Ma'a Salama ya Sidi Krir!

As our departure date looms ever closer- 3rd November is now a little more than a fortnight away, the bitter sweet experience of the “farewell tour” is now underway. What with all this jetting around through the past couple of months, I had not actually paid a visit to the Sidi Krir power plant in what must have been ages. Colin Parrish, our Plant Manager heartily agreed and suggested very enthusiastically that this absence had to end.

Thus it was that, on the morning of Wednesday October 17th, I found myself in the passenger seat of our Pajero, pulling out of Maadi to start the oft driven schlep up to Sidi Krir. On this occasion, however, something was a bit different- the weather. Now weather in Egypt is not something you dwell on too much. “Oooh what a sunny day it is, I wonder what it will be like tomorrow” tends to run a bit thin once you get into the third month of blazing heat and zero precipitation. In fact, one thing very noticeable about Egyptians is that they never really talk about the weather- it’s hot, get over it!

Well today the weather was worth talking about. For the first time in months it had actually rained the night before- and not just a small shower either. For hour after hour, rain poured, thunder rolled and lightning flashed. In fact, on the way home the previous evening, the dark, miserable rainy weather had evoked a very brief flash of homesickness in me- one that vanished once I stepped out of the car, mind! The rain was so solid and so heavy that, in the wee small hours, it started to come through the gaps in the terrace door and window and was dripping solidly down onto the corridor floor. I was actually quite grateful for this- being a tenant, I was not on the hook for the repair and, more importantly, we now had a cast iron excuse for the water damage inflicted by a session or two too many in the paddling pool over the summer.

Anyway, Mohammed and I made painfully slow progress across Cairo, whose lack of a decent drainage system was becoming rather apparent. We worked our way through umpteen lake sized puddles and around countless vehicles which, being on their last legs in the dry, had given up the ghost completely in the wet. After an hour we reached the Heliopolis apartment of my friend and colleague Sherif. With Sherif aboard we made our way west to join the Cairo- Alexandria road.

With the rain behind us, everything from this point had the grim predictability of a journey which had been made over fifty times before with the added tinge of knowing that this was actually the last time I’d be doing it. As things on the road flashed by- the unspeakable service station halfway on the road, the huge equine sanctuary with Delboy like statues of horses adorning the entrance, the “Lion Village” zoo- I bid a quiet goodbye to them. We even played Mohammed’s favourite CD (the soundtrack to Saturday Night Fever, which I’d bought him a year or so ago in an attempt to stop him from ever again asking me to listen to his cassette of the Bee Gees in concert with Barbara Streisand).

We arrived at Sidi Krir at lunchtime- the usual McDonalds salad will not be missed. After an afternoon of very dull accountancy, the details of which I will not go into, we headed off for a last night at the world’s worst Hilton hotel- the Borg al Arab Hilton. It says Hilton on the signage but in reality I have spent a few nights each month for the last three years staying at a pink Arab version of Fawlty Towers. The only fond memory I have of the place isn’t even mine- it is of our cantankerous Texan CEO trying to have a shower and getting scalded in the process. After a few beers with Colin and Charl (a South African piping consultant here ostensibly for our ongoing outage but seemingly for the sole purpose of needling Colin and I before the Rugby World Cup final) I headed up to enjoy my final night in the place.

After a few more hours of bean-counting the next day, I started to say my goodbyes. I donned the glasses and helmet for the last time and headed to the maintenance building with Colin where I caught up with a few soon- to- be- ex colleagues. After a final photograph with Colin and Sherif (a team photo is a fairly traditional goodbye rite for all visitors there) we made our way home- a final slog back to Cairo.

Sidi Krir Power Station- the reason we came to Egypt in the first place!

A final team photo outside the admin building. From left Colin Parrish (Plant Manager), me, Sherif Moussa (Financial Controller)

Although I left Sidi Krir without much emotion, I must confess I’ll miss the place. Although I’m no engineer, it is a place I’ve come to grow fond of. The people have come together as a team and have taken a pride in their station. Unlike many engineers they have not just accepted my visits but have really embraced what I've been trying to do, proving that Beancounters and Dilberts can work together! However, it is the whole repeated ritual of these trips that will be remembered fondly for a while yet. Listening to awful Bee Gee cassettes on the long, dull road to and from Cairo, swapping weak jokes with the likes of Adel, Abdallah and Nabi, semi drunken gossip with Colin in the Hilton bar and braving the worst a supposedly five star hotel can throw at you are now firmly ensconced in my memory.