the mugamma experience

One month over in Egypt, and the time comes for me to renew my visa here. Welcome to the Mugamma, a huge imposing building in Tahrir Square, the workplace of 15,000 disgruntled Egyptian bureaucrats. The easy part is applying for the visa: get a form from this counter, pay for a visa stamp at another, and hand it in at yet another. Salman and I give the lady our passports together. “Pakistani, NO. Singaporean, Yes.” She takes my passport and hands Salman’s back to him. Salman is not happy. Another immigration officer tells him 3 months is enough, he no longer needs to be a tourist in Egypt. They tell me, on the other hand, to come back in an hour. I’m not given a receipt, and I walk away with a slight sense of foreboding. I come back in an hour, but of course the passport isn’t ready. So instead I spend 2 hours pressed up against the counter by 50 African men. Not a fun activity. Requires a lot of dirty looks and elbow shoves.

So without a receipt, how does one claim their passport at the Mugamma? Well if you’re lucky, you will be standing right at the front of the counter. There is no queue, but there is plenty of opportunity to push in. The lady bureaucrat behind the counter will most definitely ignore any kind of verbal communication you attempt at making with her. There is a big pile of passports lying right next to her on the counter, but she isn’t even touching them. You’re itching to stick your hand in and try to find your passport, but are a little concerned about getting your hand chopped off. So you stand. And wait. And shove. And wait. Finally, she will decide to hold up each passport/form and read out the nationalities, and well, if you’re lucky, and you notice your passport being held up in the air, you get to go home. That eventually happens to me. I run out and run home in exhaustion.

And then what happens? I find my apartment building lift CLOSED for the afternoon. Oh yeah they do this. Every afternoon, for 2 hours, for some inexplicable, idiotic reason the boweb shuts down my lift for 2 hours. And I live on the godforsaken 18th floor. So, I suck it up, and climb the 18 floors (well after some bullying by kent on the phone, and refusal by him to meet me for lunch and keep me company until my lift starts running again). Reach my flat, at the point of hyperventilation and promptly collapse on the couch for the next 4 hours. Ah…any excuse.