Journal 19.01.2026.
Sawa Camp, Nuweibaa, Sinai Peninsula,
Egypt
6 days Barefoot through the Desert - Eilat, Israel: Day One
My first inclination that trouble was
brewing for me was when I arrived at the border post of Taba, the exit from
Egypt, and entrance into the ‘Promised Land’.
I had shared a ride with a non-smoking
French Jew that had also stayed at Sawa Camp. Not the wailing, farting one, the
other one. As the driver also smoked, democracy ruled…hah-hah. It was only a
short ride of three spliffs and almost the entire Jesus album I was listening
to via my earbuds called Cold Fact. A popular LP record that most
Rhodesians had owned.
And, to add to HIS frog miseries, he got
fucked over for Egyptian 20 pounds for
some bored border tosser to lick a stamp and put it onto the Exit card, which
had cost us each the equivalent of…I can’t remember anymore.
I wasn’t asked for a ‘twenny’ because MY
passport was unique! It is a BREXIT one. He had never seen one before. He must
have heard the rumours and took it for granted that I was,
A. Thoroughly lost, worse than Moses ever was
and B. judging by my demeaner and appearance I had been walking for 40 years in
Moses’s shoes - each with a round pebble in them.
Sort of like, proving your love for God by
beating yourself half to death with a sjambok, like those plonkers down
the drag in Alt Ötting where – coincidently, I have to go when I get back,
because I have to pick up my AUFENTSHALTITEL - presuming I survive this experience.
After being screened for potential weapons
of mass destruction, I was about to have my own version, when with passport in
hand, weeping in pain from those shoes, I realised with horror I could not
afford to pay the Israeli Entrance fee. As the only person who seemed to
realise that us two were the only ones doing ANY coming or going through this
border post - the only activity was extracting money from wallets and I didn’t
have one anymore.
Well, in my case – money belt, WHICH, it
so happened I had left behind in Egypt…on the black rubber belt that feeds your
sacks of weapons through a scanner box because they don’t have plastic trays
which means you just throw everything, coats, jackets, money belts, sandwiches,
a cactus named BOB, mobile phones etc, onto it.
How clever was that! Now I have to drag my
sorry arse, howling in pain from my crippled feet, and say 70 Virgin Hail Marys
that the Egyptian security personal were not on the phone buying bitcoins after
being sent manna from heaven in the shape of a cheap, black, nylon money belt –
Made in China and bought from TEMU.
The cards and cash contained therein would
surmount to a very nice holiday in…
Egypt - as what transcends in the next few days, is
that the promised land of Milk and Honey
are available in bottles a lot cheaper in the un-promised land than the one, Moses,
took 40 fucking years to get to, on enough false prophecies to make a tarot
reader wince.
Now I am in limbo and key suspect in very
confusing diplomatic row that was about to unfold. This is a lot more serious
than when the Brits first arrived here, in Taba, in the days when Britannia
ruled the waves, to find three ‘Police’ huts full of Turks threatening to shoot
them.
I was concerned that it could be possible that
this gathered crowd of officialdom were hopefully not followers of Faganism.
This cult name was first coined Faganism,
by David Copperfield in his best selling book ‘Magic Wallets – Pick and
Pocket What’s Not Yours’ , when he tells the story of a mythical person,
Fagan, who could teach anyone how to prosper easily from others - with a guaranteed
free trip on a converted slave trader ship to Australia should they be in any
way apprehended whilst making a comfortable living.
However, the book is relatively outdated now
as most wallets are digital, and can be hacked with ease, and there are no more
free tickets to Australia, or Rwanda either.
But the crisis that unfolded was
relatively clear to me. I was in a serious need to roll a doobie, but smoking
was not allowed.
In theory, I had left Egypt. No doubt
about that. I had just paid to do so. Now I can’t get back in because I have no
money! I was doomed to spend the rest of my life between two terminals and
unlike in the film with Tom Hanks, whilst I could plaster a wall, I hadn’t
brought a trowel in my luggage. And, what was I going to eat or drink? Here were
no McDonald’s around with half eaten hamburgers, cold French fries and buckets
of ketchup sachets.
The scenario gets worse. I had planned for
six days but not at war – which seemed to be breaking out amongst the Scanner
men, the Immigration men, the Customs men, the Policemen and for all I knew,
the local Ambulance men, whilst passing the money belt around and babbling in
Arabic to each other. Presumably about how to split the spoils and dispose of
the body – mine.
Eventually, as I happened to be the only
person hanging around not in dark khaki/olive uniform, someone who looked
smarter than the rest, asked in good English if this (holding out the money
belt,) belonged to me?
Assuring that it was a possession that had
been wrapped around my torso containing credit sized cards and coloured wads of
paper, that whilst the cards bore my name, the banknotes did not.
I was asked to check if all the contents were
inside as previously been before it went into the Fagan machine, which
had now taken priority for scanning for things that killed people that money
could buy.
Hah-hah, I wouldn’t have a sodding clue.
As readers of my books may recall a similar incident that happened to me at
Checkpoint Charlie during the Cold War in 1980.
In that incident I had, along with a very
prissy East German border STASI bloke, had been astonished with the fact that
when I emptied that money belt out for inspection, more money came out of it than
I had declared was in it when I was visiting their piss-pot poor, peasant
commie paradise of a Democratic Republic.
And, here in 2026, much to the relief of
this person of obvious authority - that I wasn’t about to start another war
with the Israelis by screaming that I am half-Jewish and the Gypsy Gyppo fuckers
have stolen my life savings and hobbling to the entrance of THEIR side for help
-I confirmed that it was, the money belt, presumably, had not been faganised.
It was now possible to attempt once again
to enter the promised land…
BUT – I desperately needed my friend BOB!
What issues could now present itself?
Would the great Gokwe Kid again have to use his formidable talents to overcome
all obstacles that he himself has thrown into his own path of his own making.
Stay tuned…
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