This was my second trip to Egypt. My first trip was in 2001 and I only stayed a few days. I am very glad I came back. First of all the people of Egypt are incredibly friendly. It was a joy to talk to them, and to learn about their culture and country. Luckily, we had an excellent guide, who shared many of his own stories with us. The country is 90% Muslim and 10% Christian. There are a few Jewish people left but only a handful. Of the Christians most of them are Coptic orthodox. There are three different school systems in Egypt. There is the public schools which, unfortunately are not very good and crowded. There are private schools and then international schools. Education consumes 48% of an Egyptian’s family income. If possible, parents choose to send their children to either the private or international schools. There has been a reform movement for the public schools underway since 2019. The number of children born to a family has gone from 7.2 in 1960 to 2.8 in 2020. Women hold 26% of the seats in parliament. For an Arab country, it appears that women have more rights than average in Egypt. I saw women driving. There were women police. Unfortunately, in some villages, they still practice female mutilation. The state believes that by education they can reverse this.

There is a death penalty in Egypt. It is used for cases of premeditated murder, raping, dealing drugs, and stealing antiquities.

There is definitely significant poverty in Egypt. Most of the people live in the cities. And most of the population lives right around the Nile. There is a high inflation rate and a high unemployment rate.

The traffic in Egypt is crazy. If you can drive in Cairo, you can drive anywhere. First of all few streets have lanes. If they even had lane markings, most of the drivers would simply ignore them. In a street that might have room for three lanes of traffic in the states, there are five cars abreast trying to go down the street in Cairo. It was amazing to watch our bus negotiate these conditions. Cars not required to stop for pedestrians and basically pedestrians take their life into their hands across the street. Some of the busiest streets have speed bumps every so often. People try to cross where the street bumbs are since the cars have to slow down. Most main streets have a barrier down the middle, so you cannot make left turns. If you need to make a left turn, you have to go further down the street till you come to a spot where you can make a U-turn. Then you go back to the place where you originally wanted to turn left but now it will be a right turn. This actually makes some sense when you see it in operation. There are very few traffic lights.

There are dogs and cats everywhere.

The major crops that I saw being grown were bananas, dates, corn, sugarcane, and cabbage. Egypt is a major exporter of cotton. Here are some miscellaneous shots that I took that I would like to include on the blog.

The current government of Egypt is a result of a military coup against the Muslim brotherhood. People actually appreciate this government since they got rid of the Muslim brotherhood who were not very popular. The Muslim brotherhood came into power only because most people did not go to the polls to vote. The election was the one after the Arab spring. Most people assume that the non-Muslim brotherhood guy would get elected and so they didn’t go to the polls. The leader in recent times that is most respected is Sadat. Sadat was able to make peace with Israel and get the Sinai peninsula back.