Living Conditions at Two Extremes

There was a particular barracks which, in which the men lived. The females, they had a separate barracks. It was known as “bra-bat”, you know. It was like a long building with cubicles, large rooms and the bed, very sparse surroundings, you know, and something for you to hang your clothes. The basics, you know, washer and you know, toilet facilities and so on and that was it, you know. And when you got there, you knew that was going to be your home for six months. So like everybody else, I had a calendar on the wall and struck off every day, you know, and that helped the time to pass. And each one of us had an Egyptian who took care of the rooms and did everything, of course you gave them a stipend and they were quite happy because our money was worth quite a lot to them, you know.The camp, the building where we lived was at the edge of a camp. So we were just a few feet away from barbed wire, but we could look across, just nearby was a river called the Sweet Water Canal and the Egyptians lived on the other side of the canal. So these were the poor, this was the poorer section of town, you see, but they were close enough that we could shout to them and hail out, you know. And from time to time we would go over to the other side and carry gifts for them because they were very, very poor. But we’ve also seen the rich side of Ismailia where people like President Sadat lived, he had a villa there. And they lived in some very fanciful houses with palm trees and all that, you know. In colonial times those was where the British lived, you know. So within a few minutes, we could see two extremes.