set. No one noticed the extra sounds in the midst of their celebrations. The result – a church blasted out the side of a mountain that would seat some 5-6,000 people. The interior of the church was relatively cool compared the temperature outside the building. The side of the mountain in front of the church was decorated with some amazing sculptings of Biblical scenes and scripture verses.

We spent some time at the headquarters of the Egyptian Bible Society and met its visionary executive director. He had built one of the largest Bible Societies in the world. What an amazing man! What an amazing staff! As our African journey came to an end I saw the church of Jesus Christ prospering in places where we would not expect it to. I was continuing to keep the Son in my eyes.