Mennonite Central Committee

Young volunteer experiences Egypt

Press Release, February 2002
Egypt

On a chilly January morning, 18-year-old Kim Precht joins in as 20 Egyptian preschoolers seated at tiny tables sing "Jesus lives in our hearts" in Arabic at the top of their lungs.

At this time last year, Precht was finishing up her final year of high school in Edmonton, Alta., and debating whether to apply to universities. Precht says she decided instead to "jump off the education train" and apply to a one-year Mennonite Central Committee program called Serving and Learning Together (SALT).

Five months later Precht found herself exploring the streets and shops of Cairo, where she works in a daycare center sponsored by an Egyptian Coptic Orthodox church.

Through the volunteer assignment, Precht is building cross-cultural and cross-generational friendships.

Most mornings Precht leads a class of 3- to 5-year-old children in exercises and songs. She teaches them the English alphabet, while conversations with the children and teachers help her learn Arabic.

After spending a full day with the boisterous children, Precht rides a crowded subway car, then walks ten minutes to the second-floor flat she shares with several other women. The flat serves as a church-run halfway home for Egyptian women, so Precht is never sure just how many people will be sleeping there each night.

"It makes for a much less organized life than I was used to," she says with a laugh.

Through her comings and goings, Precht has found an unexpected friendship with Isis Hanna and Soddi Gamel, her landlords who live in the flat below.

Precht began dropping by for visits with the couple shortly after moving to Cairo in August.

"We are living alone, so of course we love for Kim to come over," says Hanna, a retired medical doctor in her mid 70s. She insists that Precht call her and her husband "Teta" and "Gidu," Arabic for Grandma and Grandpa.

Two or three evenings each week they drink hot tea together and talk: about the couple's son who lives in Ohio, about Kim's work at the daycare, about how Egypt is changing.

Although Hanna and Gamel's first language is Arabic— they have both lived in Cairo all their lives — they speak with Precht in English, which both used professionally for many years.

"We used to import steam locomotives from Canada more than 40 years ago," Gamel, a retired engineer, says with a smile to his young Canadian friend. "Then we changed from steam to diesel," he continues, "and now there's even an underground train in Cairo."

In December Precht read Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" aloud to the couple, a meaningful gift for Hanna, whose sight is failing.

"It was fun, and the book reminded me of home because I've seen the play with my family," Precht says. Since finishing the Dickens novel, she has started reading a book of short stories by Leo Tolstoy to the couple.

"After that, we plan to read one of Teta and Gidu's English-language books from [grade school]," she says.

Precht is a member of River West Christian Church, Edmonton, Alberta.