Something funny happened on the way to The American University in Cairo

Because some silly sod (I've just been watching Monty Python, bear with me) built my university in the middle of the Sahara desert, I waste eight hours of my week commuting to and from AUC. This time would be better spent working on homework or reading, but I just can't stop myself from gazing out the window. It takes a "special" (the eating glue variety) place like Egypt to make something as mundane as watching traffic and landscape go by one of the most interesting experiences of my day.

I can't even begin to describe what I see without including pictures of my daily commute.

A mosque in the middle of nowhere

 Notice the contrasts of sand and grass between the first pictures . . . This is a land of contrasts. 

Poor

Rich

Children playing a circle game

I'm sad to report that some of the more interesting human elements of Egyptian traffic are difficult and elusive to capture by camera, though they are not isolated events. 

Even today I saw five guys sleeping on the open bed of a semi-truck. They had no harnesses to keep them from rolling off onto the pavement below. More shocking is the frequent sight of laborers standing around or sitting on the back of trucks that are going about 50-60 mph.

A visual demonstration . . . look closely at the truck on the left.           

There seems to be no concept of safety restraints here, and I always see toddlers climbing around the back seat of a car, or standing up in the front seat.  I also see small children (as young as three years old) clinging onto their fathers for dear life on the backs of motorcycles. Mind you, they aren't wearing any kind of helmet. 

I've also witnessed a whole truck bed filled with freshly sheered sheep, all neck deep in their own tresses. This wasn't nearly as startling as the van transporting cows on their way to slaughter, or the paddywagon filled with at least a dozen prisoners hanging pathetically onto barred windows and staring longingly at the outside world.  

And another day in this strange country goes by . . .