Salamu Aleykum

Another fantastic day in Kairo is getting to an end. Wearing our newly purchased Galabeyas (traditional Egyptian clothing,) we took off to the farmhouse of Rotarian Fadwa El Semman in Berkash. Members from Nasr City Rotary club, Rotaract, Innerwheel, Interact and host families were invited for an Easter Spring Galabeya Bedouin BBQ party.





The day has been filled with typical Egytian food, wonderful meetings, live music, dancing and altogether a nice and, to us, exotic atmosphere. After breakfast we got to see how the meet (to be eaten later) was hung over the glow and then buried in the ground for two hours. I will not even try to describe the taste of that meet but at least we can tell it was delicious! We were served an impressive variety of salads, sauces, rice and noodle dishes etc ending up with baklawas for desert. Yummie!



The day is getting to and end and here in Maadi, where I am hosted by Rotarian Tarek Michel, we have just enjoyed molokhia for dinner. Hopefully I remember how to cook it!

Tomorrow we will see the Pyramids In Sha’Alla!

Second day in Egypt and its just getting better and better. This trip is amazing.

We started our day by going to the Culturama Panorama in the "Smart Village" (like a science park) in the city "6th of October" to learn about the Egypt history and heritage. At the Culturama we got a great tour of their amazing databases, they covered everything from architecture, music, flora and fauna etc, we watched a tour through the Egyptien history in a panorama cimena (with 9 screens) and looked at beautiful historical pictures in 3D.

We continued our morning by going to the "Hope Village of Psycological & Social Rehabilitation Center for young street mothers" and meet and interacted with the mothers and their children. This experiance really got us thinking of how unfair life can be, but also how wonderful people can be at helping each other out. This visit will always stay deep in our hearts. After being served a fantastic lunch at the centre, with a lot of egyptian specialities and desserts, we continued our day by heading for the Nile.

When we arrived at the Nile a Felluca (an Egyptian sailbot) was waiting for us and it took us for an amazing sail on the Nile. During the sail we enjoyed the company of some Rotaractors and the Rotarians Fadwa El Semman anf Tarek Michel. We sang songs, both arabic and swedish and we enjoyed some typical egytian snacks.

After that we threw ourselfs out into the crazy Cairo traffic, in the hunt for the perfect Galabeya (an Egyptian traditional dress) for tomorrow´s Galabeya Bedouin BBQ party. After finally managing to find a spot to stop in the crowded street, (never seen so many cars and people trying to get somewhere at the same time) we jumped out and found our way into a crowded market were we all found beautiful Galabeyas.

Now we, Evelina and Hanna, just finished another lovely dinner here at our host Manal Amins residence and we are soon ready to relax and prepare for the big Happening tomorrow at Fadwa El Semmans farmhouse.

Good Night and In Sha'Alla

Tebah alla-kheir! (Good Night)

We stared our trip early this morning from Landvetter Airport in Gothenburg, Sweden. We arrived to Landvetter the night before and stayed until today at the Landvetter Airport hotel. Our alarm clocks woke us up at 4.30 am this morning after 4 hours of sleep. After a pleasent flight we arrived at Cairo airport where we were received with flowers by the wonderful Rotarian Fadwa El Semman. The welcome we got was more than we could ever expect, and if we were a bit tired before the people receiving us gave us new energy.



From the airport we went straight to the Le Meridien Heliopolis Hotel for our first Rotary meeting and presentation. During the evening we made our presentations about ourselves, our district and Sweden. We enjoyed local soft drinks (made from Hibiscus flower) , "High tea" (a mix of local wonderful dishes) and met the Rotarians, the Rotaractors and members of the Innerweel from the Rotary club Nasr City.



A very long and interesting day has come to an end. Here we are, Hanna and Evelina, well installed in the lovely house of Manal Amin. We just enjoyed a tasteful dinner, together with Manal and her daughter Maii, who´s leaving for Mekka tomorrow. We wish her all the best and a pleasant journey!

We are so happy to be here, the welcoming was great and we look forward to wake up to new adventures tomorrow!


Insha'Allah!

Last night at home

The suitcase lies open at my feet, stuffed with all sorts of clothing. There are still things to pack, but I'll wait until my little girl is asleep - right now she's quite unhappy that Mother's going away for a month. I've tried to teach her to use MSN, and hope I'll get the chance to talk to her across the miles.

Tomorrow night we'll be at the airport hotel, since the plane leaves so early we would have had to travel at night to get there otherwise. We'll do another rehearsal of our presentation to see what else we need to cut out. Our rehearsal on the 27th was an eye-opener - we had to cut the thing by about two thirds! Well, we knew it was too long, we just didn't quite realise by how much. That's what happens when four ambitious ladies get together to do something, I suppose. The Rotary Club of Nasr City I hope will be kind to us, hosting our first presentation on the night of our arrival - that's on Wednesday!

It will be great to finally meet all these people who have spent so much time planning for our visit. We're on our way!

Marhaba – hello!

Time is passing very quickly and we look forward to start our trip in less than four weeks time now! Last weekend was devoted to intensive planning and preparations. We finished a fist disposal of our Sweden presentation and even started a packing list. A squeeze breeze has the first position on the list so far. I am not even sure about its exact functionality but it should be some kind of water fan. Considering that we just woke up from the longest winter rest in decades we might need it when coming to warmer parts of the world.

Egypt was the fourth country to get a closer presentation, which was made by Elisabeth. We all knew that the Nile is a long river…but THAT long, about 3 times the length of Sweden! Having a glance at each country is a real appetizer.

Tomorrow Hanna and I are invited for lunch with Rotary Jönköping Öster local club and we will have the opportunity to present the team, the interesting trip we have ahead of us and how to follow the blog. Welcome back!

The rough schedule

This is the schedule of which countries we will be visiting, copied straight from an e-mail from GSE Chair Dr Ahmed Saada for District 2450:

"The details of your team's visit to countries in D-2450 are:

Egypt 07 April - 16 April, 2010

Lebanon 16 April - 22 April, 2010

Jordan 22 April - 28 April, 2010

Bahrain 28 April - 04 May, 2010

UAE (Dubai) 04 May - 09 May, 2010

Our district conference will take place in Bahrain from April 28 to May 02, 2010."

Who wouldn't love to go on a trip like that?

Paperwork done!

The team met in Skövde on Saturday the 23rd and had a very efficient day. GSE Coordinator for our District, Conny Johansson, joined us for the morning session. That meant we could air plenty of questions that we had about badges, broschures, printing, contacts and many other things. We also filled in the Travel Request Form, went through insurance papers, answers from embassies about visas, and compared notes on vaccinations. This last was interesting - which vaccinations were recommended varied a bit depending on where we asked.

We had another visitor in the afternoon, after another attempt by Mr Hanna to teach us polite introductory phrases in Arabic. Dr Mats Bäckman came, having kindly agreed to give us medical examinations free of charge. Dr Bäckman is an experienced G.P. who may well become more involved in the Rotary community in the future. He also discussed the vaccination issue with us, and promised to look into it a little more deeply. Having examined the three of us that didn't already have signed medical certificates, we all had our paperwork done. Two weeks ahead of schedule, no less, so there will be no last minute pressure with that!

This means we can now devote ourselves to all the other things that we want to have well prepared before we leave: clothes, presentations, brochures and some gifts.

As we are going to five different countries, we have also decided that each team member prepares a short basic introduction to one of the countries for presentation at our meetings. Björn presented some facts on Lebanon last time we met, and this week Kristin told us a little about Bahrain. This really whets our appetite and makes us very eager to see and learn more!