untitled wrote:harrydre wrote:@Chepkel, thanks for this thread. Now I know exactly what places to visit in Egypt.
there's always two sides of a coin, i stumbled on this
rink and may be chepkelel can tell us if its biased or the truth about the land of pharaohs
This is very interesting. And I am so happy that you posted this link. Where do I start, Mmmmmmhhhh!!!!
Okay.
First, the Egyptian people are not racist at all. They do not share the same view of Black people like the other Arabs e.g the Saudis. This is because they do identify with their position as an African nation. In addition, Upper Egypt (Aswan and Luxor) is filled with Dark skinned people. They call them Samara. And Egypt is usually referred to as "Hayati Masriya Samara" Which literary means My heart, Black Egypt. President Anwar Sadat was a samara! He was not a typical looking Arab but a dark skined Samara.
But I do agree with this blog. The immigration officers in Egypt are shiiiiitttt. I have personally had two very bad experiences in this land of the Pharoahs. The first time was in 2011. I had soo much love for this country, I still do, and I was very disappointed at how I was treated. My Brazilian friend and I went to renew our visas at the local immigration office in Alexandria. The Brazilian took like 10 minutes to get her visa renewed. However, mine became a problem and I was told I had to wait for 30 days before I could get the verdict back and they told me that they would reject it anyway. Soo sad. And true to the word, 30 days later my Visa was denied.
Most recently, when I arrived at the Cairo airport a group of us, all significantly from SSouth of the Sahara were stopped and asked to wait. They took our passports and kept us there for 30 minutes. Then, one by one, they started asking us questions. Like what are you coming here to do, do you have money etc etc. Two fellows who were interviewed before me were asked to produce their money and the official counted this money and checked if it was fake or real. When it go to my turn I simply told them am a student coming to study at Alexandria University. They guy was surprised at this and let me go. He didn't bother me.
But I was sooo disappointed at this treatment because this was my third visit and I had never had any problems before. I was soo angry and shaking. And I called my Egyptian friend and complained about this experience and he made efforts to calm me down. He says that Nigerians, Sudanese and other Africans from Islamic Africa come to Egypt and they cause many problems thus they are a little vigilant. But this is a fu**ing bad excuse to treat us like this. Such things are handled when someone is applying for a Visa.
So, the Moral of the story is that, The Egyptian people are really kind, welcoming, very helpful and do not look down on Africans. At least I have never experienced any kind of racial discrimination. But their immigration policies on African travelers is shit. Still, they do not do this always because the other Kenyans who are here have never experienced it. I think it was just my unlucky day.