Good News & Not so Good News

Written Thursday, November 19th

The good news is we quickly obtained our visas for China. The bad news is we were rejected by the crazy guy at the Egyptian embassy. By the way our future plane flight to China departs out of Cairo. I am not sure if what we experienced is a common occurrence at the Egypt Embassy or not. The visa guy was crazy! We showed up to a line of three people lined up behind one window. The people in-front of us all had their visa application filled out and were nervously waiting for their turn. I figured I would ask the man behind the window if we could get two applications from to fill out. He started yelling at me and telling me to wait in the back of the line. The time was 10:45am. I was informed by the frustrated customers that he rolls the shades down at precisely 11:00am. During the short wait we witnessed one man get denied for the visa he dropped off a few days before with no monetary refund. The second guy, a Peruvian, was charged a considerable amount more than the price posted in the window. We reached the window at 10:50 and were given forms to fill out. We quickly filled them out and went back to the window with 4 minutes to spare. The moment we reached the window the crazy guy said, “No visas for you! Come back on Sunday.” I told him we could not wait until Sunday. Then he pressed a button and rolling shades came down to cover the inside of the window. I guess we were not getting our Egyptian visas. Not more than 30 seconds later, shades on the window next to the one that just closed opens up. He helps an Israeli guy and gives him the run around for a minute or so before telling him it will be 3-weeks before it can be processed. Discrimination? The others before him were told to come back three days later to get their visas. Next we start begging him to please take our applications. After telling us no multiple time he takes the applications. Then he tells us to write what we teach and study in school on the side of the application. Weird? He was making up his own application questions. We pay him, but he does not have change. So he takes more money than we owe him. Whatever, it is only a few U.S. dollars. Then we asked him if we could please get the visas at the end of the day. We requested this because we read that it was standard operating procedure to apply in the morning and pick up the Egyptian visa in the afternoon. After persistently asking, he started yelling and through our applications out the window then grabbed money out of the cash box and threw it out the window. “No visa for you!” We stared at the crazy dictator astonished by the way he handled the visa procedure. Crazy! Plan B is to secure a visa in Jordan. Tomorrow we plan on taking a bus to Nazareth and walking the “Jesus Trail” for five days (Sea of Galilee area) through Nazareth, Cana, Kibbutz Lavi, and Capernum. We printed out a ton of reading material to help understand the Bible through a Jewish historical and cultural context. Can’t wait to hike and read.