Comment on Thanks 🙏🏻

• BotsRuinedEverything@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago

  I met zahi hawass in 1995 before he was anything other than an egyptologist and a university professor. The charisma you see on TV is 100% the real him. At the time my family was living in Jerusalem Israel. My dad was an engineer for Intel helping set up a new chip manufacturing facility on the outskirts of town.

  In the 90’s there were a lot of improved relationships between Israel and its neighbors. In 1973 there was the 6 day war where Egypt, Jordan, Syria, and a could other countries I can’t remember, all attacked Israel simultaneously. At which time Israel kicked all of their asses back to their deserts of origin in less than a week.

  Anywho… In 1995 Israel opened its southern border into Egypt for tourism. I think they called it the Tabla crossing. I was 15. We drove across the Saini desert in kind of a tour bus. We were the first Americans to make the trip. Long fucking drive too. I think it took something like 5 hours just to cross the endless wastes.

  I think Egypt was trying to lay out the red carpet for us. We stayed as a hotel that was unbelievably lavish. Lol, we were told we must stay in our rooms or be off grounds between 5pm and 7pm because they sprayed for mosquitoes. These guys are wearing these gas powered foggers full of DDT that spread a haze you couldn’t see through.

  We met Dr Hawass at our hotel and he rode with us to Giza. In pictures the pyramids look like they’re in the middle of the desert but in reality there’s a densely populated neighborhood right next to it. He walked through all of them with us. We walked through every interior room and walkway privately. He showed us his personal dig sites and I saw, with own eyes, heiroglyphs of a kangaroo. There’s debate about this but I know what I saw. He took us through the museum and we bought some little statue figurines from a street before that Dr Hawass authenticated. He said they were legit middle kingdom artifacts. It was unreal. I boldly drank tap water because I wanted to develop an immunity to the local pathogens, anticipating a return. I never did visit Egypt again but I did suffer through amoebic dissentary for 3 weeks.

  It was years later when I started seeing Dr Hawass on TV. At first I was like… wait I recognize that voice… Then the holy shit moment when I realized what a true gift it had been to get a private tour. It was me, my parents and my 5 year old younger brothers; 5 days in Egypt, I’m pretty sure the whole things didn’t cost $4000 at the time.

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  • BotsRuinedEverything@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago

    2- I guess Egypt was the Sahara? I didn’t really see the dunes beyond what was around the great pyramids in Giza. But there were lots of guys with camels offering pictures and rides. Actually kind of scammy though because they would stand behind you with their camel and their kid would snap a Polaroid without asking and demand money. We were told just to pay everyone. Something like that would be like $0.50.

    I DID however spend 3 days with the bedouins in Southern Israel. I went to a fancy English speaking high school called The Anglican School International. You should look it up. It’s a beautiful campus. There were like 20 people in my graduating class in '97. They organized a few trips for us every year. Some of them were really amazing. I got to ride through a scrubby desert in military jeeps driven by teenage soldiers once.

    The bedouin trip was amazing though. They are a nomadic Arab tribe that live in tents like they have for thousands of years. They are basically the middle Eastern version of the Amish. So I’ve of the days we went on a 12 hour camel ride through the Negev. My camel was such an asshole that a little boy had to lead him the whole way. Did you know that a camel’s neck is flexible enough to bite you while you are sitting on them? Yeah neither did I. Guess how I learned.

    So on the way back my friend and I decided we were done with the camels and would rather walk. As the supreme confident 16 year olds we were, we lagged far behind the group lifting rocks to find creatures. All we found were little yellow scorpions, but we found TONS of them. We picked then up by their tails and the them at each other. Fun stuff.

    Months later we were in study hall in the library just flipping through interesting books like the Guinness world records and stuff. 90’s version of doom scrolling. On one page we saw that scorpion we were playing with. The “yellow Palestine scorpion” also know as a “death stalker”. Yep. One of the most venomous creatures on earth. We were throwing them. Guaranteed death. Nervous system shutdown. The only thing that saved us was that truly dangerous creatures tend to be chill. Fun times.

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    • BotsRuinedEverything@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago

      3- lol no. I can barely make enough to meet our monthly delivery goals. But, we don’t put the electronics in them. A areospace company does that. I make the carbon fiber housing. You wouldn’t believe the tolerances; “difficult to make” isn’t even close. I work 7 days/65+hrs per week. I’m the only one who can make it.

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