In Reply to: Very interesting post. posted by kinda gentler on June 20, 2004 at 10:51:15:
I belong to an international social work non-governmental organization (It's called IUCISD--you can look them up on the web for more info. In 2004 we met in Bombay, India.) IUCISD held their 1998 conference in Giza, Egypt, near the pyramids. I met an Egyptian academic woman at the Giza conference who was from Assuit. She invited me to visit the "Federation of Islamic Women" associated with the University of Assuit after I told her I was doing research on women's health issues.
I don't think she actually expected me to show up, but I did, as I had allowed myself an extra 10 days for touring the Egypt after the conference ended. Once I arrived in Assuit, the university folks treated me like visiting royalty. The mid-eastern tradition of hospitality is quite an amazing experience. At the time, I was ABD (all but dissertation), so I was far from being anyone of academic standing or importance. Just a middle-aged American grad student in social work. Actually, I was collecting information on the practice of female circumcision (aka, female genital mutilation), as it is commonly practiced in that region of Egypt.
As a consequence of my impromptu visit, a social work faculty at Assuit University worked out a deal with the dean of the Social Work College at Ohio State. We took some Egyptian exchange students on a specialized field placement the following year. So I learned a lot from my adventure in central Egypt and a relationship was developed between social work programs in the two countries.
This area of central Egypt on the Nile River, btw, claims to be the place where Jesus, Mary & Joseph lived after they fled Herod's persecution. My Moslem hosts took me to a monastery on a hillside overlooking the city of Assuit that was built around a cave where the holy family are said to have lived for several years. There are a large number of Christians in Egypt--they're called Coptic--who trace their religious tradition back to the first disciples. As far as I could tell, the relationship between the Coptic Christians and Moslems were friendly and cooperative.