Dear
Egypt, here I am dedicating to you my sincere words, which is something I never
thought I would end up doing.
Since I’ve applied to the
Global citizen program in AIESEC, I’ve always thought that I’ll chose a country
that is wildly different than mine in so many levels, Greece or maybe India,
but I’ve never considered Egypt .. Ever.
This is how it all started… One
day I went to the movies with my best friend, we went by chance to see if
there’s any interesting movie and we found one called “The pyramid”. The title
was so captivating for me and so we entered to watch it. When it ended, I was
so intrigued by the facts that were mentioned in the movie, and all I wanted to
do was to know more and more about it. When I got home, I received an Email
from AIESEC 6th of October in Egypt asking me if I can join one of
their programs for this summer, and suddenly I forgot all about Asia and
Europe, it felt like that was destiny calling me to discover more about what I
always found so beautifully mysterious: The Pyramids, The ancient Gods, The
Pharaohs … So I accepted.
On the 2nd
of August I came to you with great intentions and delightful expectations,
kneeled down to my splendid love and great curiosity to your ancient history
and mythology, which drove me blindly to you with no second thoughts. Everyone
to whom I spoke the words that I’ll be traveling to Egypt for my volunteering
internship, stroke me with unpleasant facts and stereotypes about the country:
the political conflicts, the sexual harassment, and so many other things. Of
course, I tried to put all that aside and hold on to the thing that really made
me want to come to you. Some people viewed my pros to be inconvenient or even
shallow in comparison to the cons, but honestly I couldn’t care less. All I
wanted to do was to follow my instincts and just crawl to you by all means…And
so I did.
While I
was leaving my house and saying my goodbyes, I thought that it was going to be so
tragic since it was my first time getting away from my home and family ever…But
it was quite the contrary, the rush inside me to go and seek something new and
exciting banned me from getting any negative feelings. The atmosphere, the airport,
the plane… It was all new to me, but I handled it quite well.
The very moment I arrived,
there started my disappointments: the long waiting at the airport for the pick-up,
the sexual harassment attempts, the strange accent, the ultimate hot weather at
6 AM, the phone problem, the extremely weird apartment…It all hit me at once on
my very first day, and I said to myself “What on earth did I drag myself into?
They were right, everybody was right… I made a huge mistake!! I should’ve
listened to them! I SHOULD’VE!”. The most strangely scary thing to me, was that
there was no bloody traffic lights on the roads, just a bunch of people with
cars driving in a crazy random way on the streets, so every time I go out or
cross the roads it felt like I was giving my life away because I might make it
through it or I MAY NOT.
I honestly cannot deny it, it
was a complete culture shock for me in the first couple of days, even if it was
a Muslim /Arab country just like my country, everything was extremely weird and
different, especially the people’s behavior and mentality, so very different
than the Moroccans. I hate to admit this but I even shed some tears on my
second day! It was very overwhelming for me, all of it.
Starting from the third day, I
gathered my strength together for the sake of the one hell of an experience
that was seeking, somehow I found my way
through everything around me: the other interns, the new culture, the locals,
the AIESECERS…It wasn’t hard, but it wasn’t that easy as well, I managed myself
quite well. On that very day I promised myself that I will try to make the best
out of it, enjoy every single moment, not to take anything for granted, and
hold on tight to the main reasons by which I came there on the first place.
Since then, every day was more
interesting than the one before, the trips I went on were such a blast:
Alexandria, Dahab, The great pyramids of Giza, The black and white desert … and
so on. I’ve done lots of amazing things for the very first time in my life, and
I’ll be forever thankful for every place I went to. The people to whom I got
the splendid pleasure to meet during this whole experience were amazingly
amazing. The internationals from various and different parts in the world, whom
influenced me and inspired me in a great deal. The AIESECERS, the Egyptian
friends whom were really helpful with me getting along with the new culture.. I
got to learn lots of things from them that I never thought I could learn. Each
culture is as beautiful and different as the other. It was such a melting pot
of all them beautiful cultures.
One of the things that really
changed me among all this, was my project, the “summer camp” project. The idea
of leading a group of brilliant high school students on how to develop their
sense of leadership and soft skills in order to follow their dreams and be the
best they can in their future, and the amazing feed-back that we got from them
has really made me a better person that I am today for sure. knowing that I got
someone out of their confusion and wiped off the mystery they had about what to
do in their future, and having the power to tutor someone into the right path
professionally by focusing on the strengths and developing the weaknesses into
great things, has really leveled up my self-esteem in a great deal and revealed
a lot of things about myself that I didn’t know before, and for that I shall be
forever grateful for this marvelous impact that I got on my heart, mind and
soul.
On the last week of my internship,
I felt like I accomplished everything that I was aiming to, and I was kind of
excited to go back home, because I was missing a lot already, but on that very
last day, everything felt so different, that excitement that I had to go back home
had vanished somewhere among my great attachments to everything I grew fonder
of in Egypt. I got used to a lot of things without me even realizing it: the people,
the places, the atmosphere...A lot. And I didn’t realize so until those last
moments when I had to say goodbye to everything, and everyone. Saying goodbye
to people you got used to for a month and a half, and that you probably will
never see each other again is strangely hard in so many levels.
You get a strange feeling when
you’re about to leave a place. Like you’ll not only miss the people you love
but you’ll miss the person you were at that time and that place, because you’ll
never be that way ever again. However, I couldn’t be more beholden that I ended
up choosing Egypt after all, because honestly it was one of the best decisions
I’ve ever made in my life, and I don’t regret even the slightest bit of it,
because it was worth it .. So very worth it to its edges. This experience will
be marked in my heart and soul as long as I can breathe…and I’m looking forward
for my next one.
Until then
…
