Things I will miss in Egypt

- My six-months-and-still-running search for an unscratched, undented car in Cairo
- The death plunge through four lanes of onrushing Cairo traffic that ironically marks the entrance into the Ministry of Transport
- Train drivers who unhook the train’s electronic circuits to power their coffee makers
- Taxi drivers taking their 1960’s black and white lada cabs on half-mile short cuts against the traffic of a busy one-way street
- The smile on my client’s faces when they realize that I’ve learned a new word in Arabic
- Attempting to run a meeting with 13 people in the room having six separate conversations in Arabic while eating, drinking, smoking and shouting to overwhelm the noise of the passing trains, even as the team leader is looks through papers, has side meetings with three people who randomly walked into the room and talks on two of the six telephones on his desk
- The Nile
- My team – pure quality
- The only five star hotel in the world where it takes two hours to respond after a guest calls to say she is bleeding from a cut and urgently needs a bandage – and no one’s surprised
- Development work
- The City of the Dead, where a community of the poorest people in Cairo has sprung up in and around an ancient Islamic graveyard – and where they welcome strangers with open arms and offer you tea at their houses
- After-work football games at 1:30 am
- Outrageous weddings and engagement parties of the super-rich
- Street food – koshari, tameya and sugar cane juice
- Working the 11th-17th hours of your day with heavy construction going on both the next floors above below… every day for several months (ok, scratch that one)
- Horse carriages unloading freight trains
- The “Dude you can’t just make shit up” look I got from the passport control guys every time I handed them my passport
- Clients who got tears in their eyes when I told them I was leaving

On to another adventure.