TO A HAS-BEEN

I'm here at the Internet cafe in Cairo winding down my last few Egyptian pounds and the last hours before my transfer arrives to ferry me through the hectic afternoon traffic and out to the airport.

Cairo is a city of more than twenty-three million people and you get the feeling that at any given time around a third of them are on the roads. Jerry Seinfeld said that there weren't enough parking spaces in New York to accommodate all the cars, so a significant percentage of them had to remain in constant motion to avoid complete traffic meltdown. I think the same is true here.

Egypt is a funny country. Unemployment is virtually zero, but only because the wages are so low. There's someone to do everything for you over here, and most of the time, unless you're trapped in the tourist enclaves, they'll charge you almost nothing to do it. Walk past a petrol station and you'll see twelve attendants ready to fill your tank, check your oil and tyres and clean your windscreen. I walked into one of the local takeouts yesterday to buy a felafel sandwich and there were fourteen people behind the counter and one toilet attendant. I was one of just two people in the restaurant. The Pyramids were build by tens of thousands of slaves, it seems there has always been a broad base of cheep labour in this country, something the French used to their advantage excavating the canal from the sand and rock of Suez.

Steve pointed out something a few days ago which I'd subconsciously noted but failed to fully grasp; that one in three buildings in nearly every town and city you pass through in this country appears to be in either an advanced state of construction or dilapidation. Apparently, for the most part it is the former rather than the latter. The tax system is set up in such a way that any landlord or owner is not required to pay rent on an incomplete building. As a result most of the buildings which have been constructed in the last fifteen years remain intentionally incomplete, with steel cables poking from concrete pylons on the top floors of most new residential blocks. Common practice appears to be to attach tv antenna or satellite dishes to the poles in order to receive a better signal. This policy has given the entire country a slightly dilapidated feel. The contrast between the astonishingly well preserved ancient wonders and the almost carelessly incomplete modern architecture is uncomfortable and it is hard not to feel that Egypt's best years are Milena behind it.

Sometimes, when I was being guided around the ancient cites by our enthusiastically proud -almost to the point of evangelism - tour guide, Romany, I was reminded of watching a once-great footballer or cricketer on the after-dinner speaking circuit, ruminating for just a little too long on the events that put him at the pinnacle a generation ago. The room is generally full of patronisingly indulgent, but increasingly disinterested, fans, who have heard all the stories before and are frequently embarrassed for him. I might be a cynic but I sense the same patronising indulgence from the tourists which pour off the air conditioned buses to marvel at the ruins and shake their heads in wonder at the ingenuity and sheer bloody minded tenacity of the ancient's engineering achievements. We appreciate the romance of the past, admire the game as it used to be played, pay tribute to the fallen heroes, but ultimately we're only there for a night out and eventually we'll head home safe in the knowledge that the game as it's played today is stronger, faster and in every respect more deft than it ever was. You get the feeling that Egypt, like the once-great footballer, can't match the modern game.

Its two biggest earners are the Suez Canal and tourism, in that order. It produces only just enough oil to support its own needs and the industry is limited. What it does have however, is water, in abundance, and the manpower to harness it. So perhaps, as the population of this hungry world grows and water increases in importance, Egypt's ancient source of strength, the Nile, will push it up the rankings again. Who knows. The other thing they have over here which should be the envy of every western country is free university study. A lack of opportunities for skilled graduates is the only thing that needs to be overcome.

Obviously a lot of the countries wealth goes into military spending. With the Suez providing its most important source of income it has to protect and hold the Sinai Peninsula at all costs. This might account for the lack of investment in infrastructure and general state of dilapidation.

So what did I learn from Egypt? One thing for sure. Nothing lasts like rocks. The Pharaohs are dead and the gods they served and worked so tirelessly to honour died with them, but the rocks they shifted and carved four thousand years ago to mark their time on earth and, with luck, guide them to eternity, remain. So what does that mean? We're temporary. Everyone dies and ultimately all a man can do, all any man can do is carve his name in the rocks and hope that in four thousand year's time someone's still around to see it. Nihilistic stuff I know but there you go.

Reading all that back I can see the thoughts are a bit disordered and poorly laid out. They might not even accurately represent my genuine feelings once I've had time to order my thoughts properly but it'll have to do for now.

I'll be in India on Sunday morning, I'll post a bit more next week.

That's it for now,

Dale Atkinson