Esam

                                                      

           The Egyptian trip did not stop in Egypt

Like most travels overseas, your trip extends after the physical trip itself as you slowly digest and understand all what you absorbed too quickly while on tour, but this time, there was more. 

Our Tour Guide, Esam, sent us a customer feedback survey, and announced a few months after the trip that he had been selected to run in World Best Tour Guide competition. 

                  

Esam means safeguard in Arabic, and he was looking after us in Egypt. He was taking pride in his job, and his love of Egypt was palpable. He had a great sense of details, could read people's needs before they could formulate them, like someone who can read the mind of other people - I put it on the account of refined social skills polished in a conducive environment - he was extremely knowledgeable about Ancient Egypt, Muslim and Contemporary Egypt, loved children, always with a great Egyptian smile as we seized each new day with delightful anticipation.

Esam Face Book Profile at the time - Marketing King (working for an Australian Tour Operator, he was calling his customers with a didgeridoo in front of a pyramid :)

As I said goodbye to him when our tour ended, it was one of these many painful goodbye when you know you are very unlikely to see the person again. Yet, a few months after, I received a beautiful letter from the Royal Geographic Society in London, asking me if I cared coming to honour him in October as he had been selected among the 3 best tour guides in the world, and that the winner would be announced there. 

Personal circumstances amazingly allowed it, so I did a stopover on my way to Paris to attend this event in London.

       

The Doors of this Humbling Institute

I joined the crowd... arrived a bit late, as I was a bit afraid for him, and entering that door was a bit of a challenge, funnily enough, so I lingered outside for a while, listening second handily to a Joan Baez concert next door. 

         

Esam on the stage with Bill Brisson

    

and he wan :) ... I was so happy for him, it meant so much to him, he was in tears of joy. I have made it, he said. He felt, as usual, 'responsible' ... to maintain and promote high standards for himself and others he intended coaching ... not sure what's next, he said. There were talks of a cultural centre for Egyptian children ... He was genuinely worried, happy but worried.

Happy that day

   

 I saw him at the cocktail party that followed the event, we were as shocked as happy about the win! This was also a chance to get reacquainted with other people from Norway I had met before during the trip.

                                                

          At the time, I had just finished a thesis on children literature translation: my argument was about the need to make children read about and experience other cultures, but told by people from other cultures directly, not through tales from other people's perceptions of foreign cultures. That is why I was so keen on them enjoying the knowledge and account from a local guide.

         I got more than I bargained for :) a life long soul mate

        This is the video I did for him at the time - on his request. It is now a good souvenir of this beautifully crafted family trip   
                                                                            
         https://youtu.be/WRknUHbumoc