The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

The Egyptian Experience --t-tu3t-tmrtxSt+tMv,hff_rB_fer tttn-tttttttttroot-nm-ttneat"'. Village huts made of mud brick in between he excitement of landing in Cairo filled the hearts and minds of all Air Egypt passengers. Flying over the desert, seeing the image of a man in a sand dune an getting a glimpse of the Pyramids in the distance brought cheers and clapping from the passengers on flight #986. This was the beginning of an unforgettable, yet unbelievable adventure in Egypt. Valley of the Kings and Queen's Temple In Luxor (Upper Egypt). Have you ever wondered about the Great Pyramids and Sphinx of Giza, the Valley of the Kings and Queens, the Temples of Karnak or the ancient civilization of the River Nile? Imagine if you will, standing in awe and gazing up, up, up at the Pyramids and the Sphinx. It boggles your mind when you learn they were built over 4,000 years ago, that is 2013 years B.C.! To this day they haven't figured out how they were built. It seems like civilization came to a peak back then, or we had a visit from outer space! After landing at the Cairo Airport tWaterloo-Wellington compared to " ronto International), we were thrust into the chaos and excitement of Cairo. The drive from the airport made me thankful I didn't obtain my international driver's license. Cars went every which way, honking their horns constantly, flashing their lights and weaving in, out and all about. Soeil. a close Egyptian friend explained the constant honking as “peo- ple'in Egypt honk at cracks in the road." It was like a street language that you had to hear to believe. With eyes bugged due to numerous near collisions, my companion and I just laughed. held on and shook our heads. The ultimate manoeuvre happened near the city centre when eight lanes of traffic bottlenecked to a standstill. One car. then another drove over the curb, onto the sidewalk and started honking at pedestrians to get out of their way. Needless tit say it took us a few days to get accustomed to this style of driving. We soon realized that with so many cars and people in the streets (Population over 12 million.) no one could gain enough speed to hurt anything. so we sat back and enjoyed the scenery. “er this eye-opening driving ex- perience, we pulled up In frontal the Cairo YMCA. This we: our bean-don u we were representing the YMCA of Kitchener-Waterloo and the YMCA of Canada it the Middle Elagt calm of YMCAI. The conference entailed attending three days of meet- hp with the Middle But Committee of YICM. blurred by a may Youth Seminar on “The Ecumenical Task of the YMCA In the Middle East." the Youth. Seminar stem from the delicate situation in the Middle East. The Arab world is so per cent Muslim and to per cent Christian. Fifty percent of the Arab world Is less than ll! years of age. Unlike Canada, in the Middle East, state and religion are one. that being Islam. In the I“ the spread of Islam has picked up momentum and Is causing turmoil across the Arab world. The Islam movement hunts with it the -itJe" Boson tor the formation of the Middle East Committee of YMCA's and Ken Brooks, director of adult pro- grams at the Wamnoo Family Y, visit to' Egypt. Representing the Y, Brooke participated In conferences debating the More at the YMCA in the Middle East, visited Egyptian a two-week