Suffer Any Wrong That Can Be Done You, Rather Than Come Here

Mugamma is a monumental 1940's era building designed to serve as a clearing house for all interaction between the Egyptian government and her people. Some decentralization notwithstanding, it still is. This is the place you go to record a deed, register a car, or replace a birth certificate. It is monstrous. It is also where you go to extend a tourist visa.

Six days a week, the building buzzes with bewildered tourists, frustrated locals, indifferent civil servants and bemused security. Mugamma's insanity has long epitomized the impenetrability of the Egyptian bureaucracy. There is nothing about the building or its services that is at all intuitive. So, as a public service to anyone who needs to know how to renew an Egyptian tourist visa - this is how it's done.

Proceed through security, where you'll have to surrender your camera. I doubt that this building could be much harmed by a bomb, either structurally or aesthetically, but the government is keen to prevent anyone from trying all the same.

You'll need a passport photo and a photocopy of the cover page of your passport and of your entry visa. People will compete ferociously for the right to direct you to these services even though there is only one place in the building that provides them. In this way, three men struggle with each other to do the job of a sign.

Everyone says that photos and copies can be had for less money outside of Mugamma, which is probably true, but a set of eight photos costs $3.00 and the two copies another $0.20. I'd say that's worth the convenience, but if you already have these things, so much the better.

Copies and photos in hand, walk up the stairs to the next floor. Foreign national visa services are to your left, down a long hall lined with open doors. Through the doors, terrified civil servants peer at you much like rabbits in a hutch would peer at a fox. Happily for all, you don't have to disturb them with work. You're looking for windows 12-14, where you'll ask for and receive a visa extension application. It should be free so don't pay a charge. You're asked your religious affiliation. I usually put Christian, but I don't mean it.

After completing the application, return it along with your passport, a passport photo and the relevant photocopied pages to the same windows. You'll be given a chit with some numbers scribbled on it.

Take your chit to window 42, where after paying LE 11.50, you will receive four small adhesive stamps.

Take the stamps back to windows 12-14 where they will be applied to your application.

Find something to do for two hours.

Don't go to the Hardees across the street like I did. In fact, don't go to Hardees anywhere in the world.

After lunch, I watched a woman set up a tea stand in Mugamma's courtyard. She walked over to a bush and miraculously returned with two-dozen glasses and a strainer. Then, from under a bench on the other side of the park, she pulled out a butane tank. Rather than lug things around, she had apparently hidden all the necessary components of her businesss all over the courtyard! Either that or she was just very lucky and managed to randomly stumble on everything she needed to run a viable tea outfit. This wouldn't be impossibe in Cairo.

Having filled your two hours enjoying the great bazaar that is Cairo, proceed to window 38. Gathered around the window will be dozens of people just like you. There is a large pile of processed passports and they are distributed to the crowd like this: the woman behind the counter shows everyone an application with a tiny photo of the applicant stapled to the front. The crowd squints at it, but if nobody makes a claim, she moves on to the next application. Every now and then someone's eyes light up and they lunge at the window. When this happens, she sends the lucky applicant away with their prize and starts the whole process over from the beginning of the pile which is constantly being refreshed with new applications. This means that if yours happens to be on the bottom, you will need every single application to go unclaimed before it is reached. That will never happen. Mine was right near the top, so my fist pump was accompanied by an envious "quelle bonne chance!" from the French couple next to me.

Insh'allah, at the end if this, you'll have a new visa which allows you to stay in the country for another four months. I understand that you can request a period of up to a year. The application is open ended and asks only how long you'd like to stay.

I can think of a few ways to make this process more efficient, but in a country where you have to deal with three people to buy a sandwich, I don't think anyone will listen.