11th
Minufiyeh - here we come!
Tuesday 9th August 2011
This morning my Egyptian colleagues appeared together with the trusty Mitsubishi, which we loaded up and once I had got behind the wheel, we headed north to Tanta. Tanta is in Gharbiyeh province, the province north of Minufiyeh, however, it is a major city in the Delta and the location for the main inspectorate office for Minufiyeh. Tanta is our first real stop each season once we have left Cairo. We go to the local inspectorate to see everyone and to sign the papers for the opening of the season. The journey itself was long and tiring. There was so much traffic, but remarkably, even at a sedate 60-70kmh, we rolled into Tanta at noon - to be greeted my more traffic!!! Our friends and colleagues were pleased to see us and I was delighted to be back! Having met our inspector and the acting head of the Minufiyeh office, I asked to go onto another office, this time to meet the old Director of the Minufiyeh office who is now head of the Middle Delta region - it was a delight to see him again and also the other colleagues present at this second office!
Following this, we headed out of Tanta and towards our home for the next two months, one week, Shibin el Kom! It was a wonderful feeling to return and things seem much as usual. Our landlord for this year is Mr Sharif, a local businessman who is nothing but kindness itself, and he swiftly located the key to the appartment and we went straight up to look around. This year we are on the 6th floor of one of the blocks in an area on the edge of the town - and thankfully we have one of the ‘windy’ appartments - in that the wind seems to whistle happily through the appartment and keep the temperature down. We also have luxury - air conditioning units in the main or ‘reception’ room and in one of the bedrooms - this shall be reserved for the next team member arriving in Shibin on Sunday - our geophysical surveyor from Southampton! It seems that we get to try appartments in a different block each year! Having given the appartment the once over, we brought up our bags, started to unpack a little, and were very happy to accept our landlords kind invitation of Iftar which he delivered to our door! After the ever ill-timed discovery was made that the gas cylinder for cooking was empty (this happened more than once last Ramadan!), we got back on track and sat down as soon as we heard the call from the local mosques and also the siren that always goes off in Shibin for Iftar.
After Iftar, it was time to get ready to take kit up to site the following day, when we we go and see what was happening up at Quesna!
The ‘reception’ room in our appartment - with the EES total station in the foreground!
