It was late February and Rocky, Tetyana and Raaj were in Egypt on a vacation, and I had only met them half an hour ago. Tetyana was Ukrainian; married to Indian Raaj and Rocky was their business partner.
I thought to myself “Not again. I’ve had enough superstition already. We have been discussing my horoscope for the past 30 minutes. But out of being polite, I handed it to him, yet paid no attention.
“You are very independent “think so”. Will have to travel abroad for work, but a family issue will bring you back coz family means a lot to you”happened”. You are an introvert”yes”. You will not live very long so keep that in mind “like I care”. You will have a late marriage, and your husband will be very rich” for a moment I felt he was referring to himself”…… and more stuff about my past and personality which were surprisingly true. And suddenly, he said that one thing that struck me:
”YOU WILL HELP A LOT OF PEOPLE AND DO LOADS OF CHARITY WORK”!!!!
And that’s when I turned from sarcastic to attentive. This is the one thing that has been on my mind for the past month, ever since I read that book called “3 Cups of Tea” http://www.threecupsoftea.com/about-the-book/.
The book was about the story of Greg Mortenson, an American who was climbing Pakistan’s K2 “the second highest mountain in the world” yet failed to, and ended up in an extremely poor village where he met a group of children sitting in the dirt writing with sticks in the sand, and made a promise to help them build a school. From then onwards, he dedicated the rest of his life for “Promoting Peace through Education” and ended up establishing 145 schools with nothing but “PASSION”.
I found that pretty impressive, yet shameful. Why would such a person cross continents to help people he has nothing to do with, leaving his family behind, facing serious problems of armed kidnapping from Taliban and “fatwas” issued by enraged mullahs and receiving threats from fellow Americans after 9/11, for helping Muslim children with education? I started believing that if he, someone who couldn’t even type on a computer, could do all that, then what the hell is our excuse for not even trying??!!
Even though I was never a believer in palm reading, yet I hoped Rocky was right about the last part. Over the next 3 months, I tried to engage in different causes but it never worked out, specially that I was more concerned about development rather than charity, and particularly “Education”. My only successful attempt was helping some Sudanese Refugee kids with their Education through bringing them books, Thanks to my dear Brazilian Friend Paula Pimentel, but it didn’t last after Paula left Egypt.
Finally, in late May, Alcatel-Lucent started a campaign named “International Days of Caring”, where the company encourages people around the world to give back to their communities through participating in volunteering activities. This year there was a collection campaign supporting The Association of Upper Egypt for Education and Development “AUEED”, where old books, stationary items, second hand PC’s,..Etc were being collected.
Knowing that most employees ignore corporate emails, I decided to launch a Facebook event for that, inviting my fellow colleagues to make sure they know about it and collecting stuff from people outside the company. It was really funny to see how people from the company contacted me for donation, even though the donation box was there in front of them. Finally, I managed to collect a good amount of stuff and went to deliver them, but for some reason, 3 of the school bags that I was intending to donate myself were just left out in my car, and stayed there for another month..
On the 20th of June, I joined May Kosba and her American/Haitian friend France to The Refugee Film Festival to watch the documentary “War Child” http://www.warchildmovie.com/ at DARB 1718 Contemporary Art and Culture Center, a place that I’ve never been to before. On my way out, 3 little kids came begging me for money. Surprisingly, while opening my car trunk to get my camera, I found those 3 school bags that I hadn’t donated to the company before.
I took the bags out, got in my car and said:” I don’t have money. I have school bags. Would you like to take them?”
They nodded happily so I gave them the bags and drove off quickly before they start comparing, but then I was stopped by that guy who seemed in his late thirties; Mahmoud Gaber.
Mahmoud was like:” Would you give me 3 bags for my daughters?”
I replied back telling him that I didn’t have more, but promised to meet him the next day as I was luckily coming to attend the screening of “Garbage Dreams” http://www.garbagedreams.com/ ; a documentary about the Garbage Collectors in Hay El Zabballeen on the outskirts of Cairo. On my way back home, I thought that maybe I should ask Mahmoud whether his kids go to school or not while giving him the bags.
I came the next day with Riddhima, Hatim and Rany; my colleagues at work and we were all deeply impacted by the movie. I really wanted to figure out if there is something I can do to help; whether through the company, my University or my Club. I agreed with Riddhima to stay till the end of the show to get more information, contacts, brochures,..etc as she had to go.
I stayed there till almost midnight, and was so overwhelmed by the whole thing that I completely forgot about Mahmoud. Luckily, on my way out; I found him.
I took the bags out and before giving them to him he was like:” You know; I dropped all my daughters out of school”. I asked him why and he said he couldn’t afford paying an amount of money per kid that I call a BURGER-KING-COMBO-EQUIVALENT. And even though I might have guessed that to be true, yet I could hardly hold my tears when I heard it. I’ve never ever felt guiltier and more disconnected in my life. On the spot, I promised I would come back next week to discuss further and sponsor his girls, and then left. What even broke my heart more was when he started running after the car to Thank me and kiss my hand, and that’s when I really broke into tears.
Promising to help Mahmoud’s family didn’t make me feel any better about myself. I kept counting the people I know who might find difficulty paying such an amount of money, but couldn’t find any. Come on; it’s a stupid minimum charge we pay for an outing!!!!!
So I thought to myself:” What if I start telling Mahmoud’s story? What if I convinced people that their unworthy 45 EGPs could change lives and futures?”
But what do I know about needy people? About Education fees and stuff? About starting a Marketing campaign? About Community service in general? Even finding needy cases?
Absolutely NOTHING.. But who cares.. I’ll just give it a shot!!!
AND THAT’S HOW EDUCATE-ME CAME TO LIFE =D
http://www.facebook.com/EducateMeEgypt
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