“Hurrah for the waves of the canal. Tonight we are going to finish the story.” The old Nagat song rang in my ears as I toured the site of the new branch of the Suez Canal that is scheduled to open on 6 August. The workers all had the sense of accomplishment that one only encounters in unusual endeavours or unexpected adventures. “We feel that when we are working here, we are fighting like in the army, but in a different way,” Salem Al-Arab, a worker, said. Other young men also described their experience in superlative terms. Hope, dedication, victory against terrorism, the end of joblessness, hope for future generations, such were the terms with which they peppered their speech. Qinawi Hassan from Aswan, Ahmed Sayed from Giza, Ali Eid from Fayyoum, Mohamed Sayed from Sharqiya, and many more all enunciated a blend of patriotism and excitement that one does not necessarily expect to encounter in the middle of the desert and under the scorching July sun. They had been working long hours, they said. They had moved mountains of sand. They had had to work around the clock to meet the tight schedule. The nature of the rock strata they had had to clear had changed from one spot to the next, calling for different approaches and different machinery. However, they were hopeful. They knew that what they were doing means a great deal, not just for their families, but also for the rest of the country. They said they felt as if they were on a mission, a mission to bring hope to Egypt, a mission to stand the country back on its feet. The words came like a flood from the tanned faces. Occasionally, there was a smile. “It's not so bad. We get to go swimming in the canal when the heat becomes unbearable,” one man said. Some of them draw comparisons between their work today and that performed by a less well-educated and more poorly paid labour force a century-and-a-half ago. They were sleeping in tents and prefab buildings, and they had the same access to food and drink they would have had in their home towns. The work was still difficult, of course, but it was not nearly as difficult as that which had taken thousands of lives in the 1860s when the original canal was built. Ahmed Salem had come from Giza to work on the project. “I am working on something good for the country,” he said. The world envies Egypt for having this waterway, chimed in his colleague, Ali Eid. “We used to work for the good of foreigners. Now it is the other way around,” he said. They keep referring to takrik and tadbish as they describe the nature of their work. Apparently, takrik is levelling the banks of the waterway, and tadbish is lining the banks with stone or dabsh to protect them from erosion. To facilitate the work, the men had had to build a new dock for a ferry to help transport personnel and supplies from across the canal. There is already one ferry operating in Firdan not far from where they were working, but another one was needed to speed up the pace of the work. The topic of terrorism kept coming up in conversation. The work was not just a job to take pride in, but a statement of resolve, a wish list for the future of the country, they said. When the new branch of the canal is ready for navigation, the workers said, terrorism will fade away, jobs will be created, young people will have something to live for, and the children of tomorrow will be born into a free and safe land. “The more the terrorists try to push Egypt backwards, the more we will work and rebuild it,” Mohamed Suweilam, a worker, said. Egypt was fighting an existential war, Ibrahim Al-Aydi said. “We are defending our land. With our work we will send the terrorists scurrying. We will expel them from Egypt once and for all.” Engineers, contractors and workers were all in agreement. It was not just a canal, but was a symbol for everything Egypt stands for, and everything it aspires to be. Mahmoud Awni, a contractor, said the deadline for the work was too tight and that he had had moments of doubt. But the perseverance of the workers and the helping hand of the army had paid off. “We are now ahead of schedule,” he added. Awni comes every day from his home in the nearby city of Qantara to work on the canal. He works from 5 am till sunset, sometimes operating a bulldozer and sometimes transporting material in a truck. Karim, his 10-year-old son, accompanies his father to the location. The work is hard, but “good for Egypt,” he said. “The canal has given work to many people. It has given them hope,” his father chimed in. Shaaban Abu Hassan has been working on the site for a year. “We have moved mountains of sand. We never imagined we could do that. But like the Pharaohs, we knew that persistence pays off,” he said. On a nearby hill, ambulance vehicles stand at the ready, a reminder that working with heavy machinery under the blazing sun is no laughing matter. “Some people faint out of exhaustion, and others get injured,” said Osama Anwar, a worker. “But we are pleased to be part of this work to rebuild the country. We will rebuild Egypt. We will build another city like Port Fouad. We will tell our children the story of how we built the new canal,” he said. Engineer Yasser Abdel-Fattah is supervising the building of the dock for the new ferry. He said the biggest challenge in the work thus far had been the changes in the soil from one area to another, calling for different techniques. Saleh Al-Aydi, a contractor, said he was proud to be working for “the future of my children.” But Hassan Mohamed, a 28-year-old driver from Ismailia, admitted that he was afraid jobs could be scarce after the project ended. However, he sounded the same note of optimism. “I hope that the opening of the new canal will offer jobs and stability to this part of the country,” he said. As I took my leave, the lyrics of the Nagat song came back to me: “We came on time to this lovely country. Yes, our children, we came on time.”
