In October, I traveled to Egypt as a member of a tour group sponsored by the alumni association of my alma mater (Calvin University). The tour, led by a seminary professor and an Egyptian guide, brought us to the most popular sites–the pyramids in Giza and Saqqara, the Karnak temple complex in Luxor, the Valley of the Kings, The Temple of Horus, the Khan El-Khalili Bazaar–as well as some places of particular interest to our group, such as the cave churches on Mokattam Mountain and the nearby Zabbaleen, the Coptic Christian community that collects garbage for Cairo. I found the experience not only enhanced my appreciation of ancient Egypt, but also gave me some sense of modern Egypt–its struggles, successes, and failures.

We couldn’t have avoided encountering modern Egypt even if we wanted to. Our bus took us back and forth through Cairo, with its dilapidated high-rises with laundry hanging from open windows and the teeming multitude of people on its streets. Arriving at museums or archaeological sites, we almost always had to walk through a gauntlet of street vendors, waving their wares in front of us and announcing the remarkable bargains they could provide for us.

Shops Outside the Temple of Hatshepsut, Luxor.

The first day, our Egyptian guide told us that at tourist sites we would be surrounded by aggressive sellers. She instructed us to walk past, not making eye contact, not responding. We needed to stay together as a group, she explained. Plus, most of the wares hawked by street vendors were inferior. We would have time enough to shop at places where better quality merchandise would be on offer.

We did as she said. And we did have other opportunities to shop, and at least a little opportunity to interact with Egyptians. Most of the Egyptians we met were either clerks at the shops to which we had been brought or people in the hospitality industry–hotel clerks, bellmen, waiters, barkeepers, and the like. These were invariably polite and eager to please. However, I couldn’t help but wondering what it would have been like to have a wider range of contacts. What do ordinary Egyptians think of tourists? What are their lives like? What would they like outsiders to know about them?

Another member of our tour group was reading The New Tourist  by Paige McClanahan, a book that discusses both positive and negative aspects of tourism and that suggests ways both travelers and the places they visit can benefit from such journeys. I was able to borrow the book and skim several chapters. McClanahan advises,

“We need to encounter each other on an equal footing and offer up something of ourselves, even as we ask something of the people and places we visit.”

How to do that, though? I suspect a naive American wandering the streets of Cairo seeking encounters with the residents could wind up in trouble. The places tourists are taken are at least safe–there’s a significant police presence making sure of that–but what kind of encounter could I have with the street vendors that surrounded us? Is there any sense in which we would be on an equal footing? What could I offer that would be beneficial to them, other than cash?

So, yes, it is probably best to walk past the vendors, not looking at them or acknowledging their cries, pretending that they are merely obstacles to be circumvented. But that is wrenching. They are human beings, made in God’s image, endowed by their creator with dignity and worth. Who am I to give them no more regard than I would a rock or tree in my path?

Our last day in Cairo, when we visited the the Khan El-Khalili Bazaar, we were given a half hour to wander among the shops. Again we were bombarded with sellers, but at least we had a little time to stop and interact. I tried to give at least brief responses to some of the men (almost all the shopkeepers and their assistants were male) that I passed. I did buy a few things, and to many others I expressed some small degree of appreciation. Yes, that’s a lovely shirt or scarf or carpet, but I’ve spent my cash, and I don’t have room in my suitcase. It wasn’t anything like an I-thou encounter, as Martin Buber would advise us to have, but it mostly seemed I-you in character rather than I-it. After getting some response, the sellers usually relented; perhaps they wanted to sell but, failing that, just wanted to be acknowledged.

And what about all the previous I-it interactions at tourist sites, when someone spoke and I ignored them? The best I could come up with was not to change my external behavior but to be mindful of what I was doing to my heart–for to ignore another human who wants to interact with me does diminish both me and him. It was a harmful mini-lesson I was teaching to both myself and the person–a false lesson, that some people don’t matter. I didn’t repent, since I had already decided not to change my behavior. I did lament, though. In Scripture, laments are addressed to God during times of distress, such as during war, oppression, sickness, famine, or injustice. It is an acknowledgment that we can’t make things right by ourselves and a cry to God asking him to do so.

Here, then, is my lament. God, I see that this manner of interaction is damaging both me and the other person. We are each constrained by cultural, social, economic, and linguistic conditions that prevent us from making things right. Help us; protect us from harm.

Khan El-Khalili Bazaar