Internship
My internship was a 6 weeks project in Cairo, Egypt. I participated in the ‘Draw a Smile project’ and worked in an organization which supported children of whom their fathers have died. The support was mostly financially, but offering this summer course was one of the other forms of help. Together with 2 other students (from Croatia and Kazakhstan) we had to teach 5 students a day soft skills and computer skills. The topics we chose for soft skills were e.g. CV writing, presentation skills and non-verbal communication. The second part of our lesson was teaching them how to use Google, Word and Excel. Here in the Netherlands every student knows how to use the internet/Microsoft Office, but in lower educated families in Egypt they don’t know it and sometimes they don’t even have a computer at home. Although we were expected to work 40 hours a week, we worked 20 hours a week, but this was long enough. Most of our students didn’t speak any English, and every day we had an Egyptian translator which helped us. The translators did a good job, but still this way interaction with students is more difficult and some information gets lost. But in general, I have the feeling we could really teach them something!
AIESEC
For me, I only had good experiences with AIESEC in Egypt. Our project was well organized, I was picked up from the airport and brought back to the airport 7 weeks later. Furthermore AIESEC organized a trip to Rash Shitan (on the Red Sea, beautiful location), so my experience with AIESEC in Egypt was good. In total our LC (GUC, German University of Cairo) had around 30 interns this summer. We all lived on different places but gathered almost every night, and this interns and some people from AIESEC were the people we hung around with.
Egypt
My reason to choose Egypt for my internship was the reason I had never been in a Muslim country before and I thought it would be great to really experience this country (by living here 7 weeks) instead of just visiting it as a tourist. And it turned out to be a good choice, however you have to get used to Egypt. After one week I realized: ‘Nothing is ‘normal’ here, everything is different than in The Netherlands’. The traffic, the people, the language, the religion etc. etc. In general, people in Egypt are extremely nice and willing to help you. However, tourism is the main source of income of Egypt, and since tourism has decreased after the revolution people who need to make money out of tourists are desperate and doing everything to make some money. This is one the things I didn’t like about Egypt. Besides that, Egypt is beautiful and has so many things to offer! Of course the last ancient world wonder the ‘Giza Pyramids’, the Sfinx, Egyptian museum (with mummies and the famous mask of Tutankhamun) and especially in the south of Egypt (Luxor and Aswan) are many temples and tombs. Egypt has so many things to offer, even after 7 weeks I have only seen the most interesting sights.
One thing I wanted to see was how it is to live in a Muslim country. Religion is really important in Egypt (90% is Muslim) and mosques are everywhere. Most women wear a headscarf or even a niqab (only the eyes uncovered) and you hear the call for prayer the whole day, but this didn’t bother me at all. The only thing that bothered me was the fact it was Ramadan in August (the last 4 weeks of my stay). Shops and touristic attractions close earlier, shops don’t sell beer in Ramadan (even when it is not Ramadan beer is very rare and not sold in most supermarkets) and people are short-tempered because they are hungry and thirsty. So living in a Muslim religion country in general is fine, but in Ramadan it is not that good for a tourist.
Personal experience
My internship gave me insight in a different culture and gave me the experience of teaching students. I really enjoyed teaching our students something but one of the tings in learned is that I am not patience enough to be a professional teacher. However, in 6 weeks of teaching you learn some skills which are useful in the future like keeping attention and explaining things of which you think they are obvious for everybody. Living in a country for 7 weeks gives you an unique opportunity to really get to know the people and the culture. I have been invited for dinner several times and got to know the local people from the orphanage really well. Together with the great culture Egypt has to offer to internship has been a great experience! However, when choosing Egypt, bear in mind Egypt is different than The Netherlands. People are ALWAYS late, people try to get money from you all the time (and try to cheat on you, it is common for taxi drivers to drive you all around Cairo instead of going directly to your destination), finding beer is quite hard (if you can’t live without beer: do not go to Cairo) and Cairo is a dirty city with trash everywhere. However, if you want to experience a different culture, a city that lives 24/7 and meet many interns and nice local people, go to Egypt!
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