A Metaphor of Life?

                           Traveling into the Sahara Desert can bring unexpected insights.

I thought I was just camping out in the desert for the long weekend, discovering, along the way, the wonders of the Egyptian side of the Sahara with a group of my fellow teachers.   

Well, yes. I did indeed camp out, but also came upon the unexpected on several levels.

We traveled in two 4x4s and it soon became apparent, when our driver kept looking back over his shoulder, that all vehicles are not created equal. His apprehension was well founded, as the engine of the other vehicle had less power, eventually quit, and had to be restarted by its stronger fraternal twin.

Oh, oh. A wee sense of a bit of vulnerability began to take hold.

To make a long story short, the obviously weaker and less enhanced vehicle eventually became solidly stuck in a remote area of the deep desert sands on the second day. Wouldn’t you know it.  In trying to help stuck-truck out of its predicament, the sturdier vehicle itself became mired in the endless sand.

So there we desert-greenies are, during the hottest time of the day, stranded who-knows-where, in the Sahara Desert.

Our drivers, in what I have recognized is a typical Egyptian trait, followed a process of performing the same task over and over again, vainly attempting to dislodge both vehicles via an endless ritual. For an hour and a half, in the baking sun, they pushed, pulled, and shook the vehicles in a futile attempt to dislodge them from their desert cavity. 

In the meantime, we Sahara newbies were reassured by the crew, “Don’t worry! Everything is under control! We have a GPS telephone. We can call for help!”

When inevitably, a driver was sent up to the top of the surrounding ridge to call for much needed assistance---guess what?---no communication via satellite.

As I am here writing this piece and not being memorialized in Cache Valley for my sense of misguided adventure, we were eventually rescued by the desert mounties.

Internalizing the unforeseen episode on the long ride back to Cairo, it occurred to me how much the experience was a metaphor of the potential of Egypt as a country, and in a surreal way, my own life. 

My impression of  Egypt, as a country, is one on the cusp of greatness; so much potential for being a capable power on the world stage.  Yet the land and its people are also so mired in the toothless ghosts of past history and religion, that they have hamstrung themselves from progressive contemporary  greatness. Egypt, in effect, continues to mummify itself.

Desert drivers in their traditional garb, digging through the desert sands with their cupped hands in a vain attempt to foil the stubbornness of modern machinery. 

Astonishingly, they eventually made it work.

Likewise, can the potential of my own inner excellence still evolve at this age and stage of my life?  I have had all the tools: upbringing, personal health, modern technology, and a fundamental know-how for accomplishment in the course of my existence.

However, like the drivers in the desert,  how many times have I replicated the same ineffective rituals and behaviors that resulted in  meaningless outcomes?

Then again,  perhaps my personal history and all the lessons I have learned---or not learned---even at this late stage--- are ‘alright,’  as well as  ‘all right.’ 

In the end, the place I am today is the place I am supposed to be. 

Somehow, I have made it work.