We’ve made friends with it already’: Villagers on ship blocking Suez Canal

Since the the Ever Given grounding last week brought one of the world’s busiest trade routes to a halt, residents have had rare front-row seats to an event whose outcome is key to the global economy.

Villagers on the banks of the Suez Canal are getting used to their unusual new neighbor. It’s 400 meters long, carries about $1 billion and nobody knows when it’ll leave.

Towering above the low-rise red-brick homes, grazing buffalo and green farmland dotted with palm trees, the Ever Given stands like a monument to globalization marooned amid a typically Egyptian rural scene. And since the ship’s grounding last week brought one of the world’s busiest trade routes to a halt, residents have had rare front-row seats to an event whose outcome is key to the global economy.

“We’ve never had a ship stuck around here for a very long time,” said a local woman who asked to be called Fatma and has spent her life within earshot of the shipping horns. She gestured to the hulking Ever Given, in whose spotlights the local children have been playing hide-and-seek at night. “We’ve made friends with it already!”

Source: HT