The Sunday Mail
This is the first of six fictional episodes describing Adam Kok’s experiences in Egypt.
They do not necessarily depict exactly what goes on in Egypt.
I WILL never forget the time Adam came back from Egypt and my later clash with him. I decided it was time to put my foot down and take him to task for his outrageous behaviour. Old Cincinnati Ngulube, Adam’s editor, might have been the ugliest editor in town but he was certainly not the dumbest.
When he found out that he had married a beautiful cheat, for example, he was clever enough to listen to Adam’s advice and not divorce her — because, as she was sleeping with the top guys, she was able to give him a never-ending succession of scoops for his newspaper.
Despite that he called Adam Kok the most immoral journalist in Africa, Ngulube valued his stories. He had sent him to France and Adam came back with a briefcase full of saucy human interest articles, boosting sales for weeks.
So when the need arose to send a member of staff to Egypt to cover a Warriors match, he made a canny choice. He knew Adam could churn out a report on the football match. But he was sure Adam could do a lot more. And events proved him to be dead right.
On his return, I accompanied his wife, Rudo, to the airport to meet him — and both of us were shocked at the state Adam was in. Something had happened to him in the Land of the Pharaohs.
He was a wreck. His hands were shaking. He looked like a man who is being pursued by the Mafia with sawed-off shot-guns. He pooh-poohed it when we asked him anxiously what was wrong, saying it was just an attack of manyoka — but a few days later I learnt the truth.
“Tyini, comrade, I’m lucky to be alive,” Adam said, in a sweat at the very thought of what had happened.
“But, Adam, Egypt’s a nice place, isn’t it? Didn’t you visit the pyramids, the Sphinx, the Egyptian mummies in the museum? Didn’t you ride camels into the desert or have a sunset cruise in a felucca on the Nile? People will pay lots of money for the chance to see the temples at Luxor and . . .”
“Comrade, stop!” Adam almost screamed, blocking his ears with his hands. “I am telling you about getting out of the place alive and you are treating me like an American tourist! Have some sensitivity!”
“All right, my friend,” I said, trying my best to be sensitive, “have a glass of Scotch and then tell your old comrade what happened.”
It was a long story and at the end of it I couldn’t contain my feelings about Adam’s lifestyle and his treatment of women. I only hoped the shock he got and my own scolding would help to change his ways.
“Never has a country tried so hard to win democracy and thrown it away so easily!”
This is what a friend of mine who lives in Cairo said to me after the military coup which toppled the Muslim Brotherhood government. I thought of Adam and what he once said about Western democracy. The Egyptians had a taste of it and didn’t like it. The Muslim Brotherhood won a democratic election, free and fair, but instead of playing the democratic game and trying to vote them out at the next election, the opposition went back to Tahrir Square to protest and in the end Egypt, having got rid of the undemocratic Mubarak, then got rid of the democratically elected Muslim Brotherhood only to end up with Al-Sisi and the military. What’s going on? Is it the Egyptians or is it that, as Adam said, in Africa we need to do our own thing and not keep trying to make this Western stuff work?
I was thinking about all this the other day and this called to mind Adam’s narrow escape in Cairo. I knew a bit about Egypt because once or twice I stayed over there while in transit. Apart from the usual tourist attractions, there are three things I remember about Egypt — perfumes, fruit juice and the driving.
The perfumes are oil concentrates — one dab will do for a whole day — with enticing names like “Queen of the Nile”, “Cleopatra” and “Desert Rose”. If any of you guys can lay his hands on a box of assorted essences and present it to his “everything”, you can count on a fat credit balance in the love account.
The fruit juices are squeezed on the spot. Walk out of the desert heat into the cool shade of a juice shop and order a chilled glass of thick and totally unadulterated pawpaw, guava, pineapple, granadilla, pomegranate or any other juice you fancy. Nothing to beat it — when it comes to fruit juice, that is.
Cairo has a road infrastructure, which would make any Zimbabwean jealous wide highways, flyovers and underpasses galore. Technically a highway might have up to six lanes in each direction.
But Egyptian drivers drive like they have never heard of lanes. They spend the whole time looking for a gap to drive into. The gap can be anywhere – three lanes to the right or left – or right in front of them between two lanes of traffic. Then, as they squeeze themselves into it, they open up another lane. So the lanes keep shifting, becoming more or less, depending on the flow.
In order to get into the gaps the drivers achieve prodigious feats. They can cut in front of or go past other cars with only millimetres to spare but they very rarely scrape, dent or crash into them.
Their timing and judgment is miraculous. What’s even more impressive is that it is all done at high speed. But like all freedom without discipline, it leads to chaos.
So, Egyptian driving results in massive multi-lane snarl-ups, just like a Harare traffic jam at the corner of Samora Machel and Rotten Row when the traffic lights are not working – but a lot bigger. Add to all this, the fact that every driver’s right hand is glued to the hooter and you have some idea of what Cairo traffic is like!
So when Adam arrived for the first time in Egypt, this was the scenario that met him. Driving in from the airport was a hair-raising experience and very understandably the first thing he did when he got to the hotel was order a very stiff tot of “the water of life”. Alcohol is served at tourist hotels but elsewhere in Egypt alcohol is haram (forbidden).
In the days leading up to the big game, Adam wasn’t able to get around much. The Warriors did pretty well, holding the Pharaohs to a 1-1 draw in their stronghold, the Cairo International Stadium. Sport wasn’t Adam’s speciality but he was a professional and did a good job. Ngulube was quite happy with his football coverage – but the editor was expecting a lot more. And he was not going to be happy with all the tourist stuff. He wanted human interest – and in particular the daring kind of human interest only Adam could come up with, though many others had tried and failed to copy him.
For that he had to get out of his Cairo hotel into the city and mix with the people. So when the game was over and he had written his last football story, he set out to experience Cairo. He did the night cruise on the Nile with live Arab music, belly-dancing and the weird Tanoura show, featuring the so-called Whirling Dervishes. Then he got sloshed at some place on Zamalek Island and explored the bars and clubs of the city in a mood of wild abandon.
Two things struck him immediately. Egyptians only really get going late in the afternoon. Malls are closed until nearly lunchtime. You can go to a doctor, a dentist, a motor mechanic or do your shopping at all times of night. The other thing is that, though all the bars and clubs are packed and people are out grooving, in most places everyone will be drinking juice and soft drinks!
Now it is obvious, knowing our friend, what was going to interest him most in Cairo was the women.
There’s a big debate among Egyptologists as to whether the ancient civilisation of Egypt was a black African one or the work of Caucasians from the Middle East. Whatever the truth, in Egypt, like most of the North and Horn of Africa where Arab influence is strong, you can see people ranging from pitch black to something very close to white.
It was a woman of the latter hue who caught Adam’s eye, who caught him in turn – and who was very nearly the end of him.
To access previous Kok Tales, go to https://rmshengukavanagh.wordpress.com/
