Today would have been my father’s 99th birthday. “Our new daughter” never knew him, because he died seven years before she was born. This really was a shame, because he was great with kids, and was quite a character. Since this blog has more or less devolved into a travel blog, I thought I would tell a travel-related story about him.
This incident took place in 1984, on my parents’ first and only trip to the Middle East. I had been traveling in Asia for two years when I met them at the airport in Tel Aviv. After touring Israel together, we flew to Cairo.
Now, I have to tell you that my father had gone to medical school in Scotland in the late 1930s. While there, he developed a friendship with an Egyptian classmate by the melodious name of Abdel Maghid Ali El Far. Shortly after graduation, they fell out of touch (you know, World War II and so on). Now that Dad was in Egypt, he was determined to find him.
So the first order of business upon checking into our hotel in Cairo was to ask for a Cairo phone book. Imagine our surprise to find that Cairo didn’t have a telephone directory. “Wow, what a shame,” I thought, “there’s no way he’ll find him now.” But Dad wasn’t giving up. He launched into Plan B, which was simply to ask everyone we met if they knew his friend. “Daaad,” I said, rolling my eyes, “this is a city of —what?—ten million people? Do you really think you’re going to find him just by asking random people?” Undaunted, my father continued to buttonhole every single person we had any contact with (tour guides, money changers, bellhops), and ask them if they knew his friend.
A couple of days later, I took a bus down to Sharm El Sheik to do a little snorkeling. When I returned the following afternoon, my mother greeted me with, “quick, get dressed—we’re going to a wedding”. Huh?
Here’s what transpired while I was gone. My parents went into a gift shop in the hotel, and my dad, as usual, asked the proprietor if he knew anyone by the name of Abdel Maghid Ali El Far. “El Far?” the guy asked. “I have a friend from college named El Far. I wonder if they’re related.” So he calls his friend, and yes indeedy, Abdel Maghid is his uncle. It turns out he doesn’t even live in Cairo; he lives somewhere up in the Delta. But another one of his nephews is getting married in Cairo the following night.
So that’s how we ended up at this big fat Egyptian wedding, with crossed swords, ululating, and frenetic belly dancing, while Dad and Abdel Maghid Ali El Far got each other caught up on the previous forty years. I still shake my head in wonderment when I think of it.
