On this trip to Egypt, the beggars were the ones who gave

A world traveler was used to beggars. What he hadn't counted on was the lesson these two taught him.

By Joel Carillet

from the August 3, 2007 edition

Page 1 of 2

For hours I had been traveling up the Nile Valley, from Luxor to Cairo, on a train jammed with Egypt's working poor. Having been one of the last to board, I had no choice but to take one of the worst seats. So along with maybe a dozen other men, I sat scrunched on the floor in the rear of the car, my chin resting on my knees.

The train followed the route of the world's longest river, the Nile. Egypt was once a great civilization because of the Nile's gifts of water and silt, and today the river remains the reason the country can sustain a population of 80 million people, the largest in the Middle East.

At 1 a.m. I reached Cairo and took a taxi to Tahrir Square, the city's central hub. I was hungry and, having been to Cairo before, knew that while most of the city was closed down at this hour, a couple of fast-food restaurants would be open there.

The taxi dropped me off across the street from Hardee's. A moment later, just as I was about to open the restaurant door, two street children pounced on me with plaintive cries for food.

Had the square been dense with cars, people, and noise, I probably wouldn't have noticed them so clearly. But now it seemed as though there were no people in all of Egypt except these two boys and me, standing together in the chilly January air.

Being a veteran traveler as well as having once lived in Egypt for a year, I was no stranger to children begging or people asking me for help. But seldom had I been so moved by the sincerity of the plea.

In my broken Arabic I asked when they had last eaten – about 16 hours ago, they said – and then I turned to look through the window beside us. For the boys, to look through this window was to gaze upon a world inaccessible to them; for me, it was to see familiar ground.

I turned back to the boys and asked them to wait while I went inside to buy them food. Since I was traveling on a tight budget and was even skipping meals on occasion, part of me identified with the children's hunger. But mostly, the children reminded me how rich I really was.

At the counter I ordered two hamburgers for the boys. Then, as the burgers were being cooked, I overcame my remaining stinginess and bought them one of Hardee's delicious, big chocolate chip cookies, figuring they could split it.

When their food was ready, I walked back outside and invited them in to eat with me. "No!" they cried, terror-stricken. "We do not belong in such a nice place!"

Unable to persuade them otherwise, I brought the food out, and as they took the burgers, they showered me with 30 seconds of nonstop blessings, praying that Allah would bless me always.

Page 1 | 2 | Next Page