Jillhotep and Markuses

Egypt's the perfect trip for a nerd like me. I've wanted to go to Egypt since I did a report on Akhenaten and Nefertiti in 5th grade and in addition to making a convincing counterfeit bust of Nefertiti using a doll's head and some construction paper, I realized that Egypt's a whole lot more than just sideways walking. For instance, Akhenaten pissed off everyone by trying to enact monotheistic worship of a sun with rays ending in hands. Needless to say, Edward Sunrayhands wasn't very popular with the masses. And Nefertiti was a beer-guzzling drunk. My kind of people.

Being here has been even more exciting and overstimulating than I thought it would be. When I wasn't circling massive statues or peering into mummy cases, I was reading about Egypt, talking about Egypt, and, when I gave my brain a break, struggling to tune out the Egypt-themed songs playing on repeat in my head (stupid Bangles). I scampered around the Egyptian museum like a speed freak, squealing like a Beatles fan when I saw anything Akhenaten-related.

While seeing a lot of -est things--e.g., biggest pyramid, oldest boat, tallest obelisk, goldest mask--I realized that I'm not so much into the -ests as the other things. Like the statue of Ramses II sucking his finger in the Egyptian Museum. Or the little row of queens' pyramids demurely perched next to the Great Pyramid. And the snakes with pharaoh hats Markus and I spotted in the tourist-infested Luxor Temple. Markus shared my interest in spotting obscure and funny things, which made our role as tourists a helluva lot easier. While the masses crowded around yet another massive statue of Ramses II, we snooped around in dark corners, looking for weird, and--like the well-endowed Amun--sometimes disturbing carvings.

Although it's been a really fun and interesting trip, I'm looking forward to getting back to Burkina. I came here to see ancient Egypt, not realizing how much of modern Egypt I'd have to wade through to get there. In contrast to Burkinabe hecklers, who aggressively shove postcards and leather boxes in your face and walk next to you until they finally give up, often hissing “racist” as they do, Egyptian hecklers are smooth. Really smooth. On our first outing, we savvy Peace Corps Volunteers took the bait on a classic scam--a charming dude lured us away from the Egyptian Museum, where we were headed, by telling us it was closed and ushered us into his buddy's papyrus shop. His buddy then managed to sell us a few pictures by turning the charm way, WAY up, culminating in his giving us a “special price” because he said I looked like his daughter. Even though we knew we were being scammed, the guys doing it were so freakishly polite, we felt bad trying to get away. Now that's good scamming.

It felt really strange being in a place where you know that the taxi drivers, the tiny kids selling papyrus bookmarks, and the camel men are trying to rip you off, but not having the street smarts to know how to avoid it. So, I'm looking forward to going back “home” where I know all the scammers' scammy scams.

And I miss it a little, too.