Sally-Part 55 ! EGYPT 4 ! SOME PEOPLE HAVE PLEASANT FAECES ! ( this one's for Joan! )

I'M NOT AFTER SYMPATHY BUT WHO BUT A MOTHER COULD LOVE ME !  Mm ! I SEE I WAS HUNG MIGHTILY EVEN AS A CHILD !

Some people have pleasent faces!  ( And not as my editor-in-chief thought she read,
 "Some people have pleasent FAECES" ! )

I started life with a miserable face which nature and time have not been kindly to!

I CHOSE THIS, DRAWN BY GEMMA WHEN SHE WAS SIX, AS IT MAKES ME LOOK CONSIDERABLY BETTER THAN I REALLY DO !

And being pretty obviously Jewish, going to an Arab country at a time when the world was and still is facing threats from Islamic fundamentalists was plain stupid !

Still, I'm friendly and welcoming and have kind thoughts and despite some reservations I believe that almost everyone else is friendly and welcoming and has kind thoughts too!

As we walked through our vast complex we passed smartly dressed guards sat quietly talking into walkie-talkies who always waved and smiled at us, whilst obviously plotting our murders and who I think were very happy just to have a nice quiet job in such a peaceful place.

I felt so protected  that I didn't even think that things might be different when we all went on an adventure to experience a 'Genuine' Bedouin feast in the desert.

The minibus into which we were packed carried it's own surly armed guard whose pistol could be clearly seen nestling in it's holster beneath his jacket. From the look on his face he clearly hated his job and us!

Arriving at a coach park in the middle of nowhere everyone else disembarked to complete the last mile of their journey on the backs of camels whilst I, who had been volunteered to stay with the baby remained on board.

" I'LL KILL HIM ! JUST WAIT 'TIL I GET TO THE CAMP ! I'LL BLOODY WELL KILL HIM!"

I think that everyone else in the group, including the Bedouins were quite terrified and shocked at the scream "Get back on the bloody bus!" that Gemma hurled at me when I stepped down for a minute to video them on their mounts, leaving the baby safely asleep on the guard's lap!

Thrashed to a pulp by the bucking bus as it charged across the corrugated track we arrived at what looked like a hurriedly erected refugee camp.

Two men stood at the entrance as I stepped down cradling my charge, each brandishing a machine gun and holding a spare clip of bullets in his hands and wearing a huge bandana of vicious weaponry across his chest!

They looked at me and then at each other and then back at me and the Boss one, showing a mouthful of blackened tooth stumps and flicking his thumb at a bench  sneered, " Jew! Sit there and wait for dee udders!"

I, for once didn't say "Pardon?" and sat, quickly working out that he hadn't worked out my ancestry and that this was his attempt at being politely welcoming and asking me if I wouldn't mind hanging on for a while until all the others had arrived!

 And I worked all that out as he sat opposite me picking his teeth with the biggest sheath-knife in the world and repeatedly asking me "Wot chor name and dat baby yors?" whilst winking at his companion who was checking the mechanism on his machine gun!

Actually, I thought " This is it! Out in the middle of a desert where no one will hear my screams! What a fool! IF I get out of this alive I'm never leaving England again!"

I hoped that they would make it speedy and wouldn't remove any important parts of me with that knife whilst I was still alive!

And I scanned the horizon, searching the rapidly darkening local mountain range for an escape route, wondering if I would be able to run with the baby, covering about three miles before they had time to take aim and bring me down. I decided that I wasn't going to wait for a coward's death or for the others to arrive!

But then the others did arrive and I changed my plans when we were 'requested' to visit their 'market' where urchins fought amongst each other to sell us their trinkets, charmingly set out on dirty blankets and priced to make even a wealthy man quake!

We all 'happily' emptied our wallets into their grubbily grasping hands!

I rapidly forgot about any attempt to run and somehow managing to control my uncontrollable shaking and tears and offering my thanks to heaven for allowing me to hold on to certain muscles lower down we sat on filthy settees scattered on the dusty desert floor watching a Tribal Chief magically produce 'traditional' flat bread by mixing flour and water and kneading it before putting it on a hot plate and baking it. Wow!

STAY DOWN DANIEL! RUN LIKE THE WIND WHEN I SAY RUN! O.K? OH NO! YOU CAN'T EVEN CRAWL YET CAN YOU?

Even better when we all got a chance to make and eat our own!

LOOK MUM! I CAN MAKE FLAT TASTELESS BREAD! AMY JUST BEFORE SHE WAS ABDUCTED BY THE TRIBAL CHIEF

This was living!

DYLAN EATING HIS OWN HAND-MADE BREAD IN OUR GORGEOUS DESERT LOCATION! YUP! THAT'S A RED ANT BITE ON HIS FOREHEAD!

I think that the vicious red desert warrior ants started climbing our legs and biting us at that time!

Then still trying to remember how to knead bread and hoping to retain some of the fascinating history of The Bedouins which we'd spent half an hour listening to told to us by the official interpreter whose English was only slightly better than my Serbo-Croat, we queued up with two hundred others to be served unidentifiable traditional fare which due to my still nervous condition and need for the toilet, I couldn't eat!

And when I did take Dylan for a wee later, there was a woman sat outside our cubicle behind a table, selling pieces of toilet paper at astronomical prices!

 Using what I considerd suitable actions I mimed that paper wasn't required! She looked quite disgusted and shouted something at her friends that made them mime being sick whilst pointing at me and acting out slitting my throat!

 Oh yes! And the baby was crying so I took him and my food as far away from our hosts as possible and fed the tribal goats my dinner whose brothers had probably provided the feast in the first place !

And then unreplete and just wanting a coffee and a Gregg's vanilla slice, the night's entertainment began and for about three hours we were trapped into watching traditional Whirling Dervishers and a strange set of dances that led to a search for volunteers!

I had thus far escaped death and by making myself as small and as insignificant as possible had hoped to see my wife again one day!

Then terror refroze my heart as a long boney finger pointed at ME from the stage! Oh God! Here it comes! Public execution!

A deep and urgent growling voice was aimed at me from under a hood."Hey! Jew! Come and dance for us!"

It was pitch black and I could just make out the cleft in the cliff that I had singled out for my escape and thought that if I refused now I would be shot where I sat but if I got up on stage and timed things well I could slip out of the glaring spotlights and run.

The rest of my party would have to fend for themselves!

So trying to smile at my family who were all cheering and whooping and encouraging me I rose and faced my end.

Why didn't they seem to understand what was about to happen? I slipped Gemma my wallet with the remains of my twenty pounds holiday spending money in it, smiled at my executioner and climbed onto the stage where I was led into a circle of the most vicious gang of murderers ever assembled in one spot and we all........ danced!

Uh?

And they clapped me on the back and laughed and shouted "Jew good! Jew good dancer!"

Oh dear me! They meant 'You' not 'Jew'. I would live after all! And so I grabbed the Dervisher's Whirler and danced and danced and danced!

I've set up my stall many times at Alnwick International Music Festival and watched many folk dancing groups from all over the world and quickly decided that they were all trained at The Monty Python School Of Silly Dances!

And these guys seemed to have been trained at the same place!

And who taught the Belly Dancer?

Men are at least expected to be driven wild with desire watching Belly dancers but we weren't!

She looked like my grandma and danced like me!

And although presented entirely seriously, they all had us hysterical with silent laughter as with snot shooting out of our noses and tears springing out of our eyes and Joan on my video tape clearly beyond help and squeaking with what breath she had left, " David! Stop it!" as I practiced staring at her with my special boss-eyed look, none of the others dared look at each other as one dreadful sequence followed another until with the ants still biting us and most of the audience tortured into a coma we were released in silence back to our buses!

It's true to say that at the end the applause was derisory and the headlong rush to get out akin to a stampede!

 No one dared say a word until we were back in our hotel and free of our armed guards!

Actually, we didn't say very much to each other at all.

 I think that I wasn't the only one who was relieved to get out of there alive!

I have the entire evening on video as proof in case any member of my party dares to claim that it wasn't as bad as I've made out!

And the next day, Thursday, The Icelandic volcano blew it's top!