That time I mistakenly took the wrong bag from the airport…

Part 1: the flight to Cairo

The airplane was an hour late, during the flight I was serenaded by a choir of children screaming blue murder. One particular child during the flight really wanted me to know that her brother’s name is Ryan so she kept telling me that, about once a minute, for the duration of the five hour flight. I arrive in Cairo and let the pollution saturated air of the motherland engulf me. All Egyptians know that feeling the moment you step on the tarmac and take that first breath of Cairo and for minute you wonder whether you are actually breathing at all. But worst of all scatterbrain Salma retrieved a bag from the airport that wasn’t hers. Going now in hopes of finding the airline office open and a solution.

Part 2: Comedic attempts to find a solution

I go to Cairo international airport at 10 pm to attempt to retrieve my bag. I’m exhausted and haven’t slept all night. Anyways I have to tell my story to 3 different security men untill I arrive at the area where the airline companies are.

Incidentally, that’s where they store the airport wheelchairs.

The office is closed but there is a middle aged man sitting on a wheelchair and obviously as this is Egypt he asked me what I was looking for, and for once this is a good thing. I tell him my story. He gets up and says:

-Here take a wheelchair to sit on (he unchains a wheelchair). I’ll call someone for you. I’m everyone’s boss here انا الرئيس هنا.

He makes a call and I overhear the following:

-Hi Badawy, there is a very old woman here, she’s my cousin and she took the wrong bag, she lives very very far, veeryyy far and she is tired can you send someone to open the office? She’s very sick and I don’t want her to come twice. والله دي ست كبيرة وتعبانه وحرام نبهدلها وسكنة في ااااااخر الدنيا (he winks at me, I wonder how I’m going to appear very old at short notice).

He proceeds to call the entire Transavia office and finally gives me the number of their boss and sends me on my way. They in turn gave me other phone numbers. Anyways, hopefully today I’ll retrieve my bag and see my wheelchair guardian/boss of Cairo airport terminal 1 friend again.

Part 3: I finally retrieve my bag

This is me (photo below), happy to have recuperated my bag. I went to the airport after calling 5 or 6 people whom I reached thanks to the wheelchair king and president of Terminal 1.

Now Cairo airport is a very serious place.

Very serious indeed. In order to access the storage unit of Cairo airport I needed security clearance. For that I needed a criminal record check, a customs check and another procedure I can’t remember. One of the nice people at Terminal 1 did all that for me, while I waited for an hour or maybe 2, I had lost track of time. He came with a plastified card bearing my picture and i was introduced into the top secret location needing all that security clearance, a top secret corridor in which was a top secret high tech mop and a clearly confidential rubbish bin. He went into a storage room and got out my bag. He told me “you know, your bag is blue and beige, the other bag was is blue and gray, did you go blind or something ? And then he said “when you have children be careful to pick the right one up from school : لما ربنا يرزقك بعيل ابقى خدي بالك متغلطيش لما تجي تخديه من المدرسة و تخدي عيل غيره " It occurred to me that he probably had a point. He told me to call him if I ever visited Terminal 1 again so that he could help me if I ever had extra luggage. I always did like Terminal 1 better than Terminals 2 & 3.