Posts
The Flagship program is awesome. I say this for a lot of reasons, but one major reason is the internship program. Unlike any other program in Alexandria currently, our program mandates that we chose any organization in the city of Alexandria and offer our services for 10 hours a week. The goal: language practice. 10 hours a week in a field of our choosing learning relevant words, phrases, meeting people, in some cases helping humanity, and in other cases, just chilling with Egyptians and experiencing the culture.
We had literally no boundaries. We could chose anything. Get a map, point anywhere and show up for 10 hours a week. So, people took this to mean different things. People worked at non-profits working with women, children and development, others worked with musicians, journalists, writers, in cafes, ahwas, diving for archeological remains, working at a center for the blind, at a bar, at an American center conduction dialogues between American and Egyptian students, planning peace conferences. You name it, we did.
In general, internships don't really exist in Egypt, so the concept was quite difficult at times to explain.
"No, maam, I don't want to get paid... No, sir, we aren't slaves, we can't recruit other slaves to work at the bakery across the street..."
But, despite cultural and linguistic barriers, we all seemed to make it out alive and we definitely tried to make the most of the often times difficult experiences.
So... what did I do?
In the beginning of the year, while I was struggling to find an internship, my friend, Kamelya, told me about an opportunity to play sports with kids with special needs at Nadi Sporting, the country club-esque facility down the block from me. So I hopped on board.
It turned out to be fantastic.
It wasn't exactly playing sports with kids like I had anticipated, but I more became an observer/ mascot for the Nadi Sporting Special Olympics Team. Participants are all young adults/ adults (men and women), many of them older than me, and every day, they show up to train for a different sport. They play basketball, ping pong, track and field, swimming, polo, and gymnastics, and those are the sports that I know of. They have both an inter-Egyptian league and every few months, they compete in matches between different clubs from all over the country. And every four years, the Egyptian Special Olympics team recruits from these clubs to chose their participants. This year, I found out that out of 8 swimmers going to Athens in June for the international competition, 4 of them are from my club. Every other club in representation had only 1 or 2 players chosen. So my guys are legit. I'll even admit, I played them in basketball one week and I got crushed. We even had a team of Japanese volunteers (without special needs) to play them in a scrimmage yesterday and they got crushed as well.
Here are some pics!
We had literally no boundaries. We could chose anything. Get a map, point anywhere and show up for 10 hours a week. So, people took this to mean different things. People worked at non-profits working with women, children and development, others worked with musicians, journalists, writers, in cafes, ahwas, diving for archeological remains, working at a center for the blind, at a bar, at an American center conduction dialogues between American and Egyptian students, planning peace conferences. You name it, we did.
In general, internships don't really exist in Egypt, so the concept was quite difficult at times to explain.
"No, maam, I don't want to get paid... No, sir, we aren't slaves, we can't recruit other slaves to work at the bakery across the street..."
But, despite cultural and linguistic barriers, we all seemed to make it out alive and we definitely tried to make the most of the often times difficult experiences.
So... what did I do?
In the beginning of the year, while I was struggling to find an internship, my friend, Kamelya, told me about an opportunity to play sports with kids with special needs at Nadi Sporting, the country club-esque facility down the block from me. So I hopped on board.
It turned out to be fantastic.
It wasn't exactly playing sports with kids like I had anticipated, but I more became an observer/ mascot for the Nadi Sporting Special Olympics Team. Participants are all young adults/ adults (men and women), many of them older than me, and every day, they show up to train for a different sport. They play basketball, ping pong, track and field, swimming, polo, and gymnastics, and those are the sports that I know of. They have both an inter-Egyptian league and every few months, they compete in matches between different clubs from all over the country. And every four years, the Egyptian Special Olympics team recruits from these clubs to chose their participants. This year, I found out that out of 8 swimmers going to Athens in June for the international competition, 4 of them are from my club. Every other club in representation had only 1 or 2 players chosen. So my guys are legit. I'll even admit, I played them in basketball one week and I got crushed. We even had a team of Japanese volunteers (without special needs) to play them in a scrimmage yesterday and they got crushed as well.
Here are some pics!
me and the bball team (top (left to right)- monduh, yusef, mohammed, mohammed, omar, bottom (left to right) waleed, nour, rami, mostafa)
rami
before a swimming championship
Dear Monica!
ReplyDeleteIt is indeed a great pleasure to read your blog...sounds like you are having a meaningful-amazing time...
Keep updating :)
Tal Kita