A journey into Reality
When we travel over the Earth, we cannot but recognize that the humans in reality are a lot different from those in newspapers and other fictional literature. In that literature foreign people often appear as “pagans”, “Stone Age peoples”, “developing countries” or other inferior things, in the most grotesque images even as “cannibals”.
So now I want to report about a journey which led me through quite a few countries until Nubia. By land and sea from Germany to Egypt where I spent several weeks.
The route: First I went to Venice, from there by ship to Igoumenitsa in North West Greece. I spent two days on Corfu. With a short side trip to Athens I continued east to Istanbul. From there I went to Turkey's southern coast, first to Alanya where I visited the stalagmitic cave. By ship I went from Taşucu to Cyprus, where nowadays it is no more problem for EU citizens to cross the intra-Cypriot border. I went on by sea to Israel and from there by land to Egypt. On my way back I went immediately from Israel to Greece, what today is no more possible on passenger ships, but is possible on cargo ships. (So after my return, of course, I wrote a letter of thanks to the sailing company.) From Greece, after visiting some Cyclades Islands, I went back to Germany via Bulgaria and Romania.
Several nights I spent in my tent out in nature. Some states claim a right to forbid that by law to support the income of campgrounds and hotels. Well, this Earth is our all's. And I, being a long-experienced volunteer in nature protection, claim to show more responsibility towards the Earth than the legislative. Also in a squatted house I spent some nights – so-to-speak in a hotel free of charge. What a promising alternative to capitalism!
In Turkey every now and again I was invited for tea. The call to the “Çay” is a symbol of Turkish hospitality. The high appreciation of hospitality in Islamic societies is widely known. Also in Egypt I could experience that.
In Istanbul an elderly man started a conversation with me in German with a Rhenanian accent. He had lived in Cologne for some years. He guided me around next to the Hagia Sofia and told me some interesting facts. For example about the obelisk that had to be divided in two for the transport on a ship and of which the lower part fell into the sea during a tempest. After that guided tour he asked me almost weeping for the money he needed to get to Ankara. He had a very bad conscience for having overrun me without telling me about his intention. Okay, I could understand it: Had he told me from the beginning about it, I sure would not have accepted it. But this way I had already found a liking for him and saw his desperation. So of course I was not able to refuse his request to pay some more for his tour than a reasonable price. He invited me to sleep in his home in case I came to Ankara one day.
A striking fact in Turkey is the almost complete agreement in the positive rating of Kemal Atatürk: Most Turks consider dictatorship something not necessarily bad. Yes, that is the common psychological pattern in politics: People like to identify themselves with those they consider successful. The last German dictator, we know, was only withdrawn honour when it was no more possible to consider him successful.
I had to delay the sailing from Taşucu to Girne on Cyprus for two days because the storm forced the ships to stay in the harbours. That was a common experience I knew from former journeys that the storm changed my travelling plans, and it had always brought an advantage for me. I guess that the storm likes me. This time during those days I got to a kind of youth meeting point and–not for the first time–was very happy to have come to Turkey. Moreover, I visited the delta of the Göksu River, a swampy area that had been declared a nature reserve. There I saw different birds, even flamingos (Phoenicopterus ruber).
Why it was just in Egypt that I caught a cold, beginning with a tremendous cough, I don´t really know. The dry and dusty air might have contributed to that my mucous membranes were irritated and so the germs had a pleasant habitat to grow.
In Egypt's Nubian south I was impressed by the fact that there are no ethnic conflicts between Nubians and Egyptians. That is probably the reason why in the newspapers hardly anything is written about the Nubians.
While I was staying in Egypt, in some conservative Danish newspaper there were caricatures that mocked about Islam and its prophet Muhammad. Twice I was therefor asked if I was from Denmark. If I were from Denmark, it still should not have been a big problem: A disarming “Salâm alaykum” easily opens the Muslims' hearts. “Peace be upon you” - with these words I like to greet the people who regard them as their greeting.
What seemed strange to me in Egypt was that just in the country of Isis and Osiris people tried to convince me that there is no god except Allâh. Well, okay, the concept “god” in today's Egypt as well as in the rest of the Islamic and Christian world is defined in a way that it is only used for Allâh. But as a consequence of this the statement that there is no god besides Allâh appears to be a vitious circle to me, from a logical point of view a sentence with no content – except the one that it defines the word “god”. Isn't that quite common among religions that we only fight about definitions without being aware of that? There are interpreters between Arabic and English, on the other hand interpreters between–let's say–Islam and Buddhism are missing. What in the latter is called gods, does not have much in common with the Jewish Jahwe and the Christian-Islamic Allâh, rather with the angels of these religions. Not even the universal language Esperanto has found a solution to avoid those kinds of misunderstanding. No doubt, it can be a great challenge for the Esperanto movement to work for a solution.
Of course I was at the Giza pyramids, as well as the Saqqara ones. My travel companion said these later ones were man-made pyramids whereas those of Giza were made by extraterrestrians. The differences are striking. Of course, the pyramids of Saqqara were technically much easier to build. Those of Giza, and similarly the temples of Luxor and Carnac, consist of huge rocks of stone, and their transport and exactly fitting forms leave a lot of place for speculations. Also in other respects the builders' knowledge is impressing. Maybe we underestimate the humans of former ages to a great degree. There is no doubt that the builders, whoever they might have been, had technical possibilities which for us nowadays are restricted to our boldest dreams.
Once it happened in Egypt that children stole money from me. Well, taking into account that I am a lot wealthier than them, I can comment that they did their share for a juster distribution of the properties on Earth. Maybe I can see the taxi drivers in Bucharest, who ripped me off with exaggerated prices, with the same view. In an Israeli town I experienced the opposite: An elderly man came to me seeming to remain secret, spoke to me in Russian and pressed a banknote into my hand. Is the world full of Robin Hoods?
Part of my way I travelled with a USAnian who fairly often complained about how dirty it was in Egypt, and who told me again and again what was better elsewhere than in Egypt. No, that was not a symptom of nationalism. Being a social anthropologist, I easily recognized that it was not a political but a psychological problem. I overtly spoke to him about that he might have a culture shock. He admitted that that was possibly the case. And when I told him, it would not make much sense to travel and always to see what is better in other places than in the place one actually is, he understood me and agreed.
I did not travel on to Sudan. But I heard different things about that country. A man who was just about to travel there for a repeated time, told me that there the punishment for theft is chopping one`s hand off, and that from a man who commits adultery, the penis will be cut off. How cruel what ideas the state representatives have, only in order to terrorize others and to get themselves important roles. From other travellers I heard that the Sudanese are extremely hospitable. Two aspects how the same country can be perceived. Like everywhere: The state represents violence, the humans show rather warmth and goodwill.
It was a great experience to travel on a sailing-ship on the Nile together with other people. We went down the river with visits to a rather large island and a camel market. I met a woman from China who was on the road on her own. At first glance I was enthusiastic of her, and, of course, so was she of me. Women travelling alone are seldom met in Egypt, but I was glad to see that it was well possible.
At the edge of an oasis an elderly man waved me to him; he was having a little fire amidst two donkeys. He gave me bread, lentil soup and tea. What little he had, he still shared with me! There was no way of verbal communication because I don't speak Arabic. At least I was able to say šokran, the Arabic word for “thank you”. This is usually the first word I try to learn when I am in an area of a foreign language.
What I found in Egypt that I was rather unused to, was the relationship between the sexes, which is very different from what I know from Central Europe. An Egyptian man explained me why he considered the Islamic way better than ours. I remembered the German song “Der Mann aus Russland” by Stephan Sulke which says about a man from Russia: “Then we spoke of our two worlds / I thought that in his world some things were undue / But he did not accept any of my statements / And just turned them around towards me.”
Every now and again I met Egyptians who were biased against Israelis. Well, it is sure not surprising that the Israeli state is not highly appreciated within Egypt. But turning the hatred against a state even against its inhabitants, is definitely not a realistic point of view. Luckily that was not the usual attitude. On an island in the Nile I even met a young man who knew some words of Hebrew.
On the Sinai I started a diving course after I had cured a great part of my cold with medicinal help. After I had learnt about all the potential dangers, I did not feel well under water. I even doubted if diving was the right thing for me. I talked with my diving teacher and the owner of the diving-center about my fears. Luckily they were very empathetic and knew how to deal with my fears. The teacher did not only see my fears but also my enthusiasm, and so lent me a hand in reviving them, and I recognized that diving is the right thing for me. The three-dimensional motion at a coral reef in the Red Sea with clownfish and surgeonfish is simply irresistible! I learnt the technical terms in English, and so I could speak about diving more easily in English than in my German mother-tongue.
A visit to Israel is hardly complete without swimming in the Dead Sea. I had the lucky opportunity to take part in an evening celebration, accompanying some inhabitants of a Jerusalem kibbutz where I was housed in a friend's lodgement. The following day I could simply lie down and let myself be driven by the water. Yam HaMelakh is the Hebrew name of that lake, “the Sea of the Salt”. Next to the Dead Sea there are mud baths with freshwater. When after a bath in the “Sea of the Salt” I went into the freshwater, I felt it nearly strange that I sank.
I went over Jordan – and what did I see ... Okay, of course I only went over bridges. I also visited the place where Jesus was baptized. At least that is what tradition says. And myths and legends receive their worth not from having happened in that very way (or the myth of creation and the story about the Three Holy Kings would be worthless) but from being told. Many pilgrims came here. I watched an obviously Protestant group from California. A great many persons were baptized, some of them as a second baptism. I just watched without feeling any need to judge things as either positive or negative. At school we learn we should have an opinion. But why should I have an opinion about a confessional group if I am not their member and do not intent to join them? However, I found it more pleasant and relaxing just to watch neutrally, judgement would have seemed to me a sign of disrespect.
At the same place I watched different birds. Little egrets (Egretta garzetta), which I had seen in Egypt frequently, where here too. Again and again the pied kingfishers (Ceryle rudis) flew around, I had already met with them at the Nile; and a white-throated kingfisher (Halcyon smyrnensis) could be seen. I had seen a common kingfisher (Alcedo atthis) at the Göksu Delta and afterwards in the harbour of Ta%u015Fucu.
I hiked around the Sea of Galilee, one might say, on Jesus's traces. It took me two days. Near the road I saw a group of hyraxes (Procavia spec.). Those small animals are known to be closest relatives of the elephants. In Tiberias I was lodged in a hostel whose owner liked to make tea and coffee for me without any extra charge.
Those people who are servants of the states unfortunately are robbed their humanity. When I left Israel (why not when I entered from Egypt?), I was asked questions, and one of them was what I thought about the Egyptians. I told that man that in Egypt there were nice people exactly as anywhere else. How embarrassing that must have been for him to hear such a commonplace statement only after asking! Why don't the people have the courage to take their negative masks off?
There might be long discussions about whether it is politically correct to travel into certain countries. If I establish contacts with the local people, I always consider it a good step for the understanding between peoples. I remember how I had travelled to Italy some years ago after an Italian minister had insulted the Germans; and some people uttered the opinion that it was not the right time to travel to Italy. Yes, of course, it is! Especially when politicians quarrel, it is even the more important that we humans meet one another! Like it used to be said in the peace movement: “For the case that the state I'm living in, declares war to another state other humans are living in, I declare peace to those humans already today.”
The political situation in Israel sure is delicate and loaded with prejudices also outside of Israel. Some people even dispute if only the Israelis or only the Palestinians have a right to live–as though not all people had a right to live. Near Bethlehem I met two Palestinians, one of them a Muslim, the other a Christian. One of them told me that since the building of the wall his movements were very much restricted. I with my EU passport, of course was able to change between Israel and Palestine with no restrictions. The EU passport makes me a privileged person in the global society anyway. I would almost have written “in the global class society” - when I remembered that though it is correct, the slogan of the class society could be misunderstood ideologically due to its use in Marxism.
On the enthralling Greek volcanic island Santorini a hotelier picked me up in his car. One could think he was searching for customers for his hotel. No, he was not, just for fun he guided me through his hotel and even described me where I could find a place to put up my tent for free without being disturbed.
In Transylvania I asked a young man about a cheap hotel. He changed his planned route only to accompany me for a long piece of road and led me to a hotel; at the reception he translated for me between Romanian and French which he spoke with me. This readiness for help seemed to be very natural for him. In Istanbul already a very likable hostel had found me through a man who had very easily led me there. I had not even asked him, but he from his own motivation had spoken to me and asked if I was looking f
