My first visit to Egypt

THE EGYPTIAN  PASSPORT OFFICE IN TEL AVIV ISRAEL .

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Some youngsters  who worked on the kibbutz farms  that had to leave Israel when the red flag went up.. I met them  on leaving Israel  during the 2003 Iraq conflict, the young lady was from the uk the red haired guy was from Mexico  and a canadian. the empty seat belonged to our guide spent three days in Cairo before they went home  and I to work on the Eye ear And throat clinic in Daraw , Daraw is between Aswan and Comombo in the upper delta of Egypt. here I worked as a volunteer for 5 months.

A young fisher boy on the Nile  in Daraw

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Not what it seems!!  this was the meanest animal I ever had the pleasure of sitting on for a few minutes only,. 

the new reception area this i competed in 3 weeks  with two labourers doing all the cement  mixing by hand,

The high ceilings  were built before electricity was used to cool the rooms down.

the old building dated back to 1900 the whole of the lower floor I re plastered  and built a new eye operating room for the clinic

Dr Samira  with the first patient in the finished  new clinic

Sister Christa and Ahmed entertaining the girls family  not unusual for all the family to turn up when one of them is ill

water buffalo and felluca's are all part of the Nile scenery

A donkey caravan heading for the Valley of the Kings

The flight from Cairo to Aswan the flight path is mainly along the Nile river.

The damaged wall this damage was caused when we put steel  H  girders in to support the upstairs floors.

Building the nod stairs  old style  mud with corn chaff

Mud bricks I used for the rebuilding of part of the clinic

This story on how we had a police Escort to re visit the clinic in daraw is quite hilarious, on our first holiday back in egypt We stayed in the oberoi hotel in Aswan  this is the posh hotel on the Elephantine Island,  back in 2003  one had to have a police escort to travel from one district to another , on my second visit to Aswan after spending 5 months previously  traveling the 40 kilometre to Daraw each way 5 days a week by local microbus,  thought we could just hire a taxi.  easy enough getting  a taxi for four people  lots of Peugeot 505 about they can carry eight person plus the driver,  a price was agreed for a days outing to visit the camel market and the clinic I spent 5 months rebuilding plus a visit to  Sobic the crocodile god  temple in Com-ombo, but we had to go through a road block  here we had to explain  how I knew the area  as I once worked in Daraw for the Germannaya hospital. Ah I was informed  I had to phone the hospital to confirm that indeed I knew the people there.  I handed the phone to the captain on the post to who was Dr Gamil. on putting the phone down,, I was addressed as doctor. we have A special policeman to come with you. he said a few words to the driver and he was on the understanding I and my party were special people  who have a free police escort to Daraw no stopping on any other checkpoint  like every other vehicle including  the local bus taxi service,  not until we got to the clinic  after visiting the camel market did we get to know what was going on. Sister Christa  the german nurse who runs the clinic  and speaks fluent arabic  explained that they have been told to make sure you are ok  we also know now after the revolution of 28/1/2011  how this country runs on lies and corruption. anyway  we were very well looked after by the driver with the odd name of moo moo. not so odd really when one knows that almost all muslims in Egypt have the name Mohamed somewhere in their name .  the party in the clinic garden  Hassan who runs the admin of this busy free clinic, Mrs  Roberts , Karin  , moo moo, our kalashnicov carrying secret policeman mohamed, and Klause  who sold up here on my hometown in wales and now lives in
Alexandria

in the camel market Daraw

 Giza pyramids and the sphinx2003