Day 6; meeting the Governor

This morning our celebrity status in Minya was confirmed by a visit to the Governorate buildings and meeting the Governor. We sat in a conference room while the Governor explained what he perceived to be the similarities between Minya and the UK, the example being that we have similar literature because Shakespeare and Dickens wrote about the richest and poorest in society and Egyptian writers in the past have done the same. He also spoke of the way Muslims and Christians are able to live peacefully together in minya.
Today gave us a real sense of the purpose of our visit. the Governor spoke about all that we are giving back to the area by training some of the young women in useful skills.
I think the influence that we have in the UK was slightly overestimated when he talked about making one of the local areas a twin with the uk. if only we had that kind of power. He was very keen to try and build links with the uk encourage tourism and encourage us all to visit Minia again and at one point there was talk of us having to put on a show should we return! Maybe word has got round about our spontaneous bursting in to song!
During our visit we were filmed and Hayley gave an interview for the radio. we think we are going to be on tv here!
The governor was shocked to hear that we had not visited the Beni Hassan tombs so provided an air conditioned bus to drive us out to the tombs. It seemed that the aim was to show us all the tourist attractions that Minia can offer so we can publicise the area at home.
The tombs were fascinating and situated high on a mountain. accessed by over 200 steps in blistering heat. These tombs were from the 11th and 12th dynasties and featured much more intricate drawings and hieroglyphs.
We’ve worked out the reason for our 2 lunches. Lunch and dinner are the other way round so when we were told that lunch would not be provided they actually meant dinner!
Lunch today was at Horus accompanied again by Omar and no doubt provided by the Governor. We were then encouraged to take an hour to rest before training; unfortunately this wasn’t communicated to the girls who had to wait an hour and a half in the hot room for us to arrive.
Training, which was leadership, was very much off the cuff as everyone wanted to say goodbye and we were interrupted by much photograph taking. We were presented with some medals and a plaque by Dr Zein at the beginning and then did some singing including teaching Animal Fair. We managed to fit in leading from behind, the trading game, which went well but it was difficult encouraging the girls to trade their resources or even share them! We ended up confiscating all the paper or all the pens from some teams to help them get the idea. The last game, it’s a wrap was interrupted midway through by a demand for a group photograph outside the association, the price of fame! The week ended with Taps, another presentation and this time we handed out our badges to all the girls and presented neckers and a selection of badges to Amal, Heba, Wedad and Ibhissam.
After training we returned to Horus, some more confusion as we had prepared ourselves for more of the same food. Actually we were there to entertain some children from RAJAC school, so we resorted to old faithful, Eidelweiss!
Then the night got even more entertaining. Ibhissam helped us crash a wedding that was taking place at the hotel. Apparently we were all welcome but I’m not sure what they all thought when we were announced via microphone just before the bride and groom shared their first drink and first dance, which was accompanied by bubbles, silly string, and something rather like shaving foam. Despite our efforts to be inconspicuous in our GOLD shirts and international neckers everyone insisted that we danced, Kate and sarah even had to dance with the bride! The moment will be recorded on their wedding video forever!!
As if that wasn’t enough we were then invited by the head of RAJAC school to play on the dodgems with the children. We all have a few ‘fun wounds’ to remember it by, in particular being crashed in to the sides by the children!
Luckily only a snack tea at the hotel to use up our supplies.