Secret service

We haven't posted anything in a while and will try to catch up...

A couple weeks ago, we went to Minia, a city in Upper Egypt, to visit some of CEOSS’ projects. Jeannette, a girl from Denmark who started working at CEOSS a couple months ago, also went with us. She had been trying to get down to Minia for weeks, and had been rebuffed or delayed four times. We think it’s partly because of a lack of organization, but partly because she’s Danish (see earlier posts). So our experience in Minia, we think, was because of her.

As soon as we got to the train station in Minia, and looked outside for our ride, police escorted us back inside “for our safety.” We waited there until the CEOSS van came. Two armed men joined us in the van, and a military truck followed behind us, carrying six gun-toting soldiers. If we encountered any traffic on the road, the truck behind us would turn on a siren and we would cruise onward as other cars pulled to the side. Faced with a checkpoint, our car merely cut in front of a dozen other cars. We owned the road.

This was basically how it went all three days. We didn’t always have the military escort, but we had at least one bodyguard the whole time. They didn’t wear uniforms but had strange bulges under their shirts; occasionally the tip of the gun showed itself rather conspicuously. They never bothered us, but they were always there. We slept on a houseboat in the Nile, and one of our bodyguards slept in a chair on shore next to it.

We visited some farmers who CEOSS is helping to export their crops. We visited a section of town where CEOSS has implemented a huge waste removal, housing improvement, and environmental health project. We visited a profit-generating furniture and plywood factory that CEOSS runs. Our bodyguards tagged along to each of these places. On the third day we had a different set of bodyguards, and at first I thought they were part of the CEOSS staff.

It was all a bit strange because Minia seemed like a very safe place to us. All of this security was a bit excessive.