2017DecGreenNewsCairoPartOne

It’s been two weeks since returning home from Egypt. It was so incredible; it all seems like a dream now!  From the moment we arrived at the Cairo airport and then drove into the city, I was overwhelmed with how different everything is from here in the USA!

Looking out the window of our bus at the city’s skyline, we noticed that well over half of the buildings remain unfinished, with the steel rods protruding up towards the sky from their tops. We learned that this is the way citizens avoid paying high property taxes.  And many of the windows were empty appearing vacant. TV is apparently very important here, though, as there were many satellite dishes!

The next morning, my colleague and I decided to walk the six blocks from our hotel to the Mena House Hotel and Conference Center, where we would spend the next five days for our International Business and Professional Women (BPW) Congress. Big mistake—there was only one traffic light, you could barely make out any traffic lane markings, and the traffic was unlike any I’ve ever seen, with horns blaring away! We could not get across the street! Finally, a kind Egyptian man walked out with his arms up and stopped traffic for us. That was the last time we attempted that walk!

The conference was incredibly exciting, with 680 women from 73 countries. I was impressed with the colorful dresses of women from the nearby African countries, as well as the Thai women’s fancy costumes! I made connections with Agatha from Sierra Leone; Keiko from Japan; Judith and Carol from Australia; Vivian, Vickie, and Hellen from New Zealand; Margarita from Brazil; and some new colleagues from NYC and El Paso, Texas—just to name a few.

There was a lot of talk about our BPW sisters and our brothers in the Caribbean who suffered (and still suffering) from recent hurricanes and many that could not attend the congress. 

Our theme for the 29^th congress was “Making a Difference through Leadership and Action,” and I definitely got to see many leaders in action. This was only the second time in the last 87 years that a congress has taken place in Africa. My friends kept asking why we would have the conference in Cairo, where there seems to be so much inequality. Well, there’s part of the answer: Work needs to be done! But also H.E. Abdel Fattah Al Sisi, the President of the Arab Republic of Egypt, had previously declared 2017 to be the Year of Women.

I must thank our NFBPWC President, Elizabeth Benham, for making me a voting delegate. That meant I was required to attend the general assemblies every day, where I learned so much. I learned about resolutions, amendments, and voting procedures—which you can imagine can be rather difficult, with hundreds of voters. I got to practice many skills: principles before personalities, detachment with love, and non-judgment. Every time I felt judgment towards someone with a strong personality, instead of judging their behavior as good or bad, I thought of it as strengths and weaknesses. This also extended to self-judgment and being even gentler with myself. Another practice that helps me a lot is, “We believe what they say because it is true for them.”

Being a delegate, I missed out on some great workshops, but I learned some new things from the one I chaired on the environment. Judith from Australia talked about all of the intricacies that happen when an agency moves in to help with disaster relief. This was something I never gave much thought to…these agencies take over everything needed to rebuild and restore, from carpentry to electrical work—and the local workers are then left jobless! 

I learned of a project in Vietnam that is building water stations that filter and treat local water so that tourists or anyone can refill their water bottles. Speaking of water, I have never drunk so much bottled water in my life, but we had to! Developing countries don’t have the infrastructure and facilities that we have to provide clean water. There were so many things like this and so much litter that I need to re-think everything!   

Neelima Basnet (our newly voted in Young BPW of Nepal) spoke of all the BPW projects she helped to facilitate after the recent earthquake in Nepal. Archana Bhatnagar of BPW India shared about her company, Haylide Chemicals, which offers products that do not pollute and are not bad for humans, animals, or the environment. If you’d like to see some of the other projects that are going on, please visit https://www.bpw-memberprojects-experts.org.

We also voted in a new Executive Board at the conference. I am sorry to see BPW International President Dr. Yasmin Darwich stepping down, as she did such a great job. I think it is very fitting that Dr. Amany Asfour of Egypt will be leading the way as our new BPW International President.

There really are no words to explain it, but something healed in me while I was in Egypt. Our five days spent on a Dahabiya sailboat traveling up the Nile was an especially spiritual experience for me. There were days when we were at least a half-mile from any town, yet we could still always hear prayer times at dawn, sunrise, noon, afternoon, sunset, and night, since the sound from the mosques is amplified by large speakers. I began a practice of stopping to feel the stillness and say a prayer for world peace at every prayer time.

Cairo, Part Two will be continued next month.

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