Una conversacion a orillas del Río Nilo (Egipto)

Al final del dia regresaba pasivamente a casa, luego de haber comprado algunos viveres (verdura para los desayunos, dulces y una riquisima botella de agua helada), pero antes de pisar la casa, decidí darme un pequeño paseo por el Cornige ('Cornich', calle principal colindante al Nilo). El ambiente era muy agradable: gente caminando por todas partes, algunos sentados en las bancas, todos mirando al Nilo, como esperando que nos diga algo.

En medio de la caminata encontre a un senhor de tercera edad sentado pasivamente en una de las bancas de madera. Se le veia muy tranquilo observando al rio, como si estuviera ensimismado en sus pensamientos (o recuerdos?).

Decidi dar el "brinco" y le hablé en árabe:

- Perdon, ¿tal vez…?
* Claro! Sientate! (dejandome la mitad de la banca libre)
- Gracias… ¿qué tal?
* Bien, gracias a Dios
- … la ciudad al otro lado del Nilo, ¿también es Damieta?
* ¡Por supuesto! Si tomas esa calle, te llevara a Damieta nueva, y mas al norte a Ras El Bar, ¿conoces?
- Sí, sí conozco.
* Meshi ('esta bien'), Damieta es grande, la ciudad se abre por todas partes (yo pensando: ¡pero solo tiene 500 000 habitantes y es pequeña en comparación a Lima! jeje)
* Y mañana seguiran renovando la ciudad, van a mover el Puente metalico al lado de la biblioteca.
- Ah! Es por la visita de alguien importante, ¿no?
* Bueno, sí, el primer ministro…
- Entonces va a haber una gran fiesta
* Jaja, sí, claro...
- ¿Usted es de Damieta?
* Sí, soy de aca
- ¿Y su familia?
* Mi familia vive acá, todos vivimos juntos en Damieta, mi casa esta al norte de la ciudad, cerca a la mezquite, ¿la ves? Por ahi vivo, si, yo voy siempre a esa mezquita para los rezos, ¿la ves?
- Qué bien… sí, sí la conozco, por ahí hay un mercado grande
* ¿Y tú? ¿De dónde eres…?
- Soy del Peru
* (?)
- America Latina, Sudamérica…
* Ahhh! En Sudamerica se juega buen futbol! Sí, Brasil, Peru, Argentina…
- Exacto (yo pensando: aunque yo no veo mucho futbol, pero me impresiona que sepa eso jeje...)
* ¡Bienvenido!
- Gracias
* ¡Bienvenido, bienvenido! ¿Qué haces en Damieta?
- Trabajo en una organizacion que da educacion a los jovenes de por aca… (por ahora dificil de aprenderme una frase mas elabrada en Árabe)
* Qué bueno, qué bueno…
- … bueno, estoy un poco cansado, me voy a casa…
* Meshi, la paz sea contigo!
- La paz contigo también…

Es importante perder la zona de comfort para poder descrubrir cosas nuevas, y me dio mucha alegría que haya funcionado tan bien esta vez. Y asi se cerró uno de tantos dias rutinarios en Damieta, cerca al Nilo, cerca de la gente... mas cerca a mi...

Branding Ras El Bar (Egypt)

As a matter of fact, I could say that I luckily found a job in Egypt (for the next 3 months) around the topic that I like the most: responsible tourism.

And I can really feel being lucky, because it was unexpected for me that a new initiative directed by AIESEC in the city of Damietta would run this. Maybe currently the single tourism project in the whole AIESEC MENA region. So I decided to take this chance (as H4TF for the people that know the @ terminology) and jumped to the north of the country, in the last resort close to the Mediterranean Sea, in the town where one of the Nile's arm meets the sea...

The town 'Ras El Bar' is located in a very interesting geographical location, it is a small peninsula where the 'Damietta Nile' has its last path before flowing in the sea. Thus, when being there, you have the impression of being surrounded by water. On the right you meet the Nile, on the left the Sea... no more than 500 mts to reach each of them when located in the center of the town. When going to the point where these 2 Gods meet, there is a light turm that invites people to dream about what to find on the other side of the Sea.

Ras El Bar is a well known typical summer resort for Egyptians, and not for foreigners that may hear more about the big beach resorts on the Red Sea. Thus, I am once again so glad to be able to be in close contact with locals, to enjoy local daily life, to speak with them, to hear their weird impressions about Peru (most guys may know about it just because of football) and once in a while, young business men asking me to speak about what type of commerce to run between our countries.

As said, the town is very local designed, and so are the houses... beautiful small colorful buildings (no more than 4 floors, and this is by law in order to keep the harmony of the place), a couple of small chaotic markets, loads of people jumping to the beach, complete families coming in caravans to spend some weeks away from Cairo, and of course lot of fish for lunch. One of the couple of things that I don't like though is that most of the places become extremely dirty at the end of the day. The level of awareness for keeping the town in a good state (clean, organized) is very low, especially you can see lots of cans and bags all over the place (this is one of the main reasons why I condemn this new era of industrial food) ... most of the visitors may not be aware of recycling bags, but should this be an excuse?

Tourism marketing for Ras El Bar

As part of the tourism initiative, the people there have decided to improve the image of Ras El Bar, through for example better information (look for the town in internet and tell me if you find something worthy) and marketing materials. In the near future, people from abroad should come to the town for doing internships around building capacity in local organizations and providing awareness and trainning to local youth around tourism marketing and environmental issues, isn't this exciting? Yeah, I am very happy to be here and to try something new, without loosing my essence: continuous discovering, challenges and being positive...