Perhaps the first light of Egypt’s private education initiatives is shining into the further reaches of Cairo and the sea. Growth is everywhere – and improvement finds a new hospitality waiting.
Well dressed youth are running shops, businesses, and managing wastewater treatment plants. And the plant operators have been raised with the internet and educated in far better schools than their parents could have dreamed for.
In the Governorates water authority staff presented recent pilot projects and demonstrated their knowledge and understanding of the principles involved. Water treatment facilities were being operated well - a 100 year old WTP in Damietta was still in operation with critical valves and pumps maintained, and with a well-equipped laboratory monitoring the production. WWTPs with failing concrete and rusted walkways were nonetheless meeting effluent specifications under the supervision of young engineers.
This may be the new Egypt . . . the rise of youth, education, knowledge with the confidence of the internet. In Damietta, a City at the East outlet of the Nile, the streets are lined with piles of imported lumber. Called the "most industrious" of Egyptian cities, Damietta is home to one of the planet's largest collections of furniture manufacturing companies.
Once in the tumbled past of 12 years ago I sampled Lake Manzala's water in the early light of dawn as part of an environmental monitoring program. The distinctive and exotic sails of the Lake Manzala lateen rigged sail boats still tend fish traps on the lake and the shores are now lined with countless new fish farms. Port Said is twice the size as when I worked there - housing and industry stretch far past the wastewater treatment facility where I once worked.
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