It’s been a rough couple of weeks. In that time I’ve seen 3500 year old temples including King Tut’s and 5000+ year old pyramids. I’ve had dinners in the homes of local Egyptians and Nubian villages. I’ve floated down the Nile River in a felucca (sailboat), and visited WWII battle sites.  I’ve seen The Burning Bush and climbed to the top of Mount Sinai.  All of this while bouncing in between the beautiful coastlines of the Mediterranean Sea and the Gulf of Aqaba.

As you might expect, life has been good lately, but if I had to sum up Egypt in one word then that word would be “underachieving”. Egypt’s economy is a wreck, unemployment is massive, and the people don’t seem optimistic about their future. Egypt is in its current position in spite of huge amounts of natural resources, historical greatness, and international aide.

In addition to controlling the most important canal in the world, they have more water coming from the Nile River than they know what to do with which, as you might imagine, is in short supply elsewhere in the Middle East. Instead of using this water for canals for farming, it appears that the water’s sole use is for electricity production. As a result, the country that used to supply the Roman Empire its grain, now has to import over 50% of its food supply and has only 3% of its land arable (per the Rough Guide).

I have no idea how much oil they have in relation to the rest of world suppliers, but they have had it and probably still do. They do however have tons and tons of empty, open land that receives sun and wind 365 days a year. With a diminishing oil supply, I would be leading the charge on finding a way to economically capture this natural energy and exporting it to the world. I wonder what type of education programs they are implementing at their universities.

This next comparison will rub some people wrong, but it’s valid none the less. I have only spent 48 hours in Israel and it does not take a trained eye to see how Israel is maximizing its limited resources. The stretch from Eilat to Tel Aviv is a desert, but the land has been shaped in a way to maximize the capture of rain and drainage. Water pumps are everywhere and it seems like every house has a solar panel on the roof top. As a result the land is farmable and real towns exist. This is the exact same land that is barren on the other side of the Jordan River in Jordan. Go figure.

Finding an ancient antiquity in Egypt is almost as easy as finding a Mexican food restaurant in Texas. There are lots of them and many of them are really, really good. While Egypt has done a good job of roping off the areas for tourists to come to spend their money, they still rely on the outside world for restoration and maintenance. There is only so much that can be done by outside parties. Consequently the presentation of the antiquities is not nearly what they could or should be. With a huge unemployment problem, how about building an antiquities restoration training program for the Egyptian people? More antiquities could be uncovered, the bright colors of the temples could be restored (I saw one guy doing this and it was way cool to see the sandstone come back to life), existing antiquities could be reassembled, and here’s a thought, the trash could be picked up around the tourist areas.

The international aide and the potential are all available, and given today’s need for stable, thriving, moderate regimes in the Middle East it is in the world’s interest to help Egypt be successful. Without touching on the political situation Egypt’s history proves that it has the potential for greatness, but right now it is still a diamond in the rough.

I am glad that I went. I got the t-shirt, but I don’t plan on going back anytime soon. As I alluded earlier in the entry, I am in Israel now. Going from Egypt to Israel is strikingly different. I will give you one more example and leave the rest of my useless observations for later.

Similar to the very frequent “security” checkpoints in the rest of Egypt, the Egyptian Immigration Office is filled with a bunch of old MEN sitting around and not doing too much other than shooting the breeze with one another and smoking excessively. There were no women in the office that I saw. Conversely the first Israeli that I encountered was a pretty, young lady. My next encounter was two more pretty young ladies. I met six Israeli Immigration Officials (it’s extremely thorough) before I met my first Israeli male. After one month of seeing almost every woman in a head scarf or a complete veil, it was a welcomed change.