“This is not Cairo”

I am sitting at the Swiss Business Lounge in Geneva as I am writing this. I was supposed to be in Cairo about twelve hours ago, but my Lufthansa flight from Munich kept being delayed, and then when we boarded the pilot said that he is unable to fly the plane and we had to get off.

The way Lufthansa dealt with the situation was a complete shit show in my opinion, contrary to all my expectations. Instead of offering hotels to us they offered us pillows and blankets so we can sleep in the terminal (it was late at night then), and given that all restaurants were closed they offered us "water and chocolate".

Unfortunately things got chaotic very quickly, as is usually the case when you have a crowd that is predominantly Egyptian. Passengers were yelling at the Lufthansa service crew, and understandably so. What disappointed me though was that the crowd had dedicated their effort to complain rather than calm down and look into resolving the situation.

What I found most disappointing, however, was the manager at the Lufthansa service desk, who got angry in response to the crowd's protests and shouted "This is not Cairo!"

As expected, this comment added fuel to the fire and the crowd was enraged. I was very angry with this comment myself, yet deep inside me I knew that he was right. Objectively speaking, Cairo is one giant mess of a city, and it's hard to compete with Egyptians when it comes to chaos and lack or organization.

I am sad. I am sad that Arabs disrespect themselves in their own countries and as a result are disrespected internationally as such. I want to fix this. I am not sure how exactly just yet, but I really hope to see this change during my lifetime.

Anyways, I'll be shortly catching my flight to Egypt. A new chapter in my life is about to begin.

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