ChangeWaves

spent the third week of November in a land that is very popular for ancient civilization and stuff like that. Don’t tell me Greece. Anyway I was in Cairo, Egypt for a Telecentre Leaders Forum for Middle East and North Africa at the invitation of telecentre.org.

For starters, Egypt is a land of many surprises. From the architecture. I wondered how the brief invasion by Napoleon could have such a huge effect on them. the architect is predominately French.
It feels so out of Africa. They have very good road network but the motorists remind you that they are truly African. Old cars are used for taxis and everyone seems to be in a hurry changing lanes at the slightest opportunity!
But of course their services are far much better than expected.
While here I was staying in the upper class side of Cairo, but I got a chance to visit the down town side as well. Well old ramshackle buildings with some people sleeping in incomplete houses and stuff like that. This especially on the highway that takes you to the pyramids at Giza.
Talking about Giza, there is one ancient wonder that stands in this ancient town. The Pyramids.
I thought I would have handed myself a raw deal if I visited Pharaohs land and didn’t visit the so called wonders of the ancient world.
But what a wonder they are! How did those grandfathers of ours carry those huge stones to put up such a structure about 40m tall?
How did they do so with bare hands when in this day and age we need all the technology we can have to make a tunnel in front of a hut?
If it is true that these structures are over 4000 years old, then they may well stand for more than 4000 years to come and yet look as strong as they did when they were first erected!
No wonder they are wonders of the ancient world.
I had read about all these things in history, seen the pictures in the history books but seeing them face to face brings a new reality that you can never get in a history class. No wonder millions pay money to come and marvel in the name of tourism. And in millions they come.
On the day I was there, there were probably 10.000 of us from everywhere including Egypt.
And Egyptians are so smart at making money. They have tourism police in place to direct visitors. How brilliant!