Due to some work engagements of Mr S, I found myself heading to Alexandria again this weekend. I didn’t mind that he had to work, I was planning to take it easy at the hotel, reading my book on the balcony and looking over the sea.

I expected there to be a problem when we got to the hotel, there have been the two previous times I’ve stayed there. Apparently 5-star grading doesn’t take into account check-in (or check-out!) procedures. Anyway, I am not going to whine about staying in a 5 star hotel. Primarily because I think the stars are there purely as decoration, not as part of any rating. I will say, still not whining (only because I’m saving it for another post), that it is the only time in my life where I have told the manager of a place of accommodation directly to their face that I do not want to stay in their establishment. It was not a good weekend.

We took the train to Alex. It’s a decent train and usually runs pretty much on time. I’ve done this journey plenty of times over the years and until today, had not realised that every time I have gone, I have arrived in the morning and left the same day, or another, in the late afternoon/early evening. What brought this to my attention today was watching the commuter trains arriving.

You can forget right now any polished notions you have of commuter trains. These trains had not seen a lick or a spit probably since they were purchased in the seventies. A lot of the commuters themselves were not on the way to the office in freshly pressed suits, but were traveling in from outlying farming communities to sell their wares at the market.

I did not take any pictures of what I am about to describe, because I was so shocked and so sad at the suffering that I did not want to capture a moment of it on digital celluloid. A picture may say a thousand words, but in this instance, your imagination and compassion are required and words are infinitely better at conjuring them up (I hope I can do justice - and I am not going to weave a tale of whispering hubbly bubbly smoke and minarets in some far gone exotic land, that can be saved for the movies and writers wanting to make a quick buck off a Western myth).

Also, before I continue, I would like to clarify that although I now live in one of Cairo’s most exclusive neighbourhoods (so exclusive that I barely consider it part of Cairo), I have not always and I have worked for organisations actively working to improve life for some of the the most unfortunate in this country, so I have a fairly good idea of how life here is for many.

So, back to the platform. It was 7.45am and our train was due at 8am. The platform for the Cairo train is an island between four sets of tracks. We were standing on the platform as it filled up with other Cairo-bound travelers. Hawkers were working their patch selling newspapers and magazines, there were a couple of elderly female beggars moving from passenger to passenger looking for a small act of kindness that would secure their food that day. There was nothing unusual.

A train appeared down the tracks and Mr S commented that he had never seen third class carriages in Egypt. I assured him there were many, particularly on the type of train that was approaching. The engine passed and the first carriage was passing. Inside it was jam packed to the extent that people were hanging out the doors that were by now open. Movement inside the carriage of people wanting to alight made those at the doorways literally ‘pop’ off the train and onto the tracks below. They would then make their way over, in no particular hurry, to our platform.

Once the train jerked to a halt, the work really began. A boy about eight years old jumped off, on to the Cairo bound tracks and took a 1 metre diametre aluminium pot piled full with vegetables across the tracks to our platform. Then he went back and got another. His portly mother, in her long galabeya, sat down on the floor of the carriage and jumped out onto the Cairo tracks and took a sack of potatoes, easily 10kg and heaved it across to our platform. The little boy clambered back on the now moving train while she stood on the Cairo bound tracks waving him off. She then made her way up onto our platform and proceeded to drag her goods pot by pot across the platform to the other side. Once gathered there, she made her way down onto the tracks coming from Cairo, and heaved one of her pots over to the next platform, then made her way over to the tracks coming from Cairo. Just in time, because another train arrived. Doors open on both sides again, this woman then lifted her two pots and sack of potatoes onto the train, clambered aboard and slid in the single pot from the adjacent platform, just before the train left.

This story was repeated many times over, with her train and subsequent ones.

The train following hers, however, was (somewhat impossibly) even fuller. As the engine rolled past along with it came two young men, straddling the train buffers, holding on to the train with flat palms against steel of the engine and the front carriage.

Sure enough, at 7.55am they, as with many others, jumped off the train, onto the Cairo tracks and made their way, without much haste onto our platform. More women with lead heavy sacks and pots made their way across the tracks, either unaware that a train was due at 8am, or not caring much that it was.

The whole scene, in contrast to us holding our first class tickets and waiting for our plush seats in our air conditioned carriage was, and still is, extremely difficult to stomach. Of course I knew that the trains were crowded, extremely crowded and I’ve been squashed up against voluptuous female bodies on the Cairo metro at rush hour, and I’ve heard of people traveling on the roof on Delta trains. Mostly, however, I have not seen it and I was led to believe by the people describing it to me, that it was teenage boys who wanted to be dare devils. Perhaps so in some cases, but this was something quite different.

In all honesty, worse that watching it, was knowing that there is nothing I could do to help. I mean, yes, I could have tried to help the women carry the potatoes etc, but in reality, I would have been a hindrance more than a help.

So this is life in Egypt. You can live in a cocoon and never see anything like this and complain about how tough life is, or you can get out and about and see things what life can be like. The thing is, a poor reflection on me perhaps, it doesn’t stop the grumbling for as long as perhaps it should.