This is kind of my rendition of getting to Dahab. Traveling in Egypt has been quite an experience and I have learned so much that it will take me months to unwind and really understand all that went on. I would say a huge percentage of the thinking and experience that took place was during the 19 hour bus ride of Luxor to Dahab. First, this bus ride could have been done in at least half the time in any other country, but with a combination of smoke breaks, picking up hitch hikers, security checkpoints, gas fill ups and fights we were a little delayed.
Traveling in Egypt has given me a deep deep appreciation for the good ol US of A. where I can get from point A to point B in a reasonable amount of time. Anyways, on my long and arduous bus ride I was able to contemplate a few things.
The first thing I thought about was how I missed my travel buddy Gabe. We had traveled Egypt for a week together and had an incredible time and I wish that he could have joined me to Dahab. In general things are just loads more fun when you can experience them with someone else and he was a solid traveler.
Another thing I thought about was child labor. Pretty related, I know. As I was on the bus I looked out the window to see that a majority of the crops in Egypt are still harvested by hand, and by the hands of children. The children are most likely the sons of the Egyptian man who owns the field. For the most part, men in Egypt it around and smoke hookah, unless of course they are trying to make me ride in a taxi, take a camel ride or buy something I don’t want.
Back to the children. I don’t think that it is necessary bad that they are working in the field as much as my 7th grade english teacher hyped it up to me. She made me think that child labor was possibly the worst thing that man kind could have ever done. I think it is good that these kids are working, that is instead of just sitting around. The real blame for child labor rests of the country that it is taking place in. The low wages are actually helpful to these people because it can put food on the table, but if they were to be paid the same amount that people are paid in the states than they would be making more money than very respected jobs in these countries. Instead of people pointing fingers directed at these businesses that are employing child labor they need to also realize it is a problem of the government who is too corrupt to provide for the children.
I can explain this better when I don’t have a ticker counting down the minutes I have left in the internet cafe.
1 Comment
August 12, 2008 at 10:31 am
hey! I was just looking at your old post about oil and I thought I should also mention that China and (i think) Russia are drilling in the Pacific off the coast of Alaska. It’s actually from the same oil beds that we have in Alaska, so they are basically taking the same oil that we could be using. Of course, it will take a long time for us to be allowed to drill up there, but by then a sizable amount could be gone. It’s interesting that environmental groups are against us drilling (although i do understand why), because China and Russia don’t have the same safety precautions and laws about how to retrieve the oil so there is much more likelihood of a dangerous spill and threat to the environment than if we were drilling.