Living la Vida Cairo

I’m totally strugglin’ right now to even write this, so bare with me! Alright so I’ve been in Cairo for about 5 days and things have been going on non-stop ever since. I arrived to Cairo to find an awesome apartment – kudos to Farzina for the find! It’s on the 18th loor of a building on Tahir Street, across from Cinema Tahir. It’s a two floor apartment; my room is on the second floor. I live with three other girls, Lizzy & Abby who are students at AUC, and Farzina, another AIESEC trainee. Farzina has an awesome room with a view of the Nile on the left and the Giza pyramids to the right, tho only really visible on a non polluted day. My view is of the Nile and much of Cairo, Dokki and Zamalek. I’ve got my own bathroom and a sweet lounge area outside my room.

Got to Cairo Saturday afternoon and was quickly welcomed by most of the people I know here. For about 5 hours, we had people coming in and out of the apartment. Next day headed to work; did I mention that my office is a 10-15 minute walk from my place?! Work was crazy; we were in the middle of doing all the final things for the company’s 50th anniversary gala dinner and symposium held Tuesday and today.

Working on these events have added to my ability to not sleep well. I got to work at 1pm yesterday (at the Four Seasons) and left at about 11am. Tho’ it was worth it. It was our gala dinner, and there were so many important people there from Egypt and America. The First Lady of Egypt gave the keynote speech. There were ambassadors there, CEOs from different corporations. Mobinil, GE, USAID were just few of the companies/organizations in attendance. It was amazing. Especially all the security. You couldn’t enter the event unless you had a stamped invitation from the Egyptian government. They had dogs sweep the room several times before the event to ensure the safety of the First Lady. Tons of guards, dogs and large guns were present at the beginning, thankfully they were well hidden throughout the event.

After learning that I had to be at work at 7:30am today, I went straight home and headed to bed. Woke up this morning soo tired and headed back to the Four Seasons (which I can see from my bedroom window). Worked towards getting the symposium ready. It went really well. Dina Habib Powell, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State, Educational and Cultural Affairs gave the second keynote speakers. There were also two panel discussions. The first one was about Education, Training and Job Creation. The second panel was about International Educational Exchanges and Linkages.

There were some really interesting information presented. It was mentioned repeatedly that the educational system here needs to be demand driven. There are a lot of people getting the opportunity to have a higher education, but there aren’t enough jobs available. One speaker, Dr. Dell Felder, made a couple of comments that I think were really important. “Teachers pass knowledge into their students, who passively accept what they’re taught” and “Women are an undeveloped economical resource.” It was just really great to hear people discuss how important education is.

After the event and lunch, I headed home and crashed. Now that this event is over, I have to start concentrating full-time on the upcoming conference I’m helping to plan. I just learned that all of my roomies are going to be gone for Christmas, so I’ll have the apartment to myself :( Anyone wanna hang out on Decemeber 25th with me? At least I know I’ll be around people for New Years. Gotta start making those Dahab plans soon.