Photo-Finish Friday --Meanwhile, Back at the Pyramids

Egypt's Pyramids are a busy place. Tourists everywhere. Police officers watching from camelback  such as the gentleman in the foreground, and locals looking to make some quick cash off the guests.
One of the top scams going is to tell tourists they can sit on a camel for free.
Camel kneels.
Tourist gets on.
Camel stands up.
You want down?
Pay.
We were warned about this so we were okay, but I suspect these men and their fair steeds make enough in a day to get by.
That aside, it is all part of the atmosphere.

Start 'Em Young

A young boy attempts to sell postcards to a disinterested tourist.

We were accosted by sellers everywhere we went during our visit to Egypt. They always had just the thing we needed to make our lives complete.
There was a certain amount of regulation in place.  Near the souk in Cairo a young fellow, similar in age to the one in the above photo, tried to sell us scarab carvings.  In a few minutes the police had him in a headlock. Our guide told us the boy was selling without a licence.
For the most part the hawkers went about their business on everyone they could find. We were advised to not make eye contact. If asked a name we should make one up. Do not follow a seller in a market into a store.
I broke all of those rules at one time or another, but I have pretty good sales resistance and I enjoy saying no.
One evening a woman near tears with a babe in arms pleaded with me as I tried to get on the bus.  While I didn't understand her words, I am sure she was pulling the "My baby is sick and needs medicine" or "I need money to feed my baby" scam.  I saw it many times in Cuba.
Our guide seemed surprised that this happened, but he agreed it probably was one of these scams.
I couldn't help but feel a bit sorry for these hawkers, especially the young ones. Education is free in Egypt. If you get really high marks your post-secondary is paid for as well.
But not everyone can get high marks. Maybe this is all they thought life could offer them.
I like to think that with ouster of Mubarak things will have changed for the better on every level. The dependence on tourists will be for legitimate sales, not desperation.

Cold, Hard Cash?

I love this. I absolutely love it. Apparently I won a lottery somewhere and haven’t collected yet and now the payers are getting antsy to give me my money.
Come to think of it I did receive notification a few months back of having won a UK lotto. Maybe I should have paid more attention, because now, well, there are...umm... complications.

Apparently, I may be dead.

From the email from Mr. John Dawey:
“However, we received an email from one Mr. Arnold Gate who told us that he is your next of kin and that you died in a car accident last week. He has also submitted his account to us to transfer the fund to him including his International passport.
We want to hear from you before we can make the transfer to
Confirm if you are dead or not.”

Oh, my. What to do? What to do?

It appears these kindhearted folk got my name off a hypnotist finder list. A quick click of “properties” showed me who else got this email.
How interesting that Mr. Gate came from such a large family.

The email includes an apology from the International Monetary Fund for failing to pay out to me in time. You just don’t see that every day.

Now I wonder, if I confirm that I’m dead, then what will happen?