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Al-Ahram Weekly 9 - 15 September 1999 Issue No. 446 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 9 - 15 September 1999 Issue No. 446
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Focus Culture Features Books Special Profile Travel Living Sports People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Have suitcase, will travel
By Fayza Hassan
"I am leaving tomorrow for Frankfurt," said my brother on the phone, "anything I can bring you?" This is almost a ritual with him. Before any business trip, no matter how short, he calls family and friends to ask the question. Always seemingly disappointed when he receives a negative answer, he insists that he is prepared to buy and transport anything at all. I am always surprised to notice that this idiosyncrasy, so characteristic of the 1960s -- when travelling abroad had become for us an unknown luxury -- has remained with him. My brother has always been a kind soul and, although the offer is now more rhetorical than real, there was a time when, because of his generous disposition, he was entrusted by his nearest and dearest with tasks akin to finding and delivering the legendary gnu. In those days he was never known to complain about having to return with a suitcase packed with medicines and hard-to-find vitamins, but over the years, it should have dawned on him that he had no sacred obligation to spend precious time looking for spare parts of discontinued electrical appliances, size 4 purple leather pumps with kitten heels, or custom-made hernia belts. He never considered any request odd, however, at least for a long time, although the memory of a trip across London on a particularly bleak day in search of the roller of Auntie Madiha's 1945 mangle did rankle a bit when he recounted the incident.
Another favourite story involved a pressure cooker without which the mother of one of his associates had suddenly decided she could not live. A friend, she explained, had recovered her health when she adopted this mode of preparing her food. She considered it a life-saving device and had to have it. My brother, however, had been very busy on that particular trip, during which he had forgotten all about healthy nutrition until he was about to board the plane home. Knowing that his friend would be waiting for him at the airport, he didn't want to disappoint him. He raced through the duty-free shops and to his amazement there it was, an over-sized cooking pot with its little red knob impertinently perched on the side of the complicated lid. It took ages to wrap the thing and once the job was completed, he realised that the box was enormous and very awkward to carry, but he told himself that it was a small price to pay, compared to the pleasure he would experience when he gave it to his friend.
He successfully battled with the package while changing planes, waiting at airports and through customs but finally the white elephant could be handed safely to its new owner. For a long time he did not hear of the pressure cooker until he was about to travel again. The friend turned up carrying the unwrapped package. "My mother thinks that it may be too large," he said casually, "so I told her that you would not mind exchanging it for a smaller one. She never used it." My brother has repeatedly refused to tell us if he did indeed exchange it.
"People do not really understand the circumstances of short trips," says my friend Mona who is afflicted with the same kind of predicament as my brother. "As soon as they know that you are going abroad they develop pressing needs for bizarre items and seem to believe that one will find them lined up at the airport, in the lobby of one's hotel, or in the local supermarket," she complains. I readily agree, especially when remembering a painful experience we had a few years ago in Marseille, where we presented a pharmacist with a prescription which had been entrusted to us by a friend. There again an old mother was implicated and we had entertained the vague notion that we had been asked to bring back some sort of rare laxative. "What do you want that for?" asked the man in white, observing us intently. My husband shrugged. He didn't have a clue, really. "Could you wait a few moments?" said the pharmacist with a cryptic smile as he retired to the back of the shop where we heard him make a telephone call. I woke up suddenly from a pleasant daydream and grabbed the children. "Let's go now," I hissed with such urgency that for once my husband did not argue. As we turned the street corner we could hear a police car heading in the general direction of the pharmacy. Later, we were told that France's regulations regarding medicines were far from being as permissive as other countries' and that it was an offence to attempt to purchase certain substances.
Unlike my brother, I have learned my lesson. When I travel, my family and friends know that all they can expect from me is a book, a CD, a bottle of perfume or, at best, an item of clothing which they have neither requested nor need. I may not be their favourite traveller but while abroad, I'd rather hang on to my precious peace of mind.
