My first few days back in Egypt

My first day back in Egypt was extraordinary! My brother and I ran over to our mate Mohamed’s house (or should I say garage) so we could play on the streets with him. He was over the moon with delight to see us. It had been almost two years since we last saw him. I ran up the stairs to get the soccer ball. We kicked the ball around the dusty streets to a little corner shop called a kushk. I asked the shop owner in Arabic how much the chips were… he told me that they were one pound. Then the three of us leant on an old Mercedes and talked about school in Australia.

The next day Mohamed was at school until two o’clock so my brother and I had a little roam around the streets. My brother spotted something in the distance. He said it looked like a dog. We immediately followed it.

When we got to the black figure, we saw that it was indeed a dog. My brother was a little bit scared of the dog at first, but I told him to let it sniff his hand to get to know it. We patted the skinny dog for a while and I could tell that it was starving,  so I ran back to the flat and brought him some lamb bones from the dinner that we had last night. He ate two of the bones and buried the other three in different places so that if another dog finds the hole he doesn’t take all his bones; he only loses one. At two o’clock I saw Mohamed walking back from school.

I told him to get out of his school uniform and follow us. We walked back to the dog but he wasn’t there. Five seconds later we saw his little figure scuffle out of the bushes. Mohamed was very scared. He is terrified of dogs because he is a small boy and the dog is giant to him. We told him to calm down! The dog sniffed his hand and they became friends. After sitting on some bricks and hanging out for a while, we went home. I yelled up to my other friend, Adham, to come down from his flat and we played in the street and kicked around the soccer ball until ten o’clock at night!

The next day I woke up and made a cup of tea and ate pate bi gibna (small bread-like pastry with white cheese inside). It was delicious. My mum, dad, brother and I went to Korba, which is the suburb where my mum used to live. We ate two of the nicest meat wraps ever. That day my brother and I got very snazzy Egyptian haircuts. On the way home, my family and I came across a corn cart. The corn is cooked over boiling hot coals. Just near the corn cart I could see a lady who was selling mint leaves. My brother and I begged our dad to let us give her some money, so he gave us four pounds. We gave her the money and she gave us three bunches of mint leaves. She was so grateful that she flooded my brother and me with kisses on the cheeks and blessings from God.

Then we looked for a taxi to ride home, which wasn’t very hard because there are taxis everywhere in Egypt. Almost every second car. When we got home I called Mohamed to help us check on the dog and give him some food. I went home at six o’clock and my grandma said that she would take me to the clothes store for my birthday.

When we got to the store I bought a pair a jeans, a leather belt and new shoes! I was so grateful. I woke up the next day and got dressed in my dirtiest clothes so I could run around and play in the dusty streets. I went again to feed the dog and found some boys playing with him. We asked their names… “Ahmed and Mahmoud,” they said. We put half the food for the big dog and then Ahmed and Mahmoud took us over to the other side of the park.

Eleven little puppies were running around. They were not the dog’s puppies; they were another dog’s puppies. They ate the other half of the food. We were playing with them for a while when I saw their mum. If you don’t know already, mother dogs are deadly if they are protecting their puppies. We ran as fast as we could over the bent metal fence. That was a close call!

After a few minutes, the mother was gone. So what did we do? Went in again, of course. I was patting one of the smaller ones when Ahmed told me to put it down and pat one of the bigger ones because the small one was still eating. I asked the boys if I could take one. They said, “Yeah of course; but one of the bigger ones.” They said I had to take two because otherwise it would be lonely. We took the nicest two back to the flat and showed them to our family.

We gave them some milk and potato. While my brother and I were patting our puppies, Mohamed was feeling jealous so I told him I would get him one. I was just about to grab it when I saw the mum.  I said, “RUN! RUN! RUN!” The streets were blocked by a massive mother dog and its friend.

We ran around the corner and saw the dog coming.  The other one was circling the park. When we got safely back to the house, Mohamed and I were breathing very heavily. I couldn’t believe what just happened. My brother said that a huge German shepherd was fighting the mother dog. He said that it looked like the German shepherd had saved my life. It was in that moment that I knew we had to take the puppies back.

We spent ten minutes coming up with a plan. One of us would grab one of the puppies while the other two stood on either side of the road on lookout for the dogs. We were about to start but then realised we hadn’t decided who would do what. Everyone was trying to come up with reasons why they couldn’t be the one to run across the road and deliver the puppies to the other side. Nazar and Mohamed were both looking at me and saying that I was the oldest so I should do it. Of course they pushed me into it.

I grabbed the smallest one by the chest and ran to the road. The coast seemed to be clear so I ran as fast as I could across the road and dropped the puppy, then ran like a puma back to the house while the puppy crept into the park. I grabbed the second puppy and did the same thing; but this time the mother was there! I put it down and then saw the mother dog out of the corner of my eye. I sprinted but then stopped. My brother was nowhere to be seen! My heart was beating 10000,000,000,000 miles an hour. I yelled out, “NAZAR!!! NAZAR!!! NAZAR!!!” Mohamed and I were worried.

Then we heard him yelling, “RUN! RUN!” I waited for my brother to appear before I started running. We got to the house safely. Adrenalin was pumping through my veins. After we caught our breath, my brother told me that my dog looked back and almost got hit by a car. I felt so bad for the little dogs, because I think they were starting to like us.