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Published: April 18th 2009
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Family day trip
Visiting a monastry where Jesus, Mary and Joseph stayed for 6 months when they where fleeing from King Herod I am now one month into my global exchange program so I thought that I would update you on what life has been like for me since I left.
We first arrived in our host community - Assiut - in the early hours of the morning therefore due to security reasons we received a police escort to our accommodation for the evening. The streets were quiet as we all looked around trying to get our bearings of our home for the next three months. Since that day everyone seems to have had their ups and downs but generally we are now settled in the community.
The population of Assiut is predominantly Muslim although compared to other areas of Egypt they also have a very high Christian population (about 0%). The family that I am living with are Coptic Christians but the Egyptian counterpart that I live with is Muslim so I am able to experience both views which is interesting. It is very culturally insensitive to expose too much flesh and the community here is in general very conservative so we are all making sure our legs, shoulders, chest etc are covered. Most women even wear long sleeves all of
Sitting by the Nile
Lulu my host home counterpart sitting relaxing looking out over the river Nile - a favourite spot for both of us the time but they don’t mind if we don’t do this as we are already suffering in the heat.
Assiut is a provincial town and is rather large and very busy. Apparently it has the third most expensive real-estate in the middle-east/Arab countries (not sure?), but I have no idea why as I would not choose to live here and the building are not particularly nice. Some of the architecture of the old buildings and mosques and churches is very beautiful but in general most buildings are blocks of flats. The traffic here is also crazy busy with insane drivers. Almost everyone gets about by taxis which are very cheap so these black and white cars fill the road. In addition to the traffic and the noise there is also a lot of rubbish everywhere. Some areas are better than others but in many places a bin is a foreign concept. These things have now all just become aspects of where we live.
As a group we receive a lot of attention as tourists NEVER come to Assiut so foreigners are very rare. Being the only blonde in the group attracts extra attention and I cannot walk down
GX Team 90
The whole GX team together on an evening in the park on the edge of the Nile - Fardos Park a single stretch of road without someone staring/calling out something/making a noise to attract my attention. This has also become part of live here and although at times it annoys me I generally ignore it or it doesn’t bother me. Sometimes I do feel like the curiosity is very intense which isn’t a friendly feeling, but other times the individuals are very welcoming and I enjoy having the interaction.
I am now more involved in my work placement and we have recently conducted a blood donation campaign for which I was involved in the design, planning and implementation. It has been really interesting to be involved in a project from the beginning and to see the final result. The language barrier is a big challenge as apart from our counterparts (who come from different areas of Egypt) the people we live and work with know little or no English. This means that we rely on our counterparts a lot for translation, but also that we try to find creative ways to get involved/interact. For me this has meant that at work I have been involved in art and design, designing logos for the various campaigns we run and making
Orphan's Day
Helping out an activity day put on for orphans posters and brochures to advertise for the blood donation campaign. We also have a lot of meetings which are always conducted in Arabic but I am now confident making a contribution through translation. We have also been on some trips away from the office, once running a life skills workshop at a secondary school and once visiting a village to talk to the people about the environmental problems in order to design a project to help.
At home I interact through playing a lot of games with the children, pulling expressive faces and miming what I am trying to describe. They are also trying to teach my Arabic and to learn some English so there are now more things that we can say to one another. I get on really well with my host home counterpart and she has become my closest friend on the exchange. She is called Alaa but her nickname is Lulu which I always call her as her name is pronounced in a certain way that is hard for English. She has excellent English and is amazing at translation so we never struggle to communicate. We have many things in common so can talk for
Han Han & LuLu
Me and my counterpart after one of the group global citizenship days ages or enjoy doing similar things. She lives together with her family in Cairo (girls here don’t normally more out until they’re married) and has also living in Kenya for three years when she was younger. It is really good to have someone I can share this experience with and we can support one another.
As a group we also do a number of activities, both social and work/learning. Each week a counterpart pair runs a day to teach the group about some sort of local or global issue. So far we have covered ‘media and its effects on people’ and ‘recycling and the environment’. We also organise events to benefit the community. For example we are helping to run an activity day for orphans, and we are running an education program visiting schools to teach them about the environment and how to care for it better.
I’ve been very lucky with both my host home and work placement as I am kept busy at both either entertaining or designing....but some people on the exchange have very little work to do at their placement or very different home situations. There is an interesting mix of people from different
Zerzara Village
Visiting a village on the outskirts of Assiut to asses the environmental problems and create a project to try to tackle these problems backgrounds so hopefully we can all learn something from each other.
Thanks to everyone back home for the birthday messages, it was lovely to hear from you all! I had a really nice Egyptian birthday spending time with my host family, sitting relaxing down by the Nile, and then having fun with the GX group in the evening on a boat on the Nile and then in a cafe for drinks. I am sad to have missed spending time with you all and especially to have missed going on tour...I need updates of all of the gossip asap please!
I hope that you are all safe and well back home and that work/uni/hunting is going well. I would love to hear from you all to be updated on life and I’m sorry that I don’t have enough time to make more of an effort to write to you individually.
Egyptian hugs (none existant if you are a boy I’m afraid as girl-boy hugs are just a big no no out here!!)
Love Hannah / Chiz / Han Han / Mini x x x
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