Have you missed us? I wrote this sitting in a minibus travelling from Alexandria to Cairo Airport to go to on to Beirut after four intense but wonderful days. Alex, as we've come to call it, is different. The traffic is awful, but not half as bad as in Cairo. The surroundings are a little more green and the waterfront has a lot of colonial-style buildings looking out on the bay. The Bibliotheca Alexandrina is an amazing piece of architecture that seems to gleam at you from everywhere. We have had a tour of it, and also visited the very recently renovated jewellery museum which contains lots of fantastic pieces owned by the queens, princesses and kings of the royal family in Egypt. We all wonder if it's possible to ever go into an ordinary jewellery store again.
We met the Governor of Alexandria who governs a city with a population close to that of the whole of Sweden! He gave us some lovely gifts and we also learned abot the mega-project that the Rotary clubs of Alexandria are entering into together with the city - an upgrading of the living conditions for an entire town, with schools, hospitals and other services planned.
Professionally we all had excellent vocational visits. I was hosted by Dr Maged Bedwany, a psychiatrist, at a small charity hospital as well as a rehabilitation center for addicts. Both are showing excellent results and we had such a lot to talk about that we could have gone on for days!
Between this, Rotary Club meetings, boat and beach outings and tours of factories - among them a chocolate factory, Swiza, mmm! - what did we learn? Quite a few things, actually. We learned to be happy to find toilet paper in public toilets. Also that the stomach is a weak thing at times and that it's a joy to recover. We've discovered that we laughed a lot when we're tired but relaxed. Oh, and the honking system - I've learned the code! It's like this, every car honks a lot in Egypt. In Sweden, a honk generally means either that there's danger or an irritable "get out of my way". Here, one quick honk just means "I'm here", in case the others don't see you, and as the lanes are there just for decorative purposes, that's a good thing. A long honk means "I'M HERE, CAN'T YOU SEE?". Two quick taps mean "hello" or "thank you". A long syncopated series of taps, e.g. short short long short is swearing. So don't do that unless you're really annoyed. So there you are, now you can come and drive in Egypt! Oh, but you also have to pretend you're in a video game, drive fast, overtake on either side and go for any gaps that you think you could get through with your rear mirrors intact. Maybe.
Above all, we learned that you can make friends for life in just four days and that saying goodbye isn't easy. Thanks to all our hosts and to Ahmed, Ayman, Shahira, Abdelaziz and all the other kind Rotarians we met!
We met the Governor of Alexandria who governs a city with a population close to that of the whole of Sweden! He gave us some lovely gifts and we also learned abot the mega-project that the Rotary clubs of Alexandria are entering into together with the city - an upgrading of the living conditions for an entire town, with schools, hospitals and other services planned.
Professionally we all had excellent vocational visits. I was hosted by Dr Maged Bedwany, a psychiatrist, at a small charity hospital as well as a rehabilitation center for addicts. Both are showing excellent results and we had such a lot to talk about that we could have gone on for days!
Between this, Rotary Club meetings, boat and beach outings and tours of factories - among them a chocolate factory, Swiza, mmm! - what did we learn? Quite a few things, actually. We learned to be happy to find toilet paper in public toilets. Also that the stomach is a weak thing at times and that it's a joy to recover. We've discovered that we laughed a lot when we're tired but relaxed. Oh, and the honking system - I've learned the code! It's like this, every car honks a lot in Egypt. In Sweden, a honk generally means either that there's danger or an irritable "get out of my way". Here, one quick honk just means "I'm here", in case the others don't see you, and as the lanes are there just for decorative purposes, that's a good thing. A long honk means "I'M HERE, CAN'T YOU SEE?". Two quick taps mean "hello" or "thank you". A long syncopated series of taps, e.g. short short long short is swearing. So don't do that unless you're really annoyed. So there you are, now you can come and drive in Egypt! Oh, but you also have to pretend you're in a video game, drive fast, overtake on either side and go for any gaps that you think you could get through with your rear mirrors intact. Maybe.
Above all, we learned that you can make friends for life in just four days and that saying goodbye isn't easy. Thanks to all our hosts and to Ahmed, Ayman, Shahira, Abdelaziz and all the other kind Rotarians we met!
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