Where everybody knows your name.....

One of the things that has puzzled me about Egypt was how all the locals I met could say may name correctly without me having to go through the whole routine of explaining how to say it (like banana) where it came from, and how to spell it. Even the first time I talked to my tour guide on the phone, he got it right before I had even said a word.
But now I know

My tour guide was actually surprised that I was not an Egyptian! Dad tells me that the correct spelling of my name is without the h on the end so maybe I am.....
After three days cruising down the Nile we arrived in Aswan which is the southernmost city and where you will find the the Aswan High Dam. When this dam was build much of the area around Aswan was flooded and some temples were save but the vast majority have been lost for ever, namely those belonging to the Nubian culture. The Nubians are Egyptian - with Egyptain facial features but their skin colour is that of Africa and there culture is quite different to the rest of Egypt. One of the temples that was rescused was a Temple to the Goddess Isis on Philae Island II (the first one is now underwater). I quite like the Goddess Isis. Her husband/brother was a guy called Osiris who was chopped up into many pieces (we were told 14, 16, 36, 40 and 42 by different guides). Isis travelled the world to recover the pieces and 'rebuild' her husband. But never managed to find them all - but still was able to have his child (Horus).




In the afternoon the groups decided to go on a trip in a Felucca to visit Kitchener Island (Botanical gardens) Elephantine Island (very old market island) and a local Nubian Island so we could see how they live. It took the group over an hour to decide what to do and I am afriad that the teacher in me came out! Our tour Guide Ayman did not want to make the decision for us but there was no way that this group of 12 people could reach a decision - many had the attention span of a flea and had to have stuff repeated many times and they still could not remember all the option but Miss Hill took control and got them to make a choice! I was even applauded afterwards!
The Nubian Island was very interesting. My fav part was visiting a local school. It was a primay school for about 100 sudents and was very lacking in resoures but we got to see classrooms, IT labs (with three coputers that were even older that the ones at HGHS!) and had a wee lesson in Arabic. I also got photo of a lesson that had happened that day.